RAIN!

Everytime it rains on Muddy Farm I want to call the police!  I've been informed that this is inappropriate behavior, though, and law enforcement can't do anything about precipitation.  WHAT ARE MY TAX DOLLARS GOING TOWARDS THEN!!!?

That was a joke.  Really.  You know it's been a rough week, though, when I feel the need to start a post with multiple exclamation points. Rain is always a challenge over here--even in a dry year I get a little stressed when there's a storm.  Normally, this time of year, I would be planting non-stop and still feeling behind. When it's wet, though, you're not really supposed to work the soil because it will dry up like cement, and you're definitely not supposed to drive a tractor in the field. So, I've been doing what I can do. In fact, yesterday another farmer and I drove one hour to Cheryl's Fried Fish in Middletown, NY to eat heaping plates of the best fried fish on earth. For part of the drive, I couldn't even see out the windshield it was raining so hard. Not to worry, though. I actually have some new crops ready this week and more to come in the next few weeks.


I will have perennial herbs tomorrow. I will definitely have chives. I'm hoping to get some thyme and possibly oregano. It looks like the sage will be ready in a week or two.

I will also have my usual greenhouse greens: cress, buckwheat, pea shoots, wheat grass, cat grass and sunflower greens. And, of course, I have a lot of eggs. The hens are happy now because they have tons of room to roam and more green stuff to eat then they can possibly forage. This also makes the eggs tastier and more nutritious. Maybe one of these days I'll post some photos. I also still have some turnips.

a few weeks ago--before the endless rain--I managed to plant some arugula, lettuce and other salad mix greens, as well as cilantro, radishes, beets and hakurei turnips. Last I checked, they looked good, so I may start having some of those crops in the next few weeks.

I look forward to seeing everybody tomorrow!

David
PS
Every week I've been sending out an email to people who signed up at the market.  I'll try to cut and paste that to the blog--which is what I did here.  This is actually a second draft, so you missed out on a few typos.  I think I added a couple typos though, and the questionable joke at the beginning of the post.

What I'll have this Saturday, Feb. 26, 2011

When I got home from the market last Saturday, the 70 mph winds knocked out the electricity, so the greenhouse wan't heated until I set up a backup heater.  As a result, there are no pea shoots this week.  Also, to my wheat grass customer, I don't have a tray this week.  I have kitty greens, but they don't look quite as good as usual because of the power outtage. 

I'm collecting email addresses at the market and sending this weekly update via email.  You can also leave your address in the comments section of this blog, if you want.  Thanks!

Eggs


Pullet Eggs

Buckwheat Greens

Sunflower Greens

Red Potatoes

Watermelon Radishes

Hakurei Turnips

Purple Top Turnips

Kitty Greens

WHAT I'LL HAVE THIS SATURDAY DEC. 18

EGGS
RED POTATOES
LACINATO KALE
CURLY KALE
RED RUSSIAN KALE
HAKUREI TURNIPS
PURPLE TOP TURNIPS
WATERMELON RADISH
A VERY SMALL AMOUNT OF ACORN SQUASH
A TEENY TINY QUANTITY OF BUTTERNUT SQUASH

I WON'T HAVE PEA SHOOTS OR SUNFLOWER GREENS THIS WEEK.  THEY ARE GROWING TOO SLOWLY IN THE GREENHOUSE.  I WILL STILL HAVE THEM ALL WINTER, THOUGH.  DOES USING ALL CAPS MAKE ME SEEM  HYSTERICAL?

Expired Twinkies and Muddy Farm 2011

A couple female farmers I've know have made the analogy that starting a new season is like giving birth--if you remembered how painful the experience was, you'd never do it again.  They have kids, so I take their word for it.  I think I'd get my ass kicked for saying that, so I'm just quoting here.  However, it does take some intense mental trickery to commit nearly every waking hour and a whole lot of start-up money to another season.  I am already enthusiastic about 2011, though.  It is the goals I have set for myself that are the inspiration.  My main goal is to make this blog the number one page that comes up anytime someone does an internet search for "Expired Twinkies."  While I don't know how this fame is going to help sales of my organic (Certified Naturally Grown) veggies or free range eggs, it is the wind beneath my wings.

In addition to wanting those in search of expired Twinkies to find themselves at the Muddy Farm blog, I also have some exciting vegetable growing ideas for 2011.  One of them is that I want to grow carrots.  In previous seasons, carrots would have been a disaster on this property.  I know because I tried a number of times.  The weed situation I inherited was atrocious.  Carrots take about three weeks to germinate, and once they come up, they grow very slowly.  Most of the weeds on this land take about half a week to sprout and they grow aggressively.  In previous seasons, they smothered the carrots before they even came up out of the ground, but I have finally gotten the weed situation more under control.  Also, this place was water-logged and the soil was very heavy.  Carrots like fairly loose soil.  Because I am using the raised bed system that I mentioned in other posts, I believe they will now work well.  This is exciting because I love to try new crops on this land.  Also I don't believe there were a lot (if any) carrots at my market this season.  I don't leave the stand much to scout out what other people have, but customers requested them and said they weren't at the market.  I have been looking through seed catalogs and circling all the varieties I will grow next year.

While I am out in the field this late Fall, I have been thinking full time about next season.  These are just two of many ideas, which hopefully you'll see at the stand.  Uh...it is unlikely you will see expired Twinkies there, though.  To my knowledge, that would break several regulations.  I have, once in my life, seen a Twinkie (hopefully) well past its prime.  I used to walk my dog in these woods in Sullivan County where there were old glass bottles buried.  I think it was a garbage dump for a summer camp that was there in the 40's and 50's.  You could kind of feel  something weird beneath your feet when you'd walk by and sometimes I would dig around, with a stick, beneath decades of composted leaves, to find antique glass bottles.  I gave them to someone I knew who collected them.  Well, one time, I swear I dug up--with a twig mind you--what looked like a Twinkie from the 50's, still in its wrapper.  The Twinkie looked perfect, but I'd like to think the flavor suffered a little over the decades.  Either way, the experience seems to have marked me.  I promise I didn't eat, open or keep the product.  I actually have no idea what I did with it.  Probably it's still there in the woods beneath more layers of leaves, unlikely to ever make its way to my farm stand.

WHAT I'LL HAVE THIS SATURDAY NOV. 13

This week, for the first time since May, I won't have bunched kales or Swiss chard.  They are still out in the field, but there is not much right now, and I figured I should save them for the following Saturday, which is the last market before Thanksgiving.  So, I will have lacinato, curly and red Russian kale, as well as Swiss chard, in two Saturdays, but not this Saturday.  Also, there's a very good chance I won't have sunflower greens this week.  I'll check at 2 am on Saturday to see if they miraculously get ready just in time.  It could happen because they like the sun and it's supposed to be sunny the next couple days, but I wouldn't count on it.  I will have a ton of sunflower greens for the market before Thanksgiving, barring weather or greenhouse related disaster.  See you in a couple days!

GREENS

Baby Loose Leaf Lettuce
Salad Mix
Arugula
Pea Shoots
Baby Purple Mustard
Green Mustard

ROOTS
Red Potatoes (Chieftain)
Blue Potatoes (Adirondack Blue)
Watermelon Radish (Misato Rose)
Hakurei Turnips (if you haven't tried those, please try them. They're amazing and you can eat the greens, too).
Purple Top Turnips
Beets

HERBS
Oregano
Thyme
Lemon Thyme
Curly Leaf Parsley
Flat Leaf Parsley
Rosemary
Sage
Mint

OTHER STUFF
Eggs
Spaghetti Squash
Butternut Squash

Next Season's Potatoes

The challenge is, from early April until November, things are a whirlwind.  I always say to myself, "Remember this for the winter.  This'll make a great story."   When I relay the events of the day to friends, the response I consistently get is, "Man, I wish a film crew could just follow you around all day." Then, it's winter and I've forgotten it all.  I do remember being hot this summer, which I much preferred over the cold and wet of 2009.  I think I already mentioned that, though.

There was one 100 degree day, probably in July, when I was grateful that I had something to do that involved sitting on a tractor rather than actually moving with my own legs in the field.  I was mowing down some weeds that were taller than me, trying to kill them before they went to seed.  The seeds of lamb's quarter, ragweed and pigweed, which is what I was cutting, can stay dormant in soil over 50 years, just waiting for the right conditions to germinate.  And each plant produces so many seeds that once you let it get out of hand, you have a long term battle.  I was mowing in an area of the farm I had never planted, but is now tilled and cover cropped and awaiting next season, when I will plant potatoes there.  Anyhow, apparently among those weeds wasn't just a hornets nest, but a whole colony of them.  I was looking behind me, carefully watching the mower, when I saw them flying all around.  I didn't think much of it because bees abound around here.  Then I got stung, which still didn't alarm me, until I took a closer look at my tractor and then my body.  I was covered in hornets.  As I was trying to calmly assess the situation, while still mowing, I got stung several more times and decided to test my tractor's safety shut off system by jumping off while it was still mowing.  It may not have looked like the decision of a calm and competent person to the neighbors, who I am convinced see everything.  It may not have sounded like that either, what with the shouting at the top of my lungs, but I assure you, I was completely in control of the situation.  In fact, all tractor safety systems functioned perfectly.  However, while fleeing, I was still getting stung.  At some point, I actually really did turn around to admire how well the tractor responded when I ejected, and at that moment I realized there were hornets perched on the rims of my glasses, so I threw them as far as I could.  I think I also might have screamed like a girl.  Of course, I hurled them in the direction of the tractor, which was still swarming with hornets.  So, now I'm covered in sweat and stung all over, but at least I'm a safe distance from the stinging creatures.  I can't see, though, and I have a lot still to do, so I immediately walked back to the angry bugs to find my spectacles in the mud.  I then did the next logical thing: picked up where I left off and finished mowing.  I think the potatoes will grow great there.

What I'll Have This Saturday (Nov. 6).

From now on, I'm going to post what I'll have each week, so you can plan ahead.  Also, there will be some weeks I won't show up this winter, so this way you don't have to trudge out on a -20 degree day for some sunflower greens, only to find I'm not there and become convinced I've moved to the Galapagos Islands.  That would never happen.  I prefer Wisconsin.

By the way, I'm working on the formatting of the blog, so it'll start to look better one of these days.  Here goes:

GREENS
Lettuce
Salad Mix
Arugula
Pea Shoots
Sunflower Greens
Baby Purple Mustard
Swiss Chard (not a lot)
Lacinato (Dinosaur) Kale
Red Russian Kale
Curly Kale
Green Mustard
ROOTS
Red Potatoes (Chieftain)
Blue Potatoes (Adirondack Blue)
Watermelon Radish (Misato Rose)
Hakurei Turnips (if you haven't tried those, please try them.  They're amazing and you can eat the greens, too).
Purple Top Turnips
Beets
HERBS
Oregano
Thyme
Lemon Thyme
Curly Leaf Parsley
Flat Leaf Parsley
Rosemary
Sage
Mint
Chives
Garlic Chives
OTHER STUFF
Eggs
Acorn Squash
Butternut Squash

Dead Tomatoes

This is what the frost'll do to tomatoes.  These were Matt's wild cherry. 

Chickens and Herbs

The photo on the bottom is of my new hens. They were born mid-August and will start laying sometime in March. The golden ones are buff orpingtons; the white are ameraucanas, which lay blue eggs; the gray and black striped ones are barred rocks and the black ones are black australorps. They are foraging on what was once collard greens and radishes.  You can kind of see the raised beds and footpaths, though all the chicken foraging has squished the beds a bit.  The photo on top is a Rhode Island red standing on a matt of cut pea shoots. I grow pea shoots and sunflower greens in trays in the greenhouse, and after I cut them, I feed the leftover stems and roots and leaves to the hens. This allows them to eat a lot of greens all year. Of course, they also wander around outside eating whatever they want. You can see a little bit of the white fencing in the corner of the first picture. It is electric fencing that is made to take down and set back up in a short amount of time. This allows me to move the hens around so that they always have greens and other things to forage.  Two weeks ago this area was covered in grasses and some beets and turnips that didn't
grow large enough to harvest.  In about a week I will be moving their fence.

The photo on top is thyme and the other is sage. In my herb plot, I also have chives, oregano, rosemary, parsley, garlic chives and lemon thyme. Last week I was harvesting chives when the guy who sold me my pellet stove came by. He asked me what I was doing and I told him that this is where I grow all of my herbs. He became very interested and looked at me suspiciously. In addition to selling heaters, he is also some sort of law enforcement guy--I think a probation officer. Also, there's a big Carl Paladino sign next to his store.  I guess I'll meet his colleagues when the swat team arrives for their oregano samples.  I'll let you know how it goes.  The pellet stove is great, though.

A Recap of the Past 730 Days

I’m writing this on Nov. 2, the day after the first frost this season and the day of the second frost this season. That’s probably not a coincidence. Most of my entries came before I really started the farm and this entry is coming in my third season, on the day everything officially slows down a bit. The truth is, I did write two or three entries last year—2009. I could find them in the black, marbleized composition book I write drafts of everything in, but 2009 was awful and all I remember was scrawling profanities about the rain, which I will spare you. I will just say that it rained, on average, every other day from mid-May until mid-August and the nights were usually in the low fifties. Those weather conditions are ideal conditions to incubate more fungal diseases than I ever knew existed. Since my soil is wet to begin with, I found myself trying to grow vegetables in a bog and I was not happy. Fortunately, my hens laid a lot of eggs and I grew a lot of greens in the greenhouse, and I bought an ipod and listened to podcasts to distract myself from the rain.  Yes, I put the ipod in a ziploc plastic bag.  Yes.  The ipod still drowned and I bought another one because I became addicted to Rachel Maddow and the Slate Political Podcast and TBTL and plenty of others.

My response to the conditions of 2009 was to buy a BCS walk behind tractor (and a third ipod when the second one broke) and a rotary plow attachment which makes raised beds. This season, I raised the rows I plant in 8 to 12 inches above the footpaths. Anytime it rained this year, the excess water flowed down the footpaths to the lower part of the farm, where nothing is planted. It worked perfectly and it was an awesome season.

Despite 2009’s underwater fiasco, my customer’s loyalty was the bright spot. I am not exaggerating to say that Muddy Farm would not exist or would barely exist if not for the people who live around Abingdon Square Park in Manhattan buying whatever I brought to market with a smile and compliment, even if half of my stand was taken up with four different kinds of mint. In 2009, they bought the mint (which doesn’t mind being under water). So, I am incredibly grateful to them and to the High Falls Food Co-op, which goes way out of its way to support local farms and to the Greenwood Heights and Bay Ridge CSA’s that buy my eggs. Honest, everyone that supported Muddy Farm in ’09, you are tolerant and kind people and you are the only reason I was able to have a very successful 2010. I am now done pretending like I am accepting an Oscar. No, not yet. My family. They live in Chicago. I think I called them everyday it rained, which was nearly everyday and shouted, “OH MY GOD IT’S RAINING AGAIN. HOW CAN IT BE RAINING AGAIN? IT’S JULY AND IT WAS 48 DEGREES LAST NIGHT!” There was nothing they could do about the Pondy Farm situation, but they did offer, many times, to leave their busy lives 800 miles away to help harvest baby purple mustard and Swiss chard with me while ankle deep in water, which, seriously, is pretty incredible. And completely nuts, but who am I to judge.

This year, of course, the pond dried in August, but I’d take that anytime over 2009.

I just took a bunch of pictures of my chickens, my movable electric fences to keep the chickens safe, and my mobile chicken coop. I can’t figure out how to get the pictures from the camera to the computer to the blog, but I will and you will see it all very soon.

Chicken Pictures

When I was in High School, I got an A+ in photography. I have no idea where those A+ skills went. Actually, the only reason I did so well was because I had a crush on a girl in that class. Hopefully these C-, at best, photos will at least give people an idea of how I raise my chickens. 

Temper Tantrum Turnips

Last season I started out planting most of my seeds with an Earthway seeder (see photo below). My initial impression of this inexpensive seeder is that it looked like a big wheels. Its brightly colored plastic, with those big plastic wheels reminded me of that kids toy which, no matter how fast you pedal, is a completely impractical mode of transportation. However, at least with a kid’s big wheel, you’re moving forward. It may be faster to walk, but there’s still progress. Not only did the Earthway seeder not drop most seeds with the consistent spacing necessary to actually grow crops, it often wouldn’t drop any damn seeds. Instead, it would grind them up in the hopper.

The way these walk-behind seeders work is, there’s a hopper where you dump the seeds which pass through a plate that has holes sized for specific crops. These holes are spaced a distance that allows the seeder to sow in a relatively consistent manner and at an optimal spacing. You then walk behind the seeder, pushing it forward while it digs a trench, drops the seeds and then buries them. It’s difficult to see how many seeds are actually falling, and it needs to be a somewhat exact science, so one must have faith in his or her seeder. For example, when I plant the lettuce for my salad mix, I like there to be at least three seeds per inch. Radishes and sugar snap peas, on the other hand, should be spaced about one seed per inch. My Earthway seeder dumped however many seeds it wanted wherever it wanted, but, like I said, mostly it just ground them up.

I haven’t actually started ranting full speed yet. I first want to make it clear what a disaster this was. In order to grow food one must till up the soil, make sure the soil has the correct organic nutrients for a given crop—often an expensive and time consuming factor—then seeds are planted and irrigated. One then waits anywhere from a few days to a few weeks for germination. When the seeds don’t germinate, one waits longer because plants sprout inconsistently. So…potentially weeks have passed before a grower realizes that, hey, nothing is GROWING. In the meantime, if nothing’s growing, there’s nothing to sell. In my case, I then go to the farmer’s market with NOTHING and I have to explain to EVERY CUSTOMER ALL DAY why I came to market, set up a tent and tables with NOTHING ON THEM!

Okay, I’m being dramatic. That never happened. But, I guarantee you, I stayed up many nights worrying that would happen. Fortunately, I start a lot of my crops in the greenhouse and transplant them out in the field. Also, I had no faith in my stupid Earthway seeder from the get go, so I always planted extra, sometimes by hand.

Some people swear by Earthway seeders, others don’t, but most people have experienced the seed-grinding phenomenon. So, I went online to figure out how suckers who use this implement fix it. Remedies ranged from soaking the seed plates in soapy water and then letting them dry with the soap on, to soaking it in soapy water and then rinsing it off, to walking at a slower or faster speed. There were many other remedies and I tried all of them. The final straw was when I oiled the rubber belt on the seeder, which was recommended by more than one farmer. This last attempt definitely didn’t stop the grinding, which was surprising, because the seed plate barely turned anymore. Apparently, oiling the belt takes away the friction needed to turn the seed plate consistently, which is the action that drops the seeds. So, what happened was, I was trying to plant purple top turnips, and the seed plate wouldn’t turn for a while and then it would LURCH, crushing every seed it could. Then I’d push the seeder further and the plate wouldn’t turn again. After a while of this, and after having spent hours and hours trying to fix this and many more hours replanting crops and explaining to customers why I didn’t have certain crops on certain weeks, and after having wasted way too much soybean and alfalfa meal fertilizer, I finally started just smashing the stupid seeder on the ground, seeds spraying everywhere. I then stormed off, throwing the seeder ahead of me, picking it up and throwing it further and further and further until I made it to the barn, where I threw it and where it rests still, five months later.

Unbeknownst to me, I had, for the first time all season, planted mass quantities of perfectly spaced purple topped turnips. Granted, they were dispersed in a circle instead of neatly lined rows, but they all germinated in half a week and I tilled around them for the next couple months, leaving this incredibly productive crop circle which probably accounted for a quarter of all the turnips I had all season. That may not sound like a lot, but it was. I planted turnips every three weeks for about four months. I’m telling you, there were so many turnips jammed in this space that no weeds could grow, and they weren’t spaced too closely because I didn’t have to do much thinning.

So, to any Earthway seeder owners out there, if you want the seeder to be functional, fill the desired seeds in the hopper, go out to the general vicinity of where you’d like the seeds and smash the seeder on the ground while swearing.

If you’d like a bit more consistency, I recommend the Planet Junior Seeder or the one I bought from Johnny’s, which they call a European Push Seeder (see photo below). While this tool costs almost three times as much as the Earthway, it was the best investment of the season. Not only does it have 39 different seed holes, which accounts for just about any crop imaginable, it also has an arm that marks the next row. For me, this added feature is THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD! With this new seeder, not only am I able to plant seeds with relative accuracy and consistency, I can also space each row evenly. The beauty of this is that I space my rows based on the needs of the plant and also the sized hoes I have for weeding. For example, I space my beets and salad greens in rows that are seven inches apart. This allows me to use my wheel hoe (see photo below)—with its 5 inch oscillating hoe—and go in between the plants, weeding entire 200 or 300 foot rows in a few minutes. Trust me, weeding is the bane of all organic farms and the key to having even a chance of overcoming at least SOME of the weeds, is to space rows evenly.

Disastrous Earthway seeder with a Delaware hen strolling by.
Miraculous European Push Seeder (it has another name, but that's what Johnny's Select Seeds--which is where I bought it from--calls it). Note the green arm sticking out, which is what I use to mark the next row. Also note that the barred rock hen did not trip on the arm. Below is the wheel hoe that I use to weed between the rows that I plant with the seeder.

Mr. Chili

Off-season Employment

I’m the only person I know who used to strike out in kickball. And soccer…I can’t tell you how many times the ball escaped the real soccer players in my high school gym class, bounced my way—even slowly rolled towards me—and I missed it. As a teacher (during the off-season), I often tell my students that the greatest step towards overcoming something that seems insurmountable is to believe you can do it. I tell myself that, too. There’s no way I would have started a farm by myself if I wasn’t able to tell all those voices—mostly internal—that I can and will make it work. However, in the case of my inability to kick a ball, I don’t think I psyched myself out. It just seemed so easy. Every time the ball rolled my way, I forgot past failures and was so convinced I’d wallup the thing, my positive attitude only made the shock of completely missing that much worse. Mostly, though, I was just baffled. What was genuinely traumatizing, however, were my efforts at head-butting. The bloody noses were bad enough, but they went away quickly. It was the broken glasses and lingering headaches that cause panic, to this day, every time I see that stupid black and white checkered ball.

There was a highlight to my high school gym class soccer career. Unfortunately, that too turned out disastrous. At the time, I enjoyed bonding with the other kid who stood as close to the sidelines as possible without failing gym. He was a tall, lanky math genius who always got in trouble. We had spent several detentions together, throughout the years, and there he would always threaten to beat me up. But, on the soccer field, me and math guy were allies. Mostly we’d pick on other members of our team, but then shout out encouragement—completely opposite to the insults we’d mutter to each other. This kept the gym teacher happy and was mildly entertaining for us. Honestly, I would just say something along the lines of, “Miss it, miss it, miss it,” every time the ball bounced towards one of those star players, and then I’d roar applause if he made a goal or something. I was always a little uncomfortable with what math guy would utter. It was usually more diabolical, like, “I hope he falls and breaks his neck,” and then he'd shout, “Oh, great kick. Oh yeah, keep up the good work. Go team.” Turns out, at that time in his life, math guy was a practicing serial killer, which definitely obliterates that one little beam of sunshine from my soccer career.

But this isn’t about hand/eye coordination or serial killers. This is about off-season employment. I want to be a back-up punter in the NFL. This profession contains the challenge that I like—the potential to better myself, but it also allows me to be profoundly lazy and make a (relative) ton of money. In addition, the timing of this job is perfect! I think. I don’t actually watch football, so I’m not sure the exact dates of employment, but it seems to mostly be in the winter and mostly on the weekends. This shouldn’t interfere with either farming or teaching and it will allow me to maintain both of those less lucrative careers.

While I will definitely have to practice kicking stuff, I believe I can succeed, so I’m halfway there! Of course, if this doesn’t pan out, I may have to quit teaching since I’m known for my boring—though charismatic—soap box lectures on the think positive theme. However, the second part of the thinking positive strategy is a realistic plan of action and a ton of determination. I’m starting out slowly in order to gain experience and confidence. I’ve begun by kicking things that don’t move. Already, in these early days of my professional punter training, the ruthless determination has become necessary. After kicking a filing cabinet and breaking two toes on my left foot (I’m a lefty), I’m now actively kicking things with my right foot. I’ve decided to put my energy to good use and I’m mostly just kicking my attack barred rock rooster. This isn’t cruel. It is completely in self-defense. The bird runs at me—every time I set foot outside--with his spurs up and his beak aiming for blood. He usually comes back for more when I kick him with my right foot—mainly because I miss him and he thinks it’s funny. But, believe me, when the two toes on my left foot heal, Muddy Farm’s going to be a safer place and I’m gonna’ become a professional football player.

On the left is a row of hakurei turnips covered with agricultural fabric. In the center are two rows that I planted with winter rye that didn't come up as thick as I would like. On the right is a covered row of radishes. Both covered crops are still alive, depsite several nights in the lower teens. This section of the farm is a tiny hidden nook between the pond and some shrubs. Its location, in addition to the row cover, insulates plants from the cold.

To the left is a covered row of hakurei turnips that I harvested yesterday. On the right is a dead row of radishes.

Last Harvest?

It’s ironic that, as the the season is on its last breath—the low tomorrow night is supposed to be 14--I’ve just started documenting its daily travails! Not true. I did a good job, last December and early this Spring, of conveying what it’s like muttering to oneself while erecting a deer fence as a neighbor with a gun is stalking behind me wondering if I qualify as deer or not. But, that whole period where my field is full of vegetables—it did exist. I swear.

True to form, I've decided to write about yesterday, which may have been the last outdoor harvest of the season. A friend of mine who grows similar organic crops in New Paltz, which is just on the other side of the Shawangunk Mountains from me, said that the only thing still alive in her field was spinach. I was expecting that crop and kale would also be alive in my field, but nothing else. Like I wrote the other day, it’s very difficult to predict what will happen at any time of the year, particularly as winter approaches. I was amazed, yesterday, when I uncovered my radishes and hakurei turnips, which are a baby white Japanese turnip, that both those crops look perfect. They are growing in a little nook of the farm, in between the pond and some shrubs, which moderates the cold. In addition, I covered them with agricultural fabric (see above). This stuff protects the plants a few degrees—depending on the thickness. I tend to buy the thinner fabric because I cover certain crops all season. In addition to insulation, it also keeps out bugs. Most of the non-lettuce greens in my salad mix, such as arugula, red Russian kale, all of the mustards, and others would get devoured by flea beetles if not for this fabric. Even the thin stuff helps in the winter. The proof is that the uncovered rows of radishes and turnips were killed by the cold (see above). They are right next to the covered ones I harvested yesterday. In addition to the root crops, the kale, as expected, was also alive. I was surprised that thyme, rosemary and sage were also hanging in there. I got a few bunches of each. Perennial herbs are a crop I will focus on a lot more next year.

All of this harvesting was for the Rosendale Farmer’s Market this Sunday. While the weekly market season is over, both of my markets still happen once a month. The main crops I should have through winter are eggs and sunflower greens. I grow the sunflower greens indoors. I will also have strawberry fruit leathers, which are like fruit roll-ups that aren’t rolled up. Their ingredients are local apples and strawberries--nothing else. I’ll also have apple chips and my dried heirloom tomatoes from this season.

A Typical Day (Sort of)

The fact that I haven’t written since July 23 is one small, unfortunate sign of a successful season. When I started out last spring, it seemed too good to be true that I’d be doing markets again on Saturday and Sunday, and that my week would follow the pattern of weeding and planting early in the week, harvesting at the end of the week and doing markets on the weekend. It had been several years since I’d done that. Another sign that this season was a success is that, now it’s hard to imagine NOT doing this. Even with the challenges of a typical day, or the excessive challenges of a more difficult day, I still have enough perspective to appreciate what I’m doing and how I felt in the four years I wasn’t farming.

For some reason, my mind’s been running through one of my last Friday’s of harvest, in Mid-November, before the regular market season ended. Like every morning, that Friday began with me leaving the chickens out around sunrise. Then I wandered around the field for a sense of what I could harvest that day. By November, it’s hard to know ahead of time what will be available because you never know what will survive the nighttime lows. This year, the cold came early and it was mid-October that even frost-hearty crops—such as mustards, arugula, lettuces, turnips and radishes started dying. Muddy Farm is a bit slopey. (I don’t mind that MS word doesn’t recognize slopey because it doesn’t know arugula, either.) There are also barns and sheds scattered around, as well as entire rows that are partially sheltered by trees. While the downside is shade, all of these things around the field actually moderate the temperature and shelter some of my greens from the extreme cold. As for the slopeyness, (I’m going to forcefully expand Bill Gates’ vocabulary) the crops that are on higher ground survive longer because frost travels like water and settles down low, killing those crops first.

So that Friday morning in November, I established what I could pick for my weekend markets. I also took note of just how frozen the leaves I would soon harvest were. The low had been 21 degrees the previous night and the high for the day was supposed to be in the low 40’s. It’s better to wait until the leaves are thoroughly thawed before they’re picked, so I would only have a small window of time to get everything.

While waiting for the sun to rise above the trees and slowly melt the crops, I took out a scuffle hoe to clear the quackgrass (take that, Billy G.) from an otherwise beautiful patch of Tokyo Bekana (how you feeling now, Microsoft Corporation?) mustard. Tokyo Bekana is frost tolerant and can also handle the summer heat more than most other greens. It’s an excellent tasting mild mustard, which makes an exotic substitute for lettuce when it is either too hot or too cold for most lettuces to grow. However, this particular morning, that noxious, virtually immortal quackgrass was beginning to smother my beloved Tokyo Bekana. Harvest is MUCH EASIER when I don’t have to pick out individual blades of grass from between each baby leaf. Inevitably, a few pieces of grass will sneak through and I’m likely to hear about it from whatever customers get them. Usually this comes in the form of, “That salad mix was delicious, and it lasted all week, but, David, my husband found a blade of grass in it.”

By 10:00 the hose, which I intentionally left out in the sun, had thawed enough that I could give the chickens water. By the time I was done with that, the greens in the middle of the field—the ones unsheltered by trees or buildings, had also thawed--so I could begin harvesting.

The arugula and lettuce up high were still alive, but the stuff at a slightly lower elevation were burnt red by the cold. Next, I cut the scant spinach that had germinated—back in September—ahead of the quackgrass. I plant greens every week, and by the end of the season, each sowing was a race against that one weed. After the spinach, I picked the bok choi (clearly, Bill Gates prefers Twinkies to specialty greens). This crop looked fantastic because it’s sheltered, to the northwest, by the trees. This means it didn’t get much shade, but received a lot of protection from the cold. The problem I found, though, is that little green cabbage caterpillars and slugs took shelter between the leaves and the base of the plant. So, instead of having to inspect everything for grass, I had to pick out worms. (I realize I’m bolstering anti-organic stereotypes out there, but hey, it’s still better than the invisible gross things that are sprayed on leaves. At least you can see your enemy on organic food. Besides, It’s incredibly rare to have this problem, and I warned EVERY CUSTOMER that bought the bok choi). What was possibly worse than the bugs themselves was the poop they left behind. (relax. It’s only the die-hards that come to outdoor farmer’s markets in mid-November). For the record, though, I picked off each worm I could find in each little head of bok choi. The poop, however, was the customer’s problem. Next I went to the broccoli raab. (They’ve heard of Hostess Ho Ho’s but not the raab of broccoli?) This was another crop that looked perfect and, I’m pleased to say, was worm free. The challenge with this green was that it was beneath pine trees, so there were pine needles adhered to every leaf. I carefully picked clean each one. I was pleased to note, though, that in the past week most of the plants had made the little florets that broccoli raab is famous for. Finally, I harvested the collards and kales. I got those last because they are the most cold tolerant.

As the sun disappeared, my hands were stiff with cold—like the leaves would soon become. Whether or not there was more to harvest, I convinced myself I got it all, just in time to close up the chickens for the night.

THE STORY OF DUCKYNOWALKY AND THE RACCOONS THAT FELL FROM THE SKY

It all started with Gordita and One Eye. They were chickens over at Veritas Farms who got picked on. One Eye would get her missing eye pecked at and Gordita eats too much--can't stop eating...is the fattest damn egg laying bird I've ever seen. In fact, Paul from Veritas told me if ever I feel like making 30 million dollars I should just take Gordita over to Monsanto so they can figure out what makes her so fat and they can patent the gene.

Anyhow, like One Eye, Gordita was pecked at ruthlessly by the chickens at Veritas, so I said I'd take the two outcasts and see if they got along with my young birds. As it turns out, all chickens want to eat One Eye's missing eye place, so she couldn't be with them, but, Gordita gets along just fine with my birds. She, in fact, is the only bird that never leaves the coop. She just hangs out by the food and honks whenever I go near her. As for One Eye, I decided she should have a duck to hang out with. You see, chickens need other chickens. It's actually New York State law that you can't purchase less than six at a time. But, poor One Eye is considered food by all her brethren (yes, indeed, chickens are canibals). So, I decided that she should have a duck for a friend. The fine folks at Veritas gave me a duck with a limp. That duck's limp went away and therefore there is nothing all that distinguishing about her, so I call her No-Name. I might start calling her Duckywalky in honor of Duckynowalky, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

It worked out with No-Name and One Eye. They half hung out and half did their own thing. Then, an unfortunate incident happened where a duck down the road got tangled in an electric fence and remained there all night. The owners of the duck, at that time, decided he needed a quieter, safer place to spend his days. So, that's how I got Shock. Shock, like No-Name, is completely healed. Then I was informed of a duck at Veritas that could barely walk due to a deformed foot. Needless to say, the deformed duck relocated to Muddy Farm and henceforth was called Duckynowalky.

Duckynowalky usually couldn't leave the duck coop on his own, so I would, most days, carry him out. Sometimes he'd make it back in by himself, but more times than not, I'd have to put him back. Ducks, unlike chickens, are incredibly kind to one another. Shock wouldn't go back into the coop until Duckynowalky was inside. Shock was very protective and both ducks would run to Duckynowalky when I'd put him out. I enjoyed watching all the duck love.

Then one day a baby raccoon fell from the sky. I left that baby raccoon out all night in the barn, thinking mama raccoon would take it back to the nest. Mama raccoon did no such thing. A woman who rescues them took the baby and it's doing fine. Then, in the middle of the next day, mama raccoon ate Duckynowalky.

Now, ducks getting eaten on a farm is no big deal. I mean, sure, it's sad and all, but it's pretty common, and a duck that couldn't really walk was pretty vulnerable. However, I have a very safe coop for both the ducks and chickens, where they are locked in each night. During the day, the only thing that usually gets fowl are domestic dogs. So, when a raccoon is hunting during the day, that's a big problem. Apparently, though, it's not an uncommon problem. They sometimes do that when nursing.

The next day, two more baby raccoons fell from the sky (by sky, I mean, the ceiling of the attic). Again, I left them out, thinking if mama can drag a duck up to her nest (which was in the loft above the barn) she surely would carry her babies back up. Nope. Again, the rescue woman came.

Needless to say, I'm trying to catch this mama raccoon, using a Havahart trap and Friskies Ocean White Fish cat food. I've been doing this for days. No mama raccoon.

It makes no sense why the mama wouldn't resuce her babies and why she won't eat the damn cat food, but it does get the story of One Eye, No-Name, Duckynowalky, Shock and Gordita out of the way, finally. I will end by saying I am truly looking forward to entering mama raccoon into the Muddy Farm predator relocation program. Further details cannot be disclosed, but I assure you they are humane.

As for the rest of the farm, this week at market I'll have:

Mesclun

Arugula

Sunflower Greens

Basil (Genovese, Lemon and Thai)

Cilantro

Purple Top Turnips

Hakurei (Baby) Turnips

Beets

Garlic

Buttercrunch, Romaine and Red Leaf Lettuce

Thyme

Oregano

Sage

Tarragon

Cilantro

Radishes

Carrots

Cucumbers

Kale

Collards

Chard

SLACKER

No, dear reader, not you. Me. As far as I can tell, there are three possibilities for the lag in blog postings: A. I woke up March 20 at sunrise, on a beautiful late winter day with the weather in the 40's and the sun shining, poised to finish my deer fence and thought screw it, I'm going back to bed. I woke up seven hours later and got a job down the road at the tanning salon. B. I'm totally callous and cruel to my dedicated and faithful following of readers (that'd be my brother Brian and possibly Ron Klassnik--though I'm not sure I believe him). C. I've been busy growing stuff. D. B and C.

I'm not going to tell you the answer. But, I will give an incomplete update in the hopes that I'll come back to this weekly with at least an updated list of things I'm going to have for market.

Speaking of market: I've been selling at the Saugerties Farmer's Market on Saturday and the Rosendale Market on Sunday. I love (when I'm not busy cursing and hating) my five days on the farm, but somehow it's the market days that are the treat at the end of the week. I feel like a rock star selling my purple topped turnips. I'm also selling at the High Falls Food Co-op. One of my favorite past-times is bickering with their produce manager, Ryan, and making him think I'm mad at him. Mostly I like doing this because the co-op, and Ryan in particular, is very easy to sell to. They're flexible and go out of their way to buy from local growers, which is challenging because us small growers can't be as consistent as enormous Cal-organic companies. The co-op, however, wants to support us local little guys and also provide their customers with the best produce possible. Seeing as Ryan chooses to deal with 30+ local organic farms, full of hard-headed, bitter, overworked local farmers instead of buying from one pleasant sales representative from an enormous Cal-organic company, why do I, Dave Siegel of Muddy Farm, enjoy tormenting him so? Dunno.

Okay, but before I lunge into what I'm taking to market, I should say that, yes, the greenhouse got finished. With the help of Aaron Phillip D'Orio and Captain Paul Alward and Crew, all went well and the greenhouse has been filled with plants and emptied many times over. however, for over a month it's been empty and I've been direct seeding stuff because it's just too hot in there and I really like planting in the field directly in the summer.

And, on March 26 my box full of 60 baby laying hens arrived. They're now huge and enjoying their enormous fenced in area and coop. They should be laying eggs by September. I'm feeding them grain from Lightning Tree Farm, a local organic farm that grows and mixes a good blend of food. As most of you know, the cost of grain has been sky rocketing and is only going to get worse this Fall, so this local organic food costs a lot and I'm hoping to be able to sell all my eggs at the market directly instead of wholesale. I mentioned that I received 60 chickens in the mail. They came somewhere from out west and the mortality rate, I'm sorry to say, is generally huge for those poor things. I ordered mine from a hatchery called Privett, which has a good reputation. Of my 60 chickens that I ordered, I'm left with 61 and three ducks. I'll blog later about the odd chicken and three ducks, but I'm not going to do that now because those four animals get more attention than me and my vegetables and all the rest of the creatures around here. And so you're just gonna' have to wait. But, I'll tell you their names: Gordita, One-eye, Duckynowalky, shock and no-name. I know, that's five. Again, I'll blog about it later.

To finish other unfinished business: the deer fence is up and working. The cooler, with the Coolbot that UN Guy from the other side of the mountains invented works like a charm. Yeah, I have a cooler the size of a big walk-in closet and it's being cooled with a used 10,000 btu window AC unit that is hooked up to the Coolbot which confuses it so that it runs colder.

Okay. I'm tired now and market is tomorrow, so let me tell you what I'm bringing:

Salad mix (my main crop). This is a triple rinsed blend of baby lettuces, spicy and mild mustards, arugula, red Russian kale, Swiss chard and other weird things I can't think of now.
Sunflower Greens
Garlic
Curly Kale
Red Russian Kale
Collard Greens
Swiss Chard
Turnips
Baby Japanese turnips, which are awesome!
Radishes
Parsley
Cilantro
Thyme
Mint
Sage
Basil
Romaine Lettuce...

and I think that's it. In the next few weeks, I hope I have beets, potatoes, tarragon, rosemary and most weeks I sell arugula separate from the salad mix.

That's it. No promises, but hopefully I'll give at least quick updates on what crops I'll have. That'll get boring, though, since it's not going to change that much until the tomato season comes around. And, yes, I'll tell the stories of Duckynowalky, Gordita, No-name, One-eye and Shock.

Greenhouse

Progress!!!! Lots of progress thanks to the help of friends. Let me start out by talking about day one of greenhouse construction. It started out like this: Aaron Di Orio (there may be an apostrophe in there somewhere, and maybe a couple more capitol letters) showed up with his tools and a wealth of skills and knowledge on everything from making cars run on used vegetable oil to constructing and repairing everything under the sun. The first thing Mr. Di Orio did was start pounding on a tape measure with a hammer. Please trust me on this one; I may be famous for exxagerating, but I kid you not, stage one of greenhouse construction was Aaron Di Orio smashing the tape measure we were supposed to be using to square the construction site with. I don't exactly know what happened. I offered him the corkscrew from my pocket knife, not really knowing why, but to my surprise he accepted it and started jabbing the corkscrew into the metal thing at the end of the tape. Apparently it was jammed and the tape measure wouldn't open and the corkscrew didn't work so he started pounding it with a mallet. Then he said, "I have to go." He disappeared for a little while and I heard, from the direction of his truck, loud smashing noises which sounded like the possible destruction of my garage. He calmly returned a little while later holding the tape measure which looked none the worse for the wear and functioned none the better. He tossed it aside and we used another one. We had like three.

I would like to note that at no point did Aaron Di Orio appear frustrated or mystified by the tape measure incident. It was all just a part of the process of consrtucting the greenhouse, and not being a construction person, who was I to argue.

Speaking of the greenhouse, our goal for the day was to square the area where it was to be put up and hammer in the ground stakes. As it happened, we did all of that and put up the rest of the structure. No joke. We put up the entire greenhouse. By that, I mean, all of the poles that I ordered. At the beginning of the day, there was nothing standing, and by the end of the day, it basically looked like a greenhouse without the plastic and I have to tell you everytime I looked at the structure, I was incredibly elated! I can't believe how much we accomplished, and it was a lot of fun! I'm pretty sure what we did in a day would have taken me a long and frustrating month to accomplish on my own, so I can't tell you how grateful I am for the help and guidance and for the fact that the process was enjoyable.

That all happened on Sunday. What was left was to make end walls, which means, to buy lumber and construct some sort of wall and door at each end of the greenhouse. To the rescue came Paul Alward and company--yes, that's the famous Paul Alward, AKA Dr. Landscape, AKA Veritas Farms. All I can say is that him and his helpers put up the endwalls and doors in a day while I tried to help but mostly just stood around and scratched my head in amazement. So, now that's done and all that's left is the plastic, which I actually know how to do on my own though I'm told I'd be crazy to try and do it on my own because it takes more than two hands. So, I won't be crazy. But I'm so thrilled that the greenhouse is up and soon I can start all of my seeds!

The only other thing to say is, when I decided to call this place Muddy Farm, I had no idea how accurate I was. This place is MUDDY! And it's taking a long time for the dirt to dry. That's kind of a funny thing to say since we're expecting two inches of rain today. But, really, I won't be able to till until the dirt's relatively dry because this soil is on the clay side. When soil is more clay than sand and it gets tilled or plowed it tends to dry like cement. It's great soil, overall, and it will probably dry out more quickly in future years after it's been loosened once or twice, but this year it's really really wet. So, planting may be delayed. But, you know, the weather's never gonna' be perfect. It's always either too wet or too dry or too humid or too cold or too hot for this or that or the other thing so I ain't gonna' complain. HA! Of course I'm gonna' complain. But not just yet. Not completely, anyhow.