Melissa came over this afternoon to hang out, get some fresh air, and do some physical labor. Among other things, we edged, weeded, and laid compost around the apple saplings. Looking good out front as well as in the rear.
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Farm House
After a full year of renovations, we no longer have any tools or paint brushes stationed in the farm house, or what we have affectionately referred to for so long as “Louise’s House” after our former neighbor. Those who’ve read about our history (see Our Roots) know we bought the house next door in a land grab deal so we could get the farm up and running. At least that’s part of the story. The house is quickly becoming “Grandma’s House” since Dan’s mother and father moved there in late-September.
When we were first imagined tenants for the farm house, we thought we might find a young couple interested in sustainable agriculture. Some graduate students from Ohio State, perhaps. Folks who might trade work on the farm for a CSA share. While she isn’t the urban hipster we imagined, Dan’s mom is an avid gardener and has deep connections with this place (again, see Our Roots). She owns an investment property, so she understands what it means to be a landlord and she treats things with respect. Having her and Dan’s dad next door is great for the kids and we’re looking forward to celebrating the seasons with them.
Here are a few before and after shots of the house. We’re thrilled to be finished so we devote more of our leisure time to family, and farming.
And a nice spot out back to watch things grow…
Update from Our Fall Laboratory
One of our goals at Over the Fence is to find ways to produce fresh food throughout the year. To this end, we consulted the first name in North American season extension, Eliot Coleman. After traveling to Europe to research year-round crop production and conducting experiments on his own land in Maine, he developed a variety of techniques for covering crops, overwintering seedbeds, and winter harvesting. Anytime you speak with someone who is trying harness Mother Nature’s more subtle powers, you’re likely to hear his name. We’d love to visit his aptly named Four Season Farm. Someday… In the meantime, we’ve seem some of his ideas in action around Columbus at Swainway Urban Farm, Harmonious Homestead, and Peace, Love, and Freedom Farm.
After reading as much of Coleman as we could get our hands on, we purchased 20 – 10 foot lengths of 1/2″ EMT and borrowed a bending tool to make our first low tunnel hoops last winter. You can read about that process here. We experimented with them a bit in the spring for an early harvest, but didn’t have much luck. We needed to start earlier, producing a fall garden that could evolve over-winter. This year we were ready.
In late August, we got a variety of cold-hardy seeds into the ground and sprouting – kale, arugula, swiss chard, spinach, scallions, beets, carrots, tatsoi, and a variety of mustards. We tried corn salad, or mache, a Coleman favorite for winter harvest but after two rounds of planting saw no germination and gave up. For now. By September we had two full rows of greens going just as strong as we had in the spring. We’re eating from them everyday, occasionally sharing with CSA friends though at this point we are selfishly relishing the fruits of our experiment.
A mid-Octover harvest.
Last week, in anticipation of our first overnight frost, we covered the beds with our low tunnel hoops and 6-mil greenhouse plastic. The plastic is secured with clamps and, for the time being, held down on the ground with burlap coffee sacks. Something a bit heavier will likely be in order as it gets colder and windier.
A corner of the tunnel. Note the moisture dripping down the sides!
Outside
Inside
A quick temperature experiment showed that on a partly sunny day in the mid-forties, inside the tunnel was just above sixty. Yesterday was unseasonably warm, in the low sixties. We didn’t measure the temperature inside the hoop, but it felt warm and smelled of rich, damp earth. A true joy to behold in early November.
It’s like the tropics in here!
Hope to keep these going at least through our Thanksgiving feast! We’ll let you know how it goes.
Scarlet Runners
Are these not the most beautiful gems you’ve set your yes on? Pam gave us a handful in the spring. Said the flowers would attract the hummingbirds. We didn’t see too many this time around, but are eager to try again next year.
Addendum: Realize this doesn’t show scale and these babies are huge. Check out “Fall Cleaning and Gleaning” for an idea.
Sweet(!) Potaotes
Melissa and I weighed the sweet potatoes. 129.4 lbs. Now they are taking a little nap in the basement wrapped in doubled-brown sleeping bags. Should be ready in plenty of time for Thanksgiving. CSA folks get ready!
A Harvest Worth Waiting For: Sweet Potatoes
Melissa.
Sweet potatoes are a long-term commitment.
(Like garlic which we are actively working on getting in the ground so we can reap the reward eight months from now…)
Early in the season our dear friend and CSA member Melissa suggested the idea of an x-ray machine that would allow us to see below the surface, to see the sweet potato tubers growing. I loved that idea and referenced it over and over in my mind and in conversation. Last week I broke down and pulled the soil from atop one of our 25 plants. The results were totally amazing. tubers that measured over a foot in length and weighed over 5 lbs.
Getting the rest of the crop out of the ground the past few days has been like digging for buried treasure. Now, the long wait ’til they are cured, sweetened by time (and some ambient heat and humidity in the basement next door), and ready to eat. You can be sure these will be part of our Thanksgiving feast.
Early June. Sweet potatoes were in the row to the right with the black plastic.
Pre-harvest. (Since June sweet potatoes moved north and south taking over where carrots (to the left/north) and garlic (to the right/south) were.
Post-harvest.
Jodi.
Pam.
Potato Fork.
Notes of Thanks
We get a lot of notes of thanks.
Picture texts from the dinner table.
Facebook mentions.
In-person praise.
LOVE them all.
But this one is in the lead for best of show this season. Handwritten from an Ohio gal in her 70s. Whenever someone who spent their life in this place tells you your tomatoes are the best they ever had you can be only one thing: Humbled. (And you forgive them for adding an extra vowel to the end of your name.)
(Sometimes) You’ve Gotta Reap, If You Want to Grow
Last weekend Thompson killed a bunny.
I was cleaning out a wasted lettuce bed and I caught him out of the corner of my eye hovering over something on the ground just in time to see it twitch for the last time. Then, out of the other eye, I saw another bunny run out of the yard. Thompson didn’t pay it any attention. I’m pretty sure he was still processing his deed. He carried the dead bunny around the yard poking at it with his muzzle, licking it as if waiting for it to come alive and play tag some more. Reminded me of Lennie in Of Mice and Men…
I, on the other hand, didn’t feel sad at all. A few weeks ago, I transplanted some beets into the garden – about 50 plants which I individually set in the ground. Plants that I grew from seed. They were doing great for a few days and then one afternoon, poof, they were gone. I’m pretty certain John the Rabbit got them. So, while I think bunnies are super cute, the way I figure it this one kind of had it coming.
This week it was my turn to take some lives in the name of protecting our food supply. While, I didn’t draw any blood, this time (see a previous post about a time when I had to) I still felt bad about pulling a hundred plants up when they were still producing food. Food infested with bugs, and holes made by those bugs, but food nonetheless. We all know the saying you have to sow in order to reap, but sometimes it works the other way around.
Our 2014 greens beds are now fully replanted for fall/winter growing and harvesting – spinach, kale, swiss chard, mustard, radicchio, lettuce, arugula, herbs, scallions, beets, carrots, and boc choi. Just in time for the harvest moon.
Sorry John, we won’t be sharing any of these.
Four, Make that SIX, Weeks of Photos
Has it really been four six weeks since our last post?! It was four when I first sat down to write this one. That seemed like a long time. Six weeks seems downright negligent. But, while we haven’t been blogging, we have been busy. Here are some highlights. (Note: We have been pretty good at posting on Facebook. If you aren’t following us there, maybe you should.)
The romaine we transplanted during our last workday came in full and crisp.
We have harvested HUNDREDS of tomatoes, oftentimes in a single day…
We distributed a ton of them through our CSA thanks to our “sarcophagus” system. (Term coined by Julian Halliday)
We made and distributed roasted tomatillo salsa to nearly all members of our CSA…
This was a goody batch we sent to Rosa and George’s band instructor. The red bottle is a tomato version.
We also harvested, shared, and ingested TONS of kale, chard, and arugula, herbs, onions, cucumbers, beans. You can check out some of our favorite recipes, including our own K-Word Smoothie, on our recipes board. We canned pizza sauce, chutney, and salsa verde (a cooked and preserved version of our fresh salsa that doesn’t really compare but when you are sitting on a mountain of tomatillos what are you gonna do?). We made refrigerator pickles and jardiniere. It’s been awesome.
We have lots to do to get ready for fall. And some things we hoped to get done probably won’t this year. But, we’ll be ready next time around.
CSA Workday!
Looking forward to getting some big things done tomorrow during our CSA workday! (Mother Nature, please be kind.)
Over the Fence Urban Farm 