Gildrien Farm

Whew! Things are busy! We just finished the third farmers' market of the year, and this coming weekend is the start of our CSA! We've been tilling and seeding and transplanting away in our field in Salisbury, and we've opened up a new field in Middlebury, as well.

The land in Salisbury is pretty heavy clay, and it's been challenging to work with. We've spent a lot of time and sweat in the past few weeks moving about 20 yards of compost from piles along the edge of the field, into the pickup or wheelbarrows, and out onto the beds. This has improved the soil structure quite a lot, but it gets really cloddy if we work in it if it's even a little bit too wet. There's a smaller patch of land that we're using there as well, which had been a garden for a long time, and it's much more manageable. That's where all the potatoes are.

We've been proceeding slowly in the big field, preparing just what we need and waiting for the right conditions. But we've got cukes, zukes, winter squash and field tomatoes that are busting out of their soil blocks and they need a home now. So we got back in touch with a school in town that has some open land, who we'd talked with last year when we first started looking for a field to use. They were still excited to have us, so we mowed and had it plowed over the weekend. Jeremy has been out there all day today making beds, and I think we're going to plant tomorrow! Things sure move fast sometimes!

So that's the news from the farm. If you've been thinking about signing up for a CSA share, now's the time! If you're already a member, we can't wait to give you your first veggies!

After a beautifully sunny week, it's snowed about an inch over the past two days. It's supposed to be in the high seventies over the weekend.

And that's spring in Vermont.

Several items of interest this week:
1. New chickens! We got five new pullets to add to our laying flock. They're Ameracaunas, which are blue-egg birds. Gabe at Four Family Farm raised them until now, about ten weeks old, and we picked them up on Thursday. We fenced off a corner of the coop for them, and this morning I opened a little pop-hole in it that they can get in and out of but the big hens can't fit through. That way they have a safe place to go if the hens pick on them, and that's where their food is and roosts that are lower down. I raised up the hens' food so that the pullets shouldn't be able to reach it - their nutritional needs are different when they're growing from when they're laying, so we don't want them eating each others' food. I'm not sure how we'll manage when the pullets get to be full-size (probably July) but before they start to lay (sometime in August), but we'll figure something out. This set-up should hold us for a while.

2. We've started harvesting! We harvested more than ten pounds of spinach out of the greenhouse last week, most of which we sold to local restaurants. We've also started pulling radishes, but they're still pretty small and just snacks while we're working in the greenhouse. The scallions should be ready in time for market (which starts May 9!), and it looks like we should have carrots in time for CSA.

3. The field has been harrowed! We plowed a new piece of ground last fall and have been anxiously waiting for it to dry out enough to harrow, which finally happened this week. Of course, it's raining again now. Hopefully, we'll get a stretch of dry weather soon so we can till and plant.

4. We made the front page! Neighborly CSA was featured on the front page of last Thursday's Addison Independent! If you have an online subscription, you can read it on their website, or click here to download a PDF that we scanned. It's a pretty great article!

Shorts, sandals, and a tank top - what month is this, anyway? It was in the 80s today at the farm, and I spent the day pulling the mulch off the garlic. The "weed-free seed-free" rye straw that we mulched with ended up being neither of those things, so I also spent the day weeding the garlic. I might be a little sunburned, but it was great to be outside in the sun.

Two weeks ago, it got down to six degrees overnight. I was a little worried about the spinach, carrots, peas, and onions growing in the greenhouse. When Jeremy went out early in the morning, everything was frozen solid, but by 10 it had all thawed out and looked great - just like it's supposed to do! Pretty exciting. We've started tentatively harvesting the spinach, and the carrots are getting bigger by the day. Horray for spring!

You can see some more photos from today over on the photos page, under The Season Begins!