Farm hop

We took a road trip yesterday from our 1840 Farm north to Walker Farm, Bristol, New Hampshire.

The Walker Farm is a wonderful example of a family farm providing fresh, locally grown food and some good family entertainment for their community.

Grandkid pumpkins

Our good camping friends live in Alexandria which is the next town over from Bristol and are part of the Walker Family, so we always have special tour guides when we visit.

Petting zoo

The highlight of the farm visit was a Farmall tractor ride from the farm stand to the pumpkin fields where the grandkids picked out their pumpkins.

My grandfather had a red Farmall tractor on his small dairy farm, Brookside Farm, so I relived some wonderful memories while we were riding through the beautiful farm fields.

Farmall Tractor ride

We also bought some small gourds, fresh cherry tomatoes, and a package of their delicious maple sugar candy at the farm stand to take home.

Walker Farm stand

It was a cool day which served to remind us winter is coming, but we had a great time and the foliage was absolutely gorgeous at the farm and on the three-hour round trip.

Beautiful fall scenery on the farm

It pays to have good friends who live in the beautiful White Mountains of New Hampshire and are part of a large family farm because a fun day was had by all.

And, always remember…

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The tale of two tomatoes

Here at 1840 Farm, we have had a banner year for heirloom tomatoes.

My husband and I grew some Heirloom Beefsteak and Brandywine slicing tomatoes, and an assortment of cherry tomatoes including Black Cherry, Gardener’s Delight, and Blondkopfchen.

Our daughter, husband and grandkids grew a long list of different and delicious Heirloom tomatoes including two of their favorites, Purple Calabash and German Johnson.

Between us there have been pounds of tomatoes eaten and pounds processed for the coming winter months. We do love our tomatoes.

But, we have had a good chuckle because in one growing season, we won a ‘biggest’ and an ‘ugliest’ tomato contest.

The biggest tomato contest was sponsored by Jennifer Sartell, Iron Oak Farm. They have a great farming/gardening blog and sell some wonderful, unique gifts in their Etsy shop including roving and hand forged items by her husband.

The ugliest tomato contest was held by Steve Bender, the Grumpy Gardener. Steve is on Facebook regularly and writes a gardening blog for Southern Living.

We’re also in the running for the ugliest tomato contest on Soulsby Farm’s Blog. If you want to check out some really ugly tomatoes and hopefully vote for our entry, #11, head on over to their Ugly Tomato Contest.

Interestingly enough, both tomatoes were Heirloom Brandywines.

Biggest

Ugliest

This gardening season we have battled tomato horn worms, beetles a plenty, and now late blight. I love organic gardening, but a good sense of humor is required because laughing is better than crying when you choose not to use pesticides.

However, in just one of our 4′x16′ double high raised beds, we have grown 46 lbs. 5 and 7/8 oz. of tomatoes so far.  Hope your gardens have done well and provided you with lots of fresh produce.

We’re still harvesting but have to acknowledge we are moving into the fall and winter seasons – temps are dropping and leaves are changing.

It will become time to read all the seed catalogs so we can plan for the 2013 gardening season. Let’s face it – a gardener’s job is never done.

Heirloom Tomatoes

We have tomatoes! And, if you could see us all, you’d see smiling faces. We love tomatoes. When the counters are covered with them, we’re ecstatic.

This year, we built 23 new raised beds – some single and some double in height. We have tomato plants in both.

In early May, we covered two double beds with clear slitted row plastic to get the seedlings started four weeks early while starting others a few weeks later and leaving them open. Some beds were mulched with grass clippings while others were covered with black plastic. We used soaker hoses in three and watered others.

What we have found so far:

- the clear slitted row plastic certainly gave the seedlings a head start and those plants are larger. We’ll purchase another roll and cover more beds next spring.

- the plants in the double beds are bigger and more robust than the ones in the singles or planted directly in the soil at ground level. We’ll have to give that issue some thought during the winter planning months.

- the black plastic mulch made for healthier plants laden with much larger fruits so we’ll try more black plastic mulch.

- 4′ bamboo stakes will not suffice when the plants are this big and the fruit so heavy - we will invest in some large tomato cages for next season.

- we assumed the soaker hoses would make a difference, and we were right. We’ll try to figure out how to enhance that type of watering system in other parts of the garden.

We choose to not apply dangerous chemicals on our gardens or lawn so we encounter some insects but deal with them as they arrive. For instance, we had a good crop of summer squashes but ended up having to pull them out because of squash vine borer. Succession planting will be researched and definitely on the agenda for next year.

After reading several blogs and looking online, I did try ‘Vegetable Thrive.’ According to the container, it is “an all natural soil drench that improves the rooting and requires less water.” I purchased it at my local Blue Seal store. It cost $10 for 16 ounces, and you mix 5 caps with one gallon of water.  I will certainly use this again next year.

We’ve eaten tomatoes in every type of sandwich and recipe you can imagine and are still relishing each and every tomato picked from the garden. I’ve frozen some for winter cooking, and my daughter has canned some for her winter recipes.

I guess you could say we have never met a home-grown heirloom tomato we didn’t love. Here’s hoping your garden is providing you with delicious produce for your dinner table.

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Ties are wrapped around the branch where it is breaking from the weight of the fruit. Just hoping the fruit will ripen before it totally breaks off.

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Blueberries

It’s blueberry season here in New England – hooray! We have very productive, established high bush blueberry plants here on the farm, but we all love them so much it seems we can’t ever get too many.

So, the other day I woke up to a beautiful, sunny day and decided to go blueberry picking at a fellow blogger’s farm. Rivard Farm is in Springvale, Maine, about 45 minutes away.

After a nice ride in the country, I pulled into Rivard Farm, drove up the hill, and parked along side at least another dozen cars. There was plenty of parking, and everyone was in a good mood greeting and chatting with other pickers. I didn’t count the rows, but there was a huge field full of well maintained blueberry bushes. There was plenty of room to space yourself from other people picking blueberries. They have blueberry bushes – lots of them.

The bushes were loaded with blueberries with some branches reaching to the ground they were so heavy.

Picking blueberries this big is like picking grapes. They are almost the size of a quarter. It sure didn’t take me long to fill my containers when they were this big.

They also have tomatoes in their hoop house. They are planted in black plastic bags being fed with an irrigation system. Interesting process that appears to be working well for them judging by the almost ripe tomatoes. So, it shouldn’t be long before they’ll have tomatoes for sale too.

Rivard Farm is a family owned farm since 1926. While according to their website, the senior Rivards may be considering retirement, the family including the eight children are looking to the future and how the Rivard Farm can continue to be a vibrant and growing part of the community. Check out their website, blog or Facebook page and keep up with their berries, hoops, bees, farmers markets, and growth plans for the future.

The summer growing season in New England is short – sad but true. If you live in the Maine/NH area and want to buy and eat local, check our Rivard Farm and their delicious blueberries. Happy picking and eating!

 

This post has been linked to the GRAND Social linky

Plastic Row Cover – Gardening Review

Last year we built a hoop house and saw first hand how plants could thrive in that environment. The plants were protected from the harsh effects of the weather but received plenty of sun and heat to encourage growth.

While looking through the seed catalogs during the long winter months, I wondered if this same type of environment would work on raised beds. One concern – how to handle the excess heat during the day.

After some online research, I found and ordered Clear Slitted Plastic Row Cover from Fedco Organic Growers Supply. It cost $10 plus $5 shipping for a 6′ x 50′ piece of slitted plastic. We already had a supply of galvanized wire hoops from a previous NOFA-NH order that could be used to support the plastic.

We first tried assembling the wire and plastic by placing the wires in the soil of the raised beds. That didn’t work too well because they weren’t very stable and kept moving up and down.

Hoops in bed.

So, my husband drilled holes in the top of the wood, and that worked great – they were stable. The plastic fit over the wires perfectly.

I had a good supply of wooden clothes pins and thought they might work to hold the plastic on the wire, but they kept falling off. So then I tried some small black plastic clamps purchased from a local box store that my husband uses for wood working projects. They worked great.

We planted our seedlings – tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, squashes and melons the first part of May instead of after Memorial Day which is recommended for this area of the country.

The slitted plastic row cover kept the heat in but allowed excess heat to escape through the slits in the top of the plastic. When it rained, some of the rain got to the soil through the slits, but we also had soaker hoses in the beds for consistent watering.

Slitted Row Plastic

When the weather warmed up and became consistent, the tomato plants were already pushing against the top of the plastic. Before Memorial Day, we removed the plastic and the hoops – imagine that in New England.

I folded up the plastic and intend to use it again. When folding, I checked it carefully and there were no tears in it after about four weeks of use.

The $15 I spent for this slitted plastic was without a doubt one of the best gardening investments I’ve ever made. If you live where you have a short growing season like we do here in New England, I would highly recommend this slittled plastic row cover to get your gardening season up and going earlier than normal

Look at my tomato plants and fruit! I’m going to have tomatoes to eat in July – now that is something to SHOUT about in New England.

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Raised bed 07/09/12.

Picture of tomato 07/13/12.