Farming season begins

Winter has been desperately hanging on here this year, but finally, my beds are starting to poke out from the snow.  The cold frames are thawed (and no, my attempts to grow food in them through the winter were not successful at all - I think it may be more realistic to see them as season extenders rather than as a possibility for year-round fresh veggies).  It seems like we're going to have a cool spring, so I'm not in a huge rush to get the garden started.  We still have a good amount of cleanup to do, and I would so love it if this was the year I stayed somewhat on top of the weeds.

I have sorted out the seeds by planting date, and started the first batch of seedlings this past weekend (eggplant and brussels sprouts).  The brussels sprouts have sprouted, eggplants haven't.  I was planning on starting peppers last weekend but didn't get to it, so hopefully that will happen this weekend.  As I mentioned, not in a hurry this year!

Our big plans for this season revolve around planting more fruit trees and berries.  We're adding rows of raspberries, blueberries, and elderberries behind the vegetable garden, and need to replace a few of the apple trees that were terminally damaged by Mike's mortal enemy, the fearless deer.  I also found a variety of fig that's supposed to be able to withstand cold winters, and we'll be planting a couple of paw paw trees as well.  We may also put in a few ornamental trees to follow the landscape design that we had drawn up last summer - since we're going to pick up our tree order at the FedCo tree sale this year I have a strong hunch that there will be quite a few tree impulse buys.

Our landscape design includes some gorgeous ideas for perennial gardens, which we'll be holding off on for another year or so to focus on getting the trees and berries established.  We will, though, be ripping out the mess of existing plants that we have surrounding the house (tractor!), which I'm very excited about.  I'm also day-dreaming about putting in a perennial shade garden underneath some existing fir trees that we have in a corner of the yard.  We're lucky to have full sun in so many places, but I'm wanting to have some shade-loving favorites somewhere near the house.  And doesn't a sprawling shade garden tucked in a corner under fir trees sound a bit magical?  I've got to let this idea marinate a bit but I think I'd definitely like to include lily of the valley (I know it spreads, I don't really care.  We have a lot of space and it smells so lovely), bleeding hearts, and helleborus, and maybe this lovely silver lace black primrose (http://www.gurneys.com/product/silver_lace_black_primrose/shade-plants).

We've got germination

(This video only seems to want to go to the top of the post, but you know what, that's fine.  It's adorable and tangentially farming related).

All signs are pointing to this being the year that we actually come up with a thoughtful plan for the garden, and then follow it.  The seedlings are germinating beautifully in the mudroom, Mike has been working hard to clear out more land to expand the orchard, and even the baby has helped in the efforts.  Tomorrow we're hitting up Skillins to look at floating row covers, and we may even start to do some planting outside.  When I checked the beds this morning the soil temperature was only 40-45, so I'm not feeling behind despite the fact that I haven't gotten anything in the ground out there.

Our 13 new trees, plus raspberry and blackberry plants, arrived earlier this week, and they're all hanging out in the barn, to be planted hopefully this weekend.  Mike upgraded from a lawn tractor to a real (small) tractor, but the post-hole digger attachment hasn't arrived yet so the orchard plans are on hold for a few more days.  In the end, this is good, as we realized today that we need to take down two more trees where the orchard is going, and were able to better plot out where the fruit trees will be.  Plus, we used a sledgehammer to drive in the stakes to mark the future tree locations, and the baby thought this was absolutely hilarious.

I missed one tree in our Fedco order, and we found one last apple variety that we'd like to try, too, so next year in addition to starting the blueberries and elderberries, we'll also be getting a Frostbite apple and Cox's Orange Pippin apple.  And then we'll be done with apple trees.

Eggplant seedling tray - not much was happening this morning, but when I just checked, it looked like they have started germinating.  Phew!

Fennel and basil

Broccoli and cauliflower

The flower tray - marigolds, zinnias and nasturtiums

Second eggplant tray.  Again, not much happening yet.

Land that we've been clearing for the orchard.  That big tree in the middle comes down this week.

Bearcubs eating one of the little trees that Mike knocked down

Clearing out space for the blackberries.  He got stuck.  But then he got to use his truck to pull his tractor out, and it was awesome.

Let the planting begin!

We just returned from a lovely weeklong vacation to the Caribbean, to find that the ground has mostly thawed in the garden.  Before we left, Mike built a new, improved, and greatly expanded seed starting shelving unit, and so this week I hope to both start seeds indoors AND do my earliest ever direct seeding in the garden.  As usual, by this point I've completely forgotten what seeds I ordered and what my original plans were, so it's time for me to sit down and make a rough plan as to when everything needs to get in the ground.  We also are expecting to get our fruit trees and canes from Fedco in the next couple of weeks, and I have a concert this weekend, so I realized today that I really do need to be a little more organized in my planting methodology this year to make sure it all gets done.  So, here goes, another fairly boring organizational post, but one that I hope will be tremendously helpful for me over the next few weeks (and next year, when inevitably I fail to remember when I planted everything the previous season).

Week of April 1 - April 14
Time to finish the garden cleanup!  We're in better shape than we were last year at this time, but there are still some beds that need attention, and we're adding compost to all of the beds, as well.

Direct seeding into the garden:
Parsnips
Sugarsnap peas
Arugula
Romaine lettuce
Beets
Scallions
Carrots
Radishes
Kale
Shelling peas
Rutabega

Start indoors
Fennel (translplant into garden mid-late May)
Flowers
Cauliflower (transplant into garden end of May)
Eggplant (transplant into garden first week in June)


Late April/Early May
Direct seeding:
Harukei turnips
Strawberry spinach
Second round of carrots, beets, radishes
Chard

Memorial Day weekend
Direct seeding:
Pole beans
Bush beans
Zucchini
Edamame (once soil warms to 60)
Winter squash
Cucumbers
Sunflowers
Buy tomato, pepper and brussels sprout seedlings and set out

Start indoors:
Green fleshed pineapple melon (plant out 2-3 weeks after sowing.  Also, figure out where to put this...)

July
Arat root parsley
Lettuces
Cold frame fall crops

Cold frames

I've decided that this is the year to try cold frames out.  Mostly, I think that they'd be tremendously helpful in improving my hardening off process for my warm weather seedlings since, as we know from years past, my hardening off method is haphazard at best.  I figure that a cold frame will give the little guys a much better chance at not being sunburned and/or eaten by Bullet and Lily.  Since we don't have a root cellar, and have minimal winter storage abilities, I'm also really intrigued by the idea of being able to continue to harvest fresh vegetables through the winter.  Mike and I had a surprisingly animated conversation about the proper placement of the cold frames (this is an issue that we both apparently have strong feelings about, but I won in the end.  Or at least, I think I did), and I think we've settled on building three 3x10 cold frames on the south side of the garden.  Mike wanted the cold frames in the garden, but I think that would just be too hard to get to in the winter.

We're using Eliot Coleman's Four Season Harvest as a guide for how to build and use our cold frames, and so I need to come up with a plan (and possibly, more seeds) for this experiment.

Cold Frame 1 (closest to house - winter and spring harvest)
Arugula (plant 8/1-8/21, harvest 10/1 - spring)
Endive (plant 7/10-7/20, harvest 9/15-11/30)
Escarole (plant 7/10-7/20, harvest 9/15-11/30)
Lettuce (plant 7/21-9/7, harvest 9/15-11/30, plant again 9/15-10/15, harvest 3/1-5/1)
Onion (plant 10/1-10/15, harvest 2/15-5/1)
Spinach (plant 10/1-10/15, harvest 2/15-5/1)
Parsnip (plant 6/1, harvest spring)
Chives
Oregano
Thyme
Swiss chard (plant 6/1-9/10)
Kale (plant 7/15-9/1)
Leek (plant 7/1-8/15)
Broccoli rabe (Plant 1/15)
*According to Coleman, I can plant succession plantings for the spring of arugula, broccoli raab, carrots, claytonia, cress, endive, escarole, lettuce, mache, mizuna, orach, parsley, peas, purslane, radicchio, radishes and spinach in mid-January*

Cold Frame 2 (middle - fall and winter harvest)
Carrots (plant 8/1, harvest 12/1 - Spring)
Kohlrabi (plant 8/1 - 8/15, harvest 11/1 - spring)
Parsley (plant 6/1-7/15, harvest 10/1-spring)
Spinach (plant 9/15-10/15, harvest 12/1-spring
Beets (plant 8/1, harvest 12/1 - spring)
Radish (plant 9/1-10/15, harvest 10/1-11/30)
Scallion (plant 7/1-7/15, harvest 10/1-spring)
Turnip (Plant 8/1-9/15)

Cold Frame 3 (furthest from house - home base for summer/fall seedlings)
Since we probably won't have the cold frames built until at least March or April, this bed will primarily be used to house the seedlings that we're hardening off.  Maybe I can also start some seedlings in here as well for fall succession crops?  I have to do more reading.

Planning the orchard

Another list oriented post.  We have big dreams for the orchard, and would like to cultivate as many of the more rare New England apple varieties as possible.  We'd also like to add plums, and perhaps some more peaches, pears, and cherries.  I also have visions of some sort of small structure to support vining kiwi plants.  Wouldn't that be pretty?  And, at the border on the fence, blueberry and elderberry bushes, along with some other beneficial plants to help our organic orcharding endeavor.  For next year, we're going to focus on clearing out the scraggly pine trees that are currently occupying the land that we'd like to devote to the orchard, and will plant four new apple trees.  In a separate part of the property, we'll also start our raspberry and blackberry stands.  Of course, we planned out the varieties that we'd like, complete with a long range plan, several months ago, and I've now lost it.  Or the baby ate it.  Or something.  I hope it turns up again, as it was quite thorough and I've forgotten nearly all of the details (like, how many raspberry bushes did I want?).

We made a new list!  And got a bit overexcited in the tree clearing process, so we're going to order more fruit trees than I originally planned.  I suspect that this is all because Mike wants to have another tractor weekend, but that's fine with me.  We have room now for a total of 15 more trees, and could expand further.  But that would probably be excessive.  Probably.

Apple trees:

Black Oxford Apple Winter. Unknown parentage. Paris, Oxford County, ME, about 1790. This outstanding apple, a favorite long ago around much of Maine, has been making a huge comeback in the last 20 years. Our best seller until Honeycrisp came along. Medium-sized round fruit, deep purple with a blackish bloom. From a distance you might think you’d discovered a huge plum tree. Last summer I revisited the Hallowell, Maine, tree planted by Benjamin Vaughan in 1799. Still hanging in there! Excellent pies, superb late cider. Leave the skins on for a delightful pink sauce. Best eating late December to March. They get sweeter and sweeter as the months go by. Good cooking until early summer. Some insect and disease resistance. Unusual light pink blooms, early midseason. Z4-5. Both are ME Grown

Northern Spy Apple Winter. Chance seedling. East Bloomfield, NY, about 1800. One of the most famous of all heirloom apples. Very large delectable all-purpose pink fruit has yellow background covered all over with pink and light red stripes. Very juicy and tender. Even when the soft skin bruises, the fruit keeps extremely well. Cooks up quickly into a loose mild sauce. No need to remove the skins. Its reputation as a pie apple is more than well deserved: makes a very good single-variety pie! Its one drawback is being slow to come into bearing, although for us it’s been worth the wait. Medium-to-large moderately vigorous long-lived tree. Prefers fertile well-drained soil. Good scab resistance. Leafs out late and blooms late season. Z4-6. Both are ME Grown.

Sweet Sixteen Apple Fall. MN 1630 (MN447 x Northern Spy) U Minn, 1979. Whenever anyone eats a Sweet 16 for the first time, you know they will be surprised. Fine-textured crisp flesh contains an astounding unusually complex combination of sweet, nutty and spicy flavors with slight anise essence, sometimes described as cherry, vanilla or even bourbon. I always love Sweet 16 season. Truly excellent fresh eating, although it is too sweet for some palates. Round-conic bronze-red medium-sized fruit, striped and washed with rose-red. Annual bearer if thinned. Very hardy moderate-sized vigorous vase-shaped tree grows upright with willowy branches that get loaded with fruit but do not break. Grower-friendly. Reaches its best flavor and texture in northern districts. Some resistance to scab. Keeps till midwinter. One of the wonderful progeny of (#118) Frostbite. We hope to introduce more of them! Blooms mid to late season. Z3-6. ME Grown.

Chestnut Apple Early Fall. MN 240 (Malinda x open-pollinated) U Minn, 1946. A lot of people love this apple. Small golf-ball-sized fruit with truly excellent fresh-eating qualities. Yellow and bronze-red skin with some russeting. Firm crisp juicy fine-grained very sweet yellowish flesh. The apple version of Sun Gold tomato—fabulous complex flavor in a small package. For a growing number of people in central Maine, late September is Chestnut apple time. Every year we put out a bushel a day at Fedco’s booth at the Common Ground Fair and watch them disappear. Neophytes often look at the fruit with disdain. Most however take one bite and their frowns turn to smiles. (For some, despite its crispness and depth of flavor, it is too sweet.) Chestnut needs no sugar to make a sweet and subtle sauce. Not a keeper, but can be stored for a month or so. Vigorous, somewhat weeping, medium-sized productive tree. Disease resistant. Also beautiful in bloom, midseason. Z3-5. ME Grown.

Calville Blanc d’Hiver Apple Winter. Unknown parentage. France or Germany, 16th century. Also called White Winter Calville. Famous as a dessert and cooking apple for over 400 years. Steve Wood of Poverty Lane orchards in Lebanon, NH, called it “the best culinary apple in the world.” Large flattish pale green-yellow fruit with uneven lumpy ribs and a dotted orange-red blush. Creamy-white aromatic fine-grained juicy flesh with a sweet distinctive effervescent flavor. Smooth when baked. Recommended for vinegar, fresh cider and as a sharp (acid) component in fermented cider. Should be stored a month to reach peak flavor. Will keep until midwinter. Very vigorous strongly upright vase-shaped tree with good branch angles. Head the tree if necessary to force it down. Not for coldest areas though certainly hardy to Zone 4. Blooms midseason. Z4-7.

Winekist Apple Summer. Unknown parentage. Morris Towle introduction, Winthrop, ME, 20th c. A very high-quality red-fleshed all-purpose fruit. Skin is wine red with areas and stripes of darker red and very small white dots; the overall effect is dark red by mid July. Very juicy coarse firm flesh is almost solid beet red: a real eye popper! Ripens about September 10 in central Maine. Medium-small fruit is quite good for fresh eating and a great addition to cider or sauce. Leaves are tomentose (soft and woolly) and have a dark reddish cast to them. Blossoms are light pink. Wood, when you cut into it, is pink. Tree is a natural semi-dwarf. Developed by the orchardist and variety collector Morris Towle (1911-1993). Saved for posterity by orchardist and collector Earland Goodhue of Sidney. Bears young and annually. Blooms early to midseason. Z4-6. ME Grown.

Enterprise Apple Fall-Winter. Coop 30 [PRI 2693-1=(PRI 1661-2 x PRI 1661-1)] PRI introduction, 1993. From the well-known Purdue-Rutgers-Illinois apple breeding program—one of the most highly recommended new dessert varieties in years. Medium-large roundish red-orange fruit is crisp, firm, juicy with a rich spicy flavor. Stores for 6 months or more. Flavor improves in storage, with best eating about a month into winter. Longtime readers of the Fedco Trees catalog know that I remain a bit of a sceptic when it comes to new varieties. “Show me the beef!” I say. I was reluctant to pay much attention to Enterprise for years, but now have added it to my list of varieties worth planting. Two of my favorite Maine growers, Steve Meyerhans of Fairfield and Joe Vachon of Stetson, are among those who have raved about this fruit. Annual bearing, scab immune, resistant to powdery mildew, cider-apple rust and fireblight. Blooms late-season. Z4-7.

Cox’s Orange Pippin Apple Fall. Possibly a seedling of Ribston Pippin. Near Slough, Bucks, England, around 1825. Deservedly one of the three or four most famous of all apples. Not only one of the best eating apples ever but also one of the most sought-after varieties in modern apple breeding; parent or grandparent of many other varieties. Revered in the U.K. Medium-sized all-purpose aromatic fruit is red-orange to red with orange russet striping and wash. Perfectly balanced slightly subacid flavor and crisp juicy tender flesh improve with storage. Moderately vigorous moderately productive tree bears young and annually. Prefers cooler climates and higher pH (6.5-7.5+). The oldest Maine Cox’s I know is about 40 years old, thriving in Mercer, Zone 4. Scab resistant. Blooms midseason. Z4-6.

Pear Trees:

Seckel Pear Late Summer. Seedling near Philadelphia, PA, early 1800s. Sometimes called Sugar Pear. Often considered the best-flavored of all pears; even the skin is delicious. Small obovate fruit is yellowish-brown russeted with slight red blush. Juicy, spicy, distinctive and aromatic. Eat ripe off the tree or pick firm and ripen later. We use Seckels to make our baked “applesauce.” It’s wonderful. Very productive annual-bearing large tree, easy to grow. The most reliably bearing fruit tree we have. Scab- and fireblight-resistant. Will not pollinate Bartlett. Z4. ME Grown.

Sweet Cherries:

Gold Cherry Summer. Chance seedling. Stark Bros Nursery introduction, Louisiana, MO, about 1932. Also called Stark Gold for Stark Gold Sweet Cherry. Medium-sized crack-resistant fruit has translucent golden-yellow skin and firm flesh of exceptionally good quality. Originally selected for maraschino cherry processing, but its hardiness and good taste made it an excellent choice for northern sweet-cherry growers. Very productive large tree. Ripens late. Developed or selected by CJ Thomas in Rulo, Nebraska, and subsequently released by Stark Bros. Grown commercially in some areas. Z4/5.

Kristin Cherry Summer. NY1599 (Emperor Francis x Gil Peck) Geneva, NY, 1982. Large very dark red or purplish-black fruit. Firm juicy red flesh is rich, sweet and delicious. Good resistance to fruit cracking. Tested in Montana, Norway (the country, not Maine) and New York and considered to be relatively hardy for a sweet cherry, possibly including protected areas of Zone 4. Ripens in mid-July. Z4/5.

Peaches:

Polly Peach Mid. SA Beach and TJ Maney intro, University of IA, 1932. Medium-sized white-fleshed freestone fruit. Whitish skin with a reddish blush. Reliable cropper. Blooms later in the season. Considered the hardiest white-fleshed peach. Probably a cross of Bailey and Prunus davidiana. Perhaps the name was inspired by Bertolt Brecht’s infamous Polly Peachum, wife of the even more infamous Macheath—Mack the Knife. Zone 5 or maybe Zone 4.

Plums:

Black Ice Plum Midsummer. Prunus Lydecker [Prunus besseyi x (Prunus salicina Oka x Prunus salicina Z’s Blue Giant)] U of Wisc, River Falls, 2006. Large 2" round early-ripening high-quality hardy blue-black dessert plum. Very sweet juicy reddish-purple semi-freestone flesh. Precocious and productive tree with a naturally compact growth habit. Bred by Brian Smith who I visited a few years ago on a fruit exploration trip in the Upper Midwest. He graciously showed us all through his amazing nursery in River Falls. He was growing many of his plums in huge tubs, manipulating bloom time using greenhouses and coolers. This enabled him to cross species or varieties that would never normally flower together. Though we’re not fans of plant patenting, we have been eager to offer his first major introduction. PVP 16621. The literature recommends Toka or La Crescent as a pollinator. Now on trial at our farm. Z3.

La Crescent Plum Late Summer. (Prunus salicina Shiro x Prunus americana Howard Yellow) U Minn, 1923. Also known as Golden La Crescent or Golden Minnesota. Most of the hybrid plum varieties are colored with some variation of red and orange with a little purple tossed in. Yellow-skinned La Crescent is one notable exception. The beautiful roundish tender thin-skinned yellow fruit is sometimes blushed with a little pink. Tender yellow juicy flesh of excellent quality is sweet, aromatic and suggestive of apricots. Freestone. Upright spreading vigorous tree. Z3/4.ME Grown.

Blueberries:

Bluejay Highbush Blueberry Early-Mid. HBS400 [Berkeley x Michigan 241 (Pioneer x Taylor)] Michigan State U, 1978. Medium-large firm mild-flavored light blue berries with high sugar content. One of the best blueberries for eating, freezing, canning, and preserving. Loose clusters easily harvested by hand or machine. Productive bush is vigorous and upright, slightly spreading. Grows fast, 5–7’ tall. Disease resistant. Z4. ME Grown.

Jersey Highbush Blueberry Mid-Late. (Rubel x Grover) USDA, 1928. The beloved old standard of blueberry introductions to which new varieties are compared. Medium-to-large dark blue berries in large loose clusters. Vigorous erect hardy bush, 5-7' tall. Productive, widely grown, adapted to a wide range of soils, highly praised, easy to grow and suited to the New England climate. Z4. ME Grown.

Northland Highbush Blueberry Early. (Berkeley x 19-H) Mich St U, 1967. Early highbush x lowbush type bears long loose clusters of medium-small dark blue berries with excellent wild flavor. Very vigorous and productive, 3' moderately spreading bush has limber branches which tolerate snow well. Good for landscaping, bird forage and dessert. Hardy. Z3. ME Grown.

Raspberries and black raspberries:

For 2013!

Latham Summer-bearing Raspberry Mid. MN4 (King x Loudon) U. Minn 1920. A standard raspberry for almost a century, extremely popular and widely grown. Large bright red 1" fruit is roundish, firm, a little crumbly and sprightly sweet, full-flavored and aromatic. Great for fresh eating, canning, freezing, jam, juice, or pie. Ripens over an extended season making it an ideal candidate for the home garden. Canes are 4–5' tall and highly productive. Widely adaptable and very winter hardy, not as spiny as most raspberries, disease resistant. Z3.

Prelude Summer-bearing Raspberry Early. NY 1009 (NY 817 x Hilton) NY Stn 1998. Ripens very early and produces a second small crop in the fall, just when you are starting to miss raspberries. Very large red conic fruit is firm and high-quality. Flavor is mild with little acidity but very tasty. Vigorous winter-hardy canes. After several years of trial at John and Pat Meader’s Hardy Maine Nursery in Buckfield, John wrote, “I’d strongly recommend Prelude. It showed hardiness equal to Boyne last winter and fruits the earliest of all varieties I’ve observed (over 30)…Prelude would preceed Boyne nicely; it has good fruit (taste, firmness, size) and seems quite productive; it fruits well over two full weeks.” Suckers freely. Z4.

Royalty Purple Summer-bearing Raspberry Mid. (Cumberland x Newburgh) x (Newburgh x Indian Summer) NY Stn, 1982. Cohesive fairly firm large berries make outstanding jam and jelly and even better fresh eating. Their distinctive flavor is different from the red raspberries, with a hint of black raspberry. Extremely robust minimally suckering plants are very productive and open-formed; the berries are right in your face and easy to pick. Ready to harvest when they are deep purple, somewhat later than the reds. Plant in hills (see sidebar). Usually considered Zone 4 but is proving itself into Zone 3 with occasional slight tip dieback. Does not like wet soil. Disease resistant. Z3-4.

Jewel Black Raspberry Midseason. Bristol x Dundee. Cornell, Geneva, NY. High-yielding variety boasts superb quality and flavor. Glossy large firm juicy fruit melts in your mouth with rich, sweet, lingering flavor. Larger than Bristol. Excellent choice for fresh eating, jams and jellies. Keeps its shape for several days with refrigeration. Black raspberries have been called the “King of Fruits” because of their high levels of antioxidants and anthocyanins which give the berries their dark color. A cure-all for many health conditions; strengthens immune system if eaten regularly. Freeze excess berries and eat them through the winter months to help prevent colds and flus. Vigorous disease-resistant canes. Z4.

Blackberries:

One of my first foods, and something I'm looking forward to introducing to Landon!

Nelson Blackberry Midsummer. Virtually all commercial blackberry varieties are notoriously vigorous but tender up north. You wind up with an annual mess of thorny fruitless groundcover. Nelson has been surviving Maine winters for at least a century. Introduced to us by the descendants of Nelson Fronk whose 1928 family photograph taken on their farm northeast of Farmington shows the blackberry growing next to the barn. John Meader, who grows it for Fedco, calls it “exceptionally hardy,” in fact, one of the most enduring blackberries he has ever grown. The inch-thick canes are tall, sturdy and upright. They can be grown on posts but also do well free standing. Fruit is moderately large, quite juicy and, when ripe, it has a sweet, true blackberry taste. What really makes this blackberry a standout is its high productivity: 16–18 blossoms on the central blossom stalk is the highest John has ever seen on a blackberry. He gets four good pickings from his patch over two weeks in mid-August. Nelson makes excellent jelly and is good to eat right from the bush. Disease resistant and, like all blackberries, spreads quickly so give it room to move. We recommend planting in Zone 4 or maybe Zone 3. ME Grown. (well-rooted bare-root canes)

Elderberries:

Sambucus canadensis ‘Adams No. 1’ Elderberry NY State Ag Experiment Station introduction, 1926. Large berries and fruit clusters make for easy and fast picking. If you’re heading to a potluck and need to make a pie in a pinch, Adams is the shrub you want. Excellent for preserving and not bad fresh-eating. Very large vigorous strong productive bush. In one of our Maine nurseries, this variety was the mother of all elderberries, reaching 12' in height and the same across. It lived for many years as the centerpiece in the garden and provided a year’s worth of berries every season. Selected in 1915 from the wild by William Adams in Union Springs and sent to Geneva where it was introduced 11 years later. ME Grown.

Sambucus canadensis ‘Fryeburg Intervale’ Elderberry Fedco introduction, 2013. Not a distinct variety, but an ecotype. Selected and propagated by Ryan Bushell of Burnt Meadow Nursery, Brownfield, ME, using cuttings he collected from multiple Saco River flood plain plants located in the hedgerows and uncultivated areas of the Fryeburg Intervale. Plants produce large clusters of berries causing branches to arch under their weight. Somewhat compact habit, often being wider than tall. Expect variability as cuttings were selected from multiple plants. Much cold air drains down the Saco River valley, and temperatures have gone as low as –35° recent years. These plants should be very hardy. Jen reports that they are prolifically setting fruit in their second year in the nursery. ME Grown

Introducing our new farmer!

This post is a bit delayed, but what can I say - a newborn keeps you quite busy!  Landon, the new addition to our farming team was born on March 20, and we've spent the past month doting on him.  He's a very good baby, rarely fussy, and we absolutely adore him.  He doesn't sleep for very long stretches at night, so I'm quite tired, but he's worth it. 

His due date was April 11, so we were quite surprised by his early arrival.  The Sunday before Landon was born, we were out getting the garden ready for the spring planting season.  Cleaning out beds while 36+ weeks pregnant is not easy, but luckily I had Taperman and Mike on hand to do most of the actual work.

Let the 2012 farming season begin

I love looking at seed catalogs.  Poring over the descriptions of seemingly endless varieties of beans, tomatoes, squash, carrots, beets, lettuce....it's just very exciting.  And now that I have a year of gardening under my belt, the selection process is at least marginally less intimidating.  I have a better handle on the amount of seeds that I need, and what plants work for me, and which ones don't.  So last night, Mike and I sat down with the Fedco catalog and chose our 2012 crop.  It's not the complete farming plan, as I'll be buying pepper, eggplant, and cauliflower seedlings at the farmer's market come spring, but it's a pretty comprehensive blueprint of what the 2012 garden will look like.  Even more exciting, since Taperman gave me the fantastic Christmas gift of a Fedco gift certificate, we aren't spending much on the seeds!  And farming does truly bring out your frugal side, so saving money on seeds is just delightful.  At any rate, here's the 2012 lineup:

Potatoes - we're trying out four different types this year, and for a twist from last year, we plan on actually labeling the beds so we know what's what.  I put Mike in charge of potato selection, and he chose the Rose Finn Apple fingerling, Sangre (red-skinned) early harvest, Adirondack Red (mid-season harvest, red skins and pink(!) flesh), and German Butterball (yellow) late harvest.  Hopefully with this group, we'll have a nice long harvest of a variety of potatoes.  And again, we're going to label the beds.  And I'm going to try to attack the potato bug eggs early in the season so that I don't have to deal with so many nasty potato bugs this year.

Green beans - we both loved having fresh green beans last year, so I'm branching out our bean options this year.  Since we now have a good sized chest freezer, I'm hopefull that we can freeze a good portion of the harvest to use through the fall and winter.  Once again, we're growing the Provider green beans that produced so well last year, and we're also adding a haricot verts crop, and a pole bean multi-colored mix, to see if pole beans truly are tastier than bush beans.

Sugar snap peas - we loved these so much last year, and this year we are going to try to make a better effort to actually get two plantings in the ground so that we can enjoy more. 

Cucumbers - after giving me a hard time for picking a fancy cucumber instead of a regular cucumber, Mike made the bold choice of Poona Kheera cukes, a brown cucumber from India.  Hmmm.  We're also going to try a pickling cucumber.

Zucchini - I'm just growing one type of summer squash this year, the Costata Romanesca zucchini, which is supposed to have a sweet almost nutty flavor and prolific blossoms (even though I did say that the squash blossoms were overrated last year).

Winter Squash - I had to put a lot of thought into the winter squash selection.  Last year was disapointing for squash, and I do have the squash lady down the street so growing a wide variety of squash isn't really necessary.  But I just couldn't face not growing any squash, so after much internal debate, I chose two varieties for next year.  The first is sweet mama, a buttercup variety with dense, sweet, dry flesh that I mostly chose for the name, and the second is uncle david's dakota dessert squash - that was one that I tried this past year without success, but my one surviving seedling tried so very hard to grow that I want to give it another chance.  This year the winter squash will be in the main garden, so I hope that will help me be a more attentive squash farmer.

Carrots - two kinds this year, and I'm actually resisting the multicolor carrots in favor of two varieties that are supposed to be tastier.  I'm taking this as a sign I may be maturing as a gardener.  But if they aren't significantly better than the multicolored carrots, I'm going back to the colors for 2013.

Beets - the Chioggia beets were a huge hit last year, so we're doing those again along with a crop of golden beets. 

Scallions - I was less bad at growing scallions than I was at onions, and it is very handy to have scallions always on hand, so they made the cut again this year.  I'm still on the fence about onion sets - I think I'll make that decision after I start doing out the garden plan, to see if I'll have space for them.

Lettuce - we're going with three different kinds this year, a mesclun mix, a greens mix, and arugula.  But this year, lettuce won't have a dedicated bed; instead, I'll interplant them early in other beds, to harvest before they bolt.

Broccoli - I ordered a broccoli blend that should mature over the season.  I'm planning on direct seeding these guys, so I don't have terribly high hopes.  I may buy some broccoli seedlings come spring to hedge my bets a bit.

Tomatoes - last year, the heirloom mix as kind of fun, but it was confusing not to know what we were working with.  So this year, I chose a paste variety for canning/sauce, sun gold cherry tomatoes for snacking, salads, and oven drying, and a slicing variety for sandwiches.  We should be able to keep these straight.  These I will start from seed in April (when the baby arrives), so cross your fingers for the tomato crop.

Herbs - the only herb seed I ordered was basil, since last year the basil that I started from seed did just as well as the basil from seedlings.  The mints and chives should come back, and I'll buy seedlings for parsley, oregano, and thyme.  NO catnip for 2012.

So there we have it!  I still have to do up the garden plan to figure out where everything will go, but since I used the mother earth news planner last year, it should be fairly straightforward to determine how the crops should rotate.  The garlic, asparagus, rhubarb and perennial herbs are already in the ground, and of course, we don't need to construct the garden, so I do have a bit of a leg up from last year.  Now this baby just needs to be a good farmer, and we'll be in business!

We are ready and waiting for eggs

This weekend, my parents came over, and helped us get a tremendous amount done around the house and on the farm.  Mike is predicting an early first egg date of sometime in the next two weeks, so he wanted to make sure that we got nest boxes installed in the coop.  On Saturday morning, he put the boxes together, and Taperman arrived just in time to help hang them.

Mike and Taperman install the nest boxes

The girls were very curious

Completed nest boxes! 

Lily was also very curious.  She loves the chickens.

 We have a total of eight nests for the twenty girls, which should be plenty.  Mike made the pitch of the top of the boxes very steep, so that the girls won't roost on top of the boxes at night (that gets very messy, very quickly).  Mike also ran electricity out to the coop from the barn, so the girls now have a light and we'll be able to hook up a water heater for the winter.  Topping off their day, we cleaned out the fridge so they got leftover melon, veggies, and various other leftovers.  It was a good weekend to be a chicken.

Our tomatoes are now ripening very quickly, so Mike decided to make a tomato sauce with the harvest that we had this week.  The tomatoes are gorgeous - I love the heirloom mix for asthetics alone, even if it is a little confusing to try to harvest the tomatoes when you aren't sure what they're supposed to look like, or what they are supposed to be used for. 

Tomato harvest 9-3-2011

Mike blanching tomatoes 9-3-2011

Mike peeling tomatoes 9-3-2011

Lily helped.  She was not in the way.

Finished sauce!

Mike made a huge pot of sauce, so we bagged it and froze it.  I haven't had a taste yet, but it looked and smelled amazing.  I still haven't learned how to can, but from the looks of our tomato plants I need to make that a priority.

Chicken socialization time 9-3-2011



Structural Difficulties

This week we've finally gotten a decent amount of rain, which has been great for the plants growth-wise, but not so good for their ability to remain upright.  Earlier this week Mike had to do emergency tomato support maintenance, as the plants in the tomato/eggplant bed were leaning at 45 degree angles (over the eggplants).  He rigged some twine to help keep them from falling, but they still need a bit of help.  Part of the problem is that I was negligent in my sucker-pinching, so several of these plants have heavy branches that escaped the cages early on.  I think we'll have to set up stakes outside of the cages to keep them up.

Jungle of tomatoes 8-5-2011

When I went out to harvest veggies to bring to Anne and Eric, I discovered that the cucumbers are also experiencing structural difficulties.  The twine at the top of their trellis snapped, so the vines have collapsed.  I'm quite sad about this, as I've spent significant amounts of time training the cucumber plants to use the trellis.  I'll have to ask Mike to see what he can do to fix it this weekend while I'm visiting Anne and Eric.  I'm not sure if it's possible to repair, but finding the cucumbers without the trellis is nearly impossible, so I'm crossing my fingers that Mike can figure something out.

Collapsed cucumber trellis 8-5-2011

I warned Anne that she should not buy any produce this week, and I hope that she listened, because I'm heading down to Connecticut today with two bags of chard, a red cabbage, two green peppers, the (first!) purple pepper, carrots, beets, snap peas, and green beans.  Also, I'm bringing an ample amount of catnip for Tut and their new addition, Frodo. 

Anne's loot 8-5-2011

First purple pepper!

As I was washing the produce, and admiring how nice and straight the carrots are, I realized that the dogs were silent.  As any parent of children or young dogs knows, silence is often a warning that something very bad is going on.  Sure enough, when I went into the living room I found Bullet and Lily busily shredding, and eating, Anne's cabbage.

Red cabbage, post-Lily and Bullet

Because I love Anne, I gave the pre-chewed cabbage to the chickens (they appear to think it's a soccer ball), and went out and harvested a new one for her.  I guess counter surfing is something we're going to have to work on with Bullet....

Moving on, the flower bed is looking wonderful, finally.  The cosmos that I started from seed started to bloom today, and the zinnias look gorgeous.  I love having flowers mixed in with the vegetables, and will definitely be doing a similar layout again in next year's garden.  I'll probably mix the flowers into the vegetable beds rather than having a bed entirely devoted to flowers, though.

Zinnias and cosmos 8-5-2011

Yesterday I did my planting for the fall garden.  I planted the rest of the carrots, beets, and scallions.  I was thinking about doing a fall planting of snap peas, but need to put up a trellis first.  If we get to that in the next week (which I think may be unlikely given the tomato/cucumber situation), then I'll plant more snap peas, but otherwise I think I'll leave it alone.