February 16th

Summer CSA Information:

We are adding back in an Earle Farm pickup this year.  Tom and Ruth have generously allowed/encouraged us to add a pickup back at their farm.  Please see the pickup options and details below as well as on our website.  We need a minimum of 10 to sign up at Earle Farm so tell your friends! 

February 16th,
Last weekend I treated myself to a weekend long tracking workshop called Wild Camp, "Tracking Deep Dive".  It was run by Andrews Nelson and her tracking partner Danielle. Based at Merrifield Farm, no longer in full farm operations but a well-known fixture in the Cornish and surrounding area and just on the other side of Hosac Mountain from us.   It was an interesting collection of people, several of them moms in a play group I've been part of for the last few years (including Danielle), one of my neighbors, a close neighbor of Merrifield Farm, and a few other new faces to me from further away.   In total there were 8 of us participants and after a brief time inside for some introductory discussions, we split into two groups and spent the next 5 or 6 hours exploring the woods.   My group followed the snowmobile trails stopping to examine any interesting tracks, and talking through the many possibilities of what animal made them.  The recently fallen deep snow made definitive identification difficult. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that often tracking remains a mystery, best solved by many hours of experience, getting to know the local animal population intimately, and the best action is to follow out a track until some identifying behavior might be observed.    We saw lots of squirrel tracks, one set in particular ending in a comical crystal-clear whole-body print of snow smushed against a tree.  After a quiet lunch sitting in the snow, we abandoned the snowmobile path and went off trail following an intriguing set of tracks that all we could tell for certain were likely made by a group of larger mammals.   The tracks meandered along the westerly side of an increasingly steeper hill, one set occasionally diverging from the others, only to rejoin several hundred feet later.  The deep snow and previous night's winds made distinguishing features (at least to me) invisible, but I found myself happy to be climbing, taking in the occasional views across a narrow valley up to the man cleared and snowy white top of Hosac.  It was a beautiful day to be in the woods, the fresh snow sparkling and the trees casting long shadows.  As the afternoon light changed to evening light, we abandoned the track, climbed to the summit of the hill we were nearest. We then changed courses pointing ourselves down and towards the farm, picking our way through the deep snow until we re-joined the trail.  There we came across the tracks of the other group who had clearly had their own set of adventures during the day.   When we re-convened the next day, we learned the other group had potentially answered the mystery of our track's identity. They had been on a less windblown section of the same set of tracks and discovered more clear evidence of coyote prints, and even a spot in the woods where it seemed some play behaviors could be observed.  Andrews' deep familiarity with the animals near her farm prompted a discussion about the potential reason for the coyotes traveling up the hill we climbed; often feeding on mice and smaller game, perhaps they were checking on the health of the deer population higher up to see if winter had yet made any of the animals weak enough for the pack to consider attempting to take one for food.  The next day after another fresh snowstorm we stayed closer to the farm learning more specific details of each animal's footprints such as toe numbers, relative print size, and gait behaviors.  Inside learning was interspersed with some outdoor play, where we watched a dog change gait and then followed along with his footprints in the snow.  We made mystery human track scenes in pairs for each other, again showing me just how difficult it is to recreate a scene based on footprints alone.   I left the weekend with a great appreciation for our woods, and for the multi-faceted knowledge being an experienced tracker requires.  Although at this point in my busy life I don't feel like I have the patience to follow out tracks or do lengthy woods "sits" to observe passing animals, I felt the experience expanded and strengthened my natural curiosity of the subject.   I've been on a winter reading binge consuming a number of good books with animals as their focus.  "The Tiger", "Coyote America", "A World on the Wing", and "How to Tame a Fox" to name a few.  I've also found myself trying to move more quietly and now watching the dog move out ahead of me in the snow and following along seeing if I can identify when a walk turns to a trot and so on....
If anyone wants to learn more or try a "Wild Camp" adventure go HERE to learn more....

Farm News:

Solar: The solar project is on pause.  With federal grant funding and tax credit uncertainty we are waiting to make a decision on this project.  The grant award allows us two years to begin construction on this project.  
Fence: We are considering investing in permanent deer fencing for our garden. We have to this point been relying on a 3D fencing strategy for the deer where there are two sets of electric lines for the deer, the outermost line baited with apple scent.  The idea is that deer have bad depth perception, so they are deterred by depth of the fence not the height.  They also learn not to walk through the lines by touching the bait caps first with their noses if at all, as with their insulated hooves they are notoriously hard to shock.  This fence has been about 90% effective for the deer but comes with a number of headaches, like regularly refreshing the bait scent, checking the strength of the electric current through the fence, and weekly weed whacking under the lowest line to prevent grounding.  We also have had a number of severe thunderstorms come through in the middle of the night and always wrestling with unplugging the fence charger or not.  This past summer our charger even unplugged got fried by a massive lightning strike and melted an electric outlet in the barn.  In addition, this fence does not prevent the invasion of other critters.  In the last couple of years, we have had a very persistent family of geese that walk from the pond to the garden to graze in the evenings.  Although the dogs are excellent deterrents the geese quickly learn what hours of the day it is safe to graze and two years ago in one evening ate and destroyed about 200ft of young cabbage plants.  In response last year we added a non-electrified stretch of flexi net along the pond side, and this was effective once staked down every 10ft to prevent the geese from walking through and under the netted lines.  Kyle and I are starting to feel like this is a cumbersome amount of non-permanent fencing that is sucking up a significant amount of valuable time each week to properly maintain, not to mention the yearly not insignificant purchases involved in upkeep with the overall keep you up in the middle of the night knowledge that it's not 100% effective  So, we are getting quotes for a permanent solution and talking through the farm economics of the purchase. It feels like the next logical BIG investment/improvement for our farm. Stay tuned! 

Fun Note: Spinach is alive and well in the tunnel and tasting so good! Pretty amazing despite these long cold stretches.  

February News

Summer CSA Information:

We are adding back in an Earle Farm pickup this year.  Tom and Ruth have generously allowed/encouraged us to add a pickup back at their farm.  We are slowly re-energizing as the kids are getting a bit older. Phew! Please see the pickup options and details below as well as on our website.  We need a minimum of 10 to sign up at Earle Farm so tell your friends! 

February News,

We took down two big ash trees this year, one by the barn, and another by the house.  The one by the barn was the easier decision, its top had struggled to leaf out for years and several of its large top branches were clearly dead filling with woodpecker holes and starting to randomly break off.  When it finally came down, the whole inside center was hollow, been rotting away, invisible to us for years.  The other tree was a harder decision.  It was a gorgeous, straight, tall, with elegant symmetrical branches, its canopy arching over one side of our house. I felt a stubborn defiance about not cutting it down for years, counter to the general thinking that all native Ash trees are slated to die from the invasive Ash-Borer beetle.  This tree was so thick, so tall, so strong, maybe it could be one of the few that weathers the storm.  But then woodpecker holes started showing up in the lower branches, and last summer it didn't leaf out quite as well as years past, a sign indicating its overall declining health.  Kyle and I went back and forth about if we should limb the branches that overhung the house, and I spent many hours staring at it deciding which way it would fall and if that would mean it would crush our house. Windy nights started to keep both of us awake and worried, as all creatures', human and pet, sleep on the tree side of the house. The other ash, on the property and in general, are showing more obvious signs of wear from the borer, the outer bark flaking off leaving bright brown streaks, a sure sign of death to come.   Last March we finally did it, hired a man to come cut it down.  It took him a few hours, skillfully tying ropes to pull it away from the house as it fell.  I disappeared to the woods for the day not wanting to witness its death firsthand.  Kyle said as it fell the ripping wood make sounds like gun shots going off it crashed thankfully away from the house but through the branches of several of our small apple trees.  And there it sat all summer, us being too busy to clean it up until fall.  Joni and I counted the rings and were surprised to find it was only about 70 years old, it was deceptively large, but I learned Ash are fast growing, and it had a prime spot with no competing trees nearby.  The look of the house without its tree was disturbing at first, but we've gotten used to the change, and have a collection of saplings coming this spring in an effort to replant the ones we've lost and will continue to lose. 

CSA 2025 Details

Pickup Location Options:

• Hosac Farm-Cornish Maine -Thursdays - 4-6pm

• Earle Farm-South Conway New Hampshire- Thursdays -4-6pm

We chose to raise our prices this year because of our rising input costs, thank you for understanding and choosing to support our farm, we are grateful for all of our members

Share Options:

• Full Share Cost: 525.00 for 14 weeks Late June-October Hosac Farm ONLY

• Summer Share Cost 325.00 for 8 weeks July-September Hosac Farm ONLY

• Earle Farm option Cost: 400.00 for 10 weeks Mid July-September Earle Farm ONLY

• Flower share 250.00 for about 8 to 10 weeks of a weekly fresh bouquet. Hosac or Earle

• If you are picking up at Earle Farm, we will be sending out a produce list by Tuesday of each week and ask you email us your item selection by Wednesday night, or we will make a random selection. Shares at Earle Farm will be pre-boxed. We are experimenting with how it feels time wise for us to add back in the Earle Farm pickup this year so have made the decision to shorten it to 10 weeks. If you are selecting the Earle Farm and would like to do the whole share that is fantastic but will need to pick up the first and last 2 weeks of the season at our farm in Cornish or arrange a drive share.

January News

Summer C.S.A. signups are open, read more below.

As we are winding down our winter CSA season and have run out of enough food to be worth attending the Bridgton Market, we are truly in winter, and our days have taken on the familiar unhurried flow that I look forward to in the busiest summer months.  Mornings are still early, sleeping past 6 a distant and blurry, luxurious memory, and the first hour of the day is filled quickly with the readying of children and the feeding of animals. A new routine for us this year is getting Joni out the door and onto the bus, and once she is headed to school Kyle and I usually take turns walking the dogs.   The older dog is given the choice if he wants to go along, and the younger one is always eager and ready to go, conditioned now by the act of us putting on our boots and the word "walk". Cold sustained temperatures have the pond frozen solid for the first time in several years and we are happily using it as our winter playground. We were treated to a few weeks of glorious ice skating before this last little layer of snow covered the ice.  Before the snow, Joni mastered balancing on her own in skates, and Ryah tried on a pair but decidedly preferred to slip slide around in her boots.   The rising and setting sun each day makes the ice "talk", deep echoing regular woops and waaps, and the kids were excited to trek down to listen and skate.  Snow has made the pond talk less and it is now covered with layers of our tracks documenting our daily walks with dogs and afternoon outings with children and sleds.  The footprints of deer and coyotes are mixed in with ours and I imagine them wandering the pond at night taking in our information though scent and feeling as familiar with our daily habits as we feel with them.    Sprinkled into our meandering days is some vegetable packing or harvesting for the winter CSA which is now winding down, and there is always the never ending need to clean and organize the garage and barn no matter how many times or how recently it has been done.  I have two dinner shifts at Kristas this winter, which helps offset the feelings of unproductivity that always accompany the slowdown of deep winter.  

Farm Activity:

We applied for and received a grant to that would cover part of the cost to put up solar panels at the farm.  We are working through the logistics, finances, and the timing to make a final decision if this project is a good fit for the farm.  

We applied for a resilient agriculture grant through the USDA to expand Maine's middle of the supply chain activities.  You can read more about it here. We requested funds for a delivery van as our current vehicles are way beyond capacity.  This grant received a large number of applications, and we will not hear back until March.  We received a huge amount of help with the application from a very knowledgeable friend and also as part of the process had to receive letters of support from the community.  Working on this grant highlighted the valuable relationships we have built along with our business and for that we are very grateful.  Thank you!  

Sign-ups for the 2025 summer CSA are open.  www.hosacfarm.com/csa to check it out. We did have a small crew that coordinated a drive share situation to the South Conway area.  If you are interested in this, please email for more information. 

We are casually talking about extending the Foothill Farm Alliance into the summer and offering expanded pickup locations in the Conway area, but it is unclear if this will be ready to get off the ground for 2025.  

We will be attending the Bridgton Farmers Markets on Saturdays starting again sometime in May or June.  

We will be attending the Kennebunk Farmers Market on Saturdays starting in June.  

December news

December News

The season's first storm caught us mildly by surprise.  Long, warm, fall temperatures made us relaxed and fairly unmotivated to finish up the last few gardens' clean up chores.  Snow fell on sections of flexi netting and the lengths of hoses running out to the tunnel, cementing them onto the ground for now. The greens in the tunnel are tucked under blankets of "Remay", removed for a few hours each sunny day to ventilate, and we cross our fingers the spinach and bok choi will still look decent after these cold night temperatures. 

 Along with the colder weather, the barn cat brothers "Fred" and "George" got their annual invitation to enter our home.  In part because of the cold, and also because they offer good rodent deterrent during a time of year when we are storing lots of produce in various locations throughout our old house.  Although they are always eager to come in and lounge, in years past they have had an annoying habit of meowing loudly at 2am if kept in overnight.  They are 5 years old, the same age as Joni, and each winter I am hopeful they will have settled enough to be quiet through the night.  My tolerance for being woken up by a creature other than a small child over the last few years has extremely diminished.  We built them an insulated, heated box to be sent out to, after first testing them inside for a few overnights each year.  This winter, so far, the cats seem to finally have settled, and they have been sleeping indoors now with us for several weeks.  

It's fun to have them in the house with us. Good winter entertainment, they are both exceptionally friendly and tolerant of the rough ways of the youngest human, often being tugged on before we can get there to rescue, they seem to enjoy often being half inside the young dog's mouth.    

 I give the cats the recommend feeding size for two, but Fred is too thin, and George is too fat, and it's hard to find a way around this as they share food access.  Watching George squeeze himself through the cat door to the basement, I was suddenly struck with the image of him stuck there like Whinnie the Poo.  I pointed this out to Joni, as we had just listened to that story, and we had a good laugh imagining what we might decorate his bottom with should he get stuck.   We laughed at how sad he would be not being able to reach his food bowl and listening to Fred snacking behind him. 

Its slower and more cumbersome to get out of the house now, especially with the kids, more layers, more complaining, cold fingers and toes while processing vegetables, but I mostly enjoy the seasonal shift.  Morning walks are less rushed and therefore more luxurious, and the snow cover makes everything extra beautiful and has slowed down the ticks.  I like being able to see farther through the trees, far off hills usually obscured by thick summer leaves are now visible. The Hosac Mountain ridge across the pond glows each evening, visible from our field for about 20 minutes during sunset, and I wonder if I will ever feel sick of this beautiful place.  

 
We are attending the Bridgton Farmers' Marketeach Saturday 9-12 at the Masonic Lodge until we run out of food.

We are in the 3rd week of our winter CSA cooperative the Foothill Farm Alliance

Our seed order came in, and sooner than we know it, it will be time to plan for Summer 2025.  

Fall News

LAST CHANCE FOR WINTER CSA 2024/2025 sign ups....
http://www.thefoothillfarmalliance.com

The first real frost of fall came last week.  It's been coming late for several years now. So regular in its lateness that it feels unsurprising and expected.  It was fun to walk into the garden early the next morning after the frost, hearing the frozen long green blades of grass crunch softly beneath my feet. I looked at the remains of the flowers, eggplants, and tall kale plants all wearing beautiful transparent sheets of sparkling ice.  The fall greens next to the tunnel looked frozen stiff, bent over heavy with the extra weight.   I briefly second guessed my decision to leave the unharvested Chinese cabbage uncovered overnight, but decided it was a for fun experimental planting anyway. In contrast to outside, a quick peak inside the greenhouse revealed happy perky rows of greens and the interior thermometer read a balmy 42 degrees.  The dogs ran back and forth wild in the chilly air as I walked the field, sniffing the tracks of all the creatures that visited the farm in the night.   I took in what has now come to be a sign of mid-fall, the frozen gardens making me feel strangely peaceful. As I was snapping photos of frosty plants, I got several texts from other farmer friends sending pictures of their fields. It seems for all of us farmers it felt good to see the frost, a signal to the end of a long season, an end to certain bugs and weeds, and a sure sign that we are winding down into winter. The early frosts we haven't had in several years now used to send us into a panic of mad dashing to cover tender plants with plastic and any other long sheets of fabric we had available, hoping to eke out a few more weeks of harvest profitability.  The first year we did our cooperative winter squash planting we had to harvest all of it in Mid-September ahead of a predicted 30-degree night that would have damaged the fruits.  We got what we could out of the field in one day and left the rest stacked in boxes in the field protected by tarps to keep the frost out until we could come back the next day.  Now the delay in frost has us all relaxed in our harvesting and planting late rounds of greens, and peppers and tomatoes into late October.  
The Chinese cabbage and other greens easily recovered once the sun warmed their leaves. I harvested some last week, and now with a week of warmer temperatures again, it has more of them heading up nicely.  The greens and carrots in the greenhouse are still sitting without their row covers, although we did set up the hoops as a mild attempt to be prepared for the eventual colder temperatures.  Our storage areas are full to the brim for winter, the walk-in cooler, potato room, and odd places around our house.  It's fun in a way to see all the boxes of winter squash living in our mudroom but I look forward to them slowly disappearing over the next few months so we can get to our shoes and coats again with ease.  

We will be attending the Bridgton Winter Farmers Market at the Masonic Lodge, until we run out of food, every Saturday starting November 9th.  

Our Cooperative Winter CSA the Foothill Farm Alliance starts November 9th and pickups are every other week for 7 weeks through the winter.  There are four pickup locations to choose from.  Go to the website to sign up.  www.thefoothillfarmalliance.com

CSA week 13

We’ve been frolicking through the cover crop in the evenings. I lure the kids into the garden with the promise of husk cherries. We didn’t plant any intentionally this year but a handful of plants have come up in scattered places as volunteers. It gets both the kids moving through the garden in the later hours of the day when we are simultaneously trying to burn up any left over physical energy and avoiding aggravating their deteriorating mental energies. The garden is always most beautiful in the evenings maybe especially in the fall when many beds of plastic have been pulled and are replaced with a thick mat of green oats. Stetson watches us longingly waiting for our season to complete so he can be set free in the garden to browse on all our un harvested leftovers and the lush cover crop. I would always let him out around this time just putting up un-electrified flexi-net around un-harvested beds but he discovered this spring he could simply push through them to get what he wants so now he must wait. We’ve been spending some long days at our Conway planting and now the sweet potatoes and squash are all curing and there is maybe a day or two work up there to clean up.

In the share: please take 8 and PYO zinnias

• Sweet potatoes

• Butternut squash

• Acorn squash

• Delicata squash

• Sungolds

• Yellow onions

• Sweet peppers

• Cabbage

• Potatoes

• Lettuce

• Kale

• Eggplant

• Parsley

• Beets

• Leeks

CSA week 11

Long days getting fall food in, Moon and I spent the day yesterday up at our cooperative planting in the Albany town forest harvesting winter squash with friends and frolicking in a sea of sweet potato vines. We will be harvesting the remaining squash and starting in on sweets over the next two weeks.

Please take 8 items

• Yellow onions

• Red onions

• Delicata squash

• Spaghetti squash

• Acorn squash

• Potatoes

• Sweet peppers

• Jalapeños

• Pablanos

• Butter lettuce

• Chinese cabbage

• Cabbage

• Sungolds

• Kale

• Beets

• Parsley

C.S.A. week 10

Last Friday I snuck out for an evening walk. Upon my return I looked up to see probably 200-300 birds circling over our house and field. I called for Kyle and the kids to come out, and we watched them and took some poor-quality video. The birds were about 3 times the size of a swallow and had a distinctive white stripe on the underside of each wing near the tip. We watched them circling for about 30 minutes or so until their numbers started to dwindle. Joni and Ryah both enjoyed watching them, Joni asking questions as usual about the birds’ behaviors.

The woman who volunteers with us is a Maine master naturalist and has a special interest in birds. She had mentioned to me last week in the garden that it was about the right time to keep an eye out for Nighthawks, as their migration south was around now. She said they would be best seen in the evening hours. I didn’t think I would see the Nighthawks or more specifically, know if I saw them. But here they were above our house in such numbers I have never seen in any other bird before here or anywhere. A quick internet search showed their distinctive shape and wing stripes and talked about them congregating in large numbers over a particularly good feeding area usually near water. I sent the poor video to a few other friends with bird interests to share my excitement, and did see a few more Nighthawks the next evening at a friend’s place but not in impressive numbers. The evening walk return timing must have been just perfect and I had I not gone perhaps we would have missed seeing them.

In the share:

Please take 8 items, and as many as you can eat or can red tomatoes, and PYO basil. This is likely the last good week for basil, its going to seed.

• Chinese cabbage

• Butter lettuce

• Sungolds

• Sweet peppers

• Jalepenos

• Beets

• Carrots

• Summer Squash

• Potatoes

• Red Onions

• Leeks

• Green Beans

• Lacinato Kale

• Parsley

CSA week 9

Please take 8 items and PYO Basil and 2 pink tomatoes and 4 green tomatoes

• Carrots

• Green Beans

• Beets

• Cabbage

• Kale

• Kohlrabi

• Sweet peppers

• Jalapeños

• Sungold tomatoes

• Potatoes

• Eggplant

• Red onions

• Celery

• Chinese cabbage

My mom has a history of bad eating habits here at our place. It seems as though because we are a farm she assumes everything on our property is edible and straight up as it is. There was the time I caught her munching on the decorative climbing beans I had growing near our wash station that were certainly not edible. Then there was the time I noticed the greens in the salad we were sharing were a bit leathery and I asked her where in the garden they had come from. She indicated an immature broccoli plant assuming it was a new kale variety. My favorite was when I though the grilled summer squash she said she harvested tasted tough, and it became clear that she had picked a green butternut squash and grilled it skin and all.

Most recently Kyle and I were able to sneak out for a late afternoon hike and dinner and came home to my dad saying there had been an incident. He told me downstairs so I could get all my laughing out before talking to my mom. She had been in our tunnel with both kids and eaten a whole jalapeño. By the time she got to the end of the tunnel she had collapsed in a deep sweat and was shaky with severe stomach pain. She called my dad to come get the kids and he started looking up heart attack symptoms quickly learning they can mirror hot pepper ingestion symptoms. She recovered fairly quickly and by the time Kyle and I got home was comfortably sitting on the couch helping Joni get ready for bed. I don’t know why it made me laugh so hard to hear the story, I laughed again in front of her which she was fine with. I think it was just a classic example of her unbridled farm eating habits that finally had (thankfully a quick) serious consequence. Anyway… the jalapeños are HOT and probably would be best chopped and cooked in salsa or a full dish. Enjoy.

C.S.A week 8

Please take 8 items and PYO Basil and 4 pink tomatoes

• Red onions

• Sungolds

• Cabbage

• Kohlrabi

• Beets

• Carrots

• Celery

• Swiss chard

• Spaghetti Squash

• Potatoes

• Kale

• Yellow onions

• Sweet peppers

• Jalapeños

• Eggplant

C.S.A. Week 7

The big blue dragonflies found their way to our lawn yesterday afternoon. There are a few weeks every year where hundreds of them congregate in the evenings swooping around the yard. We went outside to be with them. Kyle and I sat in the grass, Ryah wandered around oblivious, and Joni tried to count them but quickly decided there were too many. The dogs rested. In his younger years Homer used to try and catch them but is either too tired now or knows better. I wondered how the dragonflies didn’t run into us, them moving so quickly, but we made contact with none, just watched. We had some farmer friends over for an outdoor dinner yesterday and while we were with the dragonflies waiting for arrivals, the clouds kept turning threatening shades of grey, occasionally dropping some sprinkles on us, but the storms held out until late evening after our gathering. We exchanged stories of odd farm lighting strikes as we watched the sky while eating, and laughed at the absurdities of farming together and felt grateful for long friendships.

The heat has messed with our green successions, there is a healthy crop of lettuce and Chinese cabbage coming soon, and I seeded all of our fall greens today, so look forward to those in a couple of weeks.

Please take 8 items and PYO basil and 1-2 pink tomatoes

• Sungolds

• Red onions

• Carrots

• Zucchini/squash mix

• Cukes

• Potatoes

• Beets

• Kale

• Parsley

• Celery

• Chard

• Kohlrabi

• Cabbage

• Red Radishes

C.S.A. Week 5

The garden has reached its peak. There are a few weeks in July that everything looks its best; green, strong, loaded with fruit, and the sunflowers reaching over 7 feet high. Their blooms follow the sun around the field as it rises and sets every day. And then sometime around now as things like carrots, eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes are just coming into their prime, other plants are beginning to decay. Influenced by the shortening of daylight hours, the onion tops are beginning to brown, their process of dying back. We will watch for when the tops have tipped over at the necks and pull them into the Seedhouse to dry for fall storage. The potatoes have passed their flowering stage and are tired from battling leafhoppers and potatoes beetles and now are focusing on sending their energy to the tubers underground. We will begin harvesting them now, but most will wait until October, the cool earth where they have grown is the best holding place for them for now. The first round of summer squash and zucchini plants are yellowing, having produced hundreds of pounds of fruit they are now succumbing to the cucumber beetles and squash bugs that have been nibbling their leaves and roots. Some of the beets are acquiring the fungal disease that thrives in high humidity causing their previously beautiful dark green leaves to spot and shrivel. It is the normal progression of the summer garden and although the perfect visual is fleeting, there are exciting things about this garden shift. With the passing of the peak, we are pulling out beds and transitioning them to fall cover crops which means, that much less space to weed and water. Soon tiny sprouts of oats will come up in newly bare ground, In just a few short weeks they will be a healthy, maintenance-free, sea of lush green. Hot loving crops are producing now, and our time and energy has shifted from planting and weeding to primarily harvesting. It’s always a welcome change that we get to experience in the form of crates loaded with food. The literal fruits of our labor.

Please take 8 items and pick your own basil

• Squash/zucchini mix

• Cucumbers

• Fennel

• Butter lettuce

• Kale

• Red onions

• Green beans

• Cabbage

• Kohlrabi

• Sungold tomatoes

• Beets

• Carrots

• Chard

• Parsley

• Eggplant

• Potatoes

• Beans

Not a formal recipe today, but Kyle and I have been making “Hummus Pizzas” Simply take pita bread or naan or make your own pizza crust. Add hummus, cheese, and summer veggies like tomatoes, basil, peppers, and grated squash carrots, beets. Then bake briefly and enjoy.

C.S.A. Week 4

The life of a small farmer always includes the time-consuming attempts to keep other creatures out. We have learned over the years what works and what doesn’t. Our electric fencing system, knock on wood, has been extremely effective at keeping the deer out. We did learn a few years back that deer can swim. I had decided it would be nice if we didn’t have to fence the pond-side of the garden and instead fenced directly into the water on both ends. After several weeks of seeing deer tracks appear in the garden, and a nagging feeling they were not jumping in, I finally set up a game camera facing the water. On the camera feed we watched a doe easily swim out beyond the fence, around, and into the garden, then swim out again to leave a few hours later. We quickly went back to our old set up. There was a year when the squirrel population exploded in New England and without enough nuts to go around, we had desperate squirrels stealing large amounts of beets. As there is no good way to fence out a squirrel, I ended up trapping over 50 of them in a matter of a few weeks. Last year a family of geese walked out of the pond and into our field soon after we had planted our fall cabbage. They quickly ate about 100ft of new cabbage plants, leaving muddy incriminating goose footprints all over our beds. This spring when the geese came again, I did some reading and learned they like to walk from a water source to food in the evenings. We added non electrified flexi-net along the pond side, and in addition to some close encounters with our dogs I am pleased to report the geese moved on from our pond before deciding to settle in, permanently nesting and hatching their young. Our latest creature has been a porcupine visiting and eating the Swiss Chard. It has been coming off and on for several summers, always favoring the chard, or when not available, the beet greens. It doesn’t do a whole lot of damage, so our efforts to trap it have been minimal. Our fencing does not seem to deter it, and it has ignored the “have a heart” trap baited with everything tasty I could think of: corn, chard, strawberries, apples, peanut butter, and salt. We did set up a camera that sends alerts to our phones, but the porcupine seems to time its garden visits for nights we decide to turn off cell notifications. The nights when we are extra tired or have a very early morning preparing for markets. So we get regular photos of the porcupine in the night, sometimes really close up shots of its quills, and I continue to hope one of these nights we will be able to rush out there and stuff it into a trash can and take it to a new home.

In the share: Please take 8 items

• Squash/Zucchini

• Beets

• Carrots

• Scallions

• Kale

• Cabbage

• Fennel

• Radishes

• Green Beans

• Sungold Tomatoes

• Eggplant

• Sweet Green Peppers

• Fennel

• Parsley

• Chard

• Kohlrabi

C.S.A. Week 3

Beans are flowering and we ate the first sungolds for dinner last night so those will be added to the list hopefully next week as well as peppers

please choose 8 items

• Beets

• Chard

• Lacinato Kale

• Kohlrabi

• Fennel

• Cabbage

• Red Radishes

• Green onions(yellow)

• Green onions(red)

• Summer Squash/Zucchini

• Lettuce- first come first serve, the heat is limiting our lettuce, more available again soon.

• Parsley

In addition to the 8 items you may pick your own Basil, ask and we will show you.

Fennel and Kohlrabi Salad

Ingredients

• 1 small bulb fennel well-cleaned and trimmed

• 1 small tender kohlrabi, peeled and trimmed

• 1/2 red onion sliced thin into half-moons

• 1 cup minced flat leaf parsley

• zest of 1 lemon

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

• 2 tablespoons lemon juice

• salt and pepper to taste

• pinch of red pepper flakes

• fennel leaves

Instructions

1. Julienne the fennel and kohlrabi. Toss with the red onion and parsley. Combine the olive oil and and lemon juice, drizzle on the dressing, and add a few pinches of salt and tons of pepper. Taste, adjust salt and acid levels. Plate and give each serving a good squeeze of lemon juice, a pinch of red pepper flakes, and garnish with parsley and fennel leaves.

C.S.A. Week 2

We usually plant in blocks, all the beets together, all the carrots, the beans, the squash, the brassicas, and so on. We do this out of habit and for ease of rotating the crops the best we can. Each type of plant has different nutritional needs, different diseases, and different pests. On a scale so small as ours it’s hard to know how much the rotation matters but we do it anyway.

. Last year was just so wet, both Kyle and I found ourselves dragging our feet this winter about garden planning, our 2023 farming depression spilling into the winter. I found myself thinking about the section of beans that submerged on July 4th last year, as well as the ends of the cabbage beds that sat amongst semi-permanent puddles and wishing the damage and been spread out more a bit. I also thought about this one beautiful kale plant last year that somehow snuck itself into the bed of zinnias and how it avoided the fall aphid onslaught the rest of the kale falls prey to seasonally.

So, this year we decided to spread things out, to see if would help slow down pests that jump easily from our first planting to the next successions, and to hedge our bets against any weather-related problems. It made prepping the garden a little more complicated and it still to be determined if the pest or disease pressure will be less, but the garden is awfully pretty to look out right now, I’m enjoying the varied visuals immensely.

Please choose 8 items

• Broccoli

• Summer squash/Zucchini mix

• Kohlrabi

• Kale

• Butter lettuce

• Beets

• Chard

• Scallions

• Basil

• Parsley

C.S.A. Week 1

Here we are at the first week of the C.S.A. The garden has made the transformation from empty brown dirt and flattened cover crop to rows and rows of green. There is a magical moment when the energy of the farm shifts, when plants have graduated from their fragile stage and entered the period of explosive growth and production. I look forward to this point in the year when we can trust the plants and our job is to more simply support them in their growing. We give them little tweaks here and there; a trellis, water, weeding, but they no longer need us to hover, catering to their every tiny need. The tomatoes are growing about twelve inches a week now, and I spend an hour or two in the greenhouse every seven days or so pruning suckers and clipping them to their vertical support strings. By late July they will have reached the cross beams in the tunnel, and I’ll give up on taming them and their fruit heavy tops will start to lean back down towards the ground. Soon the first round of broccoli will start heading, we will harvest them and turn their stalks back into the ground. Tiny carrots are getting bigger by the day, the most tedious initial rounds of weeding are behind us. We’ve cruised through almost all the plants now at least once, our hands brushing up against them as we pull competing crab grass and purslane, giving them that encouragement towards growth.

In the share

Please take 8 items (there will be more choice as more food comes in over the next few weeks)!

• Baby summer squash and zucchini mix

• Baby beets

• Curly Kale

• Romaine Lettuce

• Butter head Lettuce

• Yellow Scallions

• Purple Kohlrabi

• Garlic Scapes (From Mountain Heartbeet Farm)

• Swiss Chard

• Bok Choi

May News

The killdeer came back to the garden a few weeks ago, and their presence is welcomed by all of us here at the farm.  I like to think they are the same individuals as last year, maybe even last fall's chicks now back in adult form.  They are up to their same old tricks.  They do their broken wing dance in front of Moon and then quickly swoop out and around the garden leading him away from an invisible nest, finding safety in the dirt of the garden knowing he is not allowed in.  Moon enjoys the excuse to run, although chases them a bit half-heartedly this year, maybe knowing how it always ends where he is forbidden to enter.  Joni knows how to spot the killdeer now, listening for their telltale noisy scream and ground running behavior. She watches for them on our walks down to the pond where she has taken a liking to making echos and throwing rocks off the dock.  The echoing works best on cloudy days and requires several seconds of silence to hear.  Any moments of silence are hard for Joni and often the echo is lost but the pond seems like a perfect place to get loud energy out.  Ryah doesn't understand the echoing but thinks watching excessive noises coming from Joni is worthwhile entertainment and the splashing of rocks into water is great fun.   
 
The garden is filling up, one long bed at a time.  The pre-season garden is always the ugliest time of year to me, the large expanse of brown when everything else around us is turning green is an unfortunate scar of human cultivation. Long layers of plastic mulch that have been laid to help us control weeds and moisture make the scenery worse and leave us having repetitive conversations about the benefits and downsides to its use on our land.  But those tiny plants are going in, and soon they will shoot up and leaf out, drawing the eye away from the ground and to the amazing growth of life that occurs in such a short amount of time. The tree line along the pond has slowly leafed in, allowing us to still see the sparkling blue of the pond but obscuring the Hosac ridge that we are treated with in the winter months. 

We marvel yearly at the sudden flush of life in spring, a phenomena I hope will never feel old.  We see it in the daffodils getting fuller and thicker each year, the bumble bees and honeybees dancing around the flowers of the almond tree making it sound alive.  We see it in the delicate white violets sprinkled amongst the dandelions in our un-mowed yard, the sounds of the tree frogs returning in the evenings, and the songbirds in the mornings.  

We are still farming in small children mode.  Joni is more eager and able to help for some amounts of time this year, although the help is slower and involves much more chatter.  Ryah is walking (almost running) both eagerly following Joni around and often determined in her own independence.  Kyle and I take turns in the garden and with the kids, one of us often planting in the morning, the other in the afternoon.  It has made us change work strategies, and although we are missing time in the garden working together, it spreads out the load on each of our bodies in a silver lining kind of way.  We have one volunteer who we realized has been working with us since Joni was born, and she has been an incredible support to us during these harder years.  This season she has already helped us get hundreds of plants into the ground.  

April News

GREENS!!!

We have a planting of greens maturing in our high tunnel and will be attending Bridgton Farmers Market on Saturday April 20th.  The Market is located in the Masonic Hall Lodge in Bridgton near the golf course and runs from 9am-12pm.

If you would like to pick up greens from the farm next week, please email us to arrange a pickup time and indicate what you would like to order from the list below.  We can have orders ready for Friday the 19th or Saturday the 20th.    
-Arugula (bag) 6.00
-Baby Kale Mix (bag) 6.00
-Spinach (bag) 6.00
-Radishes (bunch) 3.50

The tunnel survived last week's storm, the snow piled up high on the sides and helped defend the plastic against the gusty winds.  Kyle ended up shoveling the roadside of the tunnel twice during the storm. The way the wind comes off the pond causes most of the snow to build up quickly on that side, and once it reaches above the height of the hip boards the top of the tunnel will no longer shed snow and is in danger of collapse from too much weight on the plastic. 

Although the storm temporarily dampened a little of the spring energy we were feeling, the rain and warmth of the last few days have revealed most of the bare ground again, although in a bit soggier condition.  The daffodils by the front of the house seem to have easily shaken themselves off after the dumping of snow and look no worse for the wear, almost ready to bloom.  All the signs of actual spring are now here, the small patch of crocuses bloomed this morning, the magnolia is toying with the idea of opening its petals, and we are back outside doing our normal spring garden tasks. 

We have been treated to an explosion of flocks of robins, red wing black birds, and brown headed cowbirds over the last few weeks. They gather in absurd numbers on our lawn and in the trees pecking for worms and bugs.  Joni has been trying to count them, pressing her face against the window trying to keep track of their numbers before something spooks them and they flutter away.  The redwing flocks must number in the hundreds, they spend most of their time down on the pond, but occasionally fly back and forth between the trees in our yard, allowing us to watch them from below as we do the yearly spring repetitive walks back and forth from seed house to tunnel, moving and watering baby plants. 

The seed house filled up with the first rounds of plants, and we moved onions out to the high tunnel earlier this week. We made good use of the remaining snow and used Joni's snow sled to drag the trays out, which saved a couple of trips.  I seeded our brassicas that same day, and the seed house filled right back up. The timing of seeding and moving plants is always a carefully managed dance between weather and available heated space.    

It really seems winter is over now, although it's always possible to get another big April snowstorm in Maine.  We certainly have planted Onions and Leeks in years past to then watch them get a dusting.  Although the snow cover was inconsistent at best, all types of winter fun and tasks were had this year: Joni wore ice skates on the pond and enjoyed some epic sledding adventures at my friends place on a big hilltop in Effingham.  I managed to get myself out cross country skiing both here and further up in the Whites several times with some skiing over rocks and exposed streams of course.  Kyle shoveled the roofs and the greenhouse multiple times (impressive considering the tunnel didn't have plastic for most of the season).  We are ready for spring.  

March News

Our tunnel's plastic blew off in December's windstorm.  It was a sight to see, we watched it happen from the windows that overlook our field in the space we call the "loft" above the garage.  We had recently replaced the plastic as the lifespan is about 5 years and we had ours on for 6.  The old sheet had acquired many holes for various reasons, and the wood anchoring the plastic at the "hips" of the tunnel were rotten and in need of replacement.  Kyle and I tried a new off-brand system of wiggle wire, and in the retirement of our 1st farming season with two kids we rushed the installation of the new sheet wanting to see it done.   Once installed, the new plastic was saggy, as a 40'x100' sheet is hard to get perfectly straight and tight, especially with only two sets of hands.  I was vaguely depressed looking at it, bummed that I would have to accept its imperfect look for another 5-6 years when we would get a chance to do it again right.  It felt like an appropriately disappointing finish to what had been a soggy disappointing summer.   But then a little under 2 months later it blew off.   During the storm I saw the far corner on the pond side of the field lift up and then quickly the sheet gained momentum lifting the hip boards off that entire length and it was flapping wildly in the air for about 30 minutes before rather gracefully and uneventfully sliding down the other side that still remained attached and stayed there for the remainder of the storm.  In the moment I had visions of the entire sheet lifting and either ending up high in a tree or a sinking gigantic piece of trash into our pond.  There was nothing we could do during the storm about it, Kyle went out to the tunnel and got some impressive video footage up close, the plastic ragging wildly in the wind like some kind of shipwreck on a desolate shore.  The next day or two we cleaned up, which felt good, removing the evidence of the failure, and although it took some time, we started to appreciate the bright side of the loss.  Our tunnel was in desperate need of a water flush, as salts from fertilizers accumulate on the artificially dry soil surface, so the rain and snow of the winter months provided the deep moisture the tunnel needed.  Although the big snows never came, Kyle was relieved to have the tunnel removed from his shoveling list, as the sides need to be frequently cleared of snow during big storms to allow the roof to shed.  This winter/spring has also felt windy, and we had many moments during the windstorms we were happy to not have the plastic on our worry list.  

We did some research and switched plastic anchoring systems to the RIMOL greenhouse company, their sales team talking us through the transition and assuring us they are designed for high wind loads.  The first salesperson I spoke with said the size tunnel we have has more plastic surface area than all of Columbus's ships' sails combined, to put a visual to the amount of force behind the piece of plastic during the storm and to emphasize the need for secure anchoring.  Kyle worked over the last few months switching the hip anchors to all metal RIMOL tracks that are double bolted to the greenhouse bows, and as he worked, became increasingly aware of just how flimsy the off-brand was in comparison.  Our previous track had lifted the screws right out of the wood hip boards on one whole side during that big storm, the wind force on the plastic just slowly working the screws loose. 

Finally ready, we lined up help from some friends and family and covered the tunnel for the second time.  It was a relief to have extra hands and the plastic although of course never as tight and perfect as I would like, came out just about as good as you could ask for.  Looking back, we've been laughing a bit about our previous attempt.  We were exhausted, rushed, and trying to save money, never a good combination.  This recovering has somehow slightly re-energized us both for the season ahead.  It went well, it looks good, and the help from family and friends made us feel grateful to all the people we have connected with in our years being here.

Kyle headed off to a friend's farm later that same week and helped them to re-cover two tunnels they had lost, one in the same December storm. It was a windier day than when we did
ours and he said the whole experience was wild, funny, nerve racking, and somehow illustrated the often-felt ridiculousness of farming.  Us tiny humans constantly trying to modify and tame nature with varying degrees of success and failure.  

As good as we feel about our new tunnel covering, we've already lost sleep on a couple of very windy nights, and don't love seeing the 40mph gusty forecast.  But we have done the best we can this time, and just have to let the weather play out and now hope for the best.  

Year End Newsletter

July 5th was my last farm newsletter.  It's the first season I didn't blog weekly C.S.A. notes to our members.  I had every intention of at least getting something out weekly, but summer farm life set in, and a new baby born in the spring gave me the perfect excuse to fall off the regular newsletter writing wagon.  I thought if I skipped a few weeks, I'd be able to get back into it, but once I stopped it was just so easy to not start up again, and the literal dark clouds that hovered over Maine for much of the summer made writing about farming this year extra unappealing. Now here I sit looking back, trying to adequately capture into words a season that was somehow both a whirlwind and a drag. At many points during the summer people would ask us how we were doing it, how were we getting it all done?   I didn't have an answer, and really still don't.  But here we are having completed our 9th farming season in Cornish.

 Kyle and I functioned this summer like some sort of bizarre single human unit: Wake up, kids, water plants, harvest, kids, go to markets, plant, kids, wash, eat, kids, bed, repeat. We were always swapping each other in and out from farmer chores to childcare, and some mix of both when moods and circumstances aligned.  We had regular help from our parents with childcare, and several friends and season long volunteers who helped us with things on the farm. I think by necessity the big things got done faster and easier than they ever have. Our systems have now been perfected many years into this farming adventure, and the child driven scarcity of time has made us more efficient.  The summer kept rolling, and we just kept doing.  

We anticipated an extra hard year due to a new child but the excess rain this summer added an unanticipated difficult dimension to the farm. The rain started in late May, and really hasn’t stopped since. Record setting amounts were dumped, and our growing season definitely felt the impacts of too much moisture.

We plant several crops successionally, so that we have a continuous harvest spanning the C.S.A. and market season. In both the green beans and summer squash/zucchini, the near constant cloud covers delayed flowering on our first plantings causing them to mature at almost the exact same time as the second and third plantings (despite being seeded a whole month apart). This shortened the times of harvest for these vegetables, and we then had them in excess for a very brief period of time.  

The clouds and rain also impacted the productivity of many of the vegetables, reducing the overall yields by an estimated 20-30%.  Our soils became saturated around the end of June as the amount and frequency of the rainfall increased, and it really never dried out.  Plants need oxygen and nutrients to their roots and when the soils are waterlogged it impacts their ability to literally breathe and to uptake those necessary nutrients for healthy growth.  The lowest spots in our field became so saturated that after July 4th, almost any amount of additional rainfall would cause puddles to appear. The puddles were (mostly) contained to the aisles as we shape raised beds. They would recede over the course of several days and then fill back up with the next storm.  Frogs laid their eggs in some of the puddles. I thought it was a bold and faulty place to lay offspring, but sure enough those puddles persisted long enough for us to watch tadpoles hatch weeks later. 

Our brassica plantings were mostly on high ground, but the last 20 feet of so of the beds sloped down pretty severely into a low spot close to the pond.  I was never able to weed this section. I’d be out there traveling down the length of the bed with a hoe, hit the puddles and then be forced to return back up to high ground. I tried the first time to hoe through the puddle and quickly realized this was a useless pursuit.  That section grew a weird collection of water grasses I'd never seen before. I worked on not looking directly at that area on my morning and evening laps around the field as it visually ruined my gazing at the garden. Finally in September, in a fit of defeat and annoyance I finally made my way over there with the weedwhacker and cut them all down. 

On one harvest day it was raining so hard that Kyle and I conducted an informal experiment on the best outerwear.  I wore a raincoat and Kyle wore a bathing suit.  The results were inconclusive. Most summers I find a raincoat to be oppressively hot and movement restrictive and opt to be sprinkled on instead, but this year the downpours had me in my rubber jacket more often than not. I got used to the sound of mud sucking at my feet and seeping in between my toes as I traipsed around the garden in sandals, decidedly the best farming foot gear for the year as I could just hose them off when coming and going from garden to house. 

When the final big harvest time rolled around in the fall, we encountered the next challenge left from all the rain; carrots and potatoes that were extra time consuming to dig, were stuck in soil that had adopted a cement like quality. Usually, we are able to lift the carrots out easily by their tops, but this season they all had to be gently pre-loosened from the soil’s tight hold with a garden fork. The potato harvest was a finger damaging chore as we had to pry back dense mud from the tubers, a task Kyle amazingly accomplished 90% of on his own as the potatoes were grown at our lower Hosac fields too far for me to accompany him during kid nap hours. 

Our Onions grew into beautiful round globes and then were hit with a collection of diseases that decimated their healthy green tops and storage reliability in a matter of weeks.  All of the diseases they acquired thrive in high temperatures with many consecutive days of humidity. Once the “leaf wetness” took hold, the diseases spread. Usually, daytime sun and heat in July quickly dry the nighttime dew off of plant leaves, but this year the sun didn’t come out often enough, and the onion plants sat wet for days on end becoming perfect hosts for the disease spore to set and multiply. 

All of this aside, we just kept going, kept farming because that’s our job and our life. Here we sit now in December with some distance from the season trying to reflect, absorb what we learned, and muster up the energy to move forward to try it all again. Next year is almost sure to be different, but it’s possible it’ll be the same. With farming we are at the mercy of the weather and just have to do our best to adapt and react with the land. The arrival of the coming years seed catalogues that always start filling our mailbox in late November managed to ignite the first hint of a spark I’d been missing, although it didn’t last.  As we get deeper into winter and I further settle into my daily woods walks and skiing with the dogs, I’ll recharge and my farming energy will return, it always does. 

Some end of year harvest totals for a positive perspective, these numbers don't include what went out for our summer CSA, farmers markets, or wholesale, they are just winter storage numbers.  

Onions: 500lbs
Sweet Potatoes: 900lbs
Beets: 600lbs
Potatoes: 1400lbs
Leeks: 300lbs
Kohlrabi: 200lbs
Winter Squash: 600lbs
Carrots: 600lbs

Onions in July Looking Good Before Disease

Beans under water after July 4th Storm

Beets Looked good through July!