Welcome to the News of the Farm

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All posts have been categorized by year, or crop or some other way.  If you want to look at all the posts that talk about tomatoes, for example, you can either click on that category in the right hand column or on the word tomatoes at the bottom of the post.

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 10 #15, 5/17/13

What’s been going on!

Glorious weather the last few days but we knew it had to end and so it does, going from the 30’s Tuesday morning (even found some ice on raised exposed surfaces) to the high 80’s the next day, ugh.  We did take advantage of the enjoyable conditions to get a lot done.  Planting is caught up and nearly so with cultivation and weeding.  The mowing is relentless this time of year but the incessant growth should slow down with the heat.

We have been working on the pre blueberry picking clean-up of the patch with hard mowing and then cutting out the bird volunteered small trees, honey suckle and other vining things including poison ivy.  The problem with perennial plantings is sooner or later all kinds of weed seeds are deposited by wind and birds that perch in the plants.  Unlike an annual planting which you can turn under and kill any sprouted plants, here the unwanted can get a foot hold and hide from mowers, weed eaters and pruners.  After 23 years in the ground we have some crafty invaders.

After nearly two inches of rain last week we are now racing around getting the last of the irrigation set up to try and reduce the shock to the crops that have been luxuriating in the cool spring weather.  Add to that covering two more Big Tops, whole sale deliveries of lettuce to Weaver Street Market and snatching spare time to try and finish up the building project we have officially hit the busy season.

Despite that we did have two “family” moments this week.  First we did race up to Burnsville to help Rett clean up his fields after last week’s flood, picking river rocks out of the planting areas, pulling up sand covered row covers and debris filled pea trellis.  Eight hours of driving for four hours work but we just had to go help.  Monday Elizabeth, worked for us six years ago and is getting married in two weeks, came out to have her wedding dress photos taken out in the fields.  Always non-traditional the shots in the onion field certainly will be different from your normal bride pictures.

On a final note, Dalton Zachary one of the long time vendors at the Carrboro Farmers’ Market, a neighbor of ours and a continuing inspiration is turning 90 tomorrow and will be at his market stall, as always, with his family.  We are always amazed at how he does it all.

Picture of the Week

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Jennie and Liz harvesting radishes

What’s going to be at the market? Continue reading →

Peregrine Farm News Vol. 10 #14, 5/8/13

What’s been going on!

So I was talking to a dairy farmer the other day and he was asking if we have had too much rain because he couldn’t get a number of chores done until it dried out some.  I said not too much yet but we sure could use some sun.  It has been a long time since we have had a really wet spring, the kind where you have water standing in the fields and you wait for weeks to get anything done.

Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s we had a number of years when it rained like hell, particularly in early spring, and we many times wondered if we were ever going to get anything planted or weeded.  This is when we developed our system of raising our beds up the fall before so they would drain and warm up fast come spring and heavy rains.  We even had a number of floods in our creek bottom field that finally made us stop using those fields (even though it is the best soil on the farm) in the regular rotation because we couldn’t afford to lose crops, then after Hurricane Fran in 1996 the tap turned off.

We can’t remember a flood in the bottom since Fran and have slowly begun using that field on a more regular basis but still not for our major crops: lettuce, peppers and tomatoes.  They are way up on the hill, safe from high water but certainly not immune to multiple other kinds of plagues that could hit them.  As I always point out to new farmers, bad things will happen but you can learn a lot from those situations.

One of our graduates, who is now farming a beautiful farm on the banks of the Cane river north of Asheville, had a huge flood this week which carried off not only much of what he had planted for this spring but a lot of his topsoil as well, replacing it with river rocks.  He will lose the use of that area for some time to come but is planning on picking up all the rocks he can to start the process.  The reason that creek bottom fields have rich soil is the same reason they flood, sometimes there is too much water and the stream deposits it there.  So the answer to the dairy farmer is no we haven’t hand too much rain here but lots of other folks have, wish we could go help pick rocks.  Come on sun!

Picture of the Week

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A June flood in 1993 which took our whole tomato crop

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 10 #13, 5/3/13

What’s been going on!

What is the bright orb in the sky?  Nearly a week without sun, bad for the psyche and some of the crops.  Unfortunately it looks like it will not last long, maybe through the first part of Sunday.  We will have to move fast to get more things planted, especially the big planting of winter squash.  We have had an erratic history with winter squash but this year we are screwing ourselves to the task of doing an excellent job so we can have plenty to sell through next winter if possible.

We have had many kind words about the article this week in the N&O about our former staff who have gone on to run their own farms.  Many great people have passed through the farm from our first real employee Greg Dusenberry to Liz and Jennie now on staff.  We never set out to train new farmers, we just want to equip them with the information they need to do a good job for us and to treat them as well as we can.  This business has so many moving parts that for them to understand why we do things the way we do and consequently want them to do them that exactly way, we have to teach them about the whole business not just how to pick turnips.

We are proud of all the “full season” employees we have had even the ones who decided that farming wasn’t for them, as that is a more important a thing to learn than how to trellis a tomato.  We have been very lucky to mostly hire people who already had worked on other small farms and had a real desire to have their own farm someday, not just something to do for the summer.  Mostly we were just fine tuning their skills, in many ways we have been their last stop before they actually jumped off the dock and swam to their own operations or went on to graduate school.  Farming is not an easy business and you have to really be committed to doing it, there are many reasons why we are less than one percent of the population.

One good thing about the drizzly weather, it made it easy to go inside the building project and work on the sheetrock.  Great strides in that direction, another few days and we can roll on some paint and call the electrician in to finish it out.  Whoopee!

 Pictures of the Week

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Our awesome staff harvesting Broccoli Raab, Jennie in front, Liz in the distance

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Almost there

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 10 #12, 4/24/13

What’s been going on!

Tired today or at least a bit sore.  Two mornings of splitting firewood and two afternoons of hanging sheetrock in the new building.  Not too many jobs have as many awkward moves and lifting of heavy things.  There always seems to be a period in the spring when we have to spend a day or two tying up projects that didn’t quite get finished over the winter.  This spring no exception and the workshop project of course will continue to take a lot of time and attention for the next month.

The firewood is of course a perennial project, we heat the house with wood, always have.  We now have “heat on the wall” but only use it when we go away and don’t want the pipes to freeze.  With fifteen acres of woods there are always trees that need to be cut up from storm damage or just dying.  This year of course were the four big trees that came down in the big storm last July that blew down the Big Tops.  With so much going on we haven’t had time to finish cutting them up until the last month.  It is nice to have the front yard unobstructed again and as a silver lining to the storm damage, a years’ worth of firewood “in the dry” as my brother would say.

The main job this week continues to be getting the big planting of tomatoes in the ground.  Jennie and Liz have all the irrigation and fabric on the beds and today will get all the trellis built.  Tomorrow, in the cloudy and showery weather, will be the perfect conditions to transplant the big plants so they will have very little transplant shock.  Still need to sucker (prune) the early tomatoes and move the peppers up to their bigger containers, hopefully by end of Friday.

For the second year in a row we will not be on the Farm Tour this weekend, just too much going on.  If you go, have a good time, we will be hanging sheetrock and other fun pursuits.

Pictures of the Week

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Tomato beds ready for trellis

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100’s of plants ready to go in the ground

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 10 #11, 4/19/13

What’s been going on!

One of those a chicken on a hot plate weeks with lots of things going on that needed to coordinate well.  I would say mostly successful.  The main task was to get the last few parts of the tomato Big Tops installed and then pull the plastic cover over the bows.  In the rebuild we are using some new techniques and materials but it went smoothly.  In our second year together as a team, the four of us have the covering dance down to a well choreographed ballet.

Jennie and Liz start by finding the lead edge that will be pulled over the bows and “fluff” the rest of the plastic so it will follow easily.  With me on a 10’ step ladder I lead one corner over one thirteen foot high end hoop with a rope tied to it, handing it to Liz who then pulls will almost all her might while Jennie pushes the plastic up and over the top webbing with a long handled broom.  As Jennie gets near the halfway point I run to the far end and climb another ladder and pull the other corner over, with rope, hand it to Betsy and then I begin to move down the side of the tunnel flapping and pulling the edge down.

Corners tied off I use the ladders at each end to clip a piece of wide webbing onto the end hoops that holds the ends of the plastic to the frame while Betsy feeds one of the ropes, that actually hold the plastic onto the frame, down the leg row to the far end.  With two of us on each side we pass the rope back and forth over the top, two people managing the rope and two tightening and tying it down to the top to the legs.  Rinse and repeat with another rope and we are done.  40 minutes elapsed time.

The rest of the week consisted of cultivation, weeding, trellising peas, planting and getting ready for planting.  The tomato beds are all ready for covering with landscape fabric and trellis building, might start today, depends on how crazy the weather is this afternoon with the next front moving in.  Always extra-curricular activities like teaching class, insulating the new building, Farm to Fork picnic meetings and on, must be spring.

Pictures of the Week

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Way too much time on a ladder

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Beautiful spring cover crops and freshly turned peppers beds, the Big Tops cresting the hill in the distance

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 10 #10, 4/12/13

What’s been going on!

Spring definitely sprang this week!  It is always amazing how in a day or two it goes from winter gray to all things green.  Of course days of temperatures in the high 80’s doesn’t hurt, other than the sweating brows of the folks in the field.  I hope we can slip back to more of my temperature range of the 60’s and 70’s, not quite ready to go to air conditioning weather.

While we are still pumping to fill the upper pond before the trees fully leaf out and start to suck all the water out of the ground, the weekly rains have been just about perfect for planting.  In years past we used to pace around waiting for it to dry out enough so we could rush out and poke some plants in the ground before the next rain came, three days was all we needed to be able to till and sometimes that was difficult to get.

Spring planting now is all about watching the forecast so we can time our big planting days just before the rains arrive that way we don’t have to water the plants in or set up irrigation.  It is all just a delay tactic as we will eventually have to set up irrigation on everything as soon as the temperatures consistently hit the 80’s.  It is a familiar dance now of cultivating out the newly germinated weeds as soon as the soil dries out enough, maybe picking up the bigger rocks now exposed by the rain and then preparing the next beds for planting.

Yesterday we planted lisianthus, the first zinnias, second round of sunflowers and the last succession of spinach and radishes.  Cool season crops giving way to warm season ones.  Next week is tomato preparation week, have to get the last bits of the Big Top reconstruction done so we can pull the plastic over and begin bed prep and trellis building.  Hold on here it comes!

Pictures of the Week

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Shrubs blooming, trees leafing out, lettuce glistening after the rain

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 10 #9, 3/29/13

What’s been going on!

Jennie keeps asking “what is with the wind?”  I reply it is always windy in March, just the spring battle of the jet stream as it begrudgingly moves north.  Combined with what appears to be the 5th coldest March on record and it is irritating.  I think that because 2012 was the warmest March ever it is even more noticeable.  I always find some comfort in knowing it could be worse like 1960, the coldest March ever, when the average temperature was a full seven degrees colder than this past month at 37 degrees and it snowed 14 inches!

Big week, we slid the little tunnels over the beds that will be home to the early tomatoes and cucumbers.  With the help of a few students from the Sustainable Ag. Program at CCCC the six of us pulled the 16’X48’ hoops to their new positions for the year.  A week behind schedule but still OK considering the weather.  We closed them up tight to heat up the soil as much as we can before we transplant the tomatoes on Monday.  Always good to get that job behind us.

With the winds the soil has dried out nicely on top and it is a good time for us to get the first cultivating/weed control done for the year before we have to set up irrigation.  We pulled all the floating row covers off and Liz ran the wheel hoe through the first lettuces and spring vegetables.  The sad part is with little real rain in the forecast we will soon have to fire up the irrigation system.

The building project is getting closer to complete.  We passed all the rough in inspections and insulation is nearly done, the sheetrock arrives today.  Any day now Duke Power will show up to trench in the new power line and soon thereafter a new septic system will be installed.  A little sheetrock mudding and paint and we can call it done (mostly).  Whew, just in time for the busy growing season.

Pictures of the Week

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Liz with the cultivation tools, wheel hoe and stirrup hoe

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 10 #8, 3/21/13

What’s been going on!

First full day of Spring?  We haven’t had a cold spring since 2009 and this winter/spring transition is really beginning to work on my nerves or at least my aging body as I just don’t enjoy working outside in 40 degree temperatures and 20 mph winds like I used to.  Probably never really enjoyed it but at least didn’t grimace as much when seeing the forecast.

The fourteen day forecast is for below normal temperatures (our normal high is in the low 60’s right now), come on.  The long range forecast for summer has us above average in temperature and normal or slightly below normal rainfall.  As discussed in an earlier newsletter this is what climate change is going to look like for us in the next 50 years, erratic springs but warmer summers and longer fall seasons.  This is where careful record keeping and crop planning are critical for successful crops.  Instead of saying “hey it’s warm in January I think I will plant early” and then it gets hammered we know from experience that we will wait and plant on certain dates, no matter the current weather, and the crop will perform as it should a high percentage of the time.

Fortunately we have hedged our bets and seeded the tomatoes a week later than planned and they will be just perfect to slip into the ground next week in the little sliding tunnels and the big planting the third week of April when we should be past our last frost.  This is the art part of the art and science of agriculture.

Despite the cool temperatures we have gotten a fair amount done these past two weeks.  The re-building of the Big Tops after last summer’s storm damage is almost done, just a few more hoops to put in place and new plastic to haul out and position, ready to pull over the hoops in a few weeks.  Planting in the field is on schedule, with more to do tomorrow before the weekend’s rains.  Crops look OK, behind schedule but the beets, carrots, turnips, peas and radishes are all up.  The big pepper seeding in the greenhouse happened Monday, all 21 varieties and 3400 seeds.  So on we go but we may skip any outside work today, too damned cold.

Pictures of the Week

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Cucumber and tomato transplants waiting to go in the ground

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Tomato trellises being built prior to sliding the tunnel over it next week

What’s going to be at the market?

We will be skipping market this week but will back for Easter weekend.  See you then.

Alex and Betsy

If you know folks who you think would be interested in news of the farm then please feel free to forward this to them and encourage them to sign up at the website.

Peregrine Farm News Vol. 10 #7, 3/8/13

What’s been going on!

Remarkably busy week with lectures, tour groups, teaching, interviews, a conference and oh yeah, that farming thing we do out here.  Betsy had a good and tiring trip to Texas for an Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers (ASCFG) regional meeting and a visit with our good friends and compatriots the Arnosky’s of Texas Specialty Cut Flowers.  Betsy first met Pamela at an ASCFG meeting in the early 90’s and the two quickly realized we had been traveling the same road in two different states.  Both farms started with nothing but a dream and through perseverance and our “too dumb to quit” attitude became successful.  Now every few years we find ways to get together and commiserate (and have fun too).

I had an interesting meeting with the new dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) at NC State.  A group of the Board of Advisors for the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) met with him to discuss on-going strategic planning processes for both CEFS and CALS and how we can all work together.  Nice and bright guy, Dean Linton, but we got onto the topic of what the definition of sustainable agriculture is.  This used to come up all the time back in the day but less so now unless someone is trying to co-opt the concept.  It was defined by Congress back in the 1990 Farm bill when the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SARE) of the USDA was being authorized.  Most of us working in the field now consider it the “legal” definition.  I said that not only was there this legal definition but that essentially every person and group I talked to now knew that sustainability has three tenets- environmentally sound, economically viable and socially responsible.  If most of the public now embraces this concept it will be difficult to change it now.

We did manage to get a lot of plants and seed into the ground but still have more to do just to get caught up.  Six more beds of lettuce, the first carrots, beets and broccoli raab, the first four of 10 beds (at least) of onions.  Hopefully most of the rest of the onions will go in today.  Jennie and Liz also extracted the bent Haygrove legs we need to replace so we can finally reconstruct the Big Tops that were damaged in last July’s storm.  It is good to have the staff begin work again.

Picture of the Week

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A bright and windy March day, overwintered greens flanked by newly seeded crops protected by row cover to help germination

What’s going to be at the market?

Another cool start on Saturday but a fast warm up.

Maybe the last of the winter potato- Jerusalem Artichokes (Sunchokes).  A little more Spinach.  Maybe a bit of Lacinato Kale but for sure beautiful tender and sweet Collards.  Still plenty of sweet Carrots.

More and more of the brilliant and amazing Anemones not as many this week, too much consistent cold weather.

As a reminder if there is anything that you would like for us to hold for you at market just let us know by e-mail, by the evening before, and we will be glad to put it aside for you.

Hope to see you all at the market!

Alex and Betsy

If you know folks who you think would be interested in news of the farm then please feel free to forward this to them and encourage them to sign up at the website.

Peregrine Farm News Vol. 10 #6, 3/1/13

What’s been going on!

I know, I know, where have we been?  Fair weather farmers etc.  Even we are ready for it to warm up and dry out so we can get some more things in the ground.  Don’t get me wrong, we need all the precipitation we can get right now but we also have to get spring crops planted like the 11,000 onion plants that came last week and are patiently waiting for their date with some soil.

My usual great trip down to the Georgia Organics conference last weekend.  I have been going down to work with and do workshops for this group almost every year since the mid 90’s.  It is exciting to see the growth of small farms in Georgia and the organization, nearly 1300 attendees at this years conference.  This year I co-presented with a friend of mine from South Carolina in a half day session on Crop Planning.  I know yawn, but maybe the real core to a successful farm business.  Full room and not too many confused looks throughout the afternoon.

The greenhouse is definitely full now including the first tomato seedlings.  We did manage to get the first lettuces in the ground and seeded Sugar Snap Peas, Turnips and Radishes before the last rounds of rain and snow.  Even though it will remain cool through next week it looks like it will dry out enough to get caught up with planting- onions, lettuces, beets, carrots and the first spring planted flowers.

The building project creeps on due to the cold and wet weather.  The electrician starts tomorrow and I have begun the plumbing, hopefully to complete in the next week.  Soon thereafter insulation, sheetrock and the push to the finish.  We really need to be done by the end of the month otherwise time to work on things not involved in growing things gets very short.

Picture of the Week

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At least these lettuces are warm and growing

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