Jack's Farm

We are certified organic!

2009-04-30T15:51:00.000-07:00

It seemed the right time. We get so many questions about how we grow and how others grow that we thought it was time to keep things simple. We are certified by an outside agency that requires detailed records and plans for our style of growing. Simply put- a layer of transparency for our customers. This does require more effort on our part but we love the idea of the simple answer!

If he won't write I will

2009-03-09T14:16:00.000-07:00

New stuff.

Interns are moving in next week. Wow. Cool.
Steve our new manager (who started late December) and two interns. We are growing, not only vegetables but people? Tough stuff.

We hope they will like it here and our wacky ways!

Our winter CSA is winding down. Three more weeks left.
This weeks share includes:
Eggs
Chicken
Chard
Minutina
Potatoes
Carrots
Mache
Lettuce
Beets
Garlic
Pea leaf
Purple Cabbage

Not too bad for mid-March.

2008-05-02T19:09:00.000-07:00

I really don't feel like writing.

I haven't felt like writing for a while.

You understand.

Visit our Boutique Farm and see what we're doing...
Maybe I'll write about it later.

North Coventry's Finest

2007-07-23T17:46:00.000-07:00

He knocked on our door this afternoon.

Just as I was coming out of the shop, looking for a drill, I saw him.

Dressed in khakis and olive green and a little black and a name tag.

I know this dress, maybe this man, through my driving habits.

The police...

I didn't feel anything as I approached him; I hadn't done anything wrong.

I'm at peace; it's my day off...

"Hi", I said.

"Hi, Do you have pigs down there in the woods?"

"Yes", I said.

"Oh, shit, they got out", I thought. "Now I have to get them back to their pen. Oh what a nightmare. I'm taking the day off after two straight Farmers market days and a lot of running around and harvesting and packaging and selling and getting up early and staying up late and driving and packing and unpacking and setting up and tearing down and..."

"I thought they were yours. They were in the middle of Scholl Rd. I drove them right back to their pen. They just went right back. They must like it in there. They went right back in; under the fence where they probably got out. You need to tighten up your fence", he said.

"Sorry about that... I'll get right on it..."

Scholl Rd. runs through the middle of that sub-division boardering our small suburban farm.

It's my day off.

So I put a fully charged battery on the electric fence and I trimmed under the darn fence and I tightened the fence and I put another post in the middle of the fence and I cut all the branches and vines that might have been touching the fence and I checked and now I have 4000 volts through the fence and I petted those pigs because they let me and I love them and I hope they love me and they act like dogs who just ran away, all exhausted from their travels into that sub-division and I fed them the corn cobs that my wife had left-over from freezing our first batch of sweet corn and I'm happy and the pigs are happy and it's my day off.

I sure would have liked a picture of those pigs in the middle of the road in that sub-division.

This is Going to be Random

2007-06-23T11:53:00.000-07:00

Where have I been the last weeks?

Boutique Farming...

Greenhouse #2 (I installed it last summer) so far, is working really well. We are in our second plantings now. In fact I dug the last of our early spring planted carrots today. It's amazing how carrots loosen the soil. Our second succession includes: okra,cucumbers,eggplant,and string beans. We've been picking beans, okra and cucumbers already and are patiently waiting for the eggplant to fruit. I guess I need to decide what will follow the carrots. I'll consult my wife...

Greenhouse #1 has been providing us tomatoes for at least the last 4 weeks; we planted English cucumbers in a third of it and they're producing well.

I do like greenhouse/high tunnel farming.

The joy of a February, March, April, May, you get the point, day sweating in the warmth of a mid morning sun.

The control.
Yes, the control.

I seem to operate better in a greenhouse.
We are more weed free, bug free (well the aphids are at the tomatoes) and I am more care free in those houses.

The intense rotations; efficiently utilizing the small spaces; planning the next crop; getting the fertility back; the feel and the smell of composted, freshly tilled soil...

They all appeal to my need for control and my tendency to over think everything, I guess.

Our outside field areas are doing great.
Tomatoes are ripening, squash is filling, onions swelling, garlic growing, potatoes might be ready soon, peas are winding down, strawberries are done.
The next successions of beans tomatoes, edemame, peppers and more all are being planted.
We're picking, we're planting, we're weeding and we're selling.

This is small farm life; I really like it.

The best thing, maybe, is the future potential.

Deb and I talk at length about the obvious opportunities for the next growing season. We love to talk about that kind of stuff. I keep a list.

If we hit our sales goal this year we're going on vacation.

It's going to be a working one too.

We're looking forward to it.

YO YO

2007-05-16T17:37:00.000-07:00

Somehow I feel like I've been hanging on a yo yo lately.

I guess I should be specific and say it's the butterfly one being organic and a gardener type.

The weather's been yo yo like hasn't it?

You know, the good and the bad of this racket show up daily. Especialy at this time of year.

The growth of the potatoes, peas and weeds.

The picking of strawberries and the defense from the birds.
The picking of everything that's ready; the prepping and seeding and planting of what's to come.

I saw my first groundhog today. Uh oh.
Yo yo.

I am now running from job to job.
I -AM-NOT-COMPLAINING.

I am on a yo yo.

I drove to the first chicken processing session of our year this morning.
The rush; the waiting.

The hum of the yo yo.

I like it.

sweat

2007-04-24T16:41:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess spring is now here.

All of a sudden it's been hot.

I know, I know.

Not as hot as it's going to get over the next few months but hot enough that I'm sweating in the greenhouse and sweating as I make garden beds, and sweating as I plant potatoes, and sweating as I move chickens, sweating as I build fences, sweating as I mow grass, sweating as I chip branches and mulch blueberries...

Now you know what I've been doing lately.

Still this is a GREAT life. Sweating...

The peas are up, spring mix succession #2 is well on it's way, the garlic looks terrific (spring garlic is just around the corner), plenty of spinach to eat and sell, I even swiped the first pullet egg of our new laying flock today.

Yesterday, honest, my wife and I made a romantic walk to the greenhouse and ate the first strawberry of the season.

That was one sweet berry.

Manic Organic

2007-04-10T14:43:00.000-07:00

This morning I committed to purchasing some Tamworth heritage pigs. Oh Boy!

I think I know what I'm getting us into... I really can't wait to get them, bring them home and let them frolic in our small wood lot. I'm reading that's where pigs are meant to be. So there they'll be. In the outdoors with room to roam.

Big Ag. has bread the fat out of pigs and the Tamworth is not big Ag. It's brownish, cute and big hammed. It loves the outdoors and should thrive here at JACK'S. If this experiment works next year will bring more pigs that's for sure.

Manic Organic searching my soul. I know what I want... yep, a big market garden. We've tripled it this year. Poultry for food, fertilizer, and income. We've grown that by some multiple thousand percent. Oh and our eggs; our next flock of layers, twice the size of our first, have been growing here since December. Small fruit, yep we've got it. Blueberries and raspberries and I spent a good part of this winter clearing for more. Now pork.

Manic? ...I just don't know.

Manic organic... we have to keep busy and we have to grow. Not to big; big enough to make an honest living on a very small piece of land. We have to diversify. Spread the risk, what we grow, when we grow, how we grow, where we sell, what we sell, who we sell to, you get the picture.

And amid all this rush is the stuff we grow.

How slow, deliberate really, the pigs and plants and birds develop. It takes time to plant a seed, to build a fence, to do the daily feeding chores. It takes time for a seed to germinate, a vine to produce, a chicken to grow, a pig to fatten.

From the time a tomato plant sets its flowers, and the bumble bee pollinates it there's another 40-60 days of waiting, patiently, for the fruit it will provide. I know this because today our greenhouse is full of pea sized tomatoes; the bees are busy pollinating, the lady bugs are quietly eating the aphids and I'm waiting.

Something like six months is the general rule for a chicken to grow to it's reproductive age. And there's not much anyone can do to change that fact. So I'll just have to wait till mid-May or June for the first eggs from our new flock.

Eight weeks sounds fast for a broiler to gain 5 pounds or so. But that's two months and two months is a long time. I know, our first batch of broilers for this year are just 3 weeks old.

And the pigs? Well, I'll know more about them soon.

Keep Busy or Go Insane

2007-03-13T15:50:00.000-07:00

When I lived on my boat, just prior to my first sail to Bermuda, a friend, Eric Bauer said, "It's boring out there. Bring something along to occupy your time. Keep busy or you'll go insane."

He was right.

Sailing and farming are alike.

Hurry up and wait; that kind of thing. Farming is minus the stark terror, though.

Well I've been waiting to plant something outside for quite a while, since September or so, and I've finally done it. Keep busy or...

The first of many outdoor planting sessions for 2007.
The waiting has ended; I can feel it.

Enough of repair and maintenance and getting ahead kinds of winter stuff.

I'm keeping busy, not going ...

In this business, succession planting, planting the same product on a regular sequence as the season progresses, is the way to keep a consistent supply available for our friends and clients as long as possible.

I've committed to a much better job of this this growing season.

In the last 3 days I've planted our first succession of PEAS. In fact I have planted more PEAS than I planted the entire growing season last year. I must say it feels good. Much like the end of a sail. The recent weather sure helps. No human thing can beat the first sun of the season on your face feeling.

There is nothing like walking back to the barn and looking back, pausing, to view a just planted bed of ... anything.

Oh and the first succession of FAVA beans are in the ground. The first succession of Broccoli is planted on plastic. Greenhouse # 1, our warm one, is just about full because I planted our second succession of TOMATOES and our first succession of CUCUMBERS.

There is a lot more to do. Trays of cole crops waiting for transplanting and the inevitable need for frost protection until this spring weather truly settles. A seasons worth of work. It's not boring out here; I have plenty to do.

Did I mention the strawberries in the greenhouse are starting to grow?

Keep busy or go insane! We are farming now!

2007-03-04T12:22:00.000-08:00

I'm behind...

Work begins to build, slowly, deliberately, relentlessly as spring approaches.

Chinese water torture.

My March 1st planner says, "plant peas". The 2nd is even worse, "plant carrots, chard, beets, lettuce, scallions, radishes".

Ground temperature under black plastic this morning was 38 degrees. It's still to cool to plant.

The weather... the weather...

There is still plenty to do. And I'm doing it.

Today I started our second batch of tomatoes for outside planting. 24 different varieties this year. This batch is scheduled for a May transplant. Also started today: peppers, eggplant, and assorted cut flowers. This seeding session follows several others so far this year. Cole crops, lettuce, flowers, leeks and cucumbers for the greenhouse are happily growing anticipating their ultimate transplant destiny... when the weather's right.

Over the past two months greenhouse number 2, our cool house, has been planted. Mache, lettuce heads, spring mix, arugula, beets and carrots fill the beds. All but the beets have great germination, so Deb replanted beet seed yesterday. We're pushing for early yields this year. Our clients and friends will love it.

Early last week I transplanted 8 week old tomatoes in greenhouse number 1, our warm house. These are real tomatoes, cherry types, heirlooms, and some hybrids planted in the ground. They get the benefit of both the solar gain of the double layer of plastic and two types of heat to maintain appropriate tomato temperatures at night. Again we're looking for early yields. I'm trying to beat last year when our first tomatoes ripened in early June. Mid May would be nice. We'll see...

Last year we struggled with very cool soil conditions in our tomato house which resulted in slow growth and nutrient uptake problems. I used plastic mulch and plastic over hoops to try to maintain the temperatures. The soil temps. durring the day were good but at night the warmth just got sucked away. This year is going to be different. I spent some time and money designing and installing an economy farm version radiant heat system in the ground to warm the soil. It's working so far. And the benefit financially and environmentally is that with warmer root temps. the greenhouse can be set for a lower temperature.

It's fun to go into the plumbing supply house and request parts. They think I'm a nut. I told them it's done all the time. The response, " not around here!".