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A NEW SEASON HAS BEGUN

April 8, 2019April 8, 2019
by Bob Fade

The winter is over and the first crops have been seeded outside. Over the winter I grew in the new high tunnel and have recently completed a second high tunnel. But my off farm job as a carpenter is finally over and Im back to farming full time. I have been trying not to fall behind on farm tasks, and we have already started over 10,000 seedlings.

For the most part, my interaction with the alpacas over the winter has been to feed them in the morning and occasionally throw them some green stuff from the high tunnel. They still arent used to me being around all day. Every time I walk towards the pen, this is the scene that greets me. They are sure Im bringing them food and pace quickly back and forth, anticipating a treat. I feel like Im disappointing them, but when I walk back the next time, they are doing the exact same thing, so I guess Im not doing any long term damage.

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A WINTER OF MUSHROOMS

December 21, 2017December 21, 2017
by Bob Fade

In our desire to produce an income year round on the farm, we decided to try growing mushrooms and see if it was something we would enjoy and would hopefully be worth the effort. Mushrooms are far more complicated than I originally thought, although our only experience with growing them was from a ready to fruit block that was given to us as a gift.

A bag of spawn on the left, fruiting bag ready for spawn on the right

Mushrooms are propagated from mycelium, mycelium is white stringy stuff you might have discovered growing in a mulch or compost pile. You need to get your hands on mycelium to grow mushrooms (more or less). The mycelium is added to a substrate (usually a grain like winter rye or bird seed), and allowed to grow and colonize the container. This substrate with colonized mycelium is called spawn. It is basically used to expand the mycelium, sort of like growing a transplant. The spawn is then added to another container for fruiting (often a bag), which contains a different substrate (usually straw or hardwood sawdust), and occasionally a supplement (alfalfa or bran). The fruiting bag is either pasteurized or sterilized depending on the mushroom variety, and after it is cool, spawn is added.

Each mushroom is different, and even oysters vary in the conditions they thrive in. We soon discovered that blue oysters are among the easiest to grow and ordered some spawn from a company in the north east. Blue oysters grow on straw and the straw needs to be pasteurized at around 160 degrees for 90 minutes. That was done in pots on our kitchen stove (apparently I need to find a better method for doing this). There is a way to cold pasteurize the straw which we are going to try with our next batch. The straw is drained, cooled and mixed with the spawn before it is added to bags and put in the incubator. Grains and sawdust need to be processed in a pressure cooker before spawn can be added.

Some bird seed going into the pressure cooker. Its going to be used to expand spawn

The incubator is basically a dark area around room temperature or higher. It is where the mycelium grows and colonizes the bag, we poke holes in the bags so they can get a little extra air while growing. Once colonized, the bags are placed in the fruiting chamber. At the moment, our fruiting chamber is just a small, low cost, four shelf greenhouse in the basement. Mushrooms need fresh air and high humidity (generally above 85%) so we have a tote with a fan mounted to the lid, inside the tote is a fogger. There is a humidity control which turns on the fan and fogger when the humidity in the tent drops too low. The whole tote is connected to the fruiting chamber with PVC pipe which delivers the fresh humid air.

We are also playing around with making our own spawn, you can buy mycelium strains in a syringe and add them to bird seed or grain and grow them out, you can also add the liquid from the syringe to a sugar liquid and allow the mycelium to grow in that. This is far more involved than we originally thought but we are really enjoying the whole process. Our plan is to produce 25 lbs of mushrooms a week by the start of the Farmers markets. We have a long way to go.

A fully colonized bag in the fruiting chamber

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Another growing season comes to a close

October 25, 2017
by Bob Fade

This weekend we will be attending our last farmers markets for the year, it is the end of our second growing season. Farming, for us as a new farm, is an all consuming endeavor. The days are long, our ‘to do’ list only seems to get longer, and we make more mistakes than we want to admit to. Last week, when I mentioned to a customer that we were a new farm and had a lot to learn, she said “you would never know that, your produce always looks so beautiful.” I thanked her and said “That’s probably because we dont bring all our screw ups to the farmers markets.”

We dont usually post pictures of the crops that get tilled under, or the times the bugs got the better of us, we are usually presenting the best side of who we are as farmers. While I love being a farmer, it is exhausting, pushes me to my limits, and there can be no excuses for why things didnt succeed. It all rests on the farmer’s shoulders. I havent encountered a problem yet that I couldnt have avoided by doing something differently.

In the past, when I heard people thanking their customers and saying it was their customers that keep them going, I always wrote it off to hyperbole. But as a farmer, Ive finally realized what they meant, and it isnt just something people say to keep their customers happy.

I want to thank every one of you who bought from us this year. It truly was a pleasure to hear about the joy you got from the food we produced. We received a lot of compliments and endless encouragement from the communities in Saugerties and Rosendale. It is endlessly rewarding for me to have a customer return and be happy to find a certain product again this week while telling me how much they enjoyed it the last time they bought it, to see the person who buys a bouquet of flowers every week walking towards our stall, or to watch a child sample a cucamelon and ask his mother to buy them. It is those moments that helps keep my passion for farming fueled and it is in those moments when I realize that we are doing this together, the farmer needs his community as much as the community needs its farmers.

Thank you for making it possible for us to continue farming. We look forward to growing for you and sharing another year together in 2018.

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Breanna’s new Alpaca children

October 9, 2017October 9, 2017
by Bob Fade

Somewhere around our first date, Breanna mentioned that she always wanted to have alpacas, some time after that, to impress my new girlfriend, I brazenly promised her that I would make sure she eventually had them. She has ingeniously forgotten most of the things Ive promised during our courtship, but the alpaca promise was one she refused to let go. So last week, after moving a newly purchased and previously disassembled greenhouse to the farm in about ten thousand different pieces, I relaxed in a chair while scrolling through Facebook. I saw a post from someone who was dispersing of an alpaca herd a little over an hour from here. We got in touch and decided to go see them the next day.

When we got there, the woman showing us the herd mentioned that she had two special alpacas that she was thinking of bringing back to her farm, they had bonded and one of them was deaf, so they couldnt be seperated. I looked over at Breanna and she was looking at me like the kitten in the Shrek movie, eyes all watery and huge. I knew we were about to own a deaf alpaca.

This is what I saw when I looked over at Breanna

We chose three alpacas, Peaches and Cream, they are white and Cream is deaf, and Stella, a reddish brown alpaca. We went home and made plans to pick them up in about 5 days. Breanna was going to come back to get them in the minivan.

By the time we got home, it became apparent that waiting five days was impossible. I called and changed the plan so that Breanna could pick them up in two days, which gave me just enough time to reconfigure a shelter for them, clear out the pen area and fence it in. Two days later, Breanna pulled in, three alpacas in the minivan, and we pulled and prodded the alpacas out of the car and into their new home. Im letting her take care of them and I try to keep my distance because if they end up liking me before they like her, Im afraid our relationship might be done for.

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We get Bees

May 5, 2017
by Bob Fade

Some of the bees took a while to make it into the hive

We ordered bees months ago, and of course, I still hadnt finished the basic beekeeping book before they arrived. I had put together the bee hive and installed the frames, but I was never more unprepared for anything as I was for getting bees.

We had ordered a nuc. Which is basically a nucleus colony that comes in a box, you just take it home and put the frames, with queen and bees, into your hive and voila, you have a bee hive. I quickly skimmed the pages on how to do this. It didnt seem too difficult, so Breanna and I grabbed the beekeeping veil, and the smoker and headed over to install our nuc.

I got the smoker working pretty easily, the smoke calms the bees so you can move them without getting stung. I unscrewed the top of the nuc and lifted the lid a little. The deafening roar of what sounded like millions of bees filled the air. I lowered the lid and stared out into space in terror, realizing I was in way over my head. I looked over to Breanna standing a safe distance away for support, oh good, she is videoing the whole thing. Realizing my impending, monumental humiliation will be recorded for the ages, I lifted the lid again, smoked the nuc and told the bees that “everybody just needs to stay calm”.

I loosened one of the frames and struggled to find someplace on the top of the frame that wasnt crawling with thousands of bees about to be unceremoniously removed from their home. I gingerly lifted the first frame with two finger and if you ever wondered if bees react to fear, I can assure you that they do not, I was positively terrified yet the bees walked around blissfully unaware as I transferred them to their new digs.

After about the third frame, the smoker died. Rest assured, I kept using it even though no smoke was blowing from the nozzle in the hopes that the smell from a small extinguished fire would somehow pacify the bees in the same way that the the smoke did. The bees started getting active at this time and I can tell you that its very difficult to tell if the bee angrily flying inches from your face are inside the protective veil or outside it. I was fighting my flight response about now and I actually had to watch the video to see how things turned out because I dont really remember, but apparently, I got all five frames installed, closed up the new hive, and somehow, survived without a single sting.

So now Im a beekeeper, and no, Im not posting the video

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Our Crazy Spring

May 1, 2017
by Bob Fade

The farm currently. The beds are going in quickly

As I write this, we are at least three weeks behind in our planting and working hard to catch up, I should probably be outside working, but its getting dark. We have had a very trying late winter/early spring.

Originally we were going to rent two acres from someone, but that deal didnt work out in the end. I didnt feel our needs would be met and we ended up walking away from the land. The problem is, that this was in the beginning of March, and I was planning to start planting in the beginning of April. Also, all of my planning was done based on that property and infrastructure. So I began looking for different land.

I quickly found a great guy who had land to rent and we decided to use it, it was close to home and seemed like a good fit, but when I ended up measuring out the land, the distance from the water source, etc. It turned out to present more problems than it solved and we just didnt have the time to sort them all out.

My future in laws had let us use their large garden to grow in last year and we were planning to also use it this year. They had earlier suggested that we stay at their place and expand the garden. I love working there and the soil is good, but all their property was wooded. They made it very clear that they were ok with us clearing the land and since we were getting desperate, we decided to go for it. Originally, I felt bad about clear cutting the area in front of the garden, but it all happened so quickly that I had no chance to dwell on it. Two weeks after we started cutting the first tree, the stumps were out, the ground was graded, fencing was up and the first bed was put in and planted. We have been making steady progress and hopefully will be caught up with our planting by the end of the week (when we will have to start putting in the warm weather crops).

One of the cooler things that happened during this crazy time was that we had to deal with a burrow that was in the area to be fenced. I assumed it was a groundhog as Id seen one run to that hole before, so I set out a Havahart trap, we ended up catching and releasing a baby fox. I moved the fence so the fox den was outside the field and we have really been enjoying watching the foxes popping their heads up and playing around the opening of the den.

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The End of the Winter Growing Season

March 2, 2017
by Bob Fade

Our first winter growing season is over, and we were amazed by the results we got. We trialed a lot of different vegetables in the unheated high tunnel and for the most part, they performed very well.

Having planted mostly in October (a little later than I’d hoped) we got a few cuttings of arugula, mizuna, the lettuce mix and spinach. It was so much fun to walk through the snow in the middle of a 30 degree day and enter a 60 degree high tunnel with green things growing everywhere.

Arugula in the tunnel around Thanksgiving

It did get cold in there at night, some mornings the veggies would be frozen solid, but they thawed and survived, some of them continuing to grow slowly.

The bok choi made it til about xmas, then the repeated freezes were too much for it.

By the middle of February, everything that was left was growing again nicely. The arugula did start too bolt however.

Everything (except some kale) has been removed from the tunnels and it has been replanted with arugula, lettuce mix, spinach, and a few other things for early spring sales. Then we plan to put tomatoes and eggplants in there for the summer.

We’ll let you know how it goes

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Our Newest Toy

November 3, 2016November 3, 2016
by Bob Fade

We recently purchased a greens harvester, it’s a great little tool that harvests greens in a fraction of the time it takes by hand. We are probably going to use this next year to grow baby greens as well as the leaf greens we produced this year. This video was the second time we used it, hopefully I’ll get the hang of it quickly.

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Part II: How do you grow vegetables in the…

October 12, 2016October 13, 2016
by Bob Fade

The high tunnel right after the plastic was installed

Our high tunnel is completed and we have begun putting in crops. We have planted transplants as well as direct seededing. It’s only been a few days but the transplants are looking pretty good and many of the seeds have germinated.

Everything took a little longer than I was expecting, I had hoped to have it planted two weeks ago. What we are trying to do is grow vegetables throughout the winter in an unheated high tunnel.

The high tunnel heats up the soil during the day and the soil releases that heat at night. With the help of row covers, you can extend the season, keep some things alive all winter, and get an early start in the spring. Row covers are just fine woven, lightweight fabric that let’s a lot of light through but can help keep some of the heat around the plant during the evening like a blanket.

While extreme cold can kill many plants, some can survive a few freezing and thawing cycles. The real limiting factor in winter is the lack of daylight. Below 10 hours of daylight, plant growth slows down dramatically or stops all together. Around here November 10th is the first day with less than 10 hours of daylight and February 1st is the last. 20161003_110434

The basic idea behind winter growing is to choose the right varieties and get them to the proper size so that they can be harvested during this low light period. Or keep them slightly smaller so that in the late winter they begin growing again and you have a very early harvest.

After adding some seeds and transplants. The side is open for ventilation. It gets hot in there

This year we are using our high tunnel to learn. We have broken it down into 40 small plots and are planting many different varieties over a few different dates to see what does best for us in our location. My hope is that we will figure out how to grow 1/3 of the test varieties well over this winter so that next winter we can add more high tunnel space to grow vegetables for sale. We will, of course, keep learning and trialling different varieties next year as well.

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Part I: Our Winter Plans

September 9, 2016
by Bob Fade

Last year's low tunnel, about 3 feet high and 6 feet wide — Last year’s low tunnel, about 3 feet high and 6 feet wide

People often ask me about winter, how do make money on a farm in winter? What are you planning to do? We have recently started on a project I’ve been interested in for a very long time, winter growing.

Late last winter we installed a low tunnel, basically a plastic covered half circle that was about three feet high. It worked very well and we harvested very early crops of arugula, bok choy, radishes and more. We are planning on having at least two low tunnels this year to grow into the winter and for an early spring planting. But we have also started construction of a high tunnel.

The newly tilled spot for our high tunnel

Our high tunnel will be 56 feet long, 12 feet wide, and about 7 feet tall in the center. With it we will be able to grow into early winter and hopefully again in late winter, Part II of this blog post will deal more with the details of how this all works.

The bender, fastened to a table, with a partially bent rib in it

We are using a high tunnel hoop bender from Johnny’s Select Seeds. With it we are able to bend the ribs of the tunnel ourselves out of the top rail used in chain link fencing. Johnny’s has sort of perfected this system and the directions are easy to follow.

It won’t be a permanent structure, we are planning to keep it up for a year or so and then dismantle it and move it to a more permanent location. One of the advantages of using the bender is that in the future, we can extend this tunnel as much as we want and add new tunnels inexpensively. We aren’t finished yet, but I’m expecting the cost to be around $2 a square foot.

We are also adding wire supports running the length of the tunnel that will be directly over two of the beds. In the summer these beds will be planted with tomatoes which will be supported by strings hanging from the wires. With a little luck, w should get 4-5 crops a year from the finished tunnel.

Stay tuned for part II of this post: How do you grow vegetables in the winter?