A Flock of Firsts

Well folks, we are off and running.  Today, we received our very first broilers.  They are happy, healthy and pretty darn cute.  

This winter, we built a greenhouse and in the last few days, our first plants germinated.  Currently, the Chard, Kale and Bok Choi are up, while we're waiting on the onions, shallots and leeks.

And these lovely eggs were laid by...

these lovely girls!  We drove up to the Farm School on Friday and purchased 12 layers from them.  They're settling in to their new farm but seem pretty bummed about the snow on the ground outside.

There is much, much more exciting news to come as we begin our first season on our own farm, so stay tuned!

A couple of gems...

I'll post a couple of photos over the next week that I found on my camera. I forgot that I had taken these this summer!

We spent a few hours taking a break from the busy summer season to shell beans with Carlen. And, of course, to make smiley faces out of them.

And, later that week, we braided Red Torpedo Onions into long chains. It helps to have monstrously large hands, which I'm blessed with. I added some flowers to the chain which dried along with the onions.

Graduation!

Let's start with the sad part: the tomatoes just couldn't handle all the rain. They are ghosts of their former glory. It's kind of ok at this point, because with Fall coming I'm excited for some pumpkin soup and roasted winter squash. That is the joy of seasonal eating.

There was a huge party at the farm with all our friends and families for graduation. My Mom and Dad and Rebecca and Anthony all came to help us celebrate. We kicked off the afternoon pressing cider in the orchard.

Mom helped take the leftovers down to the pigs. They were so excited! (And huge!)

I think the most amazing skill anyone has learned this year is the rare ability to levitate pitch forks. Theo is obviously a master.

We all sat on hay bales (and were given the above pitchforks as a present) for a wonderful ceremony full of poems, thank yous and a violin duet by Emily and Rebekah.

We made Sara a cake for her birthday on Tuesday.

I put a rabbit on it in honor of the angora rabbit she has taken care of over the last year.

Post graduation on the tractor!

With Maggie's Field in the background.

And our diplomas!

And the best graduation presents ever! Sweatshirts for our new farm. I'll post more about this soon, I promise!

Dad, who used to be a welder, checking out my fire cube with me.

And finally, the T-Rex that Betsy and Sarah gave Theo as a graduation present with the Prosecco from Rebecca and Anthony. You can also see Theo's bingo card from Thursday night with Josh, Stephen and Justin on the coffee table as well.

This Student Farmer Went to Market

We're taking turns each week attending the Belmont Farmer's Market and Thursday was my chance! I had a great time selling all our produce and hanging out with Kim, the staff member who came with me. We sold out of almost everything and I loved getting to meet all the people eating our food. We also got to meet ButterGirl, the lovely woman in the stand next to us who bakes cookies and brownies from her home and sells them in markets and wholesale around Belmont and Somerville. So delicious and inspiring as a business model.

It's Summer!

Summer is officially here! See that tomato? It's this tomato. I took this picture yesterday and today it was ripe! And I ate it! And Emily ate one! We officially had tomatoes on the 29th of June which is ridiculously exciting. Too bad we ate all the ripe ones and will probably have to wait a few days to have any more.

Also, our first calf was born last night! I'm going to try to take a picture soon but it's pretty hard to find calves since their moms are so good at stashing them away to hide. Apparently it's pretty cute, though.

Mock Market

In preparation for the summer season, Tyson and Stephen set up our market stand in the barn. We went over how to sell our produce with some pretty hilarious role-playing and tips and tricks for success at the Belmont Market.

How could anyone resist our five different varieties of kale?!

Restraining the Tomatoes

How fast they grow! Seems like yesterday they were little seeds sitting in a packet. Today, I finally put up trellising and tried to tame their wild natures into organized rows. Next year, I'm going to trellis them right when I transplant them since this was a bit of a pain. It's also easier to weed around them now. I hope that the little fruits on them ripen soon! I'd love a tomato before July!

Alien Plants

On a scale of plants that look like an alien, garlic scapes are a 1:

Fennel is a 9:

Not pictured? Kohl rabi. Too scary for the internet.

First Harvest

We walked through how a harvest day will work for the summer. It's excited to start to bring food out of the fields! We cleaned out the trucks, loaded up bins and drove out to the North Orange fields to check out our brassicas and chard.

After talking about quality control and efficiency, we filled a few harvest bins with greens and brought them back to the lower barn. We weighed, labeled and washed them, then put them in the cooler until they get eaten by us or taken to market.

Afterwards, we weeded for a bit before being joined by our beef cows.

Our Very First Tomato!!!

Can you believe it? Can you even see it since it's so tiny and green? One of the early cherry tomatoes (a black cherry variety) that I planted a while ago has our first tomato of the season. It's right next to those three yellow flowers. Can't wait to eat it!

I Say Potato

We finally got to plant our potatoes this past week. We dropped them in their trenches, then went through with hoes (garden hoes, not garden hose) to cover them up and tamp them down. A nice, relaxing morning followed by some seeding in the greenhouse. Now if only the black flies would be on their merry way!

And the most important......

Tomato time! I planted these bad boys and they're happily soaking up all the rain this week (after Theo's helpful watering in). So excited to watch them grow outdoors!

Discing!

I got to use my first farm implement! It's been one of the mysteries of the year so far whenever I look at our collection of harrows and discs and whatnot. It's fun to actually know how to hook them up and use at least one. Hopefully I'll get more time on them.

Green green and green again

The clover we seeded has germinated!

We put the cows and sheep out to 'top graze' which means they go quickly through all our fields and chow down on the new grass. They're happy and the clover is happy since it gets more light. We're happy that the animals are so clearly over the moon (get it? cow? over the moon?).

And our veggies are all grown up and moving to the fields! We've been transplanting and seeding and discing and bed shaping. Spring is so exciting here! It was strange to get here in the fall and finish up another group's crops. It's been really nice to see the start of the process.

Asparagus

We planted asparagus! We won't get to eat it this year, but I'm not promising I won't sneak back next May to sample a taste of our hard work.

Carlen called this the best asparagus trench ever. Woo hoo!

And with the drizzly weather, the birch, barn and horse looked extra spectacular. Such a nice day to be working outside!

So Much Has Happened!

So much has happened!

We cleaned up an abandoned lot in Lawrence, MA for a nonprofit there who farms with high school students:

The lambs learned how to be extra cute climbing in the manger (before we castrated them and docked their tails):

Our piglets arrived:

We visited the garlic we planted in the fall and it's delicious! Green garlic any day now:

More tomatoes sprouted:

I repotted the older tomatoes:

We gave the onions a haircut:

We planted spring wheat:

And Theo had a birthday:

Our Veggies are Growing Up!

Who isn't excited for more tomato info?!

It was time to thin these guys and I even planted some more in hopes of expanding our home garden varieties. I'm thinking of bringing some Sun Gold seeds from home to round out the green, black, red, and yellow striped varieties we're currently growing.

As well as tomatoes for the CSA, we also seeded eggplants and peppers. We were running out of room in the greenhouse so we transported all our brassicas and chard to the cold frames. We have to harden off these plants which means denying them water and keeping them cooler so that their cell structure stiffens and they're ready for the big times of living in the fields without us to coddle them. Hopefully we'll transplant them soon!

Also, sadly, the lettuce we marked got unmarked. So much for that experiment!