Bearing the Heat Last Week
WhoooooWee!! It was HOT on Friday. Down right, it got to 89 degrees according to my weather station. Thursday was getting warm, but by 3pm Friday afternoon, Joe and I were just about melting. Luckily one of the ice cream stands in Rindge opened up for the weekends through April and we were able to cool off a little bit after work.
I spent the better part of both days trying me best to cool off the plants in the greenhouses. The sides stayed up through the nights and sprinklers were running both days just to get the temp down on the leaves. The plants put on a lot of growth, but not all for the best. The spinach is no longer that sweet, tender baby leaf that we've been harvesting the last couple weeks. It is still delicious, don't get me wrong, but it must have quadrupled in size in the last 4 days. Most of our spring greens would prefer the cool weather we would expect for April. The heat cuts through their sweetness a bit.
We were able to get out into the fields and pick some rocks in the morning before the heat really set in. It's our annual first harvest of the year, and there are some big ones out there, as always. Crazy to think that people have been pulling rocks out of the ground here for hundreds of years, and they still crop up every spring. Pickin' rocks never ends.
I was a little jealous of some of the other farms in the area watching them all get into their fields over the heatwave and start some planting. We are lucky to have a heavy soil that is full of nutrients and stores water well, but early in the year I have to be patient about bringing tractors onto the fields. It takes them a long time to fully dry out. Last week made a good dent, but we still have a few more sunny days to go until I feel comfortable driving a tractor across them. I'm pegging the last week of April to start prepping fields and planting beds. It'll be earlier than usual for us and should help ease some of the congestion during planting season!
Below in the newsletter: Fall CSA Shares are available, We received an award for a climate resilience grant, I'll be serving on a panel for the Monadnock Earth Day Film Festival this Thursday, Spring Share harvest list, the plant stand is now open, and more!
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR FALL CSA!
Climate Resilience Grant Award Recipient!
I am THRILLED to have been chosed for the NH Conservation Districts Climate Resilience Grant Award!
With this grant, the farm is purchasing a tractor mounted flame weeder to improve weed control and cut down on tillage. I have been eyeing this piece of equipment for a few years now. I use a handheld flame weeder on the farm, but scale has always prevented me from expanding its use, and larger equipment was always out of reach due to its price tag. This grant allowed me to make the purchase, and the equipment arrived on Friday afternoon! I am beyond excited with the possibilities it will offer the farm!!
I'm attaching some pieces of the grant application below for anyone that wants to learn more about flame weeding and how we will implement it on our farm.
Flame weeding is the process of passing over a bed with a high BTU open flame. The object is to wilt the target weeds, not to burn them to the ground. Heat causes cell sap to rapidly expand, injuring the cell wall and inhibiting the plant’s ability to move water through its structure. Within a few days, flamed weeds will wilt end eventually die, all without disturbing the soil. Flame weeding was a widely used practice through the first third of the 20th century before losing popularity as farmers opted to use herbicides in the 1960’s. It started to see a renaissance in the 1990’s, and is now considered an essential tool for weed suppression in organic operations.
The goal of this project is to improve weed control on our farm, reduce soil tillage, improve soil health, and practice better soil conservation management on open vegetable beds that await planting. We employ a practice known as “stale seedbedding” on our farm to control weeds in our beds before we plant into them. This practice involves preparing the bed a few weeks before planting to encourage weed growth. We then pass over the bed using a shallow till (top 2” of soil) to terminate germinated weeds on a weekly basis until the main crop is ready to be planted into the bed. A bed can see anywhere from two to six passes of shallow tillage using the stale seedbed technique.
Tillage is detrimental to soil structure by breaking down soil aggregates, introducing excess oxygen and “burning off” soil microbes, and reducing crop residue. After tillage, soil is left vulnerable to the elements, thus degrading soil health. Growing outdoors in a time of climate change will be challenging no matter the conditions, but soil health is the best protection against an unpredictable climate. A healthy soil can retain water like a sponge in dry years, providing soil moisture to needy plants, as well as absorb more water and drain it through the soil in periods of heavy rain, rather than having it pool and shed off the surface, eroding the land in the process.
There are practices that farms can employ to reduce tillage on their farm. Our stale seedbed technique involves tilling just the top two inches of the soil and leaving the lower layers intact. Even so, the soil surface is left vulnerable to erosion and soil degradation, especially in open vegetable beds that do not have any kind of crop cover.
Flame weeding addresses the vulnerabilities exposed by tillage. Since there is no soil disturbance, we are not breaking down soil aggregates or aerating the soil, and instead of reducing crop residue on the surface, we are actually increasing surface residue on beds that would otherwise be left bare.
Soil aggregates are responsible for providing stability in the soil, protecting organic matter, and preserving root channels and porosity. Flame weeding would have no negative effect on these properties.
Oxygen is necessary for microbial life in the soil, but tillage introduces an excessive amount of oxygen, resulting in rapid expansion of bacteria populations which consume carbon in the soil and release it into the atmosphere. It is still uncertain the effects of flame weeding on microbial life in the upper centimeters of the soil that are exposed to heat, but similar to soil steaming, the preliminary research is showing no negative effect.
Leaving a crop residue is the most intriguing aspect of flame weeding. In our current stale seedbed practice, weed residue is turned into the soil to be quickly consumed by soil microbes that are hyper active due to the flush of oxygen. The soil is then left bare and vulnerable to the pounding effects of rain and being blown off by wind, hence why cover crops are so important during uncropped periods. Using a flame weeder to terminate weeds in a stale seedbedding system would leave the decaying weed crop residue on the surface of the soil, protecting it from heavy rain, wind, or being dried out under the sun.
This project addresses two major needs on our farm: reducing tillage and improving weed control. Vegetable farms typically require more intensive tillage practices than most row cropping operations to attain adequate tilth for planting raw seeds or tender transplants. It is expected that incorporating a flame weeder into our bed preparation will decrease tillage on our farm by up to 75%. This project would eliminate tillage passes on open beds between field prep and planting. As stated above, open beds will see anywhere between two to six passes with the tiller before being planted. With a flame weeder in our system, that number could be brought down to one pass per bed just before planting.
3rd Annual Monadnock Earth Day Film Fest!
JOIN us for the 3rd Annual Monadnock Earth Day Film Fest, FREE! Running Wednesday, April 19 through Saturday, April 22nd, I am very excited to be a part of this event bringing you award-winning and nationally recognized films that celebrate this wondrous planet we share! There are both in-person and virtual offerings.
The Festival is free but registration is required on Eventive - a free, online film platform.
I will be on a panel discussion for the film "DelMarVa and the Ground for Change" on Thursday, April
20th @ 6pm.
The Festival is brought to you by Dog Days Farm, MFCC, MONIFF, and the Mon Food Coop.
Thank you so much!
Spring Shares Week 6
Halfway through shares already! The first six weeks have flown by, and the next six will be even faster as we gear up for summer time! Going to be a similar basket to last week. Brassica Mix, Lettuce Mix, Microgreens, Turnips, and Spinach are all repeat items this week. The only new addition will be Pea Shoots!
Spring Week 6
Brassica Mix
Lettuce Mix
Microgreens
Pea Shoots
Salad (Hakurei) Turnips
Spinach
Egg Share: Weekly Eggs Only
The Plant Stand is Open!
We've got the first starts of the season out at the plant stand! All of the veggies in the stand are cold tolerant, have been hardened off, and are ready to plant in the ground, even if the temps drop below freezing again!
Currently available in the stand:
Beets
Bok Choy
Broccoli
Brussel Sprouts
Cabbage
Napa Cabbage
Cauliflower
Chard
Green Curly Kale
Red Curly Kale
Flat Kale
Red Leaf Lettuce
Romaine Lettuce
Leeks
Red Onions
White Onions
Yellow Onions
RECIPE LINK:ASPARAGUS, PEA SHOOT, SPINACH, POTATO SOUP
Ingredients
▪1 large potato, quartered, or more to taste
▪2 ½ cups chicken stock, or more to taste
▪1 bunch fresh spinach
▪1 bunch pea shoots
▪1 tablespoon vegetable oil
▪1 bunch asparagus, trimmed and chopped
▪1 onion, finely chopped
▪2 ribs celery, chopped
▪2 tablespoons chopped pineapple mint, or to taste
▪2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage, or to taste
▪1 tablespoon creme fraiche
▪salt and ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
Step 1
In a large saucepan, bring stock and cream to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes.
Step 2
Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add pea shoots and onions to hot oil. Cook and stir for 1 to 2 minutes or until pea shoots wilt and onions are tender. Add salt and pepper.
Step 3
Add pea shoots mixture to stock mixture. Simmer, uncovered, for 2 to 3 minutes or until heated through. Using an immersion blender, blend until vegetable mixture is almost smooth. (Or transfer vegetable mixture to a food processor or blender. Cover and process or blend until mixture is a almost smooth. (Chef Tip: Blending hot liquids in a blender creates steam and pressure. Remove the center cap in the blender lid; cover the blender lid with a clean kitchen towel. This prevents it from splattering, but do not tightly seal to the point where the pressure cannot escape.)
Step 4
Stir butter into vegetable puree. Season to taste. Serve immediately.
The Farm Store is OPEN!
We've got some new additions in the farm store freezer this week! Mark from Archway Farm brought by some Maple Breakfast Sausage, Uncured Smoked Kielbasa, and Nitrate and Nitrite free Pork Hot Dogs! I'm particularly excited about the hot dogs! Joe is a vegetarian, so times have changed a bit, but the farm used to be fueled by hot dogs!
Another addition is our own Basil Pesto! The pesto was made in collaboration with the Harvest Bridge program that takes excess produce from farms and processes it in a commercial kitchen for resale. Harvest Bridge is run by Jacob Sherwood and is an incredible resource for farms in the Monadnock Region. We sent over about 15lbs of basil last year for him to make pesto, and it is delicious!
We'll keep adding new products in to the store as spring carries on. This week available in the store is:
Spinach
Microgreens
Lettuce Mix
Arugula
Chard
Spicy Salad Mix
Pea Shoots
Salad Turnips
Kielbasa
Maple Breakfast Sausage
Hot Dogs
Pesto
Ice Cream
& Eggs!
Interest in Pickup Location for Archway Farm Meat CSA?
When Mark was over the other week dropping off sausage for the farm store, we got to talking about using our barn as a potential pickup location for members interested in an Archway Farm Meat CSA Share. I have been a share member for about a year now and it is a highlight of my month every time I receive my share. I absolutely LOVE it and I'm pretty sure I have talked about it in the newsletter before.
So, if anyone is interested in getting a pickup location setup at Dog Days Farm, send me an email. I won't guarantee that it will happen just yet, but if we get enough interest, it is fairly likely.
Support the Fitzwilliam District Nursing Association!
Each year our farm provides CSA shares to the Fitzwilliam District Nursing Association for their food delivery program. The FDNA has been providing food for members of our community for decades, and Tracie's Farm, and now Dog Days Farm, has been providing CSA shares as a part of their programming for over 10 years. Last year we packed 8 baskets per week for their food delivery program. The FDNA is run by a group of volunteers that are passionate about not letting members of the Fitzwilliam Community go hungry. We are lucky to have them as our neighbors.
I am putting out a call for members or friends of the farm that would like to pitch in to help purchase CSA shares for the FDNA this season. I match shares purchased for the FDNA, so if we are able to get four shares paid for, we will be able to offer another 8 baskets per week for our community members in need. Shares can be purchased directly from the farm and receipts for your donation from the FDNA are provided upon request. Donations are tax deductible.
If you would like to help purchase a CSA share for the FDNA, please send me an email at jack@dogdaysnh.com. Additionally, if you are in need of food assistance and would like to be on the delivery list through the summer, please send me an email and I will put you in touch with a member of the FDNA.
Workshare with Us!
We are looking for workshares to come help out on the farm one day a week for the summer season in exchange for a CSA share. Workshares are one of my favorite parts of the farm. We often get returning workshares year after year, and they almost always become longtime friends of the farm. It's a great way for me to get to know our CSA members and for members to get to know their farm.
Physical labor is a given for workshares, but we are often able to find tasks that suit the abilities of those that are able to help out. We have seen workshares of all ages on the farm over the years. It is a full day commitment, and we ask that members pick one day out of the week and come in that day for the duration of the season. Workshares are allowed to miss up to three days during the summer to accommodate vacations. In exchange, you receive a full summer share plus bread and eggs, as well as lunch on the farm on the days you work and access to deals on bulk veggies.
If you are interested in worksharing, please email me at jack@dogdaysnh.com
