Fruitful Experimentations

The nights are starting to get colder and summer crops are slowing down their production.  So, apparently, are farmers--we've been too busy to blog much during August, but with the shortening days we now have more hours after dark to catch up! Here are just a few random pictures from the last month of what's going on in the fields... we will be blogging more regularly now that the peak busy time of the year is receding!  These picture show some of the different crops we tried out on our new land (which in itself is a total experiment!)... most have been doing well.

Below are our indomitable eggplant and peppers.  We anticipated 1 to 3 fruits a plant, given how north we are.  But so far it's been closer to 10 to 15 fruits a plant, despite considerable flea beetle pest pressure!  The black plastic mulch does seem to boost soil temps just enough to let the plants really thrive, even in a northern region.  Next year we will try some hotter weather loving cultivars too.

Another winner (we hope) so far this year are some of the winter squash, which are mostly giant.  We think for both the eggplant and the squash it's the high calcium soil (since fruit crops tend to like lots of calcium).  Hopefully this translates into sweetness in the squash too!

Another winner (and fruit)--watermelons!  We just grew one variety this year, but they have been very prolific and sweet, so next year we will try adding yellow flesh melons and full size cultivars.  The cantaloupe and honeydew have also been very good--we just need to address the powdery mildew challenges, perhaps by planting a bit earlier.

This is our stand of popcorn.  We aren't really sure how tall popcorn is supposed to grow, but it's about 9 feet right now, despite the drought (though we cheated and had it on drip irrigation).  Ears are starting to fill out now, so hopefully the weather holds long enough for a good yield!

The ongoing drought meant that we had to add another drip zone for our larger fall crops.  Even then, with the soil so dry to begin with, we have struggled to provide enough water for the plants to grow.  We did invest in some row cover (the white stuff in the picture) in an attempt to exclude the flea beetles from the crops.

Overall, the crops seem to be growing well on the new ground.  There has been a few bug problems, but considering how stressed out the plants must be with the drought, the bugs have not been out of control (except on the poor kale).  We look forward to a good fall harvest, and lots of ideas and plans forming over the winter for next year!

More blogging within a week, we promise!

Hop Planting!

Between harvesting and dragging hoses everywhere around the farm, we haven't had many chances to blog... so we will try to catch up over the next few days with posting pictures showing everything that's been going on around the farm, starting with our first hops getting in the ground! Here's Matt working on the bed (the white stuff to the left are broccoli plants under row cover insect protection).

We bought virus free plants from Madison County AED, and hope to propagate out 120 to 200 hills next year from the 60 plants we are putting in this season.  The virus indexed plants were more expensive than standard rhizomes, but since we are going to attempt growing these organically, we thought it would make sense in the long run to try to minimize potential problems from the start (hops have some challenging disease issues in the northeast).  We didn't get them in last week due to the hot and dry weather, and we learned during this time that hops do not coexist well in close confines with their neighbors (this mat of hops took a half hour to untangle!)

We planted them into a nursery bed, which is just a temporary bed for them to grow in this first season.  Next spring, we will dig them up, divide the clumps of roots and rhizomes into 2 or 3 plants, and replant them at wider spacing in the hop yard.

Right after planting, we trained them up on their temporary trellis (which is only six foot posts).  In a real hop yard, the plants can grow 20 or more feet high, so the trellis is a lot more serious (think telephone poles).  We are starting small so we have time to save up for the trellising costs!

We laid our drip tape the low tech way today (rather than using the bed maker implement).  Matt just used one of his carpentry clamps, which anchors the roll on pretty much anything.

Here's looking back to the near complete nursery bed over the south field's fall crops.

Hopefully the weather continues to cooperate and we get good plant establishment this season so that we have more plants for next season!

More pictures and posts from the field will follow in the next few days!

Chilling Out...

... in our new walk-in! Things have been busy at the farm with harvesting and flipping beds from spring to fall crops (not to mention the endless hours each day spent on irrigation).  But we (well actually, just Matt) finally did the big push on installing our walk-in cooler!  We haven't finished off the exterior yet, but so far, it's working great!

We use recycled 2 to 4 inch foam panels to insulate an 8x10 framed box (we did floor, ceiling, and walls).  There is a plywood floor.  Matt hung 2 layers of panels in opposite directions (so there are no gaps for cold air to escape) and used spray foam insulation to fill in any gaps.

We bought the panels from a place in Oneonta that recycles material from cold storage facilities (like apple storage warehouses).

They were pretty easy to work with.  It took Matt about three full days to build the insulated box, install the door, and set up the AC.

We just used a standard exterior door since it was easier to work with than a real walk-in cooler door.

For refrigeration, we used an air conditioner and a Cool Bot (check out their website here).  It's basically a little box that tricks the AC unit to go really low (like down to 32 degrees).  We went this route over a standard refrigerator largely for cost reasons.  First, the Cool Bot is much cheaper than a compressor (like a quarter to a tenth of the cost, depending on the compressor).  Second, it's cheaper to operate since you are essentially just running an AC unit rather than a whole large compressor.

So far, everything is working great.  We are excited at how much more efficient this should make our harvesting (and it will help us bring even higher quality produce to market!).  Plus, in the winter time, we can reverse the whole process and use the space as a root cellar so we can extent the CSA season!

Lots of Post 4th Pics!

The theme of the month continues to be dry... as we head into the 6th week of only 3/4 inch of rain... total.  Looking on the bright side, weeds aren't really a problem, since they need water to grow.  On the challenging side is getting enough of that water to our crops! We wrote a blog for the National Young Farmers Coalition's Bootstraps Bloggers about our water and irrigation solutions (and challenges)... you can see that (and a ton of awesome posts from other Bootstrap Bloggers and from the NYFC) here.  For more pictures of this week, check out below!