Now that we have put up our new sign in Freedom, and now that you know who we are we just wanted to introduce ourselves. We are Murphy Family Farm and we grow diversified vegetables and will be having a market this summer right down the street at Freedom General on Sundays. Come on by and say hello if you see us out in the fields or at the market and let us know what you would like to see.
The farm has been busy with tilling, seeding, transplanting, going to markets, and prepping for our CSA with Siberia Farms which begins on June 4th. Beyond the usual farm tasks Sean and his dad have been working on putting up the Murphy Family Farm sign his dad made, so this past week they built a sign stand, hopefully the sign will be going up soon!
We are growing excited as the time for our first market is quickly approaching this Saturday, May 16th from 9 to 1 at Dot’s Cafe in Lincolnville. We have a great variety of greens and more planned for the first week! We will be bringing lettuce, spinach, kale, scallions, and seedlings. Collecting fiddleheads and ornamental blossoming cherry branches is also on our list of things to gather for this first market.
Kale safely stowed under our Remay cover, a cloth covering that helps us to keep out pests allowing us not to spray.
The week has been busy as we have been creating permanent raised beds in our main field. This means a lot of hours are spent shoveling the top soil from the paths in which we walk onto the beds. Once we turn around and look back at the gorgeous beds created it is certainly worth it all!
We also spent a lot of time in the field transplanting our beautiful seedlings out. Above is our newer lettuce patch with kale on the left and broccoli on the right, both protected by Remay. Below are our beets freshly transplanted in the fields and a photo of our broccoli seedlings before they were transplanted.
Suddenly the weather has taken a turn for the better as it has warmed up and the fields are drying out. Tomorrow is the big day when Sean will get out into the field and till it up for the Spring. Meanwhile we have filled the hoophouse, most recently planting the last available row with bok choy on a lovely morning off from work. The orchard has also now been planted and although it is a long-term project it is one we are very excited about!
This past week we had visitors come to the farm, Anna’s grandparents flew over from Germany and excitedly explored all the farm had to offer. They loved the beautiful views, the lively hoophouse, and the beginnings of our lovely cabin. They also loved the coast and enjoyed several meals at Dot’s Cafe in Lincolnville, the location of our market which is starting next Saturday, May 16th, we hope to see you there!
After a long wait mother nature has finally let us start to get back out into our fields. Spring is a busy time for sure! Sean has been hard at work getting our hoophouse all ready for our greens to go in, which will be ready by our first market day at Lincolnville Farmers’ Market at Dot’s on May 16th from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
We have spinach, kale, lettuce, kohlrabi, and cabbage planted and tucked away safely for the early spring season. We are glad to have some green life back on the farm while many of our other seedlings are happily growing in the greenhouse space we are renting this season.
Beyond getting our fields ready, Sean and his father built a beautiful chicken coop for our four happily laying girls. We plan to eventually grow our chicken flock but for now we are happily enjoying our fresh eggs and can’t wait for all our other on-farm ingredients to be ready to throw into the pan!
It has been a busy few weeks over here at Murphy Family Farm, as you can probably tell by our lack of farm updates. We now have a few weeks of CSA shares behind us and have been attending our market in Lincolnville for over a month. We also have some new additions to the farm. Our second field, about a half acre, has been tilled up for us by a neighbor farmer and it has also been prepped and planted with squash, corn, and beans by Sean. Another particularly adorable farm addition are our seven baby chicks!
Today we had our first farmers’ market in Lincolnville at Dot’s Cafe on Route 1. We are very excited about this brand new market – it has a lot of potential. There are a variety of vegetable vendors, a meat and eggs vendor, and even organic freshly milled grain (we bought a bag of early riser corn meal that was milled 2 days ago!) Shortly, there will also be lobster.
If you’re ever traveling the coast on Route 1 on a Friday afternoon stop by for a great selection of fresh Maine grown and harvested goods and great prepared foods at Dot’s. It runs every Friday from 11 to 3.
We’ve been busy down on the farm this week planting a little bit of everything. We now have 175 pounds of potatoes in the ground, a bed of turnips, a bed of kale, nearly a full bed of lettuce, some cabbage and scallions, and even a 100 foot bed of sunflowers. A huge thanks goes out to Village Farm for their generosity supplying us with a full load of excess seedlings, thanks to their support we are now right on track with our crops for our markets and CSA. If you are in the market for organically grown seedlings for your own garden this summer make sure you check out Village Farm’s Seedling sale next week in Freedom, they have some great looking stuff (they are certainly helping us look like pros).
Don’t forget to check us out at our first ever market at Dot’s on Route 1 in Lincolnville this coming Friday, May 16 from 11 to 3. There should be some kale, radishes, pea tops, hopefully some tokyo bekana, and a little baby spinach. We are looking forward to offering much more as the season progresses, but for now we will enjoy the bounty this spring has provided.
Since we haven’t been using mechanized tillage we have been able to get out on the fields early. We have ten 100-foot beds planted for the early markets and CSA. We’ve got everything in the ground from beets and carrots to asian greens and lettuce. We planted sweet onions yesterday and the garlic from last fall is starting to sprout up!
We picked up 250 pounds of seed potatoes yesterday as well as a variety of trees and fruiting shrubs to work on our long-term goals of sustainable and nourishing agriculture. The farm is starting to take shape and we look forward to the season ahead.
Though the snow still lingers on the fields and the daylight is not yet long enough to grow crops again we are busy planning for the summer. We have been accepted to the Northeast Harbor Farmers Market on MDI and are planning on selling at a small market in Lincolnville. These markets will allow us to expand our reach significantly, essentially allowing us to market our products throughout Mid Coast Maine.
At Northeast Harbor you will be able to find us every Thursday down by the Marina selling a variety of cut flowers, particularly sweet peas. We plan to dedicate our small 14×20 hoop house entirely to flowers for this purpose. The market typically runs from the last week in June until the end of August, while the island is flush with tourists. If you venture over to MDI feel free to stop by and say hello.
In Lincolnville we will be selling a variety of vegetables at a relatively new, small market right on Route 1. More details about this market will follow, but we are very excited about the possibilities.
Murphy Family Farm 
