The first boxes are on the way to the cities, and we’re decompressing from a first CSA harvest that was actually quite pleasant and smooth, all things considered. (The first harvest is always likely to be problematic, as various forgotten elements are rediscovered in the most frustrating of ways.) This year, only one thing went haywire, but we’re not even gonna talk about it! Not just because it was most likely my fault. Really.
Since we last posted, we’ve almost entirely mulched the non-crop spaces of the field, which feels great. While we’ll still be transplanting and weeding, the pivot has definitely been made into Harvesting season – aka Summer.
Speaking of summer – wow, holy heat!
We went to the local farmer’s market for the first time this year on Saturday – and it was ridiculous. SO HOT AND SOOO WINDY. Not many folks braved the weather to come out, so most of the day consisted of chatting with other vendors who were also holding down their canopies as best as possible (although one did manage to take a brief flight, knocking a sweet old lady on her back).
We’ve combated the heat with lots or irrigation and mulch for the plants, and dunks in the Saint Croix River for ourselves.
In Box #1: ALL THE GREENS
Garden Huckleberry Preserves – We grew these last summer, and made this jam after the berries had ripened in late fall (they’re better after some frosts).
Spring Salad Mix(Red & Green Lettuce, Mizuna, Arugula, Pea Tips, Baby Kale, Baby Tat Soi) layering the salad mix
Corn Shoots – These … are weird. We grew a lot of popcorn last year, and a bunch of it we dried over the winter – and then this spring, started looking for creative experiments to try. The shoots of popcorn have a very unique flavor – sort of grassy, corny, bitter, and sweet … and then more sweet, lingering, like Stevia or some kind of sugar substitute. If we didn’t grow them ourselves I’d be suspicious of how that kind of sweetness got in there! But it’s all natural!
corn kernels soaking for sprouts
Broccoli
Radishes(Mostly ‘French Breakfast’, with an occasional ‘Crimson Giant’)
Green Onions
Bok Choi – crunchy goodness for your stir fry needs
‘Grand Duke’ Kohlrabi – you probably don’t care what the variety is called, but I’m pretty sure it will taste better knowing . Peel the outer layer, then it’s great raw, served with salt and maybe pepper, lemon juice, olive oil – you can also cook it though, and the leaves are edible too. Eat your alien.
“Buttercrunch or Something Like That” Head Lettuce – some big leaves for your sammiches.
this is what a broccoli plant looks like when voles have tunneled through its roots. Have I mentioned we hate voles? We hate voles.researching our land’s backstory with Neighbor Marcia
Neighbor Dave teaching Kristin how to dig a root cellar hole with his tractor
we’ve been keeping ahead of the potato beetle larva onslaught by seeking and destroying their eggsadorable baby potato plant
we find some cool relics buried on the farm …
the farm dogs beat the heat in the shade of a hay bale
When I told WWOOFer Meg I was going to put up a blog post about recent weeks, she suggested it simply be the word “HAY!” It was tempting.
We’ve been busting out row after row of thick hay mulch, keeping the ravaging hordes of weeds suppressed while the crops get their feet under them; it holds moisture in the sandy soil, and eventually breaks down, adding nutrients and much needed organic matter for future crops. It’s not the most pleasant of tasks, especially for those of us with hay and mold allergies, but we’ve gotten some pretty good tactics down to make it easier; one person with a wheelbarrow per row to be mulched, doing relays back and forth, while one or two people rip up bales outside the field, and load up the wheelbarrows when they return, empty, to the fence.
This process has made things much more efficient, and since we’ve had a few WWOOFers helping, we’ve managed to get much more of the field under cover than previous years … which will mean happier crops and less weeding for the rest of the season.
tortoiseshell hay mulch
In a similar vein, we found a free silage tarp the exact dimensions of our high tunnel greenhouse, while scavenging for useful items at the annual “Trash Days” in Bloomington MN (where folks put all manner of unwanted piles out on the curb for scavengers like us to pick through, prior to it all heading to a landfill). Although it hadn’t been the plan, the dimensional match seemed too meant to be to ignore, so we transformed the high tunnel into a plastic bubble for heat-loving plants.
It’s amusing since neither of us really ever wanted to grow using plastic, but it’s hard to argue with luck and with results – and it’s certain that such a ground cover is ideal for the sandy, weedy soils we contend with here, as well as for heat-loving plants. (The plants are watered by both driplines connected to the well, and by soaker hoses gravity-fed by various rainwater collection tanks around the farm.)
sweeping the loose soil away from the sensitive tomato plants. Tomatoes are total Bubble Boys
And speaking of rain – we’re finally getting nice amounts, after a nearly month-long dry spell, where we were having to run the generator/well irrigation daily to keep the seeds and transplants alive in the field. We’d watched storm after storm split apart on the radar and pass around us, leaving us dry … but finally, we were blessed with three inches over the course of a few day rainy spell (an amount that would have been problematic in less well-drained soil), and since then it’s been a lovely syncopation of sunshine and rain, alternating daily or even hourly.
the crew unloading a trailerful of free woodchips
As I sit writing this on Monday morning, it’s going from full sun to downpour about every 10 minutes – the photo above is the sunny field with the next squall rolling in.
The crops love this rhythm, and are looking quite pleased with their lot in life.
cloudy weather kept us from properly hardening-off the tomato plants to the sun – so of course as soon as we transplanted them out, the weather left the forecasted script and went full blazing sunshine … we spared the tomatoes from the strongest rays with suspended row cover fabric
The mulch has unfortunately provided habitat for our population of tunneling colonial vegetarian rodent-monsters (aka voles), however we have been heartened by the influx of snakes around the field this spring – the hugelkultur mound, for example, had been nicknamed the “Vole Hotel” last year, as it was clear they’d infested the spaces between the buried branches and logs. When we got to work this spring, we noticed the holes into the mound seemed larger, and feared it meant even MORE voles … soon enough, however, we saw the huge gopher snakes cruising in and out, basking atop the mount in the sun, breeding in the grass, and hopefully striking terror and population control into the resident rodents.
snake sex! We hope for many babies.
We’ve been reconnecting with our human network as well – spending plenty of time with our friends, supporters, and neighbors, the Marquardts, meeting up with local historian and author Russ Hanson (he gave us an old coal boiler that we’ve turned into a wood-fired water heater), and taking the poop pile from our new goat-mancer friends and CSA members at The Munch Bunch. And we’ll be starting to sell at the Saint Croix Falls Farmers’ Market in a week or two … a few weeks after the market begins, as usual.
the wood-fired water heater, ready to provide up to 20 gallons of hot water every day. Made from a 1930’s Sears “bucket-a-day” coal boiler and a modern Sears water heater tank. The fire and gravity work together to circulate the water without a pump.
(We simply don’t have enough growing this early in the season for our attendance to make sense, especially alongside those coming in from south of here. Heck, we even have a slower start than other farms in the same township as us – the local historian let us know that his growing season, up the hill, is a full month longer than ours is, due to the way cold air settles into the wide glacial Saint Croix River valley where we grow!)
lettuce, beets, and kohlrabi
The biggest change afoot this spring is all around us, and it’s been a real test of our ability to “que sera, sera” with inevitable change – logging. Starting at 7 am, for weeks, we’ve been greeted by the sounds of the profit-driven logging machines devouring all the largest and oldest trees in the vicinity, and leaving arboreal carnage in their wake.
the north side of the farm has already been logged – you can probably guess where our property line is …
I could rant, here; there is much to be angry, sad, and disappointed by, seeing how callously these woods are turned into dollars for the Wisconsin General Fund … especially knowing that next year it will likely be the patch of woods right alongside our driveway that is razed.
the loggers “spare” a few token trees here and there, but they never fare well after having all their neighhbors removed and their roots run over repeatedly.
But I won’t rant. It’s one of those things that we cannot change, and must find peace with at minimum, and even better, silver linings. In this case, we will have ample access to the remnants the loggers leave behind, for use in our heating needs, and we expect that the suddenly-opened areas will allow understory fruit bushes to spring into productivity, producing wild raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries.
excavating the frosted ruins, ahead of the loggers
Another silver lining – although no one had told us, I had a hunch that the loggers were coming to the neighborhood – and launched a salvage expedition to recover the last of the old car body panels from the homestead ruins of “The Architect” … and just days later, the whole site was crushed by heavy machinery treads. Sad – but awesome that we salvaged the remains in the nick of time, to repurpose for future projects that have local historical roots, as well as powerful aesthetic appeal (to our eyes anyway!)
aftermath of the logging crewsWidget with a model-T body panel run over by a bulldozer
We’ve enjoyed feeling like we lived in a forest, but with the surrounding woods logged, we’ll be well-aware that we truly live in The Barrens, and we that we grow food in an area considered to be little more than a wasteland by many. Underappreciated, scruffy places on the outskirts of human civilization has long been our favored type of habitat, and that’s exactly where we are putting down our roots; deep tap roots that can draw sustenance from the most unpromising-looking sands.
No matter what, it’s going to be interesting, and interesting is our favorite thing.
So.
The first CSA box will be coming on June 6th … are you ready? We are!
See you soon,
Gabe & Kristin
morel capturedoyster mushrooms on a stick
HEY HAY MAY PICS
building the tomato trellises
the monster on the left had two yolks
killing quack grass – first loosening the soil with a broadfork, and then carefully digging the extensive root systems out by hand.WWOOFer woofer Kingsbury likes to find and bring home pieces of deer … so pleased with himself!grapevines coming to lifewe took several bucketfuls of quack grass rhizomes out that day … the weed bloodlust was strong.Widget ‘helps’ weed the raspberry patchElden pots up pepper plants
a box turtle came to visit
Kristin and her dad working on the screen porch roof
chive flowersJim helps install the new solar panelslaying irrigation linesbabiesthe eroding pipe of greenhouse heater’s booster fire makes for some beauty
And finally, let’s cap May off with a few good versions of our farm’s theme song!
(High Keys is my current favorite version. The Lords version is awesome for the band’s dancing lol)
Three days ago, I packed up all my wool blend socks, sweaters, long underwear, and winter boots.
some of the new chickens had never been outside before coming here. they thought that the snow was lava and went to ridiculous lengths to avoid touching it
I was feeling optimistic, and perhaps hoping that by taking this step I would help do my part to ensure that winter goes away for the year. I’ve been premature in my Spring-faith before – even just earlier this month a wet, heavy snow took out the gutter I’d eagerly reinstalled on the side of our high tunnel greenhouse, hoping to collect some early rainwater for the first high tunnel crops.
snow cover from inside the greenhouse
So I shouldn’t have been surprised when this cold snap hit – highs in the 30s, lows in the 20s. I just finished putting sheets and buckets over the raspberry canes, rhubarb, and asparagus, which are apparently just as foolishly optimistic as I.
But even with more snow and cold, it’s indubitably Spring, albeit USDA Zone 4a style. Nature’s signs are everywhere – the evening choruses of peepers have returned, the evil quack grass is lushly taunting me, we’ve had our first tick and mosquito bites, and the hungry black bears have begun their raids on the Neighbors’ birdhouses.
emerging rhubarb brain
Robins are twitterpating, dandelions blooming, rhubarb and asparagus emerging from their subterranean winter slumber.
frost bow arcs over the newly-fenced field (electric polytape for the deer, and chickenwire beneath for the rabbits and raccoons)
Human signs of Spring abound as well – we have the fence up around the field to defend against critters great and small, the loggers are back to ravaging the surround forests, and we joined the annual horde of scavengers to Bloomington’s Curbside Pickup days to get free materials for the farm.
a good haul of materials for the farm, thanks to the annual Curbside Pickup in Bloomington MN
The first big push of seeds are all done germinating, and have now moved out of the trailer (where we kept them toasty near our woodstove), and into the greenhouse.
In there, the seedlings get ample sunlight during the days, and the hot weather plants (peppers, tomatoes, etc) stay warm overnights on the rocket-heater-warmed clay bench (we’ve improved our firing routine such that they’re enjoying temperatures around 30 degrees warmer than outside, all night long).
firing the rocket mass heater for a night of warmthusing an infrared sensor to read the top of the barrel temp (at these high end temps, the center of the lid glows faintly although you can’t see it here)
warm season crops snug under cover on the heated bench, while more hardy cool weather crops hang out in the nude
The first rows were planted in the high tunnel a couple of weeks ago – reluctantly, since we discovered that rabbits have been partying in there through the nights, and we feared devastation … but a combination of scent deterrents, homemade hot pepper spray, and wire fencing seems to have moved them on to less hostile environments.
skulking rabbit in the high tunnel
In the last couple of days, the first field plants went into the ground, ready to soak up the days of rain that followed – peas, salad mix, turnips, radishes.
In other news, we’ve doing lots of spring cleaning around the farm, building a larger screen porch in preparation for the annual mosquito blood- drive, clearing out a patch of large oak-wilted trees to make room to plant new fruit trees (and to make firewood of course), plugging new mushroom logs, using the chickens to break down our abundant piles of oak leaves for use in compost, and experimenting with controlled burns in the meadows and woods on the margins of the field.
Holy shiitake! The logs we plugged two years ago are putting out tons of delicious mushroomsfresh shiitakes & fresh eggs with spicy noodle leftoversSehr family project – Kristin with Matriarch and Patriarch Sehr, working on the expanded and improved screen porchEugene helping with the screen porch roof
froooooost on the gaaaaaarlic (dum dum-dum, dum-dum dum dum, dum-dum dum, dumm dummmm!)hens checking out the fresh;y-tilled soil. Hope they devoured some cutworms
down, down, down in a burning ring of fire
Fire Marshal Neighbor Marcia supervises one of our burns
We’ve battled quack grass, spotted a fisher (a giant weasel basically), cursed the insanely-intelligent voles … and sat inside on a chilly gray day and finished this webpage update for you.
Rain and sleet cannot dampen Kristin’s commitment to her post running the booster fire for the greenhouse, as we charge up the thermal mass to keep the warm season seedlings toasty through a night in the 20sif you look very closely, you can see me at the far end of the row, working the broadforkfreshly-tilled and ready to rock!
Hope you, too, are enjoying this slow, beautiful transformation from winter to spring! Life is strange and beautiful, and the struggle is the joy … we’re grateful to have such lucky abundance, such interesting problems. and such folks as you in our lives. Thanks!
2016 was our best year yet, and to cap it off we threw a party for our CSA members and friends of the farm. Our friend and CSA Alumnus Maaren runs an awesome catering business – “A Wandering Fire,” featuring wood-fired pizza, baked on site with a mobile pizza oven trailer – and she was kind enough to donate her services for the day.
The day we chose could not have been more lovely – sunny and 60 degrees, with fall colors exploding all around us throughout the Saint Croix River valley. (And since it was 30 degrees cooler and a week earlier than last year, there was no insane swarm of Asian lady beetles to contend with this time!)
We prepared a variety of farm-grown toppings – Que Sehra leeks, tomatoes, beets, potatoes, tomatillos, onions, chives, kale, arugula, eggplant, peppers, squash, and more topped the pizzas that came out in rapid succession, disappearing into our guests as fast as they emerged from the blazing hot oven … which took only about a minute to go from doughy to crispy. Combined with farm-fresh salad mix and a smorgsaborg of potluck dessert options, everyone ate until happily stuffed, as the platoon of friendly dogs romped around us, bocce balls rolled, the bonfire crackled, and Jim’s vintage tractors gave rides.
It was great party – not only giving a beautiful year a fitting close, but making us excited for next year’s beginning!
We can hear new things in the night, now. Far-away humming grain dryers, loud music from a house on the other side of the woods, distant barking dogs and bellowing midnight cows – from directions where no such sounds had been heard for months.
I remember now that early Spring had been similar – but I’d told myself it was because the trees were all still bare – assuming that in greener months their leaves subdue sounds. But the woods now are still pretty leafy, requiring a new explanatory theory: it’s the lack of crickets. And the absence of frog choruses and screeching beetles. When the chill-bringing winds of autumn cease shaking the trees, the evenings and nights are just so quiet now. It’s the Silence of the Bugs. The Hush Before the Snow.
And so I guess it makes sense that this is Week 18, even though it feels impossible that another season has gone by some quickly, even while it all feels so epic and new. I can see how I will in a few moments or so be looking back at decades of change and growth, seasonal cycles pulsing like single day and nights.
I don’t want to go on; you know exactly what I mean. Pretty fascinating ride we’re on here – I wish I could explain how grateful I am, we are, for every person who has been part of the journey. You. You were an inextricable piece, and that’s awesome.
This year has been our best yet – I dare believe that the trend is likely to continue. So much has been built, so many systems refined, so many realizations made and connections forged and possibilities opened.
We’ll continue the CSA, at about the size it is –so that we can manage it without sacrificing our sanity or the quality of what we’re putting out into the world. It will also leave us some time and energy to explore possibilities. We’ll probably do more “value-added” food production, using what we grow as the raw materials. We’ve talked about doing two weekly Farmer’s Markets instead of just the one. Stagger plantings more. Feed bugs and disease and critters less, and feed and water plants more. Plant more spinach. You know.
We still don’t know where all this may take us, what we will do, how we will be – no more, really, than we did when we set out. And, we still don’t mind that; thanks to an abiding hunch that we’re doing what we want to be doing, and what we’re meant to be doing.
2016 was a beautiful year and we will miss it – even as we look ahead to the all the interesting, delicious, and challenging beauty still to come.
It was wonderful to grow for you, and with you.
the Sehrs
PS – oh yeah I forgot to talk about the box!
Box 18 – The End Again
Popcorn – hang your cobs in a dry place to finish curing before you make homemade farmgrown organicmagic superpopcorn. After a couple weeks, the moisture levels should be getting to the right levels for popping (try a couple of test kernels before you commit it all). To use, shuck the corn off of the cob by hand – it seems hard at first but it gets easier as you go. Put some oil and salt in a heavy pan with a lid (like a dutch oven). Warm it up before adding your seeds and covering it up. Wait until they start popping, then lower the heat slightly so they don’t burn. Remove from heat when the pops get infrequent. You can probably use a microwave or a popcorn maker if you’ve got such things.
Brussels Sprouts –After several attempts, this was our first year successfully growing these things. Now that we know the secrets, we’ll grow more of them next year …
Butternut Squash – one of the tastiest and most versatile of the winter squash – and the seeds, roasted, make a wonderful garnish for salads or soups.
Pie Pumpkin – Cute and decorative, sure – but also quite edible … sweet and perfect for bread, smoothies, soup, or pie.
Salad Mix – red & green lettuce, arugula, spinach, mizuna, tat soi, bok choy, pea tips, pea flowers
Parsnips – Those aren’t white carrots in with the carrots! These add a great flavor to roasted vegetable mixes. Or could be cooked and pureed with your squash soup. Or your carrot soup!
Carrots – the giant mutant super carrots’ reign of terror now comes to a close – for you. We still have to survive the rest of the season without being consumed by them … next year, we’ll be putting them in less rich soil so that they grow a little less wild ….
this thing is even thicker and scarier than it looks
Broccoli – more beautiful heads from the second planting
Cucumbers
Herbs: Parsley, Sage, & Chives – Sage pairs great with winter squash, and dries well for later use. Chives and parsley would be good to sprinkle on roasted vegetables, or use in a salad dressing.
That’s all for this year – unless you come to the Pizza Party on Sunday – we’ll be making toppings from things we’ve grown! Thanks again, hope you’ll join us for another season!
Since we last posted, we’ve almost entirely mulched the non-crop spaces of the field, which feels great. While we’ll still be transplanting and weeding, the pivot has definitely been made into Harvesting season – aka Summer.
