When the Snow Flies

Most of you know that we do quite a bit of season extension on our farm. We use low tunnels in our South Garden to extend our field harvest and also have the two high tunnels to get us into the back-side of the growing season. These are amazing tools, but they are not flawless. If the ambient air temperature isn't above freezing, then we can't harvest (especially leafy greens). Now in the tunnels, it doesn't take much sunlight to get the temps above 32° but heavily overcast days can still delay the harvest. One of the other tricky things about harvesting at this time of year is that even when the tunnels get warm enough to harvest, we still have to get the vegetables into the house without freezing.

We've learned a few coping techniques over the years. If you're just harvesting enough for supper, then you can tuck your harvesting bag into your coat and make a run for it, though tripping with a coat full of kohlrabi can result in some very some ribs.

When harvesting for larger numbers though, a little planning is required. Our best technique is to haul our big market coolers out to the high tunnel and allow them to warm up a bit before packing them with vegetables and dragging them to the house.  Best of all, though is when there is a little snow on the ground, then we just load them up and ride 'em home! We'll try to get a pic of this crazy fun sometime yet this season ; )

Spring Doin's

You know, if I could bear to blog without including pictures, I might be more timely in my updates. I often think... "oh, I should blog about that" and then never get around to taking a picture of whatever the subject might be, and thus it never makes it to the blog and I go weeks without updating. (nice excuse, huh?)

Here's what we've been up to recently:

I wish there was some way to include scents on the computer. Because right now the farm smells like this...(seriously, the fragrance wafting on the wind is simply amazing!)

It has been a busy couple of weeks since my last post. We recently returned from our encore performance of "Potatopalooza" in the gardens. I was starting to think we might never get through them all. We planted about 1,000 row feet of seed potatoes, all by hand. I know other farms do more, and more power to them! This is enough for me.

The big high tunnel is coming along and should be in good shape for the opening farmers market on May 1. This tunnel contains chard, choi, salad greens, radishes, spinach and arugula.
Just a week ago I was in a mild panic thinking that the crops wouldn't be ready in time. But as usual, I was just being angst-y. Today I harvested these, and in two weeks they will be perfect on the market table.
We've also been laying out and prepping beds for planting. Just yesterday, the first seeds went into the fields. We are by no means ahead of schedule, but as of yesterday, we are caught up and on schedule.

Other recent things worth mentioning:

• The Fruit Tree Grafting class at Seed Savers was marvelous! We'll see how well we put the new knowledge to work.
• We are getting more than 10 dozen eggs a day. There is a limit to how many eggs two people can eat.
• The Blue and Luci show continues to be good entertainment. They are quite the pair, I wish I had video to share as photos don't due them justice. Luckily the "interest in the chickens" seems to have waned, hopefully permanently.
• We've have some wonderful folks come out and volunteer their time to do a "working visit" to the farm. Big thanks to Maggie, Terri, Linda, Dawn, Michelle and Danelle for their time and willingness to "work and learn".

I'm sure there is more to share, but I'm tapped out for now. Will write another update soon and hopefully it will include stories of morels we've found (not yet, though).

Winter News

18" of snow in 36 hours was kind of fun, until the 50 mph winds started in with the subzero temperatures, then it quickly became less fun. It took us a couple of days after the blizzard to get out to the high tunnels. As soon as I got the first door open, I felt my heart sink...it was the smell of rotting vegetables. Damn! We've never had significant problems with crops freezing in the tunnels, and certainly never this early in the season, but here it is. Everything suffered at least some damage and many of the crops were a total loss...again, damn! Some of those crops will likely recover, like the kale, spinach and some of the salad greens, possibly the broccoli (much to Sean's dismay). But the cabbage, radishes, peas, beets and choi are just gone...sigh.

Ah well, another lesson learned another layer of experience added. It would have been so much more convenient to learn this lesson AFTER the winter market this coming Saturday, but nature isn't too much interested in our schedules. Thank goodness for our other farm-made products!

There was one bright note this week, our friend Cathy writes for blogforiowa.com and she recently wrote a post listing 12 Great Places to Shop Across Iowa, and included BGF as one of those places! We are honored to appear alongside many of our favorites as well including, Prairieland Herbs, Picket Fence Creamery, Seed Savers and Frisian Farms. You can see the full list here: www.blogforiowa.com

A Preview

Well so much for doing a better job of keeping the blog up-to-date.
As I sit at the computer today I can look out the window at a beautiful snowy wonderland. We got about 4" of fluffy snow last night, and suddenly its winter on the farm. This is only an appetizer though as we are predicted to get up to 12" in the next couple of days.
Hard to believe a week ago we were harvesting radishes, salad and other greens outside. This likely marks the formal end of the outdoor gardening season for us, and I sure am happy that we have the high tunnels, as we still have one CSA delivery and one farmers market to go.

I will try to get pics of the high tunnels posted in the next day or so. The crops in there are still lush and beautiful.

High Tunnel Progress

I've been very remiss in keeping the blog up to date recently, so here are a few pictures to track the progress in the high tunnels in the past month or so:

The end of the summer crops (September) in HT1:
zucchini, tomatoes, peppers and eggplant.


HT1 with winter crops on November 4th:
beets, kohlrabi, pac choi, radishes and kale


Summer crops in HT2 on Oct 15th:
peppers, basil, tomatoes, cucumbers, chard & eggplant

HT2 on Oct 16th (the 16th was a big day!)

HT2 on November 4th:
chard, broccoli raab, broccoli, spinach, Chinese cabbage, peas, salad greens and carrots.

Holy Basil!

No, not the actual holy basil, just the exclamation that I uttered when I first saw the leaves like in the photo below.

We have been trying to get all the mid-season crops cleared from the high tunnels. But before the chance was past, I wanted to get photo evidence of the amazing results in our basil crop. We grew two varieties of basil in the tunnel, the Genovese was as expected, nicely sized and productive, but the real treat was the Lettuce Leaf Basil. The seed was sourced from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.



The field-grown plants were similar to the Genovese, nice, but not particularly special. But those in the tunnel were amazing. Basil leaves the size of my hand... and nice flavor to boot! I think this goes on the annual high tunnel crop list as a "must have"!

Today's Harvest

The harvest from our high tunnels today:
Eggplant (final harvest): Calliope & Orient Express
Sweet Peppers: Ace (red), Golden Marconi (long yellow), Islander (purple) & Sunray (yellow)
Heirloom Tomatoes: Big Zebra, Dr. Wychee, Mule Team, Paul Robeson, Redfield Beauty

A whole month??

Today I checked in and realized it had been a full month since I last posted a blog entry, yikes! So we haven't been the most scintillating read recently, but it wasn't for lack of material, or even desire...simply a lack of time. Things have been a bit crazy here in the past month. All my seasonal help has gone back to school, so its pretty much me and the veggies out there, staring each other down...and in all honesty, the produce is winning!

This has been one crazy growing season...first too wet, then too cool, then hot for a week and back to cool. I actually had to install a bunch irrigation lines this past week, because there isn't enough soil moisture to germinate the fall crops. Most of the earlier crops are finishing up for the season, all except the beans. We are still picking beans from our first sowing...there were never beautiful plants, stunted from the lack of warmth, but they have just produced like crazy...thank you beans!

The high tunnels have been worth their weight in gold this season. They were the only places that got enough heat and water at all the right times (thanks to irrigation) so the crops in there have really been outstanding. We have just started turning the first of those crops over to cold weather crops. One bed of eggplant was evaculated after they failed to thrive under the onslaught of a flea beetle invasion and last week the cucumber trellis finally failed under the hundreds of pounds of insanely productive vines. Winter carrots have already germinated in the former eggplant location and winter peas and cabbage are going into the cuke beds later this week.

The quick score sheet for the season would read:
Winning Teams:
high tunnel peppers, cukes, zucchini, heirloom tomatoes, chard & basil
bush and pole beans

Losing Teams:
garlic
field cabbages
beets

I promise to post some high tunnel and harvest pics later this week, and will try to be better at my weekly postings. Its at least a little easier now that its too dark to work outside after 8pm!

Today's Harvest 07/26/09

The high tunnels continue to perform admirably this season. The above photo is just today's harvest from the two tunnels. The harvest includes:
Cucumbers (2 varieties) : 45 lbs
Peppers (3 varieties) : 4.5 lbs
Tomatoes: (6 varieties) : 20 lbs
Zucchini (2 varieties) : 27 lbs

"Don't Touch My Tomatoes...

...or I'll cut your little arms off!"

Yes, this phrase was spoken in a strong tone at Blue Gate Farm this week. It was not exactly what it might seem though. You see, the zucchini in the high tunnel are beautifully healthy and growing aggressively. Several of them have gotten so big that they are now crossing the aisle and encroaching on my Big Zebra and Paul Robeson heirloom tomatoes. Nothing nobody, messes with my Paul Robeson tomatoes and gets away unscathed, so my warning was a sincere one.


Today, immediately after this photo was taken, the zuccs received a little reminder of my sincerity. You could almost hear the sighs of relief from the tomatoes.

In related news, the high tunnel trials continue to go well. To date, with the current crops in the tunnels, we have harvested:
Basil: 2.5 lbs
Bell Peppers:8 lbs
Cucumbers: 2 lbs
Eggplant: 1.5 lbs
Swiss Chard: 99 lbs
Zucchini: 63 lbs
Still no tomatoes yet, but they are looking promising.

The field-grown crops aren't doing quite as well. All the rain from the past 2 months pounded every bit of air from the soil and the sun then baked it into something resembling adobe bricks. Doesn't seem to hamper the weed growth, but the crops are suffering for it.

Update from the Mud Zone

While I try to resist it, there have been a few recent flashbacks to last year's flooding. The storms, the heavy rains, the wind, the weather radio going off in the middle of the night. Still though, I'm not complaining, truly things are no where near last year's mess. While we have had to replant a few crops, the bulk of them are doing well. Plus we still have not just one, but two high tunnels standing and full of crops (and promise.)

As I've mentioned before, we are participating in a season extension field trial with PFI to look at the profitability of high tunnels as compared to crops grown in the field. To that end we have the following currently planted:

High Tunnel #1 (26' x 48'):
Zucchini (Eight Ball & Sebring)
Tomatoes (Big Zebra & Paul Robeson)
Peppers (Ace, Golden Marconi & Wenk's Yellow Hots)
Eggplant (Listada De Gandia & Orient Express)



High Tunnel #2 (42' x 48'):
Peppers (Islander, Sunray & Mini Bells)
Basil (Genovese & Italian Large Leaf)
Tomatoes (Dr. Wychee, Juliet, Mule Team & Redfield Beauty)
Cucumbers (Diva & Suyo Long)
Swiss Chard (Bright Lights)
Eggplant (Ping Tung Long & Rosa Bianca)


In addition to minding our cultivated crops, we are also ready for the next wave of wild harvesting. The elderflowers are just coming into maturity and the mulberries and black raspberries are just starting to ripen. So many weeds to pull, crops to harvest and jams to make!

And now that the official start of summer is here, the temperatures are finally starting to feel like it. Late this past week, we made our first batch of herbal sun tea. Lemon balm and mountain mint...now that's refreshing!

And then it snowed...

I've been a little remiss in my blogging responsibilities recently, so here's a quick recap of the past week.

The bed prep work was completed in both high tunnels. In the big tunnel; salad beds, spinach, choi and chard are all sown and the irrigation system has been run for the entire tunnel. No pics 'cause it just doesn't look like much more than somewhat orderly soil.

Nothing sown yet in the original tunnel as it is all mid-season crops.

In a mad fit of early season tilling I hit the two pea beds and was able to get 1 row of each (snap & snow) peas sown before the rain.

Then the rain started and we got about 2" in 24 hours. I wont say that I wasn't having a few minor flashbacks to last season, but I'm optimistic that this will be a better year. We were more than happy to have missed the severe weather that plagued some areas of the state this time around.

The sunroom is taking on its normal spring "green fling" and its beginning to get a bit cramped in there. The cabbage, broccoli, garden huckleberry and ground cherry transplants have been sown and the largest tomatoes are about ready to move up to bigger pots.

On Thursday, we visited our friends at Coyote Run and were sent home with a significant volume of their lovely pullet eggs, which are too small to sell. SCORE! Since we butchered our old laying flock in December, and the new girls aren't laying yet, I've been missing fresh eggs. So what do you do when life (or friends) hands you 8 dozen little eggs? You make pasta, lots and lots of pasta!

Luckily my parents are out of town, so I was able to take over all the horizontal surfaces at their cabin for pasta-drying purposes. I made 8 lbs of our standard Herbed Wheat Noodles and about 2 lbs of a new recipe of plain semolina pasta. I've mentioned in the past that I LOVE my pasta machine, and this just reaffirmed my feelings, that little chunk of stainless steel and rollers is a beautiful thing.

Here's about 3/4 of the yield, it doesn't look like much,

but the table is 4' x 6'

And like the title says, after all this unseasonably warm weather, this morning we woke up to 3" - 4" of snow. You gotta love Iowa in the spring!

Something Old, Something New

With the recent beautiful weather and the impending rain, I've been pushing to get as many garden chores done as possible. The new high tunnel has been the priority because the earliest crops are scheduled to go in there and should have been sown 5 days ago.

Since we got the tunnel covered before the rain, I thought we were in good shape, then the frost came out of the ground and it was a muddy, compacted mess. GRRRRRR! So I had to wait until things dried out a bit, as working soil too wet will basically ruin it for the season.

Finally after several warm, windy days things were improving in there so given my patient nature (yeah right) I decided to help things along a bit. I attached the cultivator to my wheel hoe (photo above) and broke up the soil surface so that the air would circulate and dry out the lower layers. It was brutal work and I thanked my lucky stars that the rows in there are only 42' long. It took me an evening and a morning to get through all the beds, but by the second day things were really looking up.

Now it was time to bring in the big tools, no not the tiller...the really big tools! We hooked up my dad's Polaris Ranger 4-wheeler to the old springtooth harrow and pulled it the length of each bed, then unhooked it and carried it to the next bed. It was a little goofy, but it did wonders. The harrow lifts and aerates the soil without turning it over...it is an excellent tool for improving air circulation and eliminating compaction while maintaining the established soil structure.

Finally yesterday things were greatly improved, so the composting stage began...one wheelbarrow load at a time. Luckily the finished compost, which came to us from Reichert's Dairy Air a year ago, is fairly close to the tunnels, but it required about 18 wheelbarrow loads. Once the beds were composted, the "modern" tools came into play. I generally prefer not to till vegetable beds, but since these are brand new, they really required a pass with the big tiller. Now the beds in both tunnels have gotten their spring treatment and are all ready for planting...whew!

Standing Tall

I'm a little slow posting about the new high tunnel progress this week. Partly because the progress has  slowed and it got damn cold, so other things took precedence.

So now here is the great unveiling...our two high tunnels standing side-by-side in all their muddy glory!

You can see the significant difference in their sizes. They are the same length but HT1 is 26' wide and 12' tall where HT2 is 42' wide and 15' tall.

The lovely cages in the foreground are year-old fruit trees being somewhat protected from maurading deer and rabbits. The giant martin house in the background was made a couple of years ago by my 93-year-old great uncle.

Again we want to take the opportunity to thank everyone who helped on both of these projects, but special thanks to our recent wonder-crew: Dad, Grandpa, Don, Patty, Lois, Ben and especially Paul. Also a never spoken enough thanks to Mom who always keeps us fed and hydrated during our big projects!

High Tunnel - The Big One

With thunderstorms predicted for this weekend, we decided on a marathon dash to get the newest (and largest) high tunnel completed.  This tunnel is a different variety than the previous ones, it is called a "Colossal" and is nearly double the width of our previous tunnels. It measures a whopping 42' wide by 48' long by 15' tall. The ribs and top purlin had all gone in over the late fall and winter, so it was just a matter of completing the internal structure and skinning it.

In case you've never had the joy of installing a structure, the finishing and skinning can take the longest time and require the most specific weather conditions. Imagine lifting two 55' by 60' sheets of plastic over a domed structure in breezy conditions. You just can't do it. So we knew we had one shot yesterday and we pushed like crazy to get it done. Although "done" is somewhat misleading, as there is still at least a full day's work to actually finish the structure itself, we are covered and thus protected from precipitation which was the critical stage to accomplish.

As with past high tunnels, we were incredibly lucky to have the assistance of family and friends to get to this stage. Huge and heartfelt THANK YOU to said family and friends! Unfortunately, we were all so busy working that no one had the chance to take "work in progress" pictures, but here is a picture from the manufacturers website showing the completed structure.

For those of you who are mystified with the basis of all this "high tunnel" talk, a brief explanation...
We own two high tunnels #1) 26' x 48' and #2) 42' x 48'. They are structures that we use for season extension of our vegetable and herb growing for market and CSA. They are passive solar structures that allow us to grow certain varieties of vegetables in the ground year-round without additional heat or light. Here is a picture of our smaller tunnel complete with growing crops from December.

With the outside mostly complete on the Colossal, it is now time for me to start concentrating on the inside. There is much tilling and bed preparation to be done before I'm am ready to sow those new rows. According to my calendar, I need to be putting seeds in the ground in the tunnels by the 15th. Whew! Spring is coming fast!

Happy Candlemas

Really I should have said, happy belated Candlemas, because yesterday was the actual date. According to the Old Farmers Almanac,

Candlemas was originally a Celtic festival celebrating the fact that the days were getting longer and spring was not far off.

Well I am all for celebrating that! The past few days could have made one believe that spring is actually on its way. Bring it on!

Actually, I am getting a little ahead of myself. I am on my way out to clear the last of the spinach out of the high tunnel and once that is done, I need several days of good cold temps to freeze the top soil layer. This kills off the aphids and some of the fungi that can build up in a high tunnel. So a little scheduled freezing is a good thing. Then I will be all ready to sow the beds in March for the early farmers market.

Cooler Salad

I should have titled this post, 'colder than-all-get-out' salad! Its a nippy 3° outside, but with the sunny afternoon today, the high tunnel was downright balmy! It is supposed to get down to -15° tonight, so I will likely loose what's left in the high tunnel. Ah well, it's about time to freeze it off anyway.

However, I want to take salad to the Prairie Spinners party on Friday night, but temps like this call for special harvesting techniques. Basically it means taking a cooler out to the HT, letting it warm up to the inside temperature and then harvesting directly into the cooler. Before leaving the HT, I sealed the top and bustled back to the house. Without some serious insulating, the salad would have frozen by the time I got back inside. Its kind of a goofy process, but it means we will have green salad with swiss chard, spinach, lettuce, beet greens, baby beets, carrots and violas for Friday. For fresh greens at this time of year, I will do just about anything.

Salad 'a la Coleman Cooler'

Good Morning Sunshine

It was a balmy 15 ° when I woke up this morning, but one look out the window compelled me to throw on my coat and boots run outside, climb over the icy gate and stomp into the now-barren hayfield to snap this photo. I know the focus isn't great, but the color was just too vibrant to pass up.

We finally managed to celebrate Christmas with my family last night and much fun was had by all. Among the many fun and very generous gifts was a new sled for me (woohoo!) So I have a sledding date later today with my 3 yr old nephew "Z" on the one remaining snowy slope that leads out onto the lower pond.

In addition to our holiday celebration yesterday, we spent the late morning installing the remaining ribs and center purlin for the new high tunnel...big celebratory cheer!! We may actually have the silly thing ready for April planting after all. Huge thanks to my dad and BIL Sean for their continuing help on the HT project.

A refreshing Solstice

Yep, we are enjoying a high temperature today of -3° here on the first official day of Winter. The wind is adding to the excitement with Wind Chills of 30° to 40° below zero. The good news is that starting today, the days will begin to get longer. The plants still in the High Tunnel (carrots, beets, spinach and chard are now in stasis and wont change much at all for the next month, but by the end of January, we will start to new new, measurable growth. Its amazing what the increasing day length will do. But for now, tuck in ya'll we're in for a cold winter's night.

Good Stuff Aplenty

What a lovely Thanksgiving we had here on the farm. Several days of nicer than expected weather topped off with family gatherings and lots of good food, who could ask for more?

We started the celebration by moving the chicks up to their new indoor pen. At this stage they grow so fast. They started out all in one stock tank, then we divided them in half and added a second stock tank. Now they are in their final indoor enclosure, the "chick corral." In the next 7-10 days they will be sufficiently feathered to move out to the winter coop (along with the heat lamps to keep them toasty warm.)

Still cute, but headed for that "awkward teenager" stage

Then I spent the rest of Thursday morning harvesting carrots and beets from the high tunnel to add to our some of our stored root vegetables (onions, shallots, garlic, turnips and potatoes). These were all scrubbed (not peeled), tossed together in olive oil & seasonings and roasted for about 45 minutes...delicious!

oiled, seasoned and ready for the oven

Our big accomplishment for the weekend was enabled by a beautiful (50°) day on Friday and lots of family help. With this combination we were able to get over half of the remaining ribs up on the new (bigger) high tunnel. All fall our goal has been to have this tunnel up before the ground freezes. We're cutting it close, but I think we just might make it.

The new "Colossal" high tunnel with its first four ribs in place

Saturday afternoon we were happy to have visitors (of the non-family persuasion) to the farm. A neat family that will become our "neighbors" next month. Ya'll know that here in the country, anyone within a 40 mile radius that you identify with is "a neighbor." What a pleasant time, to sit and visit with interesting people who have many of the same goals for their farm as we have for ours, all the while sipping coffee and apple cider and watching the snow fall outside. Yep, it was a weekend to be thankful for!