Among all of the things I do, I’m also the current Vice President for the Milton Grange #685. As I talked about in a previous post, the damage caused by Irene and Lee to farmers in Northeast has been, in many cases, devastating.  Kathleen and I have donated some money to the NOFA-VT emergency fund as a percentage of our sales from the Bennington Garlic Fest, but we also hoped we could make an impact closer to home as well.  Well here it is.  The Milton Grange is teaming up with the Greenfield Grange to host a Wine/Cheese/Cracker tasting.  Here are all the details:

The Milton Grange #685 in collaboration with the Greenfield Grange #807 will be hosting a Wine Tasting at the Saratoga Winery on Saturday November 12th at 7pm to benefit the Schoharie County Community Action Program in the wake of Irene and Lee. The funds will be earmarked for farm recovery.

We will have cheese from Willow Marsh Farm and Crackers from Saratoga Crackers.  If you haven’t tried either of these, then you don’t know what you’re missing.  Amazing stuff.

We hope to see a lot of you there!

You can contact Shana at 518-744-3834 or via email at gfldgrange807@hotmail.com to purchase tickets.  Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door.

The title of this post is redundant.  I’ve come to realize for the short time I’ve been doing this that there is no such thing as farming without adaptation.  I’ve also come to realize that the reason I love to farm is BECAUSE of all of the seemingly impossible challenges thrown my way.  In any given year, the nature of those challenges can change drastically, so what worked last season probably won’t be applicable next season.  It might, however, be applicable in 3 or 4 years.

As it stands right now, my current challenge is finding a field in which I can plant my garlic. There’s plenty of ground, but the overriding trouble is that none of it is dry enough to plow. I did have a field plowed for the garlic, but when I went out there after our last 2.5 inch rainfall, the field was porridge. With another 1″+ forecast for Wednesday into Thursday, I’m basically stuck. Another fun fact according to this precipitation map, we’re somewhere between 8-12″ over for the last 90 days. That includes Irene and Lee…Also note that we’re not as bad off as others.

With all of that said, I can’t and won’t complain about it (you can read some previous posts for some of that bellyaching). This is simply a challenge, and I’m going to meet it. If it means that I’m on my hands and knees planting garlic in mid-November through a thin layer of frost in a field that I didn’t prepare properly, then so be it.

Like the saying goes…come hell or high water.  We’ve got the high water and I’m gonna give it hell.

It’s that time again! Kathleen and I will be in Saugerties this coming weekend (24th and 25th) selling garlic at the 2011 Hudson Valley Garlic Festival. We’re in the same booth space as last year (B95) and we hope to see you there!

We brought more variety packs this year due to their popularity over the last two years. Unfortunately, we had some spring flooding that affected our Ukrainian Red, so it only appears in the variety packs.  In any case, we’ve got plenty of garlic to sell!

Keep your fingers crossed for perfect weather. Right now it looks that way!!

Most farmers are prepared for some spring flooding, but for most, that’s not the time of year when there’s “money in the ground”. For vegetable farmers, there was a lot to lose right now. For a farmer who needs to bring in that crop of corn to feed their cows for the winter, this is absolutely devastating. Organic farmers who had the river rise up and swamp their fields also have to contend with the problem as to what was in that river when it flowed over top. That field probably can’t be certified organic again for at least 3 years.

Farming is not an easy life. I say this with the full distance of being a part-timer with relatively little on the line. I only make enough money farming to pay for the farming. My bills are paid by my 9 to 5. I also say this knowing full well that deep down, I really want farm life, warts and all. And even though my farm got off easy, Irene makes me think twice about that want.

What it really does though, is to make me want to figure out a way to help the farmers who have been kicked in the teeth by this thing. The truth is that farmers are a resilient lot. That comes from a life that is full of uncertainty and risks.  Most (probably not all) will be back next year bent, but not beaten.

Kathleen and I are going to be going to the Bennington Garlic Festival this weekend. We’ve decided to donate 5% of our sales to the NOFA-VT Farmer Emergency Fund. When Saugerties rolls around at the end of the month, we’ll be looking for a more NY centric version of the same thing.  This is a small gesture, but we hope that some of you can make a donation as well and make it a bigger gesture.

Beyond giving money, do your best to patronize your local farmer.

Farms are the ultimate security for a community.  I have no doubt that some of the communities that are currently cut off from the rest of the world in Vermont are finding out how important it is to have a local food source.

My 2¢.

Truth be told, this has not been our best year. This spring was very, very wet and unfortunately, we wound up losing some garlic (primarily Ukrainian Red) to oversaturated fields. Because of that, we’ll likely be offering only German White and Spanish Roja in our usual 1/2 pound bags. We may have a small amount of Marjean that way as well. Otherwise, we’re going to try and get it together so that we have variety packs with a bit of Ukrainian.

This actually dovetails into our future plans…we’re downsizing to concentrate on raising our toddler for now.  So what we have this year is likely to be what we have for the next few years. We will likely cut back to a single festival as well. We have yet to decide which festival that is. We really love Bennington because of it’s laid back, but brisk pace. So we’ll see.

Anyhow, we’d love to see you there.

If there’s one thing I love it’s a crazy idea. This was a crazy idea.  For the most part, I enjoy watching other people enact these things….from a distance.

FARMING WITH DYNAMITE!

This year has been like a bee sting to the eye (see left).

It’s not worth sugarcoating…it’s been a hard year of farming.  I’ve slowly come to realize this year that it may not be in our best interest to continue farming commercially.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE the challenges that farming presents, but it’s been driven home to me that my family and (unfortunately) paying the bills have to take precedence.  I could sacrifice time with family and be a better farmer, but I just don’t want to do that.  In past years, I’ve been able to take a lot of my time off from work to augment farming time, but that can’t happen to the same extent this year because of the load I’m facing at work.   At the end of the day, I need to pay the bills.

You might ask why I don’t just make the jump and make my job farming…Trust me, I’ve thought about it.  I see a path to making it profitable enough that we could subsist on it, but the biggest stumbling block I keep hitting would be affordable health insurance for my family. I can’t bring myself to cut the cord.

For now, I’m a bad farmer.  I’m letting the weeds win this year so that I can enjoy my family like most middle class Americans do.  I refuse to feel guilty about that, though it does pain me some every task I miss.

What this probably means for next year is that we will be doing far less farm wise.  No Farmers Market.  At most 1/2 the garlic (and only one festival).  Growing for ourselves.  I want to spend these years off from farming getting better at it at a smaller scale.  Then, when I can come back to it, I can come back full force.

A friend of mine decided to stop farming for other people this year. He cited frustration with not being able to live up to what he knew he could do (ie the advice above) because of time constraints.  He’s happier now.  I’m not sure I’d be.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately.  When my wife and I started our gardenthis year, I went into it with a great deal of trepidation.  Work has been crazy and giving our 2 year old the attention he wants/deserves is a full time job in itself.  We planted 600 feet of potatoes (among other things) anyways.  Up until this weekend, my fears felt very well founded.  The weeds were on the cusp of winning, and we just felt overwhelmed. That situation has mostly changed and tonight I make my final push to get the weeds within a comfortable zone (dead).  Also due to the weather many of those original potatoes didn’t come up.  We’ve filled in the blanks and are now going to have a hell of a time sorting out what’s what at harvest. It’s a strange but satisfying victory.

Farming has taught me a number of things that I think are much better advice than the above.

• Diversification is the best defense against failure.
• If you feel like you’re failing at something, figure out how to change the outcome and get on it! If you can’t change the outcome, don’t worry too much.
• You don’t know what your limits are until you’ve exceeded them.

So…I’m back to that familiar place.  How much do I scale back next year?  Do I scale back next year?  The real trick will be sticking to the decision next season when it’s time to plant.

Crossposted at patentlypre.posterous.com

Blueberries are looking like they’re going to be a bumper crop this year as long as we can avoid significant mummyberry. I’m not convinced of that, because the amount of maintenance I put in on the blueberries was not as much as I would have liked. On the other hand, we had almost no mummyberry last year, so fewer mummies=fewer infecting bodies.

That said this looks closer to a 1000 pint year as opposed to last year’s 250 pint year.  Yipes. For those that want to know when they’ll be ready, the typical answer is 2nd week in July.

On the garlic front, the scapes on the german white are ready to remove.  They’re perfect eating right now.  I’m going to try and get some out in front of the stand in the next week.  They’ll be cheap. They make AMAZING pesto.

In other housekeeping, we’re just trying to keep up with stuff this year…Having a 2 year old makes it hard to get anything done.  We’re navigating through it.   We may wind up having to put the farming on hold for a few years, but this summer will bear that out. Stay tuned.

We’ve had a fine winter.  All the garlic is resting under a blanket of snow and ice.  It’s been nice.

That said, we’re ready for the Spring to rear it’s ever-loving beautiful head. The unending puches of snow/sleet/ice need to stop and cede ground to the grass and inevitable mud.  I can’t wait for MUD!  I’m actually hoping I see some of it this weekend when I go out to do some work on the blueberries.

I think 2011 will be another good year!  I’m just ready for it to actually start.