The Farm stand is open today,

The farm stand is open today (Saturday, Feb 19) from noon till 5 pm. Come to us for a selection of the normal winter veggies and bulk foods. Right now Joshua is setting the display cooler up with cabbage, beets, apples, potatoes garlic, onions and so much more. The list below is only part of what is available. During the winter we are open every Saturday afternoon from noon till 5 pm. Summer hours resume in early May when asparagus is ready. It is cold and stormy outside however May and asparagus is only a little over 2 months away. This week the boys got thousands of taps out into maple sugar bush. There was a small sap run on Thursday. Daniel

Setting up the plant table, heat mats and lights

The farm stand is open today (Saturday January 29) from noon till 5 pm. Come to us for a selection of the normal winter veggies and bulk foods. We have lots of freshly dried apples made from our homegrown organic heirloom apples. Take a look a the list below.
It is so cold now, however spring is expected in about 10-12 weeks from now. Today we are planning to set up the plant table, heat mats and lights in the living room to start tomatoes, kale, and early lettuce for setting out in the solar greenhouse in March. In about 4 weeks it is time to seed 70,000 onion seeds and start heating a greenhouse. We do not heat the greenhouse early on when the plants are few enough to fit in the house under lights. February still has the potential to be very cold. Enjoy the wonders of winter now as the seasons move on quickly and surely. Daniel

Black walnuts and dried apples

The farm stand is open today (Saturday January 8) from noon till 5 pm. Besides the normal winter veggies and bulk foods we have lots of freshly dried apples made from our homegrown organic heirloom apples. The other new item is local black walnuts. They are a really rich flavored nut. They have very tough shells that one has to crack first though to get to the riches inside. I like to crack a few and just eat them as I pick them out. They also make a really good sticky bun when combined with lots of maple syrup and butter along with the normal cinnamon etc. We are offering them on the stand in shell, fully cured and ready to crack. I hope to see you soon. The stand is planned to be open every Saturday afternoon through out the rest of the winter. Daniel

Late Brussel sprouts are milder and sweeter

The farm stand is open tomorrow (Thurs Dec 9th) from noon till 5 pm.

Look at the list below. Not everything we have is listed but you can get an idea of what we have. The bulk food room is stocked with its normal flour, beans, spices, sugar etc. The late Brussel sprouts are milder and sweeter this time of the year. Yes Brussel sprout plants are tough enough that we are still harvesting them from the field. To harvest them we go out with the loppers and cut the whole plant and bring them in to thaw out. The same for kale.
From now till December 23rd we will be open Thursday, Friday and Saturdays from noon till 5 pm. After the new year we plan to be open Saturday afternoons from noon till 5 pm through out the rest of the winter.

The farmstand is open today!

The farm stand is open today (Thursday December 2nd) from noon till 5 pm. From now till December 23rd we will be open Thursday, Friday and Saturdays from noon till 5 pm. After the new year we plan to be open Saturday afternoons from noon till 5 pm through out the rest of the winter.
There are still leeks, brussel sprouts, onions, garlic, carrots, beets, kale and lots more. A new item is peeled garlic. It is available both freshly peeled (intermittent) and also in the freezer. We also have lots of our homegrown frozen blueberries, strawberries and black raspberries.
A number of years ago I bought a little garlic peeler from China. It is very slow and does a poor job most of the time with only about half of the cloves actually peeled. The other day I was looking at that somewhat frustrating machine and a brainstorm came for a way to make another peeler that would much simpler and hopefully work better. My son Phillip has some metal working skills and he built what I had in mind and we tried it out. The result is a very simple machine that is much faster with close to a 100% peel rate. The product is clean and nice. Yesterday afternoon I peeled a blue crate full (about 50 lbs. of garlic) in one hour. If you buy the frozen peeled garlic it keeps for long time. The unfrozen peeled garlic has a fairly short storage time of perhaps a few days or a week. To use just reach in the bag and get out as many cloves as desired and place of a plate on the countertop for a few minutes to soften (do not finish defrosting) and then it can be crushed or cut as you wish and used. Daniel

Thank you Lord for a good harvest

We are open today (Saturday Nov 20 ) and next week we are open Monday-Wednesday from 10 am-6 pm (Nov 22-24). We are closed Thanksgiving day and Friday -Saturday of next week Between Dec 2 and ending Dec 23 we will be open Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 12 noon till 5 pm. After the new year we plan to be open Saturday afternoons from noon till 5 pm through out the rest of the winter. Thanksgiving time is a time to slow down and to assess our lives and to especially focus on our blessings. For farmers and homesteaders it is a time look at the harvest and just say Thank you. On the farm we are working at putting the winter mulch of leaves on the berries and putting various equipment in order and into dry winter storage. Now is also the beginning of what I call planning season. Before we can order seed and supplies one needs to think about so many details both big and small. Daniel

Fall/ winter hours

With this nice weather there is still a good selection of fall greens such as spinach, lettuce, cilantro, parsley, cabbage arugula and kale here at the stand. Also as is normal there is all sorts root crops etc. The truck was just here with a load of various goodies such as flour, sugar and spices to restock the bulk food room. Prices on flour and grains have gone up a lot. Sugar is unusually cheap. It is a chaotic world on some of these supply chains.

We are open 6 days a week with the normal summer schedule till the day before Thanksgiving (Nov 24). Between Thanksgiving and Christmas we will be open Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 12 noon till 5 pm. (Starting Dec 2 ending Dec 23) After the new year we plan to be open Saturday afternoons from noon till 5 pm through out the rest of the winter. Daniel

Tons of sweet carrots and beets

The dominate farm job now is the late root crop harvest. In the last few days we harvested lots of carrots, beets and turnips. The coolers are getting really full with winter storage crops that are for sale through out the winter.

I had two rows of carrots that were planted a little later than than the rest that we dug on Wednesday. They were by far the nicest carrots of the year and those two rows gave 90 bushels of mostly #1 grade. Another carrot planting that was located a few hundred yards away (same sandy loam soil) and planted a little earlier gave a fairly rough looking batch of carrots that only graded as juicers and cull. When us farmers and gardeners plant seeds we have hope that the crop will do well. We often plant many different plantings in various areas of the farm and on different days as one never knows whether one will grow better then another or if they all end up alike.

We as a people have a heritage that has been past to us down through the generations of various garden seeds and plants that produce food that can be stored for us to eat over the winter. As you eat this food this winter thank God and think of past generations that developed these seeds that we still use. They had nothing else for the winter in cold climates. They could not just go to the store. Growing and storing winter food was a serious business for them. Daniel

Fall/ winter hours

Hello on this very rainy afternoon. We are still open and there is a large selection of the finest fall produce available. There are lots of different crops frost does not affect and the harvest goes on till the snow comes. Leeks, celery, turnips, carrots, beets, and spinach, cabbage, winter squash, storage onions, sweet potatoes, Brussel sprouts, kale, apples, our own raw honey, lettuce and so much more- see the list below. Before the frost we picked all the peppers and there is an enormous amount of both sweet and hot peppers here. Does anyone want a deal? They can be frozen, pickled or dried.
We are open 6 days a week (10 am-6pm) till thanksgiving and then will drop to being open on Thursday, Friday, Saturday 12-5 pm. between thanksgiving and Christmas. After the new year we plan to be open one day a week through the rest of the winter. Daniel

Apple and sweet potato stories

Hello everyone. Today I have some stories for you to enjoy. About 30 years ago when we we bought the farm that my Dad lives at there was an old orchard (estimated that it was planted in the late 1800s) in the pasture. It was all grown up with brush. We cleared it out and pruned the trees and also planted a few acres of new orchard with a mix of heirloom and modern kinds of apples. In time they started giving apples. The old heirloom apples as a whole give reasonably nice apples with no chemicals. That can not be said for most of the other trees we planted. Over time Grandpa has been grafting and has changed most of the trees to better kinds. The original old Blue Pearman tree is a pretty big tree. This year it give 44 bushels (1800 lbs.) of nice big apples off of that one tree. The dry weather this spring held back the development of scab and our apple crop this year is the nicest as far as quality that we have ever grown. There are over 200 bushels of apples in storage and for sale at the stand both now and into the winter as supplies last. We have nice organically grown apples at reasonable prices for eating, pies, sauce etc. Come and get them!. We have been growing sweet potatoes for many years. They are a very long season, heat loving crop. It takes into September before there is much there for potatoes. Each year when we dig them it feels like they would give so much more if the season would just be few weeks longer before the frost or cold rain comes. This year I dug the first few rows in the third week of September to sell at the stand as I normally do. The yield was about 1.5 to 2 lbs. per plant as is normal in the north. This year it has stayed warm late so I waited to dig the rest. We dug 3 rows yesterday and little potatoes had become big and what is normally little tails are useful potatoes. The yield has almost tripled in the last three weeks and we have more sweet potatoes than I have ever had before. To store sweet potatoes we first wash and cure them by keeping them in a warm place (80-90 degrees) for a week or 10 days. After that they store in a warm dry space (50-70 degrees) Come and get them! Daniel