Resources | Seed Simple

The blade, a.k.a. the machine

August 9, 2010 By Lynea Newcomer Leave a Comment

Fair Mountain Farm being a place where the land is worked by hand, we pay close attention to the quality and efficiency of our tools. How fast does it work? How do our bodies hold up in usage? What maintenance does it require? The infamous ‘blade’, otherwise dubbed ‘the machine’ by Tona, has worked its way onto my short list of favorite contraptions, preceded only by a great triangle hoe.

With a super sharp, slightly serrated edge, the blade allows us to cut beds of mixed greens much faster than with scissors; kale, chard, spinach and arugula all must be cut with scissors in order to regrow in a manner such that we can cut them again. But mixed baby greens, dry and of the perfect height, are best sliced with a greens harvester, as Johnny’s Selected Seeds had dubbed it. We use a 30-inch blade and sharpen it about twice during the cutting of a 55-foot row. With one person sawing away, and a couple people trailing behind picking up the cut greens and putting them in bins, we can harvest a 30-inch by 55-foot row in under a half hour.

The trick, of course, is to for folks stationed at wash tubs to keep up with such a pace. When the lettuce is clean, free of sun-burned tips or any tidbits left from previous cuttings, three of us can harvest, wash and bag about 60 pounds of lettuce in 2 1/2 hours. That feels great, after having putzed with scissors on shorter beds of lettuce previously in the season.

Oddly enough, another worker and I have commented to each other about the satisfaction of scissor cutting the other greens crops; we love sorting through the chard and kale, culling big leaves and trimming just enough to ensure that the plant grows healthy and strong for the following week’s harvest. A prominent callus misshapes my right-hand thumb from such scissor usage, but this is a small price to pay for harvest techniques that guarantee months of harvest from one planting.

Filed Under Featured, Resources Tagged With blade-cutting lettuce, Fair Mountain Farm, greens harvester, johnny's selected seeds, Lynea Newcomer, small-scale farming

Forming rows

April 21, 2010 By Lynea Newcomer Leave a Comment

Human-powered farming means fine-tuning one’s eye and mind to fractions of inches. I’ve been convinced of my excellent eye-hand coordination since thwapping softballs back in middle school, thinking I was as natural at such focus as Robert Redford in The Natural. But alas, forming a 55-foot row has shown me that practice always makes perfect and I may be a couple seasons before finding myself as lead at bat.

Several tricks to our precision are key: place a strip of weather-resistant tape (such as electrical) on the handle of a square shovel, at a distance from the tip of the shovel that you’d like the width of your row. Our tape is 30 inches up the handle; walking down my row, every several feet, I lay the shovel down to measure and ascertain if I’m on track. The shovel is making the path, so whatever I scoop is thrown onto the emerging bed.

With a roughed-out 30-inch-wide row, we follow with a 1/4-inch layer or so of compost, throwing it on with the flat shovel in an excited bowling sort of throw (versus dumping a shovelful). And then the weasel, which was designed for weeding, but works great as a couple-inch deep cultivator, helping move the compost into the soil’s top layer. Then, a bed-preparation rake, which is like a grading rake. Running this lightly over the surface a couple of times helps smooth out any variations in depth; I also manipulate it a bit to push an extra half-inch here and there to make the row the desired width. Sometimes I pick up rocks and left-behind root debris during this step. Finally, I roll over the row a couple of times with a heavy metal cylinder. A 50-gallon plastic drum would probably also do the trick. With the soil’s surface thus compacted, a 4- or 6-row seeder will wheel along nicely and not get caught in too much fluffy dirt. Seeds want good soil contact, so don’t worry about the compaction by the roller.

Check out Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Peaceful Valley for tool supplies. More pictures and how-to descriptions of seeding to come!

Filed Under Featured, Resources Tagged With bed preparation rake, garden row preparation, roller, weeder

honey do

March 23, 2010 By Lynea Newcomer Leave a Comment

I went back to school last week, in a subject I thought I was finished with after dissecting a cat in high school: biology. Specifically, bee biology for beginners, served up alongside general beekeeping lessons. The class was in a webinar format, and took place over four separate evenings. This being the first live webinar class I’ve taken, I was very pleased with the format, and especially grateful for an opportunity to learn with a live teacher, without having to commute hours away from our remote farm location.

The Stilwills and their neighbors, the Smiths, have previously attempted beekeeping; grand hopes of honey and retirement funding may have contributed to such inspired projects. These days, we’re eager to give it another go in the hopes of enhancing Fair Mountain Farm’s ecological interdependence and health. Honey bees are extraordinarily hard-working pollinators, a service many of our crops require. ‘Wild’ pollinators usually take care of such tasks around here, so we’ll see if we note any improved plant production. Bees remain true to specific flowers, which ensures good pollination since they stay focused on specific crops before flitting off to a dissimilar flower.

I found out about the webinar class through a series of communications with similarly interested friends and our area’s extension agent. Brushy Mountain Bee Farm taught the lessons, and each was divided into half lecture, half question/answer period. This made for two- to three-hour sessions. Despite their location in North Carolina, the teacher was able to address issues found nationwide. I found it all to be highly informative, and enjoyed the format so much as to consider pursuing further classes relating to farm topics. I have found brief videos on YouTube, regarding various farming techniques for smaller growers, as well as several webinars/videos at ATTRA. I’d love to find more. In the meantime, for my continued beekeeping education, I’ll be reading Langstroth’s Hive and the Honey-Bee: The Classic Beekeeper’s Manual
, a volume worthy of many evening reading sessions.

Filed Under Featured, Resources Tagged With ATTRA, beekeeping, brushy mountain bee farm, small farming webinar

tender at the patella

March 10, 2010 By Lynea Newcomer 3 Comments

My knees no longer seem indefatigable body parts. Gone are the childhood days of elastic, carefree movement. Here to stay are the days of acutely aware bodily motions, exacted with attentive ears honed in on creaking parts.
Birthday bells marking 30 years of life have hardly rung, yet I am more aware than ever of physical limits in such endeavors as farming. To that end, I’d like to share a couple of tools and movement methods instrumental in preserving mobility for knee-stressing activities.
First, the rocking stool. Tona introduced me to this when I arrived at Fair Mountain. One can sit fully on the chair portion, or half sit/half kneel. Either one helps enormously in reducing knee pressure; it also seems to help the back for long weeding sessions. The rocking base allows you to reach far into a bed without going off balance. Let us know if you find where to purchase more of these!

Then the old standby – knee pads. The cushion spread the pressure out a bit on your lovely patella (one knee component I can name). You’ll have to replace them periodically, and always try them out before buying to make sure they are appropriate for you. Clearly the best knee-saving ideas pertain to staying off of them! Switch up your duties, rotating from being on your knees to doing non-knee-use tasks, preferably before too much time has passed. This ‘vary your physical movement’ rule is applicable for all farm tasks. Repetitive motion is not good for hours on end, no matter what it involves.

And finally, plan your garden so that you can use tools while standing upright. Obviously this is not always possible; we all have to do hand weeding. But consider planning your planting with relation to using stirrup or collinear hoes. With proper posture, bending over as little as possible, these tools will help preserve your body over the season. Share your favorite knee saver ideas with us!

Filed Under Featured, Resources Tagged With gardening, knee pads, rocking stool, tools, weeding

duckling drop

October 15, 2009 By Lynea Newcomer Leave a Comment

Third time is the charm, as some say. “Quack Quack! Ur babies r here!”, read the text message at 7:30 this morning. Pretty easy-going, this surrogate mother situation, text and go. Eleven golden, super soft baby ducks are the newest kids on Cricket Thicket. I sure am hoping these aspiring Giant Pekings from McMurray’s Hatchery are easier keepers. Off the cuff, I find them the cutest of all the farm critters we’ve welcomed this year.

Using an old dog kennel, with the top off (for easy human hand access to water and feed), I’ve set heavy boards up against the sides so that nobody plops out. An adjustable light stand (like what a photographer would use for studio shots) holds a heat lamp bulb (selected from the local feed store), and the little goldies are clustered underneath in a duck scrum. I imagine it would feel totally awesome to be in the middle of all that baby duck down. The cage is plenty big enough for them to move away from the heat should it prove too much.

When a little bigger, perhaps a week out, we’ll open up the yard to them. I am feeding a starter duck feed, available at the feed store, but hope to mostly satisfy them with the grass option in short order. Predicted to be of duck a l’orange size in just 8 to 10 weeks, this is one critter we’re hoping proves a time and money economizing meat option. Get ready for your Christmas presents family and friends! This is, however, a trial run. as my mothering instincts increase daily, I hope to hatch out the next batch, as well as branch out into more diverse, heirloom breeds.

Filed Under Featured, Resources Tagged With duck, ducklings, heirloom breeds, mcmurray's hatchery, meat, peking duck

farm-to-table dinners

September 26, 2009 By Lynea Newcomer 1 Comment

Well of course your dinner comes from farm to table. I just happen to really appreciate dining out on food delivered by the farmer directly to the chef, who prepares it deliciously for that day’s dinner. Yes, that day. At this time of writing, I am working off the delirium enduced by such a meal, held last night at the Stone Balloon Winehouse on Main street in Newark, Delaware. I’ll note the dishes I enjoyed in this post so that the cooks amongst you may take second-hand inspiration from the creations of chef Jason Dietterick.

First, how did I find this particular evening’s meal? A petite flyer lay on the registers at the Newark Coop. Slow Food insignia enticed me to pick it up, and mention of heritage breed meats to be included in the meal intrigued me . For more information on what such meat is, take a look at the Ark of Taste project. And to find restaurants in your area putting on farm-to-table dinners, or sellers of foods listed in the Ark project, look at the Local Harvest web page.

On to the good stuff then, eh? Designed a-la carte style, the dishes were sized and priced quite reasonably ($7-14 for good-sized small plates; $16-29 for large entree plates). Choosing between lamb-stuffed sweet peppers and smoked squash soups proved difficult. Thus, I branched out into head cheese. Freshman farmer Andy Roddick, of Blackbird Heritage Farm, sat down for a quality chat as we ate this dish. Not quite as solid as I expected, Roddick explained that he had delivered the animal to the chef during the morning, and it was so fresh it had not set up yet. Not a problem! With some dishes in life, the differences are good based upon the story making them just so.

In fact, Roddick had delivered all of his items on the menu (comprising the vast majority of dishes offered) that morning. Chef Jason had a day’s notice about what would likely arrive, and quickly drew up a menu to print accordingly. No less than 23 distinct dishes were ready for diners. It was clear from conversation with the chef that he enjoyed the challenge (most restaurants have their menus scheduled and food stuffs ordered weeks if not months in advance). But further, Chef Jason clearly values fresh food and the ability to deliver an extraordinary experience to eaters. I’ll add my name to the restaurant mailing list to find out about farm dinners scheduled for upcoming months (these events happen at the farms themselves).

The next dishes: As Roddick recounted tales of his first-year of farming, Michael and I dipped into sweet corn and thyme johnny cakes. Served over a black lentil salad and with a sweet pepper jam, this dish surprised me. The cake edges perfectly crispy, and the lentils a subtle backdrop, seasonings came out to play. Like all of his vegetables, the sweet corn in this dish was an heirloom variety. Typically hardier to disease and weather, heirlooms are nevertheless not grown all that often. Most seed varieties grown on large-scale farms these days are genetically engineered and/or treated throughout their lives with chemicals to obtain good performance levels. Small farmers like Roddick employ their own variety of business advantage by selecting heirloom varieties, establishing a unique quality and flavor for their foods.

En suite, a pork chop served atop pureed potatoes (definitely sweetened by the secret spice of chefs – sugar), large white runner beans and thin slices of roasted Kubocha squash. This last being naturally sweet, and with a dab of molasses?/maple syrup? in the beans, the pork pairings mimmicked more typical fruit compliments. Instead of apples and raisins, the fall beans and squash were extremely well suited; the pork proved succulent and just done, a tinge of fat invigorating each bite.

Two ’small’ and one ‘large’ plate into our bellies, alongside a bottle of pinot, Michael and I slapped the napkins on the table and settled back into our plush seats. It was time for a breather before, eek, driving home. Spirited talk reviewing the multiple local food dining experiences we’ve enjoyed of late accompanied the water now decking our table. We have often pondered what brings an awareness into one’s life regarding food, the enjoyment thereof and the accompanying decisions.

I am thrilled that Chef Jason has demonstrated the feasibility of bringing local, sustainably produced ingredients into a restaurant setting; declaring it just as economical in many regards as contracts with his other suppliers, the chef also realizes he is cooking in the ‘it’ moment. Offering local foodstuffs to one’s clientele is hip; major kudos to this chef who truly puts his knife where his words are, and employs staff who engage the public with the story.

Filed Under Featured, Resources Tagged With ark of taste, blackbird heritage farm, farm-to-table dinner, head cheese, local food, local harvest, Newark Delaware, Slow Food, stone balloon winehouse

september splendor

September 11, 2009 By Lynea Newcomer Leave a Comment

Just a bit fatigued with the harvesting and preserving, September has arrived in splendid fashion to inspire my flagging food production interests. Ahoy to nursery plant sales! With both the summer heat and prices diminished, perennials and shrubs at your area nurseries are in their prime for planting. Whereas planting in the spring allows you to see leaves and blossoms flourish, this late summer and fall planting time provides substantial stabilizing time for roots to grow and settle in for the winter.

After a couple trips to Groff’s, and the resultant spree of flower bed digging and sod shaking, my back cries out for rest. The beautiful pollinating bugs, though, are partying like it’s a New Year. Here are some shots of mostly native wildflower varieties I’ve planted in the past couple of weeks, each with some bug gorging on flower sweets. Pass over the flowers to read their names. In anticipation of either babysitting or outright owning bee boxes in the near future, I think I may yet return this month for further delectable nursery buys . . .

For further fall inspiration, check out Mt. Cuba’s Meadow Study sessions; Sept. 26, Oct. 14 and Nov. 18 are planned dates to show class participants the evolution of a fall meadow. David Korbonits leads the sessions, with 20 years as the institute’s meadow gardener, making these classes a truly knowledgeable perspective on developing such landscapes.

Filed Under Featured, Resources Tagged With bee boxes, Groff's plant farm, meadow study session, Mt. Cuba, perennials, planting, pollinators, wildflowers

doing the high math

August 28, 2009 By Lynea Newcomer Leave a Comment

Grade school story problems made me sweat in math class. Despite grasping the concepts, thinking about life in the format of unknown variables, percentages and geometry concepts (to name a few) made my eyes widen in anxiety and my eighth-grade heart palpitate more vigorously than the sight of a main crush. I just didn’t get the magic, and was easily steered into focusing on languages and literature in the hopes of an enlightened life through words.

Despite a degree in French and several years of foreign travel, life continues to unfold into daily story problems. I am thankful that at this point in my experiences, awareness and deeper knowledge have found each other, enabling me to both raise the symbolic hand in question to life’s teachers, as well as try solutions for myself whether in possession of scrap paper or not.

Today was a raised hand day. Doing the higher math on our 7-acre parcel has me a bit befuddled. How to think about soil retention? Desirable woodland expansion? Pasture management for saleable livestock? Vegetable production on significant slopes? Images of terraced Asian rice fields pan easily across my mind’s eye, particularly during this WET summer season wherein everything remains bright green.

So far I’ve gone at our farm projects with nary a glance at literature or other sources of knowledge. Past experiences in life, like volunteered time on a vegetable farm or visits with livestock producers for the purpose of newspaper writing, had me convinced I could at least lead our climb into the hills. I always expected to shift into drafting position, catch my breath for a bit, and watch somebody else’s work so I too could summit. (Okay, a Tour de France analogy might not have worked there, but the long haul of managing land has me feeling like I’ll need a performance record like Lance Armstrong to compete in this world.)

Mr. Dan Miller, of the Chester County Conservation District, came over today in order to help us push on up the next hill. Formed in the aftermath of the 1930’s dust bowl, conservation districts were begun voluntarily by farmers who recognized the need to educate each other on soil conservation and overall best resource management practices, in addition to helping people stay in the practice of farming.

“I’ve never worked with a farm this small before,” Miller said at one point. But my heart didn’t skip a beat; he was eager to give it a go! “I’ll have to go look up some ideas for that bank, make sure it doesn’t wash away if you tear it up, get the grass out, and terrace it,” he commented. “And I might need to go ask some other people for help for more specifics on pasture management for something this small,” he added. Also President of the Chester-Delaware County Farm Bureau, Miller’s investment in this area’s agriculture expanded into conservation practices following a back injury that prevented him from continuing work for a commercial dairy.

These days, Miller, as other employees of the District, is assigned to work with farmers who lands drain into specific watersheds. In our case, the Chesapeake. Largely, he suggests erosion and sedimentation control measures, as well as stormwater management systems, all of which ensure that the water coming from Chester County lands returns to the Bay in its constant cycle of life movement as clean as possible. For our land, we have multiple goals of what we want to grow on it (livestock and vegetables being the most identifiable commodities), but we want to do it so as to participate in a more sustainable cycle of resources.

We don’t want our precious topsoil to float on down our steep slopes, thus loosing a great growing medium, and silting up the stream at the end of our property, rendering it less able to carry as clean of water on to the Bay. We want all the water possible to hit our place, like the thunderstorms so prevalent this summer, and make it down to our little tributary as clean as possible too, so what can we plant on the slope to help get it where it needs to go, cleanly?

In the coming weeks Mr. Miller will help us identify a contour planting method for the sloped lands we have identified for vegetable production, as well as other agriculture practices. The story problems will keep on growing, but doing the high math of long-term land stewarding is a lifetime I’m dug into.

Filed Under Featured, Resources Tagged With Chesapeake Bay watershed, chester county conservation district, contour planting, farm bureau, Pennsylvania, soil retention, stormwater management

the dry life

August 17, 2009 By Lynea Newcomer Leave a Comment

Taking a lovingly large bite out of a freshly picked and cooked Hopi Blue Dent corncob the other night convinced me that it was not a cob for fresh eating. So began another experiment. My small crop of blue corn is now husked and drying inside; once the kernels are dried out, I hope to run them through a grinder, turning them into blue cornmeal. Progress, if any, will be duly noted in future pages.

I planted green beans between mid-May and June 1 this year. By the last week of July, their production had somewhat slowed, and my time for freezing/canning them began to move towards tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini. I let the last pods hang on the plants to dry. By August 12th, half of them cracked open (by my hands) to reveal dry beans. The Tavera variety are particularly beautiful – white and rose mottled. Having shelled them and set them to dry a little while longer atop the washing machine, I hope to cook some and save some for planting next spring.

A more experienced beanie than I could tell you when to save the beans, but my experimentation extends beyond once bunch. I started a second round of string bean plants the last week of July. They are flowering as I type, and these I suspect to be even more successful drying beans. It makes the most sense in my head right now that one harvests dry beans at the end of fall harvest, whereas one eats fresh string beans during the true summer months . . .

Filed Under Featured, Resources Tagged With blue corn, dry beans, garden planning, green beans

blue lips

August 5, 2009 By Lynea Newcomer Leave a Comment

Eat your blueberries! The fabulous season of my local u-pick blueberry farm (Walnut Springs), has ended. But blueberries inspire a touch of greed in my otherwise honest heart. With a hungry friend by my side, we journeyed after-season to the blueberry u-pick of all u-picks one last time in search of powerful anti-oxidants.

Farmer Johnson greeted us with pruners and a couple of working minutes to spare from his raspberries. “Sure, go on ahead. Just park behind the trees so we don’t get an after-hours crowd.” Really???? We spent the next several hours hunched, standing, kneeling, squating, whatever it took to maximize our moments under the bird-preventative netting to harvest the little blue balls.

I look at this farm with puzzlement; few people have been present picking during my previous sojourns. With bushes laden, and good prices ($5/bucket during the last, most abundant week), I do not understand why these bushes are not experiencing massive massaging. Within four visits, I have brought home and frozen enough to last me through winter. The birds are guaranteed an enormous feast regardless. Could it be the masses have forgotten the burst of off-the-bush blueberries?

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