February 28, 2010
Kristin
Our broccoli sprouted this week, and we transplanted it from the vermiculite to potting soil. Here are some pictures. We’re excited to see our first crop go from seed to sprout! Next step – transplanting it to the ground once it thaws!
Also, today we went and visited Wendy & Jerry Custer, a family in our county that breeds chickens, to get an idea of how many chickens we want and what breeds. We’re interested in getting at least 4 chickens. Our top choices are (more…)
February 25, 2010
Kristin
I think I’m the only person in the house that feels so jubilant about meat. In truth, if we want to live in a truly sustainable way concerning protein, we wouldn’t be eating meat at all because of the sheer amount of resources most meat uses in comparison to other vegetarian sources of protein. However, my food allergies to soy, wheat and dairy limit our use of vegetarian proteins. Thus, as long as we’re eating meat, we want to make sure we do it in a sustainable way for our local community, the planet and our health. And, since I’m the one who prevents us from going vegetarian, I volunteered to look into the pros and cons of various meat sources in our area. (more…)
February 21, 2010
Caleb
Today we ordered some seeds. I continued to be disappointed with Gardening for Dummies during the process because it had information that was in direct contradiction to information in the seed catalogs. I can now add “has wrong information” to my list of why I don’t like the book, a list that currently includes “too long” and “poorly organized.” Organic Gardening for Dummies, Rodale’s Encyclopedia of Organic Farming, The Guide to Virginia Vegetable Gardening, and All-New Square Foot Gardening have been helpful in garden planning. We attempted order as many seeds as possible from Seed Savers Exchange, including [format is “plant – variety (catalog number)”]
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February 15, 2010
Matt
There’s not a whole lot to report. In truth, we’re still recovering a bit from last weekend’s atmospheric drama.
We’re getting very close to planting our first crop — broccoli. Whitney and I purchased planters, vermiculite, and potting soil at Fifth Season in Charlottesville. Caleb has gone through much effort, combing various sources to average out the “optimum” time for planting our seeds. Of course, the ground is still covered with snow. These seeds are to be planted in the basement. (more…)
February 8, 2010
Whitney
We just had the third (?) major snow storm since we’ve all been at the farm. I missed the first one because I was stuck in the airport and then on a train in DC. This one I enjoyed at the farm with everyone else. This storm was so bad that we lost power and the phone didn’t work for two days, in addition to the usual not being able to drive down the driveway.
At the farm not having power not only means no heat and no refrigeration, but also no water because the farm has its own pump system for water. Happily the farm has a generator so we were able to occasionally heat the house, flush toilets and move food from outdoors (where we were trying to keep it cold) to the refrigerator. There wasn’t enough gas to run it for very long, but it helped a lot.
We all had a sleep over in the office in order to try to keep each other warm and Matt kept a fire going in the furnace to help with the temperature. The snow and ice on the trees outside were really beautiful.
Matt has had an especially hard time because he was supposed to fly out for a conference on Sunday but wasn’t able to make it out. This is probably for the best because there’s more snow coming tomorrow and Wednesday.
We hope Ben Hampton and Angie Fritz have good luck making it to the farm this week. If the power goes out again they can help chop wood!
Our broccoli sprouted this week, and we transplanted it from the vermiculite to potting soil. Here are some pictures. We’re excited to see our first crop go from seed to sprout! Next step – transplanting it to the ground once it thaws!