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Agrarian Harvest

Wholesome, Organic, Experience. Our small farm, food, and simple life.

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Spring

Blow, Row Cover, Blow

Let the work begin. And that we have.

The last couple of weeks its been days full of working ground, laying plastic, planting cool weather vegetable seedlings, and then putting the row cover in place. In between the storms, that is. With the storms comes the wind. The wind can be annoying, frustrating and make our life on the farm complicated. We have had issues keeping the row cover in place with the wind whipping it around. The wind also tears it up or can just pull it off all together, which we have had happen within a couple of hours after we put it on. So we have tried the clamps only, sandbags only and have discovered we need to use a combination of clamps and sandbags along the sides and staking the ends down.  Yet, it always seems to weasel its way out of whatever we use so that it can blow in the wind. It just can’t resist to have its ends or edges fluttering and flapping like hair blowing in the wind.

Needless to say, we live and learn. Everyday is a learning experience on this farm. Meanwhile, we are trying to patiently wait for calm, sunny days. The wind can wear on a person . . . . . . . . and on row cover.

 

April Happenings & Plans

  • More ground work
  • Lay plastic
  • Planting cool weather vegetables
  • Our kale overwintered, is growing again and is ready to eat. Our first kale of the year is available in 4 oz, 8 oz or 1 lb bags.    Produce
  • CSA shares still available  Produce CSA
  • More pigs ready to for the butcher, we have pork and pigs available for purchase.   Pork
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Green . . . Life Springs Forth

Green! I can see green growing again. It is so nice to see green . . .  plants growing again: grass and even weeds, lots of weeds. At this point, I’m happy to see weeds growing. Some will be tilled under when we roto-till the ground and others will just be a nuisance to deal with all summer. But after the long, snowing winter we had . . . . . . .  I’m welcoming the growth of weeds.

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Of course, I’m excited for the growth of vegetables too!! The greens (lettuce, spinach, arugula and swiss chard) have all been planted and the low tunnels are up. Thousand of seeds have been started in the cold frame and are up and grgarlic sproutsowing. The garlic is growing too. It’s a beautiful sight to look out the window to admire the rows of green sprigs of garlic starting to grow. And, the crazy farmers we happen to be, are trying something new this year; we planted peas. Yes, we
plant and grow peas every year, but never have we planted peas this early in the Spring. We’ll see how it works. If it works out, we’ll have peas available at the beginning of farmers market season.

Along with plant life beginning, Spring also brings on the joy of babies being born. Animals all over the farm are having babies; there are kittens, calves, chicks and piglets.  Although, at our farm pig farrow at all times of the year. Since we farrow all year round, we also have pork available during all the seasons instead of just one time a year. We have several pigs that are ready to be butchered and also have weaned piglets available. If you are interested in buying a pig contact us, we have several that are ready to go. We are also working on putting together bundles of pork and beef at various price ranges.           Pork         Beef

March Happenings & Plans

  • Start more seeds
  • Till the fields
  • CSA shares are still available to purchase through the month     csa2017
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Spring??? Please!!!

It’s an exciting day at Agrarian Harvest! It’s 50 degrees outside and the snow is melting!! This is a great feeling for us after having cold temperatures and lots of snow to deal with this winter. We had 6 days this winter that we were actually snowed in. The wind blew and the drifts kept building up in our lane. There was no getting out. Which is fine for me, but the farmer goes a little stir crazy. Snow days are fun, especially when we get the whole family to go out to play fox and geese, sled or build snow forts. But after a month of it (or just one day for the farmer) we are done with winter. It can go away and bring on Spring.

And the farmer is getting ready for Spring. He has been busy filling trays with potting soil, planting shallots, leeks and celery. He’s also been getting the cold frame ready for plants. We had a duck nesting in cold frame. She managed to hatch a couple of eggs, but the ducklings didn’t make it. She was a first time mama and it was just too cold.

We are excited for another year of farming and very eager to get plants growing. By the way, our rock chucks didn’t see their shadows. I know this because it was cloudy all day. As I type this, they are busy running around the rock piles, telling me that spring is on its way. So we feel that famous groundhog way over in the East is wrong.

 

February Happenings & Plans

This month is going to be a full of getting seeds planted and started. We also plan to get lettuce, spinach and arugula in the ground for early cutting for farmers markets and CSA.

We have pigs ready for butcher. They will be going to the butcher as soon as can get the trailer back to the corral to load them.  If you want a whole or half pig, now is the time put your order in. We will have more pork by the cut available in early March. Until then, you check our pork page for the cuts we currently have available.      Pork

We will once again be offering a vegetable CSA this year. And we now have four pick up locations, we added Ketchum to our pick up locations.  Here is a link to our 2017 CSA application.   csa2017

 

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Random Farm Life Thoughts

It has just been so busy with trying to finish up the planting, weeding, watering and harvest that there is just is not enough hours in a day for me to sit and write too. So this week I have some random thoughts that have been floating around my head to share. Yep, apparently, there is lots of empty space in my head for thoughts to float around.

 

  • When chickens are in the yard, scratching in the flower beds, why do they always scratch the wood chips out of bed into the grass and not the opposite direction . . . . further into the bed? Or when they come back to the same spot to scratch again, why not scratch the chips back into the bed? Clean up after yourselves chickens!
  • Why are ducks faster growing than broiler chickens? The don’t loose their downy fluff at any time in the growing process while growing feathers either.  And ducks are cute throughout the whole growing process!!
  • It’s amazing that the huge sows have several tiny piglets, are able to communicate to them with grunting sounds, flop down very ungracefully and not smash all the piglets.
  • Why do dogs lay right in front of the door to sleep and then not get up to follow you when someone walks outs? Our great Pyrenees dog lays in front of the door and doesn’t move when you are trying to walk in or out.He so large that I can’t step over him, no, I have to leap over him. He just opens one eye partially, barely lifting his head like he is asking, “Why are you disturbing my sleep?” And I want to ask him, “ Why are you laying in front of the most used door? There are so many other places you could lay on this farm.”

 

There may be answers to these thoughts and questions, but I have not taken the time to find answers. I just wanted to voice my thoughts and ask: Is anyone else thinking the same things?

 

I’ll leave you with one last thought:

Everyday is a day of learning and growing. Make the most of it.

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Harmful or Helpful?

At planting time last year, we were amazed at all the earthworms and had to do a little research on them. We still a lot of earthworms; large, medium, and many babies. This Spring we have been seeing Armadillidida or commonly known as roly polys or pill bugs everywhere on our farm and lots of them. These “bugs” (they really aren’t bugs; keep reading and I’ll go further in-depth on that) have always been fun to find for the kids. They love seeing roly polys roll up when touched, which is a defense mechanism, then wait for them to unroll so they can touch them again and sometimes roll them around the palm of their hand.

 

We are seeing a whole lot more roly polys than we have in the past. So, of course, this lead to a little research project. Part because we love learning and part because we were wondering if they were beneficial or are they going to be pest. We were quite happy to learn that they are beneficial and help with the decomposing process. They eat decaying plant and animal material. We provided the organic matter and now they have moved in to help with the breaking down of the organic matter, to increase our soil fertility. Hurrah! We read that they could feed on seedlings and plant roots, but tend to eat decaying material when it is available. We have a lot of decaying plant material available and have not had any problems with them feeding on plant roots or seedlings. There are thousands in the cold frame where we have greens growing and started all of our seedlings. They haven’t kill any seedlings.

 

It was also quite interesting to learn that they are actually not a bug, they are a land crustacean and are related to shrimp. They like dark moist places and have gill-like structures used to breath, but can’t live underwater. They don’t urinate, but instead release an ammonia gas through their exoskeleton. And they shed their exoskeleton as they grow. The back half sheds first, then the front half. The females carry their eggs and newly hatched babies in a special pouch before they start crawling out to walk on their own. Huh. . . . the things we learn through hand-on activities and work with curious minds questioning everything! This little organic piece of Earth we live on just amazes us! 

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The Anticipated Season is Upon Us

It feels like all we do this time of year is plant, plant, plant . . . . .  and there is still more to plant. We are nowhere near done planting. This week has thrown other events into our schedule and has interrupted our planting rhythm. We are entering into our market season. So our weekly schedule and rhythm will be changing from a spring planting routine to our summer plant, weed, harvest, market routine. It may sound like a lot and, honestly, some days it feels like a lot. And then other days there is not enough to do, but that has not been the case this week. 

 

It has been a very busy week or at least it feels busy compared to our spring planting routine. We had our organic inspection, which started a day before it was scheduled and lasted into the next day. That was a ridiculously long and drawn out process for the small acres and production that we do. In the middle of our inspection, we had our broiler chicks and ducklings arrive a day early. And now we are getting ready for the first Twin Falls Farmers’ market on Saturday, and then there is more planting. Please nobody call and tell us the market is going to be on Friday instead of Saturday. Everything has been happening a day early this week and it feels a bit like a nightmare. As long as today is actually Friday and not Saturday, then we are pretty excited about this first farmers’ market. We planned better this year and have more produce ready for the market. We will have a lot of kale, lettuce, spinach, arugula, along with rhubarb, green garlic, green onions, radishes, herbs, eggs, salad dressings,  handmade soap, and laundry detergent.

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In the previous paragraph, I mentioned ducklings. Yes, we now have ducklings! Ducks are our experiment for this year. We are going to try to raise khaki cambell ducks, they are suppose to be good layers. We are all very happy and excited, especially me. Beside the fact that they are the cutest little poultry critters ever! They don’t scratch like chickens (yes!!!) and are excellent foragers. I think the ducks are going to go over very well with the family and become a permanent part of our farm. I will keep you updated on the ducks throughout the summer.  I’m confident this duck project will be much more successful than our garlic and sweet potato projects were last year.  

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Low Tunnels

We are getting the low tunnels up and cool weather produce transplanted in the field. We decided to use low tunnels this year to extend our growing season, being able to plant earlier and then to allow our produce to grow later into the fall. Although, this spring has been warmer than usual and so far have not needed the low tunnels covered. We only have one row covered, thinking we would not need to cover them this spring since the temperature has been warm and staying about normal. Then last night it freezes. But so far all the plants have tolerated the frost and are doing fine.

The low tunnel technique seems to work well and we are very excited to be using them. This will allow us to be way more productive, which makes life a whole lot less stressful and allows us to laugh more often. We have started thousands of cool weather tolerant plants like broccoli, cabbage and kale in the cold frame several months ago and are now able to plant them outside. This frees up space in the cold frame for thousands of more seeds to be started of our later season plants like tomatoes and peppers. This has allowed us to start thousands of more seeds than in previous years. We are getting them planted in a timely manner and in stages. This makes us feel so much more efficient. We are so excited about this growing season.

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Spring Greens

The salad greens are thriving in the cold frame. We are very excited to be eating salad on a regular basis again! (Pictured is a mix of spring mix lettuce, arugula, and spinach.)

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The curly kale overwintered in the field and is growing. I love putting this kale in our smoothies. The kids even drink the smoothies. These green smoothies are becoming our go-to afternoon snack once again. We absolutely love this time of year when everything is greening up and starting to grow! We’ve even been going out into the yard and harvesting dandelion leaves to eat and for tea. It is simply that time of year when all greens are appealing!

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We sell all greens individual,  request a mix or buy a CSA share or half share and you won’t miss out on any of our produce.

Produce                                                                       Produce CSA

 

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It’s a Good Friday!

It’s a Good Friday! Our eggs are dyed and ready for Easter! If you haven’t got your eggs yet, it’s not too late. We still have eggs available. Look at the wonderful colors that brown eggs turn when dyed. Okay, so I have been told that my eggs are ugly. To defend myself, I’m just trying to keep a family tradition. I have a tradition on my side of the family to try to dye an egg black. So every year I use my patience and persistence, sitting at the table long after the kids have finished their eggs, trying to turn at least one egg black. Or as dark and ugly as I can get it. And it is so much fun for me!DSCN7294

This year the kids and Grandpa drew faces and names on some of the eggs, so they each have a special egg to hunt for on Easter. This might be the start of a new tradition.

It is a very happy Easter weekend at our farm. The eggs are colored, greens are ready, daffodils are blooming, the lawn and wheat field are green. It’s a weekend of miracles, faith, and happy times. We had arugula to eat and sell this past week and will have spinach and lettuce this week. It feels like Spring has truly sprung and it is time to be warm and full of smiles when I get to eat a homegrown green salad. And the time is here and now. Have a Good Friday and Happy Easter!

Check out our produce page for prices of greens and all of our other product pages!

Produce            Eggs              Produce CSA           Chicken        Pork             Hand-Made Soaps

 

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