Winter Roto-tilling after the snow

Protein Shares

The Pigs have gone to the Butcher today. Pork Shares are still available, $180 per Share

 

We also have six or eight Hereford Beef Shares still available as well, $180 per Share.

 

And we have just a few of those great Red Ranger Roasting Chickens available for a nice winter supper or Family get-together, $6.75 per pound.

 

Please send an email to order any of the above.

 

Calling All Cooks

A couple of Members, for a couple of years now, have talked about creating a book of CSA Member Recipes. This might be a fun thing to do. If you have any interest in participating in such a project please send me an e-mail. Maybe we can get a few folks together and make this happen. I can tell you from first hand experience that there are a LOT of good recipes out there in our CSA group. Interested?

 

 

Mid-Winter
Share!

Arrowhead will be open for the First Mid Winter Share pick up this Saturday from 11 until 3. There are still a few Shares available, so why not stop by the Farm for a tour or to sign up?

 

Arrowhead will be at the Salem NH Winter Farmers' Market on Sunday from 10 until 2. Tan and, I believe Marty, will be on hand to help you. And don't forget to look up our tireless Market Master, Jane, and ask for one of her famous Hugs!

 

And on Monday Arrowhead will be at the Brookline Winter Farmers' Market in the Arcade at Coolidge Corner from 11:30 until 6:30. Tan, and my son Justin will be on hand to help you.

 

And I will be personally visiting The Newburyport Farmers' Market this Sunday from 10 until noon, if any of you would like to look me up to chat over a cup of coffee.  

 

In the Share

English Winter Cabbages, Potatoes, McIntosh Apples, Sweet Green onions, Leeks, Turnips, White Winter Radishes, Winter Squash, Assorted Baby Greens, Fresh Green Shallots and a few sprigs of Fresh Herbs

 

 


Fresh Eggs

Plenty of those great fresh eggs; $6 a dozen or two dozen for $10. Stop by and visit the Hens if you'd like. They miss the young folks' feed this time of year.  

 

 

Happy Fried Egg  

TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME

 

Had to go to Exeter to pick up feed this morning. Leaving the Feed Store I saw that I had an hour or so before I had to be back at the Farm. So I decided to go the long way, down 108 to 150 into Amesbury. Along the way I took a few side roads that I knew looped back. The roads were quiet and the scenes along the way were clean and uncluttered. Open rolling fields, hardwood lots, Pine woods, a few horse paddocks, stone walls from centuries back, Meeting Houses, a Grange Hall, cemeteries with early gravestones, board fences in need of paint. Pretty.

 

Upon reaching the junction of 107 I decided to turn right and take the short drive to the John Deere dealer in Kensington. They've had a three bottom plow, from the 1940's, on the lot for a couple of years now, and I wanted to see if it was still there. Yes, a JD Green three bottom sticking out of a snowbank.

 

I'd like to buy it if the price is right. At Arrowhead we have been using Roto-tillers for about twenty years now. And I'm starting to think constant use of a tiller is hurting the soil's structure. So, I would like to plow every couple of years, maybe plow down some cover crops, just to help the soil structure. Can't grow without good soil. Maybe I'll see if I can get that Plow financed. Have to ask the price first, though.

 

Anyway, back on the road I passed two lovely old Yankee Barns from the Civil War era---or just before. And some open, but run out, hay fields. Beautiful Farms. Plenty of land to grow crops or run Livestock on. But no one to work them. Something wrong with this picture. But that's a story for another day. Besides, it's time to get back to the Farm.


Hi Folks! 

 

Cold Outside.. But, by my reckoning, we have seen the coldest weather of the winter---Wednesday night. I know that that is a bold statement; but I see warmer than normal ocean temperatures, no frost in the ground, slowest Arctic sea ice advancement in thirty years of measuring, above average Polar temperatures, and no really cold air anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere. I think January will be much warmer than normal. I think we will see a very early Sap Run; and I think we will likely see a very early Spring.

 

So much for prognostications. Last week---Christmas week---was a near perfect week for my Farming plans. As you can see in the banner photo I was able to get a head start on Spring tillage; soil conditions were just perfect after that lovely three inch soaking rain on Thursday. And we really needed that rain as we have had a whole year now of low precipitation. Ground and surface water levels are low for this time of year so I'll take all the rain and snow I can get, thank you very much. And there was no frost in the ground so that nice rain sank right in to recharge the soil.

 

Tahn and Ed were able to get the last of the root crops harvested on Friday---a cold job for sure, but they got it finished. Then came that nice blanket of snow to insulate the ground and prevent the soil from freezing during this one cold January week. We burned no oil in the Greenhouses last week and the Hens are still laying like crazy. And Saturday proved a quiet day so Christine and I got to do some planting in #4---Spinach and Mesclun Mix for harvest in March. See what I mean? A near perfect week for Farming.

 
Tomatoes, 2013

 

Cherokee Purple Tomatoes

Now let's talk about this year's Tomato Crop. Your CSA will be growing grafted tomato plants for the first time this year. Grafting is a millennia old cultural practice of putting a variety with desirable fruiting traits onto a rootstock with desirable rooting traits. This has been the accepted way to produce tree fruits for centuries. In the case of Tomato plants we will be grafting Heirloom cultivars with great eating qualities onto disease resistant tomato rootstock. To learn more about Tomato Grafting you can click here for a very good 20 minute video from the University of Vermont. Not up for 20 minutes? Then you can click here for an 8 minute video produced by the University of Arizona. Or click here for a 5 minute video And if you can't spare 5 minutes then please click here to watch a very short video produced by Plug Connection. Every CSA Member should understand this process, as I believe it will be the future of Tomato production here at Arrowhead. So please do make the time to view one or two of these videos. Thank you.

 

We are having Plug Connection do this Grafting for us as they have perfect conditions in Southern California to do this type of growing, and it is far more cost effective than heating one of our greenhouses to 80 degrees in January. They have seeded both our Heirloom cultivars and the rootstock for us this past Monday, the 31st; so we both harvested and planted tomatoes in December. These plants will be grafted on January 28th and shipped to us by air on February 11th. We plan to plant these into the Greenhouse compost beds in early March.

 

Also planned for this Summer is a large field planting of new disease resistant Tomato cultivars from various breeding programs. Included will be varieties from the University of North Carolina----our friend Randy Gardiner is the Breeder Emeritus there. Randy isolated the Ncelbr gene for early blight resistance in the early 90's and the Phb gene for Late Blight resistance in 2000. Most recently he has sent some of his cultivars to Cornell's Tomato breeding program on Long Island so the Septoria Blight resistant gene can be bred into them. I toured Randy's Breeding campus about twenty years ago. His breeding is by traditional methods and is both a work of science and a work of art.

 

So the outdoor Tomato trials at the Farm this year will have about twenty cultivars from UNC, Cornell, Oregon State University, Johnny's Selected Seeds and High Mowing Organic Seeds.

 

Now I know that we had PLENTY of Tomatoes for the CSA this year, so you may think all of this extra effort strange. But this was a dry growing season, which did not favor disease development. A wetter growing season could once again prove disastrous for Tomato production. So we are always on the watch for more disease resistance. We will also be trialing about forty more Heirloom varieties as well as a few of our own lines here at Arrowhead. Nothing says Summer like Sun Ripened Tomatoes. 

 
Winter Tilling

 

The tilling that I did last week was a compromise. It is not the best practice to till during Winter as one leaves the soil exposed to erosion. However the harvest ran so late during the exceptionally warm fall that I had not tilled under the Tomato and Potato plant debris. It is definitely not the best practice to leave this plant residue exposed as insects and disease pathogens can and do over-winter in it. So I made what I thought was the better choice.

 

And, Gus----I hate to bring this up---but when I tilled under our Potato planting?...Well, I found one you missed.

 

The Lost Potato  

 

 

Enough of my ramblings for this week. If it seems like a cold, dark and unfriendly time of year, then set your sight on March. Spring will arrive. Robert Frost reminds us, all the precedent is on our side.

 

Cheers,

Dick Chase

 

 

 The Onset

 

Always the same, when on a fated night
At last the gathered snow lets down as white
As may be in dark woods, and with a song
It shall not make again all winter long
Of hissing on the yet uncovered ground,
I almost stumble looking up and round,
As one who overtaken by the end
Gives up his errand, and lets death descend
Upon him where he is, with nothing done
To evil, no important triumph won,
More than if life had never been begun.

Yet all the precedent is on my side:
I know that winter death has never tried
The earth but it has failed: the snow may heap
In long storms an undrifted four feet deep
As measured again maple, birch, and oak,
It cannot check the peeper's silver croak;
And I shall see the snow all go down hill
In water of a slender April rill
That flashes tail through last year's withered brake
And dead weeds, like a disappearing snake.
Nothing will be left white but here a birch,
And there a clump of houses with a church.

 ~Robert Frost  

Dick Chase / 131 Old Ferry Road / Newburyport, Massachusetts 01950-6505 / 978-465-8109