Birdsfoot Farm

Dear friends,
if you are financial insecure I had a generous donation to help  1-2 members in need to pay for a CSA share.  If Gardenshare picks up the other half it can help two.  Please contact me if you are interested in  getting subsidized  share and thank you dear friend.  We still have shares open, come and get them.
Things are coming together.  the workers are almost all coming and it is a choreography to keep everyone busy and doing it right; a dance.  Yesterday I wrote 6 page business opening safety plan with the help of a template.  So many things to consider, cleaning logs, worker temperature logs, safety protocols, safety postings.... you get the idea.  Then with not just me and Henry in the garden we wore masks to not worry about distancing all the time.  Farm work is hard, hot and long hours.  Imagine that with a cloth mask.  It gets sticky, dirty and breathing becomes harder.  Going to town shopping in a mask is feeling awkward, but not hard.  So I spend the evening looking for alternatives and it brought me to how to make your own face shields on You Tube, quite entertaining how people invented them out of soda bottles or laminating paper.  I have to find out if they are as safe as masks.  We will keep you posted.  In the mean time we keep washing the masks and they look like mini bras on the drying rack.  I want to thank the NY prisoners who sew them and made the hand sanitizer distributed by Cornell Cooperative Extension for free to us farmers.

For now the onions are al planted, watered in and the netting is put on, a big job.  We planted 1700' of onions and 120' of leeks.  This year not in mulch as we lost too many the past years.  That means we have to weed them every two weeks, they don't form a weed shading canopy. 

I am harvesting the first Mixed Salad Greens and arugula from the high -tunnel.   It is tricky to pick the greens without cutting down the coexisting tomatoes or cucumbers.  They sell through Natures Storehouse and the Coop in Potsdam.  We are not going to market yet, put there is a market pre pay option for people that don't want to commit to the  CSA.  It is so good to have fresh greens after a long winter.  The second planting is up and needs weeding.  I saw the first cucumber beetles on the tunnel cucumbers.  They don't miss a beat.

Today was Kira's and Steve's last school day.  Kira is all done high school graduation!  We had a proper Birdsfoot party with cake and ice cream, outside on the pcinic tables.  She got her first cell phone and she is soo happy.  We have been holding off this long and she felt she was the only one not having a cell phone.  Maybe I can have her teddy now.

peace and love,
Dulli

Hello All,
thank you all for signing up for the CSA so far.

It has been a full week.  I prepared and planted the second 1000' feet of parsnips, all done for that.

  Also I planted the first 100 tomatoes and 160 cucumbers into the high-tunnel and they took well.  First I had to weed the mixed Greens in the same bed that are about 2" tall by now.  It is always a risk to plant so early with frosts still coming. I have hoops set up to double up the protection with row-covers inside the tunnel if needed.  I seeded zucchinis, cukes and summer squash into pots to be planted outside the end of this month.
The tractor is still in repair.  After the exhaust was put on and the alignment changed to 4' bed space between the wheels and the cultivator adjusted to that they found out it was not the tire leaking fluid (tractor tires are often filled with a sugar or salt solution to make the tractor heavier for better traction or lifting counter weight ), but the axle was leaking hydraulic oil through a weak seal.  To fix that they have to take the wheel off, new bearing, new seal new this and that and $1300 later after the $750 other fixing cost it should be in order to work for me sometime next week.  I guess old tractors are like old cars where we expect $1000/year to fix them; although the tractor drives less miles.  Well, we don't drive the car much either this year...

Anyways without the tractor I am down to forking to loosen deep by hand and using the David Bradley or Blue -bear walk behind tractors to rip through the soil, after that gabbing the quack grass clumps with a special grabbing tool, after that raking and finally seeding. 

I can't wait to get tractor Joan back.  Usually I would have disced with the tractor and 6' wide discs through much of the gardens by now to set back the weeds.  With the new approach of low till to not aerate the soil unnecessary  I wait and see the weeds grow.  According to the book on" no till" I need to solarise next, using the large plastic from the tunnels for a couple of days to kill the annual weeds.  I need to make weight bags to hold the sheets of plastic down to not let air under there, otherwise it would be a greenhouse with extra good weed growth.  I am thinking of filling my many empty bags of potting soil with dirt for that, why buy bags if I have saved those for something.

As far as the weekly color therapy I am into yellow this week.  After the winter whites, the mud season greys and browns came the stunning grass green.  Now there are daffodils that Steve planted all over our yard the the main-house yard has its own bunches.  I get so intrigued by colors, I want to sit in them, smell them, soak them up.

May 1 came and went and we were not able to have the traditional Birdsfoot May-pole party with our neighbors and friends.  Patreesha announced we were going to have the first annual tulip festival at her house.  Usually she and Rob go to Ottawa to look at the tulips this time of year.  Christoff who grew up in Ottawa informed us that the Netherlands send tulip bulbs to Canada for the tulip festival every year as a thank you for that Canada housed the dutch royal family during WW2.  Of course we all got excited, a tulip festival with 9 yellow tulips!, the red ones are still coming and the ones in my yard that Steve had planted got eaten by the deer.

Henry offered to make pancakes for breakfast and we had the most fun Saturday morning, all eating pancakes with berries, yogurt and maple syrup, playing group badminton, juggling balls and flying Rob's kite when it got too windy for the badminton.  We dressed up and had a good time.

It is bio-dynamic root day today and I want to get the potatoes that have been sprouting in the greenhouse top shelves into the ground.  If there should be a frost when they make it above ground I can always hill them to protect them.  The bio-dynamics believe that there are certain days good for root/leaf/fruit/flower crops depending on the moon and planet constellations.  I don't always follow that especially if I get to busy or the weather is not going to be good if I wait to plant/seed, but in the beginning of the year I might as well plant by it .  It gives me a rhythm.
That is all for this week.  I am going out to work on those potatoes.
peace, Dulli