Sunday, July 8, 2012

We are just now catching up on the farm enough to update our woefully neglected blog. It has started out to be a hot and dry summer and looks to be more like this for the rest of the summer. In an effort to conserve water we have been installing drip irrigation throughout the farm. The water comes out of plastic tubing and concentrated only where the plants are growing.
See the drip irrigation on the broccoli and greens

Another new thing we are trying this year is pruning and trellising our tomatoes in the hoop house. The tomatoes are supposed to put more energy into their fruit instead of their foliage. Hopefully this means more tomatoes for you, our CSA members.
See our happy trellised tomatoes. Notice the red mulch. Supposedly they do better on it, so we are experimenting to see. Also notice the drip irrigation in our hoop house.



Thursday, May 3, 2012

Spring in the Montana!

Hello an Happy May Day!

Spring is, as usual, teasing us hear in Montana. I have been able to plant peas, early greens, yummy salad turnips, and some early flowers. We are actually quite early compared to last year and are right on schedule for our first share to be delivered on June 11th. Below you can see the peas poking through the ground and our garlic looking quite good.
We planted significantly more garlic this year--so that means more for you! We have been saving seed from our collective stock over the past three years. Ben's is from Judy Fisher in Belgrade, and mine from a garlic farmer in Livingston.


The greenhouse roofing saga continues, but we should be finishing that up by this weekend! As you can see we have outgrown our little sunroom and are excited to move everything over to the greenhouse soon.


Plants in the sunroom--ready for a new home!




Sunday, April 15, 2012

We're back at it!

We are gearing up for another season. This year we are expanding our membership. If you know of anyone interested please forward them the link to our blog site! The sign up sheet is now available on our site, but they can also email with any questions they might have.

Some new features this year...
  • I have added a flower CSA to the farm. For $150.00 you will receive a weekly bouquet late June through mid September. 
  • New bags! Each CSA member will receive our own sturdy bags made from recycled chicken feed bags.
 We are building a greenhouse to handle all of the new starts for our expansion. Ben's handywork is converting a storage building into a greenhouse with recycled windows. We are very close. Below is a picture of our work so far. It should be ready to keep our plants nice and cozy in a week or so:

As much as we love the chickens, they were wreaking havoc on the entire property. We discovered that they must have a bit of termite in them because there were holes everywhere and they ate every little green bit they could get their beaks on. Ben and I stealthily moved them to their "summer quarters" and clipped their wings last Saturday night (our idea of date night). Now they can eat all of the grass and their poop will provide much needed nutrients to the beds. Here they are in their new home:

The season seems early, so I planted peas outside in hopes that we will have them for our first or second delivery. I will also plant another round in a few weeks along with greens and such. We seem to be on time for our June 15th delivery target. We look forward to serving you again this season!