This year, we got some help from college student Stephanie (pictured below) with pulling the garlic.  As with every year I learned a few things this year.  I already knew this, but I need to change my some of my harvest dates for the garlic depending on the variety.  Doing this will make the process easier and will result in better keeping garlic.  The harvest this year was complicated a bit by the rain we got just about every day last week.  For the most part, the rain was contained to short events, so I was able to work around it.

I have my list of projects for next year’s harvest, not the least of which is a new hanging method.  My wrist is killing me from all that staple gun work.

First off, for anyone who lives in the Capital District, you probably remember how much rain we received earlier this summer. Some crops (blueberries) loved it! Some (tomatoes) most assuredly did not. More than any other year, I’ve come to realize how important it is to have diversified crops. There were many weeks when the blueberry sales made up for lackluster harvests of other crops. That said, we’ve had prior years where Mummyberry has taken the majority of our blueberries and other crops made up the difference. As each year goes by we get a better and better feel for what conditions cause what problems.

Now on to the real news. As I mentioned in prior posts, there’s going to be a little farmer born pretty soon. Because we REALLY don’t know what we’re doing in this arena, we’ve decided to scale back on farming for the next several years to make sure that the little whippersnapper gets all the attention he deserves! What this means is that we’ll likely have a garden for ourselves while devoting our actual farming time to the cultivation of berries and garlic. I realize this flies in the face of what I said above about diversity on the farm, but baby comes first.

Because of this, we’re scaling back on the Ballston Farmer’s market. It’s likely that we’ll start later (July or so) and have much less to sell. On the other hand, we’ll likely be attending and selling at a couple of Garlic festivals next fall. Stay tuned.

So…what’s going on at the farm? What isn’t going on at the farm. First the important news items.

• We’ve joined the Certified Naturally Grown program this year. And no we can’t use the ‘O’ word. It’s the law. That said, we follow the NOP standards to meet our CNG certification. We just don’t have the government to answer to.
• There’s going to be a tiny and “somewhat useless as a farm hand” addition to the farm family come October. No..not a toy poodle. Sheesh…Do I have to spell it all out for you…A BABY!!!
• Allis Chalmers D17 is back from the shop and she’s taking names now and asking questions later. It runs so well, that I wonder if it’s running better than the day it was new. Sadly, it is a gas hog.
• Allis Chalmers G is getting ready to make it’s debut as well. This tractor is going to be our cultivation tractor. We have a sudden embarrassment of riches in the tractor department. I guess this means we’re out of excuses until next year (see point about baby).

OK..now to the far less interesting stuff. What follows is the boring minutae:

• Garlic is coming up (just shy of 4000 bulbs this year)
• Peas are planted
• Onions are planted
• Spinach is planted
• Our out of cycle fields are either plowed/disked/planted with cover or just plowed (did a bunch today)
• A ton of stuff is started in flats. I guess I’m done being specific.

Also, thanks to our neighbor I learned the correct way to plow a field. There’s a pretty good post on how here.

OK other news. Here’s a not quite new pic of our winter squash just after we had pulled it all in. Most of what you see is long gone. In the case of the butternut, Skidmore College was our primary consumer. Pumpkins went here and there…including a bunch of elementary school kids.

And the most exciting news (for me at least). Allis Chalmers D-17 is healthy again and ready to roll for next year!!! I’ve got plans for that old tractor. I’ll post pics this weekend.

As it goes this time of year, ground was too soft, so we walked out to the blueberries. Once we got there, there were 32 bales of straw waiting (strategically placed by me) to mulch the bushes. All the extra hands helped us get the straw down a lot faster, though in the end we only used 22 bales. Ostensibly, they’ll be refreshed with the rest in a few weeks.

*-Note to our friends, we’ll only make you work as hard as you want…We’d love to see y’all this summer!