What’s sustainable farming without water?

Sean has been working hard since Monday to build us a farm pond. It’s too wet to work the fields and the weather has been too good not to work. The pond will hopefully act as our main water source throughout the season. It is a type of impoundment pond built into the slope to collect the water that drains from the hill. Sean has been using the top layer of sod as the retaining wall and lined it with the heavy clay soil dug out from the higher part of the pond. We are very excited about this new addition to our farm!

By the way Mr. and Mrs. Murphy, surprise! And Happy Easter!

Our first outdoor planting commenced yesterday with 600 row feet of peas! We were able to get them in the back field before today’s rain, and we are hoping for the best. Our back field was fast to melt and the subtle slope made for easy drainage, thus the early planting. We will be succession planting more Sugar Snap peas in the back field as the season progresses.

Last Friday our shipment of onion plants arrived as part of our grant in conjunction with Unity College to study and document early, high profit crops for Maine farmers. There are now about 2000 onion plants in the hoop house that we will be harvesting as scallions and bunching onions by early summer for our markets and CSA.

Speaking of the CSA, we still have openings available for the 2014 Summer CSA through Siberia Farms. There is still time to join up and enjoy a full summer of fresh, locally grown veggies delivered directly to your door.

Spring is finally here and things are starting to pick up around here, you can really feel the intensity of the sun while in the hoop house this time of year. I was finally able to spend a full day getting things ready at the farm yesterday. The ground is starting to clear and a small portion of the back field is now free of snow. The arugula, tokyo bekana, spinach and carrots look great, and we are expecting a shipment of onion transplants from Johnny’s any day now.

Everything outside is covered in white again, but we’ve got a few things started inside to remind us what green looks like. The radishes on the right are a little experiment in transplanting out early radish bunches, while the thyme on the left ought to produce for the entire season and then some once transplanted.

Both of these crops will be going into the hoop house soon, sharing the space with onions and spinach already in the ground and arugula, tokyo bekana, peas, baby carrots, and more radishes on the verge of germination. Everything in the houses is covered up under several layers, it is no exaggeration to say it was over 70 degrees in there last week with no heat but the accumulation of the sun’s rays. 

Stay tuned for more pictures from the hoop house. The days are officially long enough to grow stuff again, and we will be trying out a variety of crops from roots to greens that we hope to bring to market by May.

We procured our land in August of 2013 and have since tilled up about 1 1/2 acres for the 2014 season. Our hoophouse has officially been up since November and we have been working on building up our soils through multiple layers of compost and locally collected seaweed. We hope to feed our crops all their essential nutrients through sustainably providing rich matter from local sources.