At least we have rain...

The weather hasn't been too cooperative this year. With all of the rain it has been hard to get on the fields to even weed. The weather has been great for the slugs unfortunately. The slugs ate a whole bed of lettuce in the greenhouse. The temperatures have been cooler here as well.

Thinking back to last year this year is a lot better already At least things are growing even if not as fast as we would like them. Last year there was no rain for irrigation and the irrigation spring on the mountain couldn't recharge itself fast enough. We dug two new irrigation holding ponds on the mountain.

July 8th was our first CSA delivery day. Because we took on more customers this year it takes a full day of non-stop work to get the bags ready for 4:00pm. It will take a couple of weeks to get the systems going smoothly. The most trying part of the evening deliveries was finding street names and house numbers but we found everyone.

Because of the wet weather we were just able to get the lime and pelletized chicken manure spread on the fields. The oats and clover will be sowed this week.

KINGTSON FARMER MARKET

If you have been to the Kington Farmers Market you would have noticed that we have not been selling our produce yet. We are aiming to start in August. We have put off going to the market to concentrate on the CSA bags.

In the above picture there is Mizuna with honey mustard, balsamic vinegar and alive oil. Tangy but good. Andrew made up some club sandwiches using our lettuce, chicken and bacon. We had swiss chard, spring turnips and tatsoi sauted with chinese cabbage and garlic.

More Pictures

We have been eager to get on the fields. Today the garden that will have mostly greens and some root veggies is being tilled and hilled. Hopefully we will be sowing this particular garden today or tomorrow with crops that don't mind the still chilly temperatures. (spinach, lettuce, green onions etc). The drip irrigation has been placed the in the greenhouse. We invested in the drip irrigation last year and it has proved to be invaluable. We were taking too much time hand watering the previous year. We used drip irrigation on the outside gardens too last year and we are hoping to put more down this year.

We are very pleased that our garlic survived the winter. There was some damage from deer traffic through the field this winter. Most of the damage was the garlic being uprooted by the deer walking through. The garlic is now almost four inches tall.

A New Season.

I thought it was about time I updated our blog considering that the 2009 season is about to start. We have been seeding leeks, celery, green onions and bulbing onions. We are keeping the trays under growing lights in our hallway and in the basement. This is our first year mixing our own potting soil. We have started to prepare the greenhouse for spring planting. We will be planting the greenhouse the first of April.

Our parsnips are still in the ground from last season. We hope that the mice and deer didn't find them during the winter. We will putting up crop protection from the deer this spring. We have never seen deer as we have this winter. There has been alot of damage done to the apple trees and cedars.

We have been corresponding with our CSA members from last year and the response has been great for the upcoming season. We are happy to be adding more spaces for this season's CSA.

The seed orders have been placed and now we wait for them to be delivered. We will be trying some new varieties of fruit and veggies this year. Ex. melons, squash, onions, tomatoes and garlic. We are excited to see if the garlic we planted last fall has survived the winter season. There was plenty of snow cover and we mulched it well so everything should be good.

Week 18

This week was number 17 for the CSA boxes. This week we had beets, carrots, potatoes, parsley, green cabbage, leeks, broccoli, kale, bulb onions and parsnips.

Today was a big day for us. We got our windmill up today. It went up really easy.

Autumn Leaves

We are putting out a request for autumn leaves. We need leaves for mulching the greenhouse and our newly planted garlic beds. The leaves need to be from yards with lawns that have not been treated with herbicides, pesticides or fertilizers. So, if you annually rake your lawn or have them raked for you, you can either email us or give us a call and we will come and get them. All of our contact information is on our website. http://www.chestnutacreslimited.com/

Harvest Season.

There are only four more weeks of CSA deliveries. We are now taking it one week at a time hoping that the weather co-operates with us. Winter came early last year. The deer have been really hard on us this year. They seem to have figured out how to move the row covers to the side to get at the vegetables that are left in the garden. One of the fields we will be using next year will be closer to the house, maybe that will help some with that problem. But then there is always the option of more electric fencing.

This week in our CSA boxes (bags) contained red potatoes, carrots, fennel, parsley, green cabbage, buttercup squash, green onions and a bag of apples. We are not sure what kind of tree that these apples grow on. This tree was planted before we bought the farm eight years ago. They almost taste like a red delicious , they are crispy like a red delicious but they don't have the size or the bumps of the bottom of the apple. Bugs do not seem to bother this tree. We have been trying to nurture this tree so we will have it for a long time yet. We have had a few of our fruit trees included in our annual certification process. We are hoping to improve our apple quality so we can include more apples in our CSA program.

The past couple of weeks have been focused on harvesting produce, preparing the greenhouse for spring, firewood, and getting the second half of the barn ready for a new concrete floor. You can't put a price on our barns. They could never be replaced.

Our girls brought their pumpkins to the Kingston Farmer's Market on Oct 4th for the annual pumpkin contest. They were thrilled with the whole process of weighing and the giving out prizes. We gave the girls each a container with pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds in June and let them plant them in their own spot. We had a bumper crop of sunflowers and 14 pumpkins.

JG

Week 12

This weeks box share contained twelve items. Celery, Parsley, Basil, Green Onions, Patty Pan Squash, Cabbage or Cauliflower, Swiss Chard, Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Red Pontiac Potatoes and Carrots.

Deliveries all went well it was nice to see some of our members that we haven't seen for a couple of weeks.

JG