A whirlwind month!

It has once again been a ridiculously long time since I wrote anything on the blog. But today I not only have farm information but also some great picture from our epic move of the animals. The move actually happened at the end of December because we went away for a few days and a neighbour at the veggie patch was taking care of them (thanks Ron!). The whole process of moving the animals was not difficult but lots of work. The first animals to go were the sheep. This meant that the sheep had to be loaded up which of course was a lot of fun. Then there pen which is very large had to be moved in a truck which thanks to our friends over at Whitty Farms was possible.
Next to go were the ducks and chickens. This process really was not too bad as we have nice cages to transport them in. All you do is catch them load them in and drive away. It does take awhile though especially when you have to catch 75 chickens. The whole process did take us all day but things went pretty smoothly and everyone is happily settled in at there new home.
In terms of the vegetables at the farm we are now heading into the freezer for our CSA. This week we are giving out, broccoli, sun dried tomatoes, herbs, kale and more. We look forward to the spring when we can start planting out fresh items again. We do still have some things outside but it has been getting colder over the past few weeks making it more difficult to harvest items such as leeks and beets. Any time it thaws out a bit we are out picking them though!

what goes down must come up

Today was the start of some more planting in the greenhouse and my hope is that what goes down into the soil will pop back up as some delicious eating! Today i planted peas and garlic in the greenhouse. The peas will go out with our CSA as pea shoots which are delicious in a salad or in a stir fry. The garlic will also go out in our CSA probably close to the end when it will hopefully have developed into a beautiful bulb.
The weather has been very cold the past few days and this has led to the ground getting very hard making it difficult to harvest things such as leeks. It also means that cauliflower and broccoli are quickly on there way out. Although they are both cold tolerant when the temperatures are currently in the negative the plants do start to suffer.
Everything else has been pretty uneventful this week. Hopefully things continue to go smoothly!

Its been too long

Well it has been a long time since we updated the blog. I feel bad about it sometimes however I will give one excuse which is that we don't currently have internet at our house and I can't figure out how to blog from my phone! Beyond that mildly lame excuse things have remained busy here on the farm. In November my father and I planted all of our garlic, which included varieties such as Leningrad, Asian tempest, and music. I am very excited for this crop next year and look forward to enjoying the many delicious varieties of garlic that will be popping up. The crops in the green house have been growing as well. This week I harvested the arugula to go in our CSA, there are radishes popping up and I can see the start of some basil and lettuce. It feels great to eat fresh greens when there are snow flurries in the air.
The CSA so far has been going well, the last three weeks we have been still harvesting all fresh vegetables!!!!! It is very satisfying to pull (or dig because the ground was very hard today) a radish our of the ground on the 2nd of December. We are also harvesting broccoli still which i find even more amazing. It has turned out to be a very good crop for us. On Tuesday the buds were frozen and covered in frost but they still taste great and seem to continue growing.
Kale is another spectacular crop this year. We are still harvesting from our first planting which was started in the greenhouse in February of 2010. The leaves are still beautiful and have actually been getting nicer because they are curling around the edges which in my opinion makes the kale look very attractive. We have had good response from people with kale and I even had one CSA member tell me her kids love it.
I could write about loads of crops the I love harvesting in the winter but the blog might start getting a little long. But I've also been amazed by our continued harvest of cauliflower, cabbages, green onions and spinach. I have to say wow spinach is hard those little leaves just keep growing and they taste soooo good in a nice fresh salad. My amazement could come from a lack of education in the agricultural world but every day I learn something new. The only crop I was expecting to live the winter other then kale were leeks and they are doing great. Maybe i haven't seen a lot of leeks but I have harvested some huge ones. Probably as big around as my forearm.
Well of course this time of year also lends itself to thinking about our crops for next year. Ryan and I have conversations about where we want to buy seed, what kinds of things we want to try growing next, wow much of what should we grow etc.... Well nothing has been decided for sure but decisions will have to be made sooner than later. I look forward to posting our seed list probably in February. We are always looking for nifty things to grow so if you have any suggestions please feel free to write to us. We love wild and crazy too.
Ah yes not to be left out we have our first batch of chickens going to the butcher next week and our second batch of ducks. It is actually nice to have them go because it reduces our work load every day. Less animals to feed equals less time out in the cold snowy weather freezing your hands (it is hard to wear gloves).
The sheep are also doing well. The two rams that were born this summer will be off to the butcher soon leaving us with seven sheep for the winter which will hopefully turn into a minimum of thirteen in the spring. Hopefully it will be more than that if we get a set of twins, which is common with sheep. The sheep have also been moved back into there winter pen and are being fed hay from now until spring. They like hay especially the flowers that are dried in with it. They will root around making a big mess looking for them.
Well I hope that catches you up at least a little bit on what has been going on around the farm. I will try my hardest not to leave the blog so long this time. Enjoy the Snow :)

Amanda

Frosty Morning

Well its a very chilly morning here in Vineland. The weather network is reporting -1 which is fairly brisk. There is a good layer of frost on the lawn and car although it is starting to melt now that the sun has come out.
Things have slowed down now around the farm to a certain extent which is nice. Yesterday our first CSA's went out uneventfully. We had a great selection of fresh produce to give out from broccoli to leeks and everything in between. Friday is our big CSA day so hopefully that goes as smoothly as yesterday.
We have a few things starting to come up in the green house right now. This includes a nice crop of radishes and arugula (rocket). Yesterday we planted basil and lettuce which will probably be sprouting in just a few days. It was 40 in the greenhouse yesterday which feels pretty nice with the cool temperatures we have been experiencing.
We were also recently interviewed for the eating Niagara blog which you can check out at http://eatingniagara.blogspot.com/2010_10_01_archive.html.

That's all for now

What's for diner dear??

Well over the past couple of weeks we have been eating a lot of veggies from our own farm. Along with this we have been trying really hard to make our meals as local as possible. Well tonight being a chilly evening I decided to make a hashbrown casserole. This is not in anyway a healthy meal it consists of hashbrown, butter, soup, cheese and cereal crushed on top. It tastes delightful though. So along with this meal we will be having a huge green cauliflower. This is the first coloured cauliflower that we have eaten all summer. I am very excited to partake of it.
Today was overall a busy day. I spent the morning on the farm thinning winter carrots, weeding beets, picking beans, and tomatoes. All of these things just add up and the morning zipped by. Lunch was of course full of veggies tomatoes, purple broccoli, chives, sweet pepper. I made it all into a very nice pasta salad that my father and I enjoyed. The afternoon was then spent freezing carrots and tomatoes for our winter CSA. Tomorrow will probably hold much the same.
On saturday I worked on saving some gourd seeds. We did not grow gourds this year but I plan on having them "on the menu" for next year. I think gourds are just fantastic even if you can't eat them. After I scrapped the seeds out i feed the gourd to our ducks. They seemed to like them.
Also included is a picture of a round bale of hay. These bails are large and the picture shows what a few sheep can do when they access over four days!

An Update on the Ducks

Over the past week or so I have been working on three pens for our ducks. The ducklings (21 of them) have been growing rapidly and were in desperate need of some more space. Each pen measures about 8x12' and are 6' high at the center. Today Amanda and I moved the last of them into the pens in the back field with the sheep so we will see how they turn out. The following are some photos we took of the building process. Enjoy!




We missed taking a few pictuers but after the plywood, tarps were installed over the plywood and chicken wire was installed on the rest of the cage. They have doors on both ends to make access a bit easier. At some point we will also be making some pens for the chickens, just a bit shorter.

So much to say so little time.

It has come to our attention that people feel we have neglected the blog over the past month or so! Well that may be true but it also means that there has been a load of stuff going on around the farm. A quick overview would include, the fact that we have enjoyed delicious lamb a number of times, the arrival of 100+ chickens (egg and meat birds), the arrival of some new ducklings, new duck pens, harvesting popcorn, the first lima beans, loads of preparation for the winter CSA and so much more. Hopefully over the coming days we will be able to write more detailed accounts of each event that has been going on.
Last night we enjoyed a wonderful local meal here at home with family from all over. There were a total of six of us. We had our third serving of lamb, this time a kind of stew which turned out really nicely. With the stew we had fresh carrots, lima beans, broccoli, spinach salad (with radishes), local bread, local pie for dessert. All of it was very good and made me wonder how you can even compare a grocery store vegitable to one fresh from the farm. Well you can't! I think everyone enjoyed the meal greatly and it is deffinetly something we try to do often (that being local eating and sharing local food with friends).

Hope that you continue to enjoy the blog
Amanda