Post Harvest Activities

Several hundred garlic bulbs were separated on this cold and dreary  day today.  Liz and Nate sat by the wood stove talking of soil building and planting dates and the benefits of lacto fermentation and kombucha tea and the meaning of life while a delicious veggie and lamb soup simmered on the wood-stove top and scones baked in the oven.

Harvest Gathering

Had a great time at our 5th Annual Harvest Potluck Gathering !

Great weather, friends and food!

Food meditation

Lend a hand

If you can come by to give us a hand, call 781-588-4255 to let us know to expect you…

Thanks!!

Fall activities

Now that the major harvesting is over, we turn to preparing for the winter.  This weekend, October 17&18, we will  be digging up  flower bulbs for  winter storage as well as planting some hardy pererennial bulbs.  We’ll also be digging up Jerusalem Artichkes and preparing garlic to be planted soon.

It’s almost leaf raking time!  If you don’t have a use for your pine needles and oak and maple leaves,  contact us about our using your leaves.  We need to be sure they are the types that would beneficial to our soils and that they have no unacceptable treatments on them (for our Baystate Organic Certification).

Summer pix

This lovely photo was taken at CNF this summer by vacationers  from Spokan Wa.

News from the past

September 22, 2007

 Dear Farm Boxers,

Such a lovely time I had; visiting with family and

helping to prepare for and  then attend my nieces’

double wedding last weekend!

Got home Monday night expecting to catch up with Ron & our son Nicholas and get to bed early because I wanted to

get to the farm early as I usually spend most of

Monday preparing/harvesting for Tuesday’s pick-up.

 Around 8:30, Ron and I were relaxing, awaiting

Nicholas’ return from work in Plymouth when, at 9:00

we received a phone call from Mary Ann, the owner of

the farm telling us that someone had knocked on her

door to alert her that a large brown pig was on its

way to Carver!

We called Nick, requesting that he come home from work

by way of exit 7 instead of exit 9, so he could see if

she had made it up that far, and we headed over to

Colchester Brook to see if we could find her.

 

We couldn’t find her on the street, so we headed back

to the farm because our experience is that when they

leave the farm, they generally come back before they

get too far.  One holiday evening, we were visiting

relatives in Roslindale and, we got a phone call

from members who live in Plympton telling us that

the pigs were near the Plympton  post office…. we

rushed back to Plympton to get them before they did too much damage to Plympton Center, and found them sleeping right outside of their fence.  Seems like no big deal,

right?  We should just ‘leave them alone and they’ll

come home wagging their tails behind them’?

The problem is that they can leave alot of damage in alot

of yards in their wake.  So, we always try to find

them and herd them home.

Once again, they were back at the farm; one inside of

and one outside of the fence.  The problem is always

luring them back over the electric fence.  For some

reason, they paid no attention to the shock of the

fence to get out, but they are afraid to go back

inside of it.  So, we chased her around for awhile…

she decided to take off toward the street again, took

us on a chase through the green beans, eggplant,

peppers, (by my calculations, especially with

Saturday’s rain, these would have been perfect to be

harvested today) and that newly re-planted patch of

spinach.  Nick was able to coax her back to us.

Fortunately we were able to head her off from going up

to the hill where she’d have had a field day in the

tomatoes and butternut.

I guarded the open gate while Ron coaxed her into her

fenced area with a bucket of grain.

We gave them some hay and they seemed pretty well

settled by the time we left at 10:30.

Unfortunately, not much was salvageable from that field.  I also found a few other things trampled in another field that she must have wandered into before we discovered her.

We were fortunate to find some swiss chard from Donna Blischke’s Web of Life farm in Carver and there are plenty of tomatoes and there will be butternut squash as well. 

‘Please come to pick up between 12:00 and five pm.  If

I am not there, please follow the signage in the barn.

 

A call would be appreciated if you will not be coming tomorrow 781-588-4255

Thank you, Connie

Simba is fond of small places…

…sweet as apple cider…

Nate arrived with several jugs of mead and  wine that he is fermenting.  When he saw the press sitting outside of the barn, we could just see the wheels turning in his head… can we make some cider?  One sunny and windy day, he and Liz oiled up the machine and pressed 2 bushels of apples.

Portable poultry coop completed

Nathan’s first big project was constructing this contraption to be brought into the fields full of fowl so they can eat the grasses and weeds and fertilize the fields at the same time.