Hands On Learning

Eating carrots right out of the ground

One of the best parts of this lifestyle we're trying to create is sharing it with others. Whether we're providing healthy food to customers at the market or selling fresh eggs, it is a good feeling to do good for others. One of our favorite parts is having family and friends visit our farm. It is rewarding to show kids where their food comes from and just let them play in the dirt. The biggest hit is usually sitting on a tractor- especially if Pieter is involved in the farm tour! Here are some pictures of just a few of our young visitors this summer:

I collected eggs!

Farming is hard work!

When you're 2, you don't care how strawberries grow, you just want to eat them!

If we work together, we can drive this tractor!

Exploring the mower

I'll drive, you ride!

Sometimes adults even take field trips here. If you come to visit, chances are we'll put you to work! (Thanks, Kate!)

Bean Trellis

The experiment this year: pole beans, bush beans, or both? Now that we think we have a good way to trellis them, pole beans might be okay. We'll test this method of 3 poles this year. On the other hand, Anna's not pregnant anymore, and that was why she requested pole beans in the first place. Bending down to harvest bush beans can be a pain!There is supposed to be a difference in taste and quality, depending also on the varieties. We have grown both before, but not at the same time.

Anti-Slug Campaign Part 2: Our Very Own Gilbert

We have a new addition to our anti-slug arsenal: a duck! Her previous owners said she was too noisy. We figured not much could be too noisy to compete with a toddler and a newborn, so bring on the quacking! And just like that, the duck has a new home. She is in her own area within one of the chicken fences to acclimate one to the other and eventually she will join them. Unless, that is, we decide to move her fence to follow the largest populations of slugs or areas of garden that need tending to.  Oh, and she lays one huge egg a day.   Stay tuned...she may get her own duck family if we continue to like her! By the way, since she is the only thing we have one of on this farm besides Coughball the cat (and poor Coughball came up with the short end of the stick with that one), she deserves a name. Suggestions?

Slippery Slithery Slug-eating Snake

Vince's new pet

We often see garter snakes slithering for cover when we pick strawberries. They like to live under the plastic where it is warm and dry and full of food. They don't bother us and we don't bother them as they are a natural predator of our foes: the slug, the mouse and the bug.  They are usually not "blog worthy," though. Until Vince spied this one caught in the bird netting we keep over the strawberries.  It was so big I ran all the way up the hill to grab the camera while Vince freed it. It had seemingly just eaten a huge (hopefully slug!) lunch and couldn't fit through the holes in the netting. (Notice how fat it is on one end.) This is the biggest garter snake either of us had ever seen and it had an interesting blue tint to it that I failed to capture on camera.

The best thing we could find as a scale was a beer bottle...hmmm.

Uh Oh, Tractor Stuck in the Muck

Sometimes you have to blog about the bad with the good...here was Vince's uh-oh moment this weekend. He came in the house and said, "I got stuck. Really stuck."  He was trying to mow the length of the property and tested the wet area a little too far.  It is the middle of July, isn't it?  So, of course the next day when he went to try to rescue himself, Pieter, Julia and I pushed our way through the freshly mown grass down to the far corner of the property for a little entertainment and not-so moral support. 

 Pieter supervised "Daddy stuck muck, Daddy tractor stuck muck" and offered his toy bulldozer as help while I took pictures for Vince for when he wanted to laugh about it later. To his credit, he did have a pretty good outlook on the ridiculousness of the whole thing.

He was buried to his axel and no amount of chains and wood ramps were going to do the trick, so he called on the neighbor Andy's big, heavy John Deere and after a glance at Vince wearing his mud suit, fueled up and had his wife follow in the smaller tractor. Above if you look carefully you can see the parade of three tractors on their way to rescue one very stuck tractor.  In the end, it was pulled out no worse for the wear and Andy might not even have to wash any mud off of his big show tractor.

The New Tomato Trellis

Trellising tomatoes among the lettuce

My list of things to do yesterday included trellising tomatoes. We have never done it this way before, but are willing to try something new.  I strung twine along the top of the greenhouse and then hung a line of twine down to each tomato plant. Later we will attach a clip to each string and around the plant stem and the vine will climb the twine.  The benefit of climbing up and down the ladder all morning, besides the free stairmaster workout, was visions of vines laden with juicy red tomatoes filling the greenhouse with their sweet scent. On the other hand, I also envisioned spiders swinging from string to string having a grand time until the tomatoes take over. Maybe I (Anna) shouldn't be allowed to work alone in the garden...

Weed Smart, Not Hard: Oh, if only that were really possible!

Vince surveys the corn struggling to breath among the thistles.

 Oh, the weeds you will find...when you are trying to grow things in fallow pasture.   Vince plowed a new acre in which to plant most of the row crops this year.  It is beautiful soil without a rock in sight, but the weeds love it too.  Despite a cover crop planted last year, the plants are having a hard time competing with the weeds. Below are some of the ways we are combating the weeds.

Vince devised a cart that straddles the rows of onions so he can weed sitting and scoot down the row. 

The best way we are combating weeds: good ol' fashioned pulling by hand.  Better use the thick leather gloves for thistles! Sometimes a hoe can't get between veggies when they are small and closer together like these onions. Then hand weeding is the only thing that works.    

 Is it a slip 'n slide? Not unless you're a blueberry!

We covered the blueberries with black plastic this year after trying unsuccessfully to keep up with the weeds by hand and a sawdust covering. The plastic will smother weeds as well as warm the soil. It is one of the debates among organic growers because it requires fuel to make plastic, therefore is not helping the earth. On the other hand, it is important to grow good, healthy food and there doesn't seem to be a better solution yet.