The smell of progress!

Joel spent the day spreading his fish/seaweed liquid love all over his fields yesterday.  I would say all together he has a good 5 acres of just vegetable production and almost every square inch got a shot of juice.  Just to give you an idea of what this must of smelled like going on, I use an organic seafood mixture for my own home garden, but obviously we are talking a tiny quantity compared to what Joel has going (two gallon mixture compared to 55gal at a time).  My point is that with just the little amount I use at home puts out quite a stink you can image a commercial operation pumping it out by the 55 gallon drum would create!  Haha.Let me tell you, the combination of the heat ( I think it was 83 at one point yesterday) and liquid comprised quite a flavorful bouquet enjoyed by anyone within a square mile of the farm. 

BUT....Joel has now completed an important step which will result in higher vegetable yields and greener healthier plants.  Remember:  Healthy plants are less likely to be affected by bugs!

Above is the Dirty Orange Bastard outfitted with the homemade sprayer set up Joel built. 

Joel did tell me that at quite a few times yesterday the winds were contrary and at supper time his family would not let him go out to eat with them.  They brought him home a plate.  After hearing this I immediately though of a song I once heard from Mathew Heintz "The Northwoods Balladeer" it's called "Hog Farmer" and below is a link to the song on youtube.  I've heard him at a live show tell the story behind the tune before he sings it and it really fit Joel's situation pretty well.  Enjoy and Thanks for reading!
"Hog Farmer"

You Can Farm!

Bought a new book last night.  You Can Farm by Joel Salatin. I love Joel's stuff so I'm guessing it should be a good read.

Spreading the love!!

Today is another big day around the farm!  Hooked the sprayer up to the dirty orange bastard (Joels tractor).  He'll be spraying the fish/seaweed liquid feed mix  onto the beds today before we cover them with plastic mulch.  Get your gas masks out!! I'll have pics later!!

To Hell with farming!

This is a hilarious tale from an old farmer sent to me by a good friend of mine.  I wanted to pass it along..

Just click the link below.
http://mises.org/media/5740/To-Hell-with-Farming

11 herbs and spices!!

I have spent the last two days putting nutrients onto one of the fields we will be planting this week.  Nutrients,you ask?  Yes, nutrients.  I have been feeding the soil......nurturing it.... building it....I mean.... adding elements to the soil that will not only aid in soil structure and development, but will create wonderful results in the area of vegetable growth. 

Now next in line after the nutrients comes liquid feed (another "special blend" of Joel's consisting of seaweed and fish parts...which if left open on a hot day would tear your nose off from a 1/2 mile out!)  then plastic mulch. 

Regarding the nutrients: the farmer has his own "special blend" I call his "11 herbs and spices".  One of the bags even has his name on it!  Now that is rockstar!  He had a custom mix done by the Amish in Pennsylvania and shipped directly to him.  The nutrients are packed in 40lb bags and the contents of which come from all over the country.  He was telling me about one product that came from a cave in Mississippi discovered by the Indians and used for all sorts of stuff as well as farming.  His nutrients are all natural sources of things like calcium, sulfur, phosphates, carbon, key bacterias etc etc- the list goes on and on.  He tried his best to explain what each component was and what it would do, but I suffered brain overload and stroked out. 

It is pretty impressive, actually, the amount of nutrients he puts on his vegetable fields. On a side note:  He does the same thing for his pasture land that his cows feed on.   I would guess 90% at least of the farmers that I have spoken with or observed do not do half of what he does in field prep.  Most farmers spread manure and hit it with some 10-10-10 fertilizer-if that-and call it good.  Pulverize the soil, spread some crap and plant.  It's the take take take method of farming.  Take from the ground and never give back, really.  It is unsustainable. 

So, in one field (garden) Joel has 11 rows approx 300+ feet long and each row gets 4- 40lb bags applied by hand. In order to do this I'd cut a corner of one bag, throw it over my shoulder, start walking down the center of a row and then regulate, by hand, the amount coming out onto the ground....Needless to say, I am sore today.    

Morning!

This fella wanted to let you know it's time to get up.

Sent from my U.S. Cellular® Android phone

Compost! Yeah buddy!!

Feast your eyes on this handful of black beauty. Joel was tilling the compost pile and I dug in for a looksy.

Sent from my U.S. Cellular® Android phone

Progress!!

What a morning!  Showed up early and we got right to work on the fields.  I'm so excited to see it all come together.  Last year when I started with Joel the fields were already for planting and had in fact had some planting done.  This year I am able to see the very beginnings of the planting season here on the farm. 

So I spent most of the morning following the tractor while it was tilling and pulling out large rocks with a three pronged thingy cultivator sonuva gun pictured below.

Joel would be tilling along and then BANG BANG!! The friggin tiller would jump about a foot in the air and I knew he found a blue ribbon winner. 

Ya so check out this pic of a filthy back buster we found.  This was in one of Joel's newest fields he is planting for the first time this year.

Hopefully by Friday we are looking at using his bed maker and laying down some plastic mulch.  The tilling is almost done.  He has to complete a drainage ditch in one field first before he can till it- so that is holding us up a little bit. 

before tilling

                                                                 after tilling

Above are before and after pics of one of his newest fields we tilled this morning.  Joel tells me this field was the worst he had ever seen when he started working it years ago.  He took the soil from a dry dead dusty mess to the rich fertile ground you see above in a matter of 3 years with compost and nutrients. Pretty incredible results when you think about it.  Look at how black and beautiful the soil is.  I grabbed a handful and it was just like velvet.  Anyone walking through this field in a couple months better be careful because what ever is growing here will reach out a grab you!

A vid of the tilling going on this morning.  Tomorrow I'm hoping to get some shots of the bed maker he uses to create raised bed style rows.  Thanks for reading!

Just tillin' away the time.....

What a gorgeous morning on the farm.  I tell ya, mornings like this are what it's all about.  Just a beautiful sunrise coming up over the place being surrounded by farm sounds-like the chickens coming alive-really makes a man like me wonder what all those folks in the big cities are thinking.

So Joel has this field he has been preparing now for a few years and this year he will plant it.  When I say prepare I mean build soil structure to the point where he has something great and can start planting.  A lot of soil guys will tell you that what you have for soil is what you have for soil and there is nothing you can do about it.  Well that isn't true.  If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes maybe you could B.S. me into believing it, but I have witness the contrary.

Originally this field was unfit for growing anything.  True to Maine soil it was filled with rocks and unworkable.  So he took the last few years and turned it around through a process of nutrients and compost.  The land has done a 180 and now it looks really good.  From what I can see it is just as great as the field I worked in last year.  Of course there are still a few stubborn rocks left over of good size.  We pulled a honker out of the ground this morning.  I worked for 1/2 hour by hand trying to get it to budge with no luck, so Joel took the tractor and popped it out.  I called it an iceberg if you get what I'm saying.  Only the tiny tip of it stuck out.  What a friggin' monster it was.

Above is a pic of the dirty old back breaker.  Holy ol' sakes!!
So we spent the morning chasing diesel fuel and tilling.  I think we will be planting for sure next week. 

Above is a vid of the tilling going on in the new field.  After tilling we will go over it with the bed maker (raises the soil up into a raised bed style row) then plastic mulch.  Thanks for reading!

Rain...Rain...Rain.

More rain came last night!  FFS!!

The weather lately has made it very difficult to get the field in order  for planting.  Just when they have a couple days to dry out we get dumped on again.  We have made some progress, but the farm for the most part is still a soupy mess.  When the ground is soft like this you don't want to drive the tractor over it again and again to prevent making everything into a greasy mud hole.  The hay has been collected and a few rows have been made ready for plastic, but we are still a couple full days away from getting all 3 fields to the point where we can start planting full time. 

This is a pic of the hay we've collected off of the planting beds.  Things were really looking good for a couple of days and we made great strides in getting the fields ready.  If Mother Nature would just cooperate for a week we could really be in business!!  Happy Memorial Day!

Disc Harrow

I was still pulling back hay this morning trying to get what hay there is on the planting beds pulled aside so we can collect it.

In an attempt to make some progress in the area of field prep, Joel has the disc harrow out today trying to get what rows he could ready for planting.  For those of you who don't know a disc harrow is used to cut and chop the soil and cultivate in.  It is a less damaging method than tilling.  It really breaks up the upper most layer of the beds from big chunks of soil into small crumbles by way of alternating discs.  

The disc harrow is pictured above.  Apologize about the quality. 

Here is a vid of the disc harrow in action!

Field of dreams...

Early morning working in the fields, but we had sun!  Holy buckets! The bugs are brutal and hungry!  

Last year Joel covered part of his upper field with hay.  He told me to do likewise in my home garden and I had brilliant results.  He uses it to cut down on weed growth, add nutrients, keep nutrients in and keep the soil moist.  Today after weeks of rain we went up and started pulling back the hay to see what the soil looked like underneath and MAN what a difference the hay made.  The soil was moist, showed good structure and was ready for planting.  Also barely and weeds compared to the other half of his field without hay which is now fully covered over in weeds.  Also the soil is soft; and doesn't need to be tilled.  The parts of the upper dryer field without hay are either soup or hard as rock.  His other fields that are lower in elevation have no hay, and are not even fit to walk in due to the heavy rains we have had.  They are muck and wont be ready for a bit. For some reason the hay was able to control the moisture content and helped prevent the soil from becoming a soupy nightmare.

Above is a pic of the hay covered rows after we pulled it back...it is just screaming good soil!!

Back at it!

Today started a new season for me at the farm!  Joel had me moving bins of compost around.  He will take the compost and use it in a 1/3 1/3 1/3 mix of compost, worm castings ("A convoluted mass of soil, mud, or sand thrown up by an earthworm or lugworm on the surface after passing through the worm's body.") and peat moss.  This mixture is then used to transplant "plugs" (small seedlings in tiny trays) into bigger containers.  It has rained a lot in Maine over the last few months and many farmers have had what they planted outside so far rot because of it, so Joel has held off on planting.  In doing so the small plugs which I would just normally plant directly into the fields from the trays, have outgrown their little slots and now need to be planted in bigger trays in order to save them from dying.  The fields are still pretty water logged and it looks like nothing but rain for the near future.....I am excited though to be back on the farm!

Meet your farmer!

This is a good series of short films showcasing local farmers here in Maine!  A brilliant and motivating series for sure! http://www.meetyourfarmer.org/

the winter garden

About a month and a half ago the hoop house came alive and I could live out of it full time with all the salad greens I can eat!  Along with all kinds of greens from leaf lettuce, mescalin,big and baby leaf spinach I have radishes, onions, garlic, tomato, pepper, early peas and carrots!

THE HOUSE LIST...

Well here it is.  A list of what I plan on accomplishing this winter/spring/summer/fall in order to get the house up to snuff so we can put it on the market.

Center room renovation: 
wall resurfacing
Paint Walls
Paint trim
sand floors
crown molding
fix ceiling/paint ceiling
Living room renovation:
wall resurfacing
Paint Walls
Paint trim
sand floors
crown molding
run wires for media
fix ceiling/paint ceiling
Front Hall renovation:
wall resurfacing
wall paper
Paint trim
sand floors
install new baseboard
fix ceiling/paint ceiling
renovate the staircase/sand/stain/paint/repair

Paint the outside:
 prep the outside scrape/caulk/fix any old clap boards
replace any old trim
prime the outside
paint the trim
paint the clap boards

Fix the roof:
 strip the shingles
ice and water sheild
drip edge
flashing
shingles

Install new door on the backside:

Stain front door:

Insulate the attic:


Storm Door on Front

Spring is here. Sort of..

While spring is technically upon us the weather still feels more like February.  I have been busy around the urban farm tending to the hoop house I built last fall and boiling down maple sap from one of our 5 maple trees I have tapped.  I decided that until we move out of the city to a real farm I am going to do what ever I can to make the house we live in as close to a homestead as possible.  This way I am learning as much as I can while using what we have available.

Good winter reading....

I was gifted a great book this winter.  It is called "Four Seasons Harvest" by Eliot Coleman.  A local farmer who runs a farm here in Maine.  Love what I'm reading so far.  I built a winter garden house last fall and have had minimal success, so this book is really helping me figure out what I can do for next year!

Fall is upon us..

With the advent of the fall season things have begun to slow down a bit on the farm.  It has given me a great opportunity to reflect on a whole summer of learning!  I can't hardly wait until the start of spring!

All the meat birds, pigs and sheep have been processed and Joel wont be doing any more until next spring..The only meat birds left are turkeys.  We will be processing them very soon.

The egg layers have begun to wind down their egg laying due to the decrease in sunlight and heat. 

Right now our focus is to finish splitting fire wood for the winter.

My focus is on renovating my house and putting it on the market!

Hey, it's hay!

I showed up to find Joel leaning on a pickup truck which was tethered to a trailer full of hay.  The trailer got detached and after a few nods and a wave the guys in the truck took off.  Joel who looked a little heated proceeded to tell me some story about him haying a field and lending some hay out to one of the guys in the truck who in turn had promised to pay Joel back and it's been three years but, he finally got the hay..blah blah blah...anyways, Joel looked at the trailer and said most of it looked alright but he wasn't sure yet till he could get a better look at it.  Better look?  At what I'm thinking?  It's just hay isn't it?  Noooooo. I got a good 45 minute education in hay.  I will never look at a field the same again.....

What Joel tells me is this:  There is mulch hay and feed hay.  I did not know this.  To me it all looked like a square of dried grass with maybe some vague distinctions..dunno but, I definitely know now.  The farmer pulled out piece after piece of different bails and picked out individual parts like timothy, orchard grass, clover and vetch which I'm told is indicative to good feed hay.  He also pulled out golden rod, Queen Anne's lace in a few bails and explained to me how these plants were not so good for feeding.  Well, being the good student, I asked why some fields have good feed hay and some are garbage..It all comes down to soil health.  If you constantly take take take from the field and never give back by way of nutrients then you will end up with a field full of mulch quality hay not good for feeding the cows. Good bedding for the chickens but, not good cow feed.

The field is Just like the garden by being able to tell a a lot about it's nutrient content by the types of weeds that grow in it.


Over all I suppose the bails met Joel's approval.