Thursday, May 31, 2012


This week has been all about cherries... 
(Jim helping out the gardening team - with a little help from Blue)



 
The sour cherries came in a little early, and have come in abundance with almost 80 pounds picked so far.  We are currently about halfway through on just the first pick, so there are a lot more to go. We had the Rappahanock high school horticulture class out for a tour and they helped us pick for an hour, and this morning the folks from the kitchen were out in the trees as well.  All the delicious fruit is then brought in, pitted and made into amazing tarts and pies. Lots of work for all involved but well worth it.

It was great to have the kids out yesterday, seeing teenagers interested in gardening/farming always makes me happy.  There are many factors contributing to the decline in agriculture in America, but one is that there are too few young people getting into farming to replace all those that are ageing out of the business. Fortunately there are more and more folks getting interested in agriculture as a career, and the more we support our local growers, the more viable a career it will become.

As I was spraying fish fertilizer at 5:30 am (after working till almost 8 the night before) it occurred to me (as it has many times) how much dedication and passion it takes to run even a small farm successfully.  Plants always need something; water, fertilizer, or help with the pests and weeds, they never take the day off. It could be100 degrees or cold and raining but the “to do” list is never finished. That being said, I do take the occasional afternoon to myself, and of course I have the winter months to relax and recharge, you have to find balance where you can.  Agriculture is not a career choice, it is a lifestyle choice, and there are great benefits to be found as well. You get to be outside playing in the dirt all day (and at least in Virginia, it seems that most days are nice weather), my dog (the previously mentioned Blue) comes to work with me, and I get to eat better, fresher food than most people I know.  For me the decision to be a farmer was a no brainer, there is nothing better than going home at night with the feeling of accomplishment I get from growing food for people.

So, this week, besides all the cherry picking, we have also planted watermelons, winter squash, gourds and more cutting flowers. I pruned and trellised all of the tomatoes. The rainbow carrots, salsify and scorzonera have popped up, and the fava bean pods are finally forming. We are harvesting the last of the pac choi and radishes, as well as turnips, strawberries, peas, beets, broccoli, fennel, kohlrabi, frisee, lettuce, swiss chard, summer squash, squash blossoms and herbs. Next week will be more hot weather and of course more cherries!!!

Thursday, May 24, 2012


It has been an interesting week.  We have had more bug battles; cucumber beetle, flea beetle, whitefly, aphids, cabbage moth and slugs. I’m still on my Neem/ Pyganic spray which seems to be holding the populations of cucumber beetle, flea beetle down, but of course they and their damage are still evident in the garden.  I have also ordered 2000 green lace wing eggs to release in both of the greenhouses, and I am hoping they will take care of the last of the whiteflies and aphids. In the larval stage they are voracious eaters consuming more than 200 insects each before they mature. For the slugs I found an organic bait made by Espoma, which seems to be working, and a consistent spray regimen of Dipel (an organic Bt) is working well for the cabbage worms.  Organic gardening requires targeting individual insects with individual solutions, where as conventional agriculture takes a “kill em all” approach. Sevin, for example is something a lot of people use in their conventional gardens to great success, killing all pests in sight. Unfortunately they are also potentially killing earthworms, honey bees, bumble bees lady bugs as well as a plethora of other beneficial insects and soil microbes.


(cucumber beetles cleverly color coordinated on a squash blossom)

            Ok, enough about insects, lets talk about tomatoes. 


We put in our second generation of tomatoes this week, and the rain is watering them in nicely. I like to do two plantings in the garden because even though they are all indeterminate varieties (meaning they ripen over a period of time, as opposed to determinate varieties which all ripen at once) they still have a time of peak production which it is better to space out. For slicing tomatoes we went pretty basic this year with a few classic red heirloom varieties like Moskovich and Mule Team, and backed them up with a few hybrids such as Martha Washington and Orange Blossom.  I put in a sun drying variety as well called Principe Borghesi , which has a low water content so that the fruit can be sliced in half and dried in the greenhouse in just a few hours. For cherry tomatoes we have a wider variety; red and yellow pear, red, yellow and pink grape, a red round cherry and of course sun gold (voted as the sweetest cherry tomato).  The currant tomatoes have all been planted in hanging baskets to make them easier to pick.  Sweet Pea was the favorite last year so mostly I have planted those with a few Tess’s Land Race, and Red Delicious Currant. And last but certainly not least Husk Cherries, also known as Pineapple Tomatillos or Cape Gooseberries.  These little lanterned beauties are sweet and smoky, they make a great jam or even sauce for a nice fatty meat.

            This week we are harvesting lettuce, frisee, kohlrabi, beets, turnips, radishes, broccoli, swiss chard, pac choi, and strawberries.  Also keep your eye out for wild mulberry trees, the fruit is perfect right now, and very easy to pick. Hopefully next week when I check in I’ll still be winning my bug battles, and we will have a few more items on the harvest list such as sour cherries and fennel. See you then.

                                     (sage blossoms used to garnish our Rhubarb Tart)

                                    (baby broccoli growing away)

                                  (How the garden grows - it's remarkably tall for the end of May.)

Friday, May 18, 2012

Cucumbers in the Hoop House
The new hoop house is keeping the cucumbers safe from insect damage.  They seem really happy and are growing beautifully.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Off to a Very Quick Start


Well it has been a while since I have checked in with garden news, and the season is off to a quick start.  With the warm weather we have had so far, I have been able to get a little jump on planting. Unfortunately, all of the warm weather has given the bugs an advantage as well.  For example I put in some cucumber plants last week, and within about twelve hours the cucumber beetles had turned the leaves to lace.  I sprayed with a pyganic/neem blend (all organic of course) to deal with them and now 10 days later they seem to be recovering. Neem is an amazing product derived from trees in India, it can be used as a fungicide, as well as a pesticide.  It doesn’t kill the pests but disrupts their reproduction and if sprayed throughout the garden once a week, it can be a great asset.  The pyganic is derived from chrysanthemum flowers and does kill pests for a short period after application, therefore I always spray in the evenings, and never on flowers so that I don’t hurt our friends the bees.

            Most of the other plants have also gone into the garden; the first generation of tomatoes went in on the 3rd, as well as the peppers, eggplant, and the first of the summer squash.  I have the majority of our cucumber and melon plants in an insect-free house, to protect them from those pesky cucumber beetles. They are already close to 3 feet tall, with hundreds of miniscule cucumbers hanging down. The cucumber plants are all parthenocarpic (meaning they don’t need pollination to set fruit) and the melons will be pollinated by bumble bees we bring into the house later in the season.

            So far the season is progressing well, with a few hiccups of course.  The peas have started putting out pods, fava beans are flowering, and the fennel is starting to fatten up.  The carrot and French bean seeds are in the ground and expected to pop up any day now. This week we are harvesting radishes, Japanese turnips, lettuce, frisee, pac choi, swiss chard, baby beets, kale, strawberries, herbs, demi and micro greens.  In the next few days we will plant the second set of tomatoes, parsley and squash, more beets and lettuce. I will check in again soon.

Happy gardening…



Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Birth of a Farmer

My love affair with farming started 10 years ago, when a friend of mine and I decided to drive cross country for as long as we could afford to do so. After several fun filled months of camping out, eating ramen noodles, and working horrible temp jobs, we ran out of money.  I found myself living in my car, and looking for work.  I had always had an interest in organic food, and small scale, diversified agriculture, so when I saw an ad for a farm in Massachusetts that provided housing, I decided to drive up for an interview with my entire life in my car.  Luckily I was hired, moved in and started the next day. I looked at the job as something fun to get me out of my present situation, while giving me the summer to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life.  I had a bachelor’s degree in biology, but had no idea what to with it.  All I knew was that I never wanted to work in an office.

By the time that summer was in full swing, I had found my calling. I adored working hard all day, and collapsing in to my bed at night with the knowledge that I had really accomplished some thing. From there I worked on a string of farms on the east coast. During the winter I worked and volunteered at various other farms in warmer climates.  I picked avocadoes and oranges in California, helped to repair the dams on a rice paddy in Thailand, and worked for a month on a farm in Northern India.

As I get older I seem to spend the winter on vacation, though I still see as many farms as possible wherever I go. I always seem to learn a new technique, or discover a new vegetable that I haven’t seen before.  I just returned from India where I toured several farms in the Andaman Islands, as well as in Goa, where their number one pest seems to be monkeys.  The monkeys delight in pulling out plants, general destruction, as well as eating the produce.  I had no helpful advice for them as their pest has opposable thumbs and I can barely keep deer out of our garden. I did come back with other ideas for this year however, and I’m excited to try them out.

How did you first discover your professional passion?  Did you always know or was it something you discovered along the way?

A few photos from my trips to India.