Two Successful Markets, Conestoga, Wind & Tomatoes

We are still reeling from two great farmers' markets - our best first two markets ever, despite the deluge of biblical proportions last week and the windy & rainy end of market this week!  Thanks to all of our customers who come out every week (rain or shine) to support us - thank you!  What a productive week we've had - if not a little unnerving with all of the wind!  Every hoop-house owners' nightmare - 50+ mph gusts of wind.  We did our best all week to try and ignore the needling sounds of flapping plastic from the hoop-houses, and all in all, I'd say we succeeded.  The Haygrove also fared fine, though the FEMA-approved flappable side skirts did indeed flap in the wind (loudly), and in the process tore and became tangled.  It will actually not be too hard to repair it, but it is just one more thing for us to deal with in the busiest time of the year.  At any rate, the wind has come and gone, and hopefully we now have been blown into more consistently warmer weather - I write this as we expect another night in the 30s, but the 10-day forecast looks more promising, thankfully.  The plants will simply take off and grow like crazy when the weather regulates.  Looking forward to that!  Other fun developments this week include building the at-farm goose and duck house!  Spencer's vision panned out well - building a conestoga wagon for them.  We've heard horror stories from other farmers with ducks and geese that predators will stop at nothing to get to them - so we decided to build a fortress of sorts, with a nice looking facade.  The hoops are made from electrical conduit, and the shell is made from two layers of chicken wire.  We actually scavenged all materials and purchased nothing to make this

 cool house for the birds!  Plus, we gave them shade with white plastic we already had - and for extra panache, we lashed the plastic to the frame, which makes it look a lot like the Haygrove.  Consistency in all things!  We thought the ramp/door (made from a pallet) might be too steep for them to walk up, but they can make it up just fine.  After only 4 days of teaching them to go up the ramp before nightfall (and much goose and duck chasing!), they seem to have learned when it's time to go into the house, and just about 60 seconds of herding is required to get the gaggling 

mass of fowl up the ramp and bolted into their wagon for the night.  The area that we have them living in is fenced in with a woven electrical poultry fence with a battery powered terminal - training the dogs to that was not fun, but necessary, and they now give the penned in area a WIDE berth every time they pass it!  The geese and ducks LOVE to have access to tons of grass, and seem to be very happy out at the farm.  They're feathering out nicely and this week we'll move them to the garlic patch to start their actual job, which is weeding!  I'm sure we have a lot to learn on that front, but we're giving it a shot,

 anyway.  Speaking of workers on the farm, we have a woman named Chloe that will be working some with us this summer - she volunteered several times at our farm last year, and we're very happy to have her back!  She helped us with transplanting and weeding this week - a HUGE help!  We planted out all the kale, sprouting broccoli, parsley, swiss chard, cardoons and artichokes as well as all the heirloom tomatoes.  It's definitely a milestone in the season to get the tomatoes in - feels good!  Nice to know that the tomatoes are on their way - especially since I only have 5 quarts left from last 

year!  Come on tomatoes!  We decided to devote the Ledgewood hoop-house to the heirlooms this year and all the others (romas and cherries) will go into the Haygrove this week along with the peppers, squashes and eggplants.  We also did not graft the tomatoes this year after all.  We were all ready to do it - grew out the rootstock and everything.  We just revisited our experience last year and decided it wasn't worth it for us to do this year.  The grafted plants last year were indeed robust and huge - but mostly in the realm of foliage, not fruit.  I can sell fruit, not foliage.  Decision made.  Also - the grafting

 process always sets us back at least 10 days, and we decided that the time lost wasn't worth it.  So, we're happy with our decision - our tomatoes are in the ground way earlier than ever before - they're super healthy and getting established.  It will be interesting to see how much sooner we'll get fruit than years prior.  We also received the next round of chickens - this time it was 50 assorted heavy breeds, a favorite delivery to receive because they are so beautiful and varied in their coloring, and always super fun to receive a box of peepers in the mail!  They like their brooder and have been so much heartier than the 

cornish cross guys - out of 25 cornish cross birds we received, we're down to 19 at week 5 - they simply die over the tiniest things.  The heavy breeds are still going strong here at the end of their first week - no losses!  It's always such a stark contrast to those cornish birds, who got moved outside to feather out a bit more and then they'll move out to work at the farm in their chicken tractor for a few more weeks before harvesting them.  The next round of birds will be

 the quail, quickly followed by the next round of building housing for farm creatures; apparently our new pastime!  Luckily, once the buildings are complete - they can be re-used over and over again, and we'll be all set for animal structures for a while.  Such a busy week!  We accomplished most things on our list this week, and look forward to next week's projects, which will see us getting all of the rest of the long-term plants in the ground, the first weeding projects tackled, and getting 

potted plants ready for the biggest plant selling weekend coming up - Memorial day weekend!  Can you believe it?  The Spring continues to breeze by as we try to notice all of the lovely Spring smells in the air, the orioles flitting about the trees, the first mow of the farm fringe, the non-bugginess of early Spring, and the lengthening days giving us light until 7 pm.  Will close today with a picture of the dogs discussing the new electric fence at the farm keeping those geese and ducks just too far away!