April Showers Bring ... Anniversaries and Mud

Man, it’s been a long time since I’ve written a blog. In fact, it seems like a long time since I’ve farmed too. Despite the long hiatus, we are back and ready to roll. To pick up where we left off last summer in July…Tammara and I took a much needed sabbatical away from the farm and Tammara’s regular full-time job to travel across the country. We spent nearly three months camping, hiking, and canoeing through the US and parts of Canada. It was a trip of a lifetime that we feel truly blessed to have been able to do. If you are interested in the trip, itinerary, and our experiences, our companion blog www.vagabondfarmers.blogspot.com is still up on the web, so feel free to peruse.

In our anniversary finery

After returning home in late October, Tammara returned to work, and I returned to fall chores and planning for the upcoming season. Our trip clarified our desire to keep farming and reaffirmed what a beautiful and fertile part of the world we are lucky enough to live and work in. This will be our thirteenth season farming at New Minglewood Farm. This April was also our 25^th wedding anniversary…both of these milestones are hard to believe.

This spring has been a trial of patience. After a long snowy and cold winter I think everyone is pretty anxious for spring to arrive, but after a couple of false starts, it seems we are back to March like weather. With many cloudy cold days with frequent showers and rain, the soil on the farm has remained saturated. If you are lucky enough to farm on soils on the sandy side, you may have been able to plow some ground in early April, but here at Minglewood Swamp with its heavy silt and clay soils, we have been patiently (or not) waiting for it to dry out. The problem with trying to work soil when they are too wet is that you will compact the soil and just make a mess. So, you just have to wait. Finally, last Friday I couldn’t take it any more. Heavy rain was predicted for Saturday, so this was probably the driest it would be for the next week or so. I went over the fields lightly with a chisel plow, just to rip up some of the rye cover crop and expose more soil surface area, in hopes of facilitating more drying. I don’t know if it did much good, but I sure felt better driving around on the tractor.

Despite all the frustration of trying to get anything planted in the fields, we have been quite busy in the greenhouses. We were able to get some early lettuce planted in the fieldhouse, along with some early season tomatoes. We are also on schedule with the baby greens and with lots of transplants for the farm and for sale. We’ve also been busy getting this years mushroom logs inoculated with shiitake spawn.

Baby arugula

Lettuce plugs waiting for transplanting

Eggplants and peppers getting ready for your garden

Oak logs freshly inoculated

The Saratoga markets start in May, opening day this year is a Wednesday, the 4^th. We are looking forward to returning and seeing lots of friends and customers. As in the past, we will also be offering our Minglewood CSA Dollars option once again. Rather than a traditional CSA, where you receive a box of produce every week, this option allows you to pre-buy a share of produce, which gives you a credit at our stand at the farmer’s market. When you shop at our stand we simply deduct the sale from your credit. Savings are based on a sliding scale of 10 to 20%, depending on how much you pre-buy. This allows you to buy what you want, when you want it, and save money. Pre-buying early in the season helps the farm with springtime cash flow, but you can buy shares any time during the season. See us at the market for more information, or e-mail us, and we can send a flyer.

Happy spring!