This week's ice storm

Earlier this week we had a doozy of an ice storm. Everything was coated in ice and stayed that way for two days, it was beautiful and surreal all at the same time.

From dawn to dusk...

Greenhouse Gets Started

It looks like this spring will be a little late this year. Seeding started February 20th this year. There's still a good amount of snow on the ground.

Inside, things are toasty and green. This is the first succession of baby greens for market in Hudson.
Really perfect.

April - 3rd Week

All my peas are in a row. The vibrant green of Spring is the essence of hopefulness. After a brown winter my eyes feel bathed with the sight of spring growth. Now the momentum of the season is starting to pick up speed. Each day more and more green returns to the landscape, birds are calling, my seedlings are starting to take off in the greenhouse. There is a buzz beginning. The work of the season starts to pick up speed too.

When I think about the numbers of plants that cycle through the season it astounds me. The peas that were planted out this past week numbered thirteen 98-cell trays… that’s about 1200 pea plants. That led me to start to calculate how many winter squash plants I would be seeding in the beginning of May. Would I have room for them all in my greenhouse? I came up with 88 50-cell trays each containing 2 plants. That’s about 8800 winter squash plants which would easily fill half the greenhouse. I repotted my pepper and eggplant starts. They have all gone on to 50-cell trays as well. That was 33 trays. That’s 1650 plants! I moved some of the cold-tolerant plants outside to make room and to harden them off for a week before I put them into the ground. The beets, chard and broccoli will all be ready for the fields this coming week. The first cucumbers and squash will not be far behind them. Even my early tomatoes are looking stocky. The squash, cukes and tomatoes will all go out on the warm “plastic” (made of corn) and be covered because there is certainly still time for a frost here.

At the end of the week, I walk past the barn and the intoxicating perfume of the crabapple tree in bloom reaches out to me and I drink in the fragrance. Its pink and white blooms are so pretty. Large carpenter bees hoping to make their homes in the barn swoop down to check me out. (I swear they make eye contact.) The killdeer birds are still attempting to nest in the middle of the gravel driveway. Our faithful dog, Boone, is discouraging them. The tulips are blooming (Boone only eats the purple ones), the blue iris are coming up, the peonies are emerging and the grass is growing that deep green that you see only in Spring. All is hopeful.

April - 2nd Week

We had some more gorgeous spring weather this week again and I took advantage of the sunny days in the beginning of the week. At left is Chinese Cabbage planted out. This will be covered for frost protection and bug protection. In addition I was able to seed carrots, parsnips, bok choi, lettuce mix, turnips, mustard greens, arugula and spinach... all cool weather crops. Makes my mouth water! Friday and Saturday proved to have gentle rains, just what was needed and I spent half the day in the greenhouse seeding flowers and herbs. The coming week looks promising as well. We'll set our sights on planting out some peas, head lettuce and kale as well as prepping some more ground for coming crops.

April - First Week

The start of a new farm season is upon us. We enjoyed some amazing warm weather this first week of April. It revved me up. We will be working with a raised bed system this year at Blue Star Farm. The bedshaper at left will produce beds that are six inches high. What this will enable! For starters it will help keep our plants from getting water logged should we get a lot of rain (everyone knock on wood that this doesn't happen), #2 it will warm the soil for our tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, squash, zucchinis and melons, #3 it will provide an airy loose bed of soil for our seedlings to grow in. We will cover some of the beds with a biodegradable mulch that looks like plastic but is made out of corn. It will break down in 4-5 months and we will be able to till it right in with no residue left.

We have a new addition to our farm family, his name is Boone. He is an English Shephard and is almost 6 months old. He likes to stop, smell and taste the flowers as he goes along his way. Boonie's job is to keep all vegetable perpetrators away. We are working on this. Right now he chases Killdeer birds, catches and eats voles, and generally tries to scare all robins from the vicinity.




The hens are going full tilt in this spring weather. We have 16 ladies and we got 10 eggs just the other day. The girls are almost 4 years old and for most farmers that's probably old lady hen time for the stock pot, but I have a soft spot for chickens so they eat bugs and grass and enjoy the spring air and the wonderful sunsets. They make me laugh and the world needs more laughter!

There's nothing better than healthy vibrant seedlings in the greenhouse. These are onion and early tomato seedlings. We will keep our fingers crossed for good weather this spring and the rest of the season. Feels great to get my hands in the dirt again!

The End of June

Okay, I've been remiss to report in the last two weeks of June (and maybe into July). My Mother always said, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." But, you have to report the good with the not so good. We have had a record breaking amount of rain in the past five weeks (over 10 inches). In the beginning year here, with not a lot of fertility and HEAVY CLAY soils many things were lost. Spinach turned yellow in the field and died. Turnips, arugula, mustard greens, radishes, lettuce mix were all in the soggiest field and some underwater, some still underwater. I'm thinking pond perhaps here. Onions are small and not very happy either. Needless to say, I have not been to market yet. Everything in the greenhouse looks wonderful. My transplants are gorgeous. Just the issue of getting them into some soil they can breathe in.

The frogs are very happy... they've never had such a long season like this. It's amazing that such a loud noise can come from a small hidden creature.

Many things run through my mind... because I can't even think about getting into these fields before 5-7 days of just plain sunshine. So far, the longest we've gotten is 3 days before we got another 1/2" of rain. What's a farmer to do? Carry on, look towards the fall, and next year. Read a lot about soil fertility, compost, LOTS of greensand? Cover crops, subsoiling? Search out the wise and experienced and go work for them for a few days... since not much happening here until some major drying out happens. And, all the wise and experience have their hands very full at the moment. Short term memory and blinding optimism help in these situations. Thanks goodness for that.


Squash fields after 10 inches of rain. The mulch is still a good idea, but would have worked better had it not rained so much. Some of the "high ground" squash looks great. Raised beds are a must here going forward. I'll be looking into a bedding system that will incorporate that idea.














Lots of standing water... get your mosquito netting out!

A New Look.

Bear with me as my designer past noodles around blogger templates. Hope it doesn't throw any of you off.