Another Rain Day

It has been another rainy day here on the farm. So due to the fact that I have been unable to go work outside I have been doing some reading about sweet potatoes, which we are growing for the first time. We got our sweet potato shoots from Round Plains Plantation and they had this video posted on about a project a young girl did on growing sweet potato shoots. I am going to post it here so that you can take a look if you want.


I am pretty excited to see the potatoes growing a few leaves. Ryan was pretty sure that they had all died after I planted and lovingly watered them. But to my delight my tlc paid off and we are starting to see some new growth. We probably won't have a huge amount this year but I will be excited to put them out in our CSA baskets in the fall.
I am off the enjoy a rainy day lunch, more to come soon.

Photos from around the farm!!

Our first cucumber

A tinny pepper

Taking care of the animals

Chicken nesting some duck eggs

Next generation farmer hoeing

Its all in the box

It has been a successful week on the farm so far (although technically it is now a new week), we got a lot of planting done both from transplants and using the seed drill. This weeks planting included but was not limited too, tomatillo's, peppers, cucumbers, summer squash, and corn. This of course takes a good amount of time and in the hot sun of the week we consumed a large a mount of water!
We also had another I believe successful CSA pick up at the house and Brock. This weeks basket included, lettuce, spinach, kale, radishes, peas, and chives. This weeks radishes were mostly easter egg which are wonderful pink, purple and white selection.
Yesterday we also received our sweet potato slips. Growing sweet potatoes will be a new venture for us but exciting. You just place the slips which are long thin green things with leaves in the ground and wait for the potato to form for fall harvest. They are a great storage item so we will save some for our winter CSA.
After the excitement from the slips wore off a little bit Ryan and I went for a jaunt around the farm and were excited to see that our garlic has started to produce scapes. If you have never had scapes they are like the garlic form of green onions. You can use them just like garlic but they look nothing like a traditional garlic clove. You will probably start to see them pop up at your local farmers market or in a CSA box soon.

Our Second CSA Basket

Easter Egg Radishes

Amanda eating a garlic scape

Its a rain day

Again it seems that mother nature has decided we have not had enough rain! Today was a normal market day to start with not too cool, moderately bright a good amount of customers. Then a little trickle of rain came. This was not really a problem and the morning carried on. The out of no where we were hit with strong winds and heavy rain. After a number of soaked people and some ruined product the market shut down early for the first time since we have been there (this is our second year). What a crazy day.
Despite the rain I did stop and pick up a quart of strawberries on the way home from Whitty Farms. As soon as I got home Ryan and I had a few, which turned into eating the whole basket full. My only regret is that I didn't buy more for us to munch on this evening.
Yesterday was our first CSA pick up and I believe that it went really well. We only had one mix up and only a few people accidentally went to the neighbours house (they share the same last name as us so there is sometimes confusion). The basket was a bit small this week but we were excited offer an herb planter (basil, oregano and thyme for spaghetti sauce later),lettuce (some of them huge),snow peas


These are a few pictures from the week. The first is of some strange fog that we have actually had a couple times over the past couple of week. Its off in the distance not a very good picture.
The second picture is of some Kohlrabi that is coming up the green house. We have both a green and purple variety. The plants are actually much larger already.
The last picture is of Ryan using the flame weeder. It worked really well and the weeds are all deceased now.
I am off to eat a roast from our selection of Matt cow (this is not the cows name Matt is the farmer and the beef is from him)
~Amanda

Winner

We are very excited to announce that we were chosen as a winner of the Small Business BIG Impact Challenge in the products and services category. We would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to vote over the past couple of months.