Category Archives: The Garden

Animals, Edible, Farm life, Sustain, The Garden

Shelter from the Storm: Why Farm Structures Matter

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side of shed squibby coopWhen you begin growing vegetables and raising animals on even the very smallest of farms, you quickly learn that there are three uber-important issues to deal with: 1) Land, of course. (How much space do you have? How healthy is your soil?) 2) Water. (Where is your source? How will you get it to where you need it? Will you have enough?) and 3. Structures. (Where will you need them? How will you build them?)

Number three might surprise you. But as I walked around the farm in the snow this morning, indulging myself in photos of frosted branches and frolicking hens, I realized how often I focused on the door of a shed, the mullions of a window, the turn of a gate. Out in the back field, I stopped to turn around and take a picture of the farm from afar, and I realized just how many structures Roy has built since we moved here.

farm from back field

While the chickens are happy to hop about the snow (which they sort of peck at instead of drinking their partially frozen water), they dart in and out of their coops when the wind comes up. (Outside, they keep themselves warm by puffing up their feathers to trap air.) And tonight when the bitter cold and wind comes, they will be warm, bunched up together on their roosts, inside their locked coops, safe from predators.  We have 8 coops now—one in the process of being converted into a duck house. One coop also incorporates a small area for holding grain.

chickens tractor 1 chickens snow coop

ara perky

farm stand snowWe have a farm stand structure, which includes a back room where we do all our egg processing. (The front functions as the farm stand and holds the egg refrigerator for customers.)

We have two tool sheds and one grain bin/shed. Roy has converted part of one of the tool sheds into a “walk-in,” an insulated room for keeping eggs from freezing.

The grain bin down by our five  biggest coops holds some hay for nesting boxes and coop floors, too. But we could use a bigger area to store hay.

hoop house trees

And of course we have the hoop house, where much to my dismay, everything—kale, collards, baby bok choy, lettuce, arugula—is thriving, despite this cold.

kale hoop collards hoop bok choy hoop lettuce hoop

Everything inside the hoop house is also under two layers of cover—one fabric, one plastic. And the actual temperature in there this morning was above freezing!

hoop plastic hoop thermom

The hoop house is an incredible structure—not only does it protect from the elements, but based on what we’ve sold out of it versus how much it cost to build, it’s a money-maker, too.

 

snowy path

And fencing—well, that is one of your top-of-the-list structures on a farm. Lots of post-hole digging and deer-fence-erecting went on here, not only to protect our crops, but to create very large (semi-)protected pastures for our chickens. (Additional guy wires cover the pens; they’re intended to discourage hawks but don’t always work.) We were lucky to have a good deal of property-delineating fencing (like that above) in place when we arrived.

We don’t have a barn—yet. Roy has converted a small former garage on the property into his workshop. Long ago, there was a grand barn on this farm (the remaining stone foundation is where we housed the pigs this summer), but it would cost a fortune to erect a new one there. (Oh, and the pig pen itself was another structure! The stone foundation formed three walls, but Roy repurposed old railroad ties and wood pallets to make a secure fourth wall and gate.)

green doorWhich brings me around to the cost-of-structure issue. Always a good idea to look far ahead and budget for these things, as we did this year for the farm stand, the new coops, and the grain bin.

And then, salvage, salvage, salvage.

Roy recycles as much old (usable) wood, windows, doors and hardware as he can. (People actually bring us stuff now, too—recycling is a way of life here on the Island. Witness the compost pile, below, of donated horse manure.)

compost pile in snow

But of course you need someone to do the building, too. We are very lucky here on Green Island Farm to have a farmer who is also a licensed builder, but partnering or bartering with someone with carpentry skills can be a good plan. Keeping the structures as simple and efficient as possible is important, too. For a small operation on a budget, fancy is not practical. Also, living with a problem for a little while, if possible, can present the best solution.

milk canAll this reminds me to tell you that I’m pretty excited that some of our resident builder’s designs have been included in a special appendix in my new book. So when you get your copy of Fresh From the Farm, be sure to turn to the back of the book for drawings of a great small chicken coop, a basic farm stand, a covered raised bed, and a seed-starting system. (Thank you, Roy!)

In the meantime, stay warm and dry. (I almost forgot that part—you need a house, too, to shelter the farmers. Nothing fancy, though. Remember, they don’t spend too much time inside.)

buoys snow

 

Edible, Farm life, Sustain, The Garden, The Recipes

Capturing Time in a Basket of Blue Eggs

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Just like that, the frost came, the leaves fell, the days shortened, and the blue eggs appeared. Sometimes, there isn’t a logic to what happens on the farm, and since change is constant around here, it’s easy to miss the subtle shifts. But then you walk outside one morning and it hits you—another season on the farm has gone by and while you’re already busy planning for the next one, there’s one right here, right now. A spectacular moment in time, one that can’t necessarily be defined or pinned down, just marveled at.

There’s really no corollary between golden leaves and blue eggs; it just happens that the Aracaunas (who grew big and beautiful over the summer) started to lay in earnest this week and we finally have a whole clutch of blue and green eggs to ogle. We’ve been wondering if all the eggs would be the color of Sugar’s—a paler shade of Robin’s egg blue. So far there’s a murky tidal green, a Sugary blue, and one true teal.

The Aracaunas themselves match the leaves that are falling by the zillions, Roy raking them up in bursts of energy while I avoid that least favorite task as best I can. I do haul a cart or two into the garden every now and then, as I am ripping out dead veggie plants, adding compost to garden beds and covering them up with leaves and mulch for the winter. I am weighing down the leaves with spent sunflower and zinnia stalks, which are as stiff as bamboo.

I am also nursing the hoop house back to life, filling beds with transplants and seeds, harvesting arugula and kale, discouraging mice. We are curing pumpkins and winter squash for the first time in the green house, too. I’m especially excited about the Japanese kabocha squash we grew in the back field, though I hope we didn’t harvest it too soon. The vines weren’t quite dry, but they needed to come out for Roy to finish prepping the new field, which is looking spiffy.

And wouldn’t you know it, just ahead of the freezing weather, Roy reached water with the well pipe he’s been driving, driving, driving down into the ground. The new well will provide a closer water source for the 500 chickens and will also irrigate the new field next summer.

Overnight, the summer veggies disappeared from the farm stand. I decided not to foist any more green tomatoes or free jalapenos off on anyone, though we’re still harvesting greens and packing them up for egg customers to discover in the fridge.

The skies darkened and the first rains came over the weekend, happily driving us inside to play board games with Libby. Or I should say, to lose to Libby while playing board games. The marathon Gardenopoly tournament ended like this: Libby—$8,000 and every single property; Dad—bankrupt; Susie—$1. Watching her squirm with delight is one of those moments in time that I really wish I could pin down. As she barrels (or more accurately, skips and runs) towards 12 years old, I want to stay here in 11-year-old world with her just a little longer.

One thing I know for sure: While my memory isn’t so great any more, and some of these moments are going to get fuzzy for me down the road, Libby won’t forget. She’s got a whole lifetime to carry happy farm memories forward. Blue eggs and crazy colorful chickens. Leaf piles and fairy houses. Blustery days, board games, beach walks. Arrowheads, deer antlers, sharks teeth, starfish. Turtles, garden snakes, baby skunks. Owl spotting, sheep watching, pig petting. And hanging out with her best furry friend—Farmer, of course.

Edible, The Garden, The Recipes

Field to Freezer: Sweet Corn for Christmas

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You can have your Santa with his big sack of toys, any old day. Our Santa leaves something much more delicious—bushel bags of sweet corn. Instead of showing up only one night a year, he drops by every other day. And he doesn’t come down the chimney. At least I don’t think he does, because the sack of corn is always down by the northernmost farm gate. (And we don’t have a chimney). But I never see Santa. He and his elves alight in the cornfield and disappear among the tall rows of corn stalks. On my way down to do my chicken chores, I’ll glance at the gate, but nothing’s there. Half an hour later, about the time the sun is just high enough for me to peel off a layer, I circle around the pine grove and, look, there it is! A big bag of fresh-picked corn.

With Roy gone to work, I’m left to find something with wheels to haul the bag up to the farm stand. I don’t mind the effort, because I always start smiling when I see that corn. What could be better than having oodles of fresh sweet corn around! This week we’re getting a variety called Sparkle—last week one called Providence, and my favorite, old-fashioned all-white Silver Queen.

Okay, truth is, Santa is really Morning Glory Farm farmer Simon Athearn, and the elves are his corn-picking farm crew. (But I really don’t see them.) We get to sell their delicious corn at the farm stand this time of year, as their late varieties are growing right next door to us.

Inevitably, an ear or two or three meanders off the farm stand and into our refrigerator. (You know, you can’t sell an ear that someone’s ripped the leaves off of, or that maybe fell on the um, ground, or something.) So we are having this totally lovely corn-every-night-in-October experience. (Try this.)

The corn is so good and there’s so much of it right here, that we decided to “reappropriate” a dozen (or so) ears today and get them processed for the freezer.

Blanching and freezing corn is not rocket science. (See easy direx here.) But I remember doing it a few years back and not being so happy about the results after a few months in the freezer. So I took extra care today not to overcook or waterlog the corn and to spread it out on sheet pans to freeze before packing. (I wish you didn’t have to blanch it at all, but you must or an enzyme will hasten the deterioration of the corn).

To my great relief, we now have sweet corn in the freezer for the cold months. We could even have it for Christmas, no Santa needed.

Animals, Edible, Farm life, The Garden, The Recipes

Where the Wild Things Grow

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I swear, the garden (and the hoop house, too, for that matter) have a strange and wonderful life all their own. Who knows what goes on behind the gate when you’re not there?  Start with bees, birds, butterflies, moths, spiders, beetles, chipmunks, crows, sparrows, slugs, crickets and frogs. Add blossoms, shoots, vines, suckers, spores, weeds, seeds, fruit. Then Water. Wind. Sun. Pollination. Photosynthesis. And all that above ground—you can’t even begin to name the players down below.

Now throw in some man-made stuff. A trellis, a fence, a rope, a pot, a stake, a spade, a cart, a bench. At night, the wild things secretly romance and spar and dance and croon and sidle up and tangle over and generally do what they do. Because you’re not looking.

It’s only in the morning when you shuffle across the dewy grass and open the gate…or in the evening when the light is dying and you finally remember to check on those hoophouse tomatoes…that you see. And even then you must be paying attention or you will miss something great or weird or funny. But you will always find something satisfying, something that’s grown another foot or finally started to bear fruit.

Here are a few surprises from this week on Green Island Farm. (Admittedly, not all of them are nature-made. There are two farmers working on this farm, and very often one is doing something that the other doesn’t even know about it. Until stumbling upon it.)

This is definitely the weirdest thing I’ve seen in a while: A Patty Pan squash plant on steroids, I guess. I have no idea why this happens, but where one or two blossoms are supposed to be, there are literally hundreds–and dozens of fruits already forming. This surfaced beneath the UFO-Saucer sized leaves (right) of one of the hoop-house squash plants.

Also seemingly overnight, the cucumber plants climbed up to the top of the hoophouse, unleashed a shower of little yellow blossoms, and began to spit out little spiny cucumbers.

By sunset, the cucumbers were full-grown. Okay, maybe not sunset of the same day, but it really seemed that way.

 

Out in the garden, there were strange going-ons everywhere. One day I found Farmer meditating by the bush beans. Or perhaps he was praying, I don’t know. But the next day, I collected our first nice batch of beans. Farmer might have some special communication powers I don’t know about.

 

Weird balloons, fake birds, fake snakes, and other puzzling man-made objects also began to show up in the garden this week. Then one day, the plastic falcon moved, presumably to protect a ripening Early Girl from a sparrow attack. He knows his job.

The balloons with the eyeballs are just plain creepy (wait until Libby sees these), and I do a double-take every time I see them. They seem to be working though; nothing goes near them. Go figure.

Of course, there are some pretty accidents, too. (Or maybe they’re not accidents.) This year, the daisies, coneflowers, and daylilies made friends, completely unintroduced by us. Who knew they would get along so well?  (About as well as the eggplants and green peppers, which are neighbors, too.)

And finally, there are just some things that happen on the farm that you really can’t explain. If you remember, we brought home two pigs a few months ago. If you look very carefully in this photo of our pigs, there are three heads. I couldn’t get them all to look at the camera at the same time, but trust me, we’re feeding three fast-growing, mud-loving, root-grubbing pigs. Which is why their pen doubled in size. (How that happened, I’ll never know.)

 

 

You really have to keep your eyes open around here.

 

Edible, Farm life, The Garden

My 40-Carrot Parents

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By now, I doubt my parents are surprised by anything I do. I’ve dragged them along through three (maybe four) different careers, from North Carolina to New York City to Newport and Newtown. Surely this latest venture—farming on Martha’s Vineyard—has given them a chuckle (and a wrinkle) or two. But they’ve never been anything but supportive.

Still, I don’t think they realized that Roy and I were going to put them to work as farm hands when they came to visit last week.

We didn’t have a choice. I don’t get to see my parents much, and I didn’t want to miss spending time with them. But the farm stand has been hopping and there are a zillion plants still to get in the ground (not to mention the daily farm chores of harvesting and egg collecting and washing), and no matter how early you get up, half the day slips by in a heartbeat.

So we had family farm time. This is a most excellent concept, I tell you. Now I know why farmers traditionally had big families. Lots of help! Help that already speaks your language, knows your quirks, and can interpret instructions without a lot of explanation.

Granted my parents, though they are not exactly young anymore (they don’t want me to embarrass them, but they’re probably used to that, too, by now), know their way around plants and fresh food. My Dad is a talented landscape gardener and long-time plantsman, so asking him to turn over soil was like asking him to put on his socks. (And turn over soil he did, de-weeding a huge bed and making it tomato-ready in only a few hours.) My Mom is a great cook and vegetable lover, so asking her to help wash and pack greens was a no-brainer.

Even better than all their physical help was just having them here at the farm to meet friends and customers as they came to the stand. One morning I asked my dad to set up all the tomato plants for our sale (we’ve sold more than 125 tomato plants in the last week or so), and customers started to arrive while he was doing this. He was awesome with the ladies, and convinced one woman to buy five plants!

So he asked me what his commission was, and I handed him a freshly picked English shell pea—the first pod to plump up on the vine. Absolutely delicious, he mused. And each morning I set aside little baby carrots for Mom, who loved these sweet and crunchy treats that are now coming out of the hoop house.

They were plenty happy with the peas and carrots, and even happier with the fresh salads we ate at night from the garden. Cheap help, yes, but still the most precious kind. At this point in my life, I feel lucky to have two healthy parents who are willing to drive hundreds of miles to see me (and bring treats, too, like a chest freezer and a table saw!). So what the heck, today I think I’ll call them my 40-carrot parents.

Edible, Farm life, Sustain, The Garden

Forty Days on Green Island Farm: A Year of Moments

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January 22, 2012

February 9

February 23, 2012

March 17, 2012

March 18, 2012

March 19, 2012

April 6, 2012

April 11, 2012

April 29, 2012

May 4, 2012

May 10, 2012

May 28, 2012

June 14, 2012

June 16, 2012

June 17, 2012

June 20, 2012

June 28, 2012

June 29, 2012

June 30, 2012

July 18, 2012

August 2, 2012

August 5, 2012

August 21, 2012

August 24, 2012

August 30, 2012

August 31, 2012

September 6, 2012

September 7, 2012

September 9, 2012

October 6, 2012

October 22, 2012

October 23, 2012

October 24, 2012

October 28, 2012

November 10, 2012

November 22, 2012

November 23, 2012

November 24, 2012

December 13, 2012

December 16, 2012

Happy 2013 to everyone, from Susie, Roy, Libby, Farmer, Cocoa Bunny, Ellie the Love Bird, and 254 hens!

Farm life, Sustain, The Garden

Waiting for Sandy: Hurricane Prep, Farm-Style

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I’ve lived my whole life within a few miles (sometimes a few feet) of major coastlines, so hurricane prep is something I’m accustomed to. However, the possible combination of frequent 70-mile per hour gusts, 60 live animals, and a recently constructed parachute-like structure called a hoop house is a new one for me. And I noticed yesterday that Roy was being particularly meticulous about nailing and weighting and tying things down. Hmmm. The last time we had hurricane warnings, he seemed fairly nonplussed. This one, not so much.

So it is safe to say we have a healthy degree of concerned anticipation (I wouldn’t call it anxiety) about what Hurricane Sandy might bring our way. Frankly, I’m more worried about my parents in Delaware and my friends in Connecticut, where the storm will bring much more rain and flooding. But we do have a responsibility to protect live critters. We’ve done our best to secure the hoop house, and even if the greenhouse film rips and writhes in the wind, leaving us with a mess, we can replace it and fix it, no problem. The hope is that no other supposedly immovable objects start acting like projectiles around the yard, with the potential to hurt us or the animals.

Moving Cocoa Bunny into the barn was the first and most obvious precaution. (We’ve done this with previous storms.) Her cage is easy to lift, and she will be happy and snug through the two days of high winds. (My lifelong friend Liz Pardoe Gray is here visiting and snapped the pic of Susie and Roy.) Also obvious this time was clearing the farm stand completely and turning it over before the wind has a chance to do that (like it did in last fall’s Nor’ Easter). We had to wait until later in the afternoon to do this, though, because we had the farm stand open to sell eggs today. We put out 7 1/2 dozen—everything we collected yesterday and today, thinking we wouldn’t put out any tomorrow or Tuesday—and they all sold. Not surprising, really—Vineyarders may be hunkering down, but they’re still going to eat well!

For the seven older chickens, we’ll let them go into their coop tonight, supply them with extra water and feed, and not let them out into their yard in the morning. They have spacious digs, so they will be fine hanging out inside the coop. This afternoon we corralled the bigger flock of 48 into the small permanent pen adjacent to their coop—much less area for them to roam around in, but also much less chance of breaking tree limbs crashing down on them. (Some of them needed more convincing than others to leave their new grazing area, so Roy helped them along.) We will probably let them go back out into that limited area in the morning, though we’ve put an extra waterer in the coop in case that turns out to be a bad idea. They’d probably rather wander in and out of the rain and wind instead of being “cooped up” together all day. We’ll also need to get in the coop to collect eggs and that can be difficult with all of them in there. But we’ll have to see what we think in the morning.

Most importantly, Roy has filled a big trash can with water for the chickens in case the power goes out and we can’t use the well. Chickens drink a lot of water, and going even a day without is not an option.

There wasn’t much I could do in the vegetable garden. Nature will take its course out there and I am fine with that. I harvested some lettuce and arugula and green beans for our dinner tonight (first bay scallops of the season), and picked the prettiest zinnias, as I know those plants are going to get nailed. But otherwise, I mostly just picked up any tools or random stakes I could find and tucked them in the shed. I moved pumpkins and potted plants under the covered front entry, and I stacked random outdoor furniture in the outside shower.

With everything as secure as we could manage, Roy and I moved inside to enjoy the kind of Sunday afternoon only possible when a good friend is visiting and a hurricane is threatening (even the ferry boats to and from the Island have been canceled so we are essentially  marooned!). Being forced to slow down for a few hours is actually a gift for us; so no matter what Sandy brings, we are glad for the interlude.

 

Farm life, The Garden

Big (As in Huge) Things Happening on the Farm

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You know I have been talking about this hoop house for a long time, but I had no idea that Monday morning (Columbus Day), Roy would get up, head outside, and start building the thing. In fact, he got so much done that by the end of the day, all the hoops were up. I posted some pictures on Facebook and my friend Eliza said, “That’s huge!”

It does look big, but that’s what we planned—30 feet long. There will be a potting table running down the middle of it and two raised beds on either side. Roy is also planning some exterior raised beds on either side as part of the support structure. Staking is next; while it might look like this thing is ready for the cover film to go on, there’s still much to do. That’s no problem, I thought, we’ll finish up in spring. No, says Roy, he’ll have it all done by Thanksgiving!

In the meantime, just standing underneath the hoops feels special. They have a magical way of capturing the outdoor space without containing it. I really can’t get over how cool it is.

We picked this spot for the hoop house because it’s a little microclimate—sunny, warm and less windy. Of course that might mean that it will be extra-hot in high summer, but our big hopes for the hoop house rest in the shoulder seasons—seed starting in the spring and season extending in the late fall. But we’ve heard that heat-loving veggies like cucumbers and basil do well in warm hoop houses, so you never know—we may try that, too.

It’s safe to say now that we’ve had a good season on the farm (though it isn’t over yet, we have already met our goal for the year), and with the addition of the new chickens (all laying consistently well) and now the hoop house, it feels really good. It’s gratitude time, so I’m off to bake Roy (and Libby) a batch of sugar cookies!

And, oh, here are a few photos of how it came together. (Sorry, they’re not in order–couldn’t quite get that right!) One cool thing to note–the pole bender (also called a High Tunnel Bender, available from Johnny’s Seeds). This great tool makes bending electrical conduit (available at home stores) into hoops a breeze (says she who watched and took pictures!!).

 

Farm life, The Garden

Sunrise and the Spider Web

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The spiders and I were up early yesterday, weaving our webs for the day. I didn’t really think of it that way when I tiptoed out the door, camera in hand, trying not to rouse Farmer from his puppy dreams, wanting only to capture that big orange orb hovering over the trees. Maybe taking pictures at sunrise is just another way of trying to make time stand still, something I still haven’t accomplished, no matter how hard I try! (At least I can laugh at myself.) But I suspect there’s more to it than that. Just as I suspect the spiders are not weaving those incredibly intricate webs that string from one zinnia to the next simply for the purpose of catching a bug or two. The webs are just too beautiful, too painterly, too fanciful to be merely functional. And they are never more beautiful than when the low Eastern light refracts through the tiny dew drops scattered across them like diamonds. This you notice at sunrise. When you are traipsing through the garden in your pajamas and boots, hoping the beauty and quiet will last forever.

Alas, when the sun gets high, the sparkle dims, and the webs become harder to notice. They are still there of course, just like your best-laid plans. Meant to be broken. The day goes on the way it was meant to go, regardless of your direction. And the garden grows on the way it wants to grow, regardless of your supposed choreography. You know this when you open the gate at the end of the day and walk the paths again, noticing all the surprises it worked up for you. You wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

 

 

Farm life, The Garden

Rosie the Ringleader and the Houdini Hens

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We had a lovely visit from Brooklyn-based food and lifestyle photographer Alexandra Grablewski this week. She took pictures of us and just about everything on the farm but she was particularly fascinated with the chickens. It’s hard not to be—they are totally entertaining. Especially when they get out of their yard and go on walk-abouts.

I usually know when one or more has escaped the chicken yard, because I hear Farmer whining. He gets terribly upset if I don’t go out and immediately pick them up and return them to the pen. But often this happens during the day when I’m working—plus I know it’s probably just Rosie. Rosie (pictured here) is the independent type and seems to like using her wings to fly over a tall fence every morning. Occasionally two, three, or four follow her, and I can generally round those gals up without help. Roy claims I am the worst chicken rounder-upper out there, and it may be true.

But a couple times in the past week there’s been a mass exodus, so we’ve both had to do our rounding-up best. Look, it’s not like they don’t have a huge yard and fresh grass to feed on. They shouldn’t feel the need to travel—it’s just that, well, chickens like to cross the road, or the yard, or anything. In both of those cases, the culprit has been an unlatched or partially latched door they’ve managed to push open. (Of course we have no idea who would leave the gate unlatched!) And herding 48 laying hens is nothing short of comical.

Usually if you get close to them they’ll squat and let you pick them up. But a few are flighty and will just fuss and squawk and ruffle their feathers and generally be obstinate about the whole returning home thing. These are the ones who wind up underneath the tractor, in a thicket of brambles and branches, or over in the perennial flowers. Rosie will be hanging out with them, you can just count on it.

Eventually, with a chicken (or two) under each arm, we get them all back in. And then there’s the whole going-to-bed problem. Forty-three of the chickens go inside the coop just like chickens are supposed to do when the sun goes down. But five of them have decided that the best roosting spot is on top of the water trough out in the yard. So they have to be picked up and stuck inside the coop one by one. (Roy does this every night.) And if you do it too soon, they’ll just start coming back out as you’re getting the last one in.

Perhaps there’s a reason man started eating chickens so many years ago. Might be easier than keeping laying hens. The eggs are pretty darn tasty though.

P.S. Alexandra’s photos of the farm and chickens are for a future project, so we won’t be able to share any of them for awhile–but promise it will happen when the time comes!