The next couple of days are forecast to be some cold ass days, so what better way to feed the fam than by making a big ass pot of soup? There are entire cookbooks devoted to soups but it seems most of them start with “saute chopped onion, garlic and celery”, add broth, then the main ingredients. In preparing for the coming cold, I  decided to harvest some kale, parsley and lettuce from the hoop house before tightening the plastic…

Then as usual, I took a quick survey of what I had on hand and decided  last night was Minestrone night, since I had small amounts of lots of different fresh veggies on hand. I added tomatoes that I’d frozen in bags last summer, fresh potatoes and carrots that were grown by a fellow gardener, the remaining cabbage and broccoli that I’d harvested from the hoop house last week when the weather was warmer, herbs and peppers that were dried last summer and stock from my pantry.

Stock+Veggies and Leftover Beans+’Store Bought’ Bay Leaves, Fennel and a handful of Pasta=This:

Total Cost: About $1.00…at most. There’s at least a gallon of delicious, healthy and filling soup in this pot with enough to share with my brother and a cup over the dog’s kibble too! We enjoyed a salad prepared with the lettuces I’d picked earlier in the day, topped with another fresh vegetable from my windowsill ‘garden’:

This pint jar full of fresh alfalfa sprouts was made from one tablespoon of seed. Sprouts are considered to be a ‘super food’ meaning they have benefits that are so nutritious they’re considered a superior food. Right up there with blueberries, which I don’t have a lot of this time of year   But I’ve got a LOT of sprouting seeds that will last for many, many years if I keep them dry in a sealed glass jar in a cool dark place. For about a dime, I can have fresh sprouts of any kind to add to casseroles, salads, soups-even breads-in 3 days! The sprouts we enjoyed tonight were exceptionally fresh and tender, and can really perk up an otherwise ‘plain’ winter salad. Dressed with our own honey/mustard dressing, we ate like kings for under a dollar, with plenty left for lunch tomorrow.

Learning the skills of growing some of your own food, preserving some of that food for winter time use, planning and cooking meals from scratch, and taking care of your health by eating a nutritious diet will help you stretch your food and health care dollars while offering you resilience and self-sufficiency during uncertain times. Learning to ‘make do’, whether it’s in the kitchen, keeping an older car running, living in a smaller house, or repairing and wearing older clothes is a mindset that can help us truly learn to ‘live MORE on LESS’. Ain’t that souper?

A winter garden will save money buying expensive perennial herbs and cooking greens. Parsley, oregano and thyme can grow inside of a hoop house or cold frame to use in the winter. These are all perennial herbs that can live through frost and will live inside of a place with a warmer daytime temperature.  The herb starts are the best thing to plant in August to grow larger for the winter. A community garden has parsley growing and we do not have to purchase it at the grocery store.

Cooking greens taste wonderful as a side dish or mixed into soups. These include Swiss Chard, Kale, Collard Greens and Arugula.  Some heavier lettuce can also grow in colder temperatures. Planting the seeds inside of a hoop house or cold frame in August or early September will have them large enough to eat during the winter. January has less light so the greens do not grow as quickly, but late February and March are prime time to harvest these and save money from purchasing. Here is a great way to cook your greens.

Here are some tips to start your garden and updates on the community garden’s harvest.

1. Build a hoop house or cold frame in your yard.  Here are some tips.

2. Take the temperature. A simple thermometer that takes the temperature of your cooking turkey can be taken outside to measure the soil temperature. The soil can freeze and still have these plants live, but it should stay above 40 degrees for them to be edible. We have used a larger hoop house and smaller (2′ hoops and row cover) inside to keep the temperature higher this winter.

3. Use water to raise the temperature. We moved 55 gallon drums into the hoop house and filled them with water to keep a few degrees higher at night.  Take the temperature with your kitchen oven thermometer.

4. Keep the doors closed when it is cold.  These past few weeks have had a closed hoop house at the community garden. We open the doors when the temperature is above 50 degrees and close them at night.  You can also purchase a heat sync to open the windows without going to the hoop house each day.

Early farmer’s market finds

Ever wonder why some of your favorite gardening/farming magazines only produce 11 issue a year with June and July being a combined issue? It certainly isn’t because they have nothing to write about. Could it be that some of the best contributor are  growers and farmers alike? And that their busiest time of year to work the land is, well, summer time?

It occurred to me this past growing season that my available writing time was at a bare minimum. I am by no means one of the best growers or writers but I do know that once the temperature started to rise above 55-60, I was switching my inside pleasures for outdoor ones.

Tomatoes and Peppers are planted in the Hoophouse on May 20th.

The growing season here in Maine is relatively short compared to other parts of the country but that doesn’t mean you have to wait until Memorial Day weekend to plant your garden. Last winter, I spent a lot of time exploring extended season growing. It involved hoop houses, caterpillar tunnels, determining seed varieties and quantities, seed starting dates, maturity dates, fertilizing schedules, insect controls and marketing.

The hoop house was perfect for growing tomatoes, cukes and peppers.

As I planned a schedule for myself built around the available time I had outside of my day job, I managed to start my growing season in March instead of late May-early June. My goal was to have produce ready for the farmer’s market in early May.  Despite the roller-coaster ride the weather took us on last Spring, I hit the first farmer’s market in Sanford with fresh salad greens, radishes, chives, tarragon and oregano.

Early radish, crisp and crunchy!

From there it went on with a weekly supply of salad greens, kale, tomatoes, cukes, peppers, summer squash, garlic scapes, snap peas, green beans, potatoes, melons and squash. For my first year at marketing, it was a great success. I surpassed my goal two times.

Note: I completed the marketing research as part of the Farms for Maine’s Future business grant Rivard Farm received in 2011. StuCroft Farm  (my farm) sold produce grown in Acton, Maine. Rivard Farm sold tomatoes and berries from the family farm in Springvale, Maine.

Below are photos from the Farmer’s Market and Growing Season 2012 year in review.

cluster tomatoes are a popular hoop house variety

The Blueberry Season arrived 2 weeks early.

Blueberries and Raspberries were a good seller at the farmer’s market.

Melon, squash and corn patch

Watermelons and Cantaloupe anyone?

Labor Day Harvest

As I write this post in mid January 2013, I realize that it won’t be long before I fill the seed trays with potting soil and start dropping in tiny seeds for a new year of growing. I would like to say that I will have time in the coming months to keep you updated but somehow, I know that the pleasures of writing will succumb to the demands of growing produce. I’ll do my best.

Busy as a BEE

Best Wishes for the New Year! Diane

PS. Stay tuned for some great news from Rivard Farm!

This is the first real winter we’ve grown crops in the hoop house. Last winter we had only our little 30′x48′ and it only had spinach in it. Now we have a 30′x96′ filled with salad, kale, chard, etc. I planted it too late in the fall and so the kale, chard, beets are all too small and are not giving their full potential. It was just too hard to pull out the tomatoes that were in the hoop at the time and plant the winter crops. In September its hard to imagine that the following Jan/Feb we will be needing those hardy crops nice and big and healthy…

One surprise we’ve had this winter in the hoops is the healthy aphid population (photo above). There are several reasons why they might be in there (I left mulch in the hoop where they like to winter, its warm in there and has good moisture, etc). From a few discussions I’ve had with other hoop house growers in the area, I’m not the only one with this issue. I’m trying to pick off infected leaves and make sure to clean up any plant residues and mulches where they can hang out. I’ve also sprayed neem (a plant derived oil) that is supposed to kill them but it must come in contact with their bodies and they live on the underside of the leaves. I plan to purchase lady bug larve as soon as its warm enough so that I can unleash those babies on the aphids (they eat up aphids pretty quickly!) I found one little lady beetle in one of the beds but she looked pretty lethargic in the cold….

One farmer told me a story about a gang of mice from a nearby field that decided over the course of two days to invade one of their hoop houses and completely devour an entire 144′ of beets and greens. They even ate the beets that were underground! I’m trying to imagine how many mice that would take. All we could think of to do was to keep a cat in there to kill them. There are only so many traps you can set! We’ve been lucky enough to have the occasional mouse and a few rabbits. The rabbits sneak under the bottom of the moveable hoop (it sits on a track) and have been working through the turnip greens. We just set a trap with apples tonight. Anyone looking for a new pet?

Most of my time these days is absorbed in planning and ordering. I told Andrew it felt like Christmas all over again as I opened up the huge boxes and checked off the seed order. All the possibilities! All the work ahead! This is the time of year to really dream big and prepare well so that when the craziness hits…we’ll be all the more ready for it!

Advantages of the hoop house are that they are temporary and mobile. The structure can be moved from garden bed to garden bed without too much work. Or alternatively, the rebar can be left in place and the pipes and plastic removed each season. Gardeners can then just leave the rebar in place and work around them – although I would certainly exercise some caution against working around steel bars sticking 8 inches out of the ground at the edge of your gardening bed.

The size of the hoop house is dependent upon your individual garden beds, but here are the Ingredients and Instructions for a hoop house that is 5 feet wide and 10 feet long.

• -12 pieces of 1/2″ rebar that are 3 feet in length.
• -6 sections of 1/2″ PVC pipe that are 10 feet in length
• -1 roll of 4 mil plastic, 10 feet wide by 25 feet long

1. Pound a piece of rebar into one corner of the garden bed until about 8 inches remains sticking above the soil / edge of the garden bed. The pounding will be easier or more difficult, depending upon the soil you are working with. Ours is a pretty friable soil, especially in the winter when the soil is so saturated with our recent rains. On the opposite corner of the bed, pound in another piece of rebar at the same level of 8 inches above the soil / garden bed.

2. Slide one end of the PVC pipe over one of the 8″ ends of rebar sticking up. CAREFULLY bend the other end of the PVC pipe over the other rebar end. I say CAREFULLY because if you are not, you may find your face thwacked with PVC pipe in trying to get the PVC onto rebar. I know this because, er, I saw it happen to some guy on youtube… yeah, that’s how I know….

3. Repeat Steps 1 and 2 in the other corners of the garden bed. You’ll now have two ribs (or hoops) of the hoop house.

4. Now, find the midpoint of the garden bed corners. You’re going to create another rib in the middle of the other two. Once that is built, create two more ribs equidistant from the corners and the midpoint. When finished, you will have 5 equally spaced ribs that form the framework of the hoophouse.

5. Slide the 4 mil plastic over the ribs of the hoophouse. Because the 10 foot sections of PVC are bent over a 5 foot wide width, the 10 foot wide plastic will be just about perfect, if not a pinch short of completely covering the ribs. Leave approximately 2 1/2 feet of plastic overhanging the ribs at one end of the hoop house. You will fold this over to completely close off one end of the hoophouse. Use a board or shovel or 5 long object to lay atop the folded end of the plastic to hold it in place.  Now roll out the same length of plastic at the other end. You will also fold this down and secure it with board or shovel. You can either cut off the excess plastic to use as another, but slightly shorter hoophouse. Or, you can just extend the 10 foot hoop house I’ve described here and make one longer hoop house.

When Rachel saw the finished hoop house when she returned from a trip, she asked, “how are we going to pick the lettuce?” Good question. Because the ends are not permanently secured, simply move the board/shovel, and roll back the plastic to access the lettuce you need. Once the hard frosts have left us, the hoop house will come off anyway. And when it is used as hot house to get warm season vegetable plants like tomatoes going earlier, it will only need to be removed once anyway – when the heat of summer has come to stay.

The day started out with a few flakes and a dusting of snow.

Before noon it was all the way up into the 40s sunny, with just a light breeze.

Perfect conditions to get the new plastic on the hoophouse.

Calls went out to the friends because this is a job where “many hands” is just the thing you need.

Especially if there is even more than a breath of wind.

The wind held off for today.

We spent the best part of a day last weekend taking off the ripped plastic, replacing three bent purlins and fixing one hoop, and making all other necessary repairs to the hoophouse frame and endwalls. By the end of the day, it was all ready to go.

We will plant the first crop of carrots by the end of the month and and we are relieved to have our hoophouse covered and ready in time to warm the soil.

south side view

a mini-hoop house in the yard made out of the old plastic

sun peeking into the hoop house

north side view

There is a mysterious lack of pictures of the whole crew of us out there in the predawn hauling the plastic up over the frame and pulling it tight so that Mark and Willie could screw on the lath that holds the plastic down.

What did we do with the old plastic, you ask?  Well, some of it went into making the mini-hoop house in the side yard that protects some of the greens we’ve been eating.  Some of it is being used to provide a secondary cover inside the hoop house for extra-cold days.  You can see the framework for that in the picture of the dawn’s early light peeking into the hoop house.

You may also be wondering what the dogs were doing while we were all outside ( or maybe you weren’t, but you should have been).  They were racing about and hunting for small furry things and having a generally riotous time out there as they usually do when they are allowed to choose their activities.  There are, unfortunately, no action shots of them playing this morning, but perhaps afternoon pics will do:

Until next time,

Janice

12/13/12 UPDATE:
Well, maybe I spoke too soon about the gothic arch high tunnels shedding snow easily. After more snow fell last night, I took a closer look at the demonstration garden high tunnel and noticed quite a bit of snow on both the north and south slopes of the roof. Inside the high tunnel, I could see the weight of the snow pushing the “skin” down and bulging between the support hoops (see picture below).

The peak of the high tunnel is 14 feet high, which makes snow removal (and other activities, like building it) difficult. I did what I could with the crank handle we use to roll up the sides of the high tunnel, pushing on the snow from the inside until it slid off. I am not sure how much snow the high tunnel can handle without buckling, but I’m not interested in finding out. I suppose I will have to continue to remove the snow throughout the winter, just to be safe. One thing that might help is making the “skin,” or the poly/plastic covering of the high tunnel, as tight as possible. This will prevent small bows from forming under the weight of the snow between the support hoops, and keep more snow from sitting on the skin. The south side of the high tunnel was actually the more problematic side for snow removal, which is probably because of some thawing/refreezing action that produced ice that sticks more easily to the skin. On the north side, almost all the snow slid off with a few taps of the crank handle.

As you can see the Bell Syphons have been pulled out of the grow beds. They were not working and I decided to go another way . So the bad news was I had the gravel in the beds, now I had to take it all out again.

I decided to try laying a water hose connected to the out let and protected that with a corrugated pipe.

Well when I tested this it did not syphons as fast as I wanted it to. The problem seems to be the height of the outlet on the barrel, I use the bung hole.  Also the drain going to the holding tank was bigger than the hose so the that didn’t help.  So I went with just a simple elbow that syphons from the bottom of the bed.

This is a drawing to show what I ended up with. I didn’t get any pictures of this before I covered it up with the gravel. Basically you see the pick up tube coming in the barrel, the small gravel guard goes around this and the large gravel guard goes over all of it. I can watch the water rise in the large tube, to adjust the in flow.

When we went to pick up our Icelandic Ram from the breeders they offered us a second Ram that they couldn’t use for breeding because his horn was growing right into his eye. He was a young Ram so we decided to use the opportunity to learn more about butchering and finally get to try the Icelandic Sheep meat we have been hearing so much about. There happened to be a Lamb butchering class at Farmstead Meatsmith so Matt headed over to Vashon Island to learn as much as he could. Farmstead Meatsmith is a small family run business that teaches small farms and homesteads how to harvest and butcher their own livestock. Last season Matt attended a Farmstead Meatsmith class on Pig butchering that was hosted at a small farm in our area and he was able to learn a lot about their Nose to Tail philosophy. The philosophy of Nose to Tail is a fairly new term but like most things its roots are much older and go back to how everyone used to farm and eat. The idea is that you use everything that you harvest from an animal and not let anything go to waste. It’s partially about being sustainable but it also says a lot about the respect you have for the animal that will feed your family.

The Ram was not here long but he did spend time with our puppy Lulu who still doesn’t like being in the paddock with the other Ram and Ewes while they are breeding. To be honest, when Lulu was in their paddock she spent a lot of time trying to play with the Ram and he let her know immediately how uninterested he was. The other Ram on the other hand tolerated Lulu and her puppy play.

Another project we added to our list was 70 free bales of old straw we found on the local farm exchange. Of course it was all loaded and unloaded by hand by Farmer Matt, so not entirely free but totally worth it because we now have plenty of straw for mulching our enormous garden, filling the hoop house while the chickens winter in there, and we are going to use some of it to make bays for piles of compost which will also double as a small windbreak for the garden this spring when it gets incredibly windy around here. We are anxious about our first full season of growing vegetables here because everyone we have talked to said it can be incredibly challenging. We have planted trees that in the future will help us with the wind but for now we are hoping the right placement of the more delicate vegetables in the hoop house and heartier vegetables and root vegetables outside of the hoop house will help.

The most exciting new is that the hoop house is done and the Chickens are moved in after so many months of work. The doors were covered in plastic thanks in part to wiggle wire which made this diy hoop house possible and the finishing touch was Farmer Matt’s mobile Chicken roost. He made one that could fold up and be stored easily up against the side of a building once spring comes around and the hoop house is used for gardening. Moving the Chickens into the hoop house was a two day and night process, which included Farmer Matt running around at night with a headlamp pulling Chickens out of trees and putting them in their new home. For some reason they have a hard time being moved. Even with their food, water, and nesting boxes all being in the hoop house they still didn’t quite get that it was their new home and they would wander all around the yard looking for their chicken tractor. Things really are slowing down around here but we were finally able to find some local help so we are going to try to get another pasture fenced in before everything starts to freeze. This year the winter has been more about rain than snow which is unusual for this area. We really want more grass for all of our Ewes to graze on once spring comes around so the strange weather pattern is working out in our favor. For now its all about looking forward while at the same time trying to make the most of the resources we have available to us in the present.

Keep your garden beds growing strong despite frost!

With the current global food shortage plus growing population, growing your own produce will keep you confident in tough times. Plus, it will save you money and is a healthier option than buying produce that has an unknown history.  If you have a smaller garden bed as opposed to a hoop/green house, try this diy solution.

To start, cut out the bottoms of old gallon jugs and place them over your smaller plants to create “hot caps.”

Machetes are a handy tool to have around for diy projects.

Next, you need to find a pliable material that will easily bend in order to make your  frame.  We conveniently have a machete and bamboo growing in our backyard, giving us a FREE solution.

Bend your material and stick it into the garden bed.

Repeat this process until you have enough to cover the length of your bed.

Sledgehammer also useful.

Hammer two stakes on both ends of the bed.

You should have 4 total.

Lay 4 mil plastic over the frame.

Wrap plastic around end stakes.

Staple plastic to the ends of the garden bed.

Leave the plastic hanging over the front and secure with something that will allow an easy open flap in case warmer days sneak into the winter season. (This is primarily a Southern issue.)

Set the guard dog out to scare away any furry creature that want your goods! We prefer the Ridgeback.

Anyway, that is all behind me and I’m looking forward to a nice relaxing winter.  Our growing season was concluded by our third annual Harvest Celebration/Pig Roast/ Cider Pressing.  This year was a little tight on apples, but we were still able to procure enough to satisfy those who came and participated.  We have learned some lessons from previous years’ pig roasts and therefore made this one the most successful.  The gracious folks from Singer Farms (also the source of our apples) allowed us to use their tent for the event enabling us to eat and mingle protected from the rain, one of our most dependable guests.  We had some live music, plenty of food, hot, mulled cider, fresh home-made doughnuts, delicious fire-roasted pork that was so well done and juicy it literally fell off the bones.  We were also blessed to have our eldest son home for the weekend.

We managed to finally plant our garlic a couple weeks later than I had hoped to, but it should be fine.  The rains came and soaked the ground, Willie tilled in some nice compost, and the gang of us planted around 36 pounds of German stiffneck garlic.  I have garlic to sell if anyone is interested.  It goes for $6.50 / pound.

Our final big farm project was moving the hoop house.  After three seasons of being in the same place, covering up the same ground, it was time to move it.  The plastic was sad and needed to be replaced, and the earth was crying out for some real rain and snow and good plant rotation.  After a week of preparation, we had a group of people come out one Saturday and move all the ribs that support the plastic as well as the front and back walls.  The skeleton is sitting over vegetables I planted in the fall in anticipation of when the plastic comes in and they can all be covered for the winter.

Now it’s time to take a deep breath, make a cup of hot tea,  find a good book, and rest for couple weeks until it’s time to think about ordering seeds and planting again.  By then, I will be all ready for a new season.  In the meantime, I can eat my carrots, kale and mustard greens, dig out parsnips from the bed in the yard, eat my own potatoes and canned green beans and tomatoes, frozen peas and okra all seasoned with my own home-grown herbs, garlic and hot pepper sauce.

Here’s to good food!

Janice

preparing the vegetables for stuffing

preparing the carcass for its spit

stuffing the carcass

sewing shut the cavity

all set up and beginning to cook over the coals

setting up the tent and the wind shield

fire-roasted apples are the perks of tending the fire

fresh doughnuts and other tasty dishes

pressing the cider

plastic coming off

guns on the east side

making way for the new entryway

moving the plank paths

moving the ribs

leveling the front wall

front and back walls moved; coffee break

screwing on the bracing

all ready for new plastic

popping/sorting garlic

planting cloves in holes; our garlic hole drill

everyone has a job

a beautiful morning

good company, sunshine, a piece of earth, and the promise of a future

Murrey studying his spelling words. Poodles are pretty smart, you know! (OK, RANDOM, but so cute!)

Scarlet frills in the hoop house–a spicy addition to our winter salad mix.

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We have tiny volunteer tomato plants all over! Some of them made it through the clean up today. We’ll see how far they get…

After a hot, dry spring and summer in which our lettuce wilted and died, our fall crop is doing well. It’s still growing in the hoop house and looks beautiful.

The chickens consider these cabbage worms a delicacy.

This year, we had the usual end-of-season cabbage worms to contend with. The white cabbage butterflies were flitting around for most of the fall, and clearly laying eggs. For a few weeks after we moved the greenhouse, we were discovering lots of the green caterpillars on a patch of cabbage and turnips near one door. We hand-inspected the most vulnerable plants almost every day, and also used spray controls approved for organic use. Logan’s chickens find the cabbage worms to be a delicacy, so one day we sent her home with a handful of them. Otherwise, any of them that we discover are dispatched without mercy.

With a few recent overnight freezes, it looks like we’re over the hump with the invertebrate pests.

Meanwhile, mice and voles also decided to take up residence after we moved the greenhouse, and for about two weeks, we’ve been setting traps as well as using a sonic device that sends out sound waves that are unpleasant to voles. Since we are seeing no new vole tunnels through the parsley and spinach roots, we believe we have them under control now.

A more disturbing development was the discovery of our field by the local deer population. A small herd had its way with some chard and kale plants that were outside the greenhouse. We erected some makeshift fences to protect them and really won’t need to worry about that problem until next spring, when we think about planting some things outside of the greenhouse’s protection.

For now, we are optimistic that we’re headed into winter in good shape, with a healthy crop of lettuces, brassicas, and root vegetables. Our mix this year is a bit heavier on roots (carrots, turnips and beets) and lettuces and not as heavy on chard and kale, but there is plenty of food, and we are looking forward to a great winter of eating.

Related articles

• Warm weather brings insects and mammals to the greenhouse zone (winterbounty.wordpress.com)

Big hoop filled with salad, spinach, kale, chard, beets!!

For the last two years I’ve worked at Zingerman’s Mail Order making employee meals during the holidays.  This year I’m back full time for November and December and trying to figure out how to also harvest and get to market as much as possible. Without Evan here its definitely more challenging to get all of this done! I’m hoping its the last year I have to  work off farm to make ends meet. The 2013 plan is to finally meet my income goals and be able to completely focus on the farm!

Little hoop filled with salad, turnips and radish. Lots ready to harvest right now!

Our wonderful neighbor Walt tilled a new plot for us again! We are expanding the diversity and amount of crops  for next year. I think this is the max amount of vegetable production. From here on out we will will likely add on small fruits, an orchard, cut flowers….and the sky is the limit!

99 new 3′x100′ beds! Another huge expansion…

Lots of mulching left to do before snow hits! I’m looking forward to getting seed catalogs in the mail and settling down drool over seed varieties!!