This Week on the Farm 10/27
It is the twentieth week of our season and this means that it is the last box of the year! We want to thank everyone for a great season, especially all of our employees, work shares, and volunteers who have made it so much easier for Tyler and I to get everything done! We would also like to thank Monty’s Blue Plate Diner, The Avenue Bar, Heritage Monona, Goodwill North Central Wisconsin, Casey & Beth Eggleston, my parents, and Tyler’s parents for hosting the pick up sites this year. We are looking for sites on the west side of Madison and in Portage for next year, so if you are interested in becoming a host please let us know.
Congratulations to Barbara Weeks and Kim Lapacek for wining a free storage share for submitting recipes this year! We have eight more storage shares available for sale this season. The cost is $65 for a home delivered box on Friday November 7th. Items included in this years box include carrots, beets, turnips, radishes, winter squashes, dried beans, onions, garlic, kohlrabi, an assortment of greens and anything else we can pull from the fields. To give an idea of size, the share will come in two full share totes. Please email me if you are interested since they will be sold on a first come, first served basis.
With our biomeiler build this past weekend we did not have time to get the end of the season survey out yet. I am hoping to get that completed this week, so check your email for the link to the survey. Again, it really helps us in our decision making process this winter. There are a lot of improvements that we would like to make, but we can’t know everything without input from our members.
The biomeiler build was a success. We would like to thank Drew Carlson for all of his help gathering funds, equipment, workshop attendees, and most of all his enthusiasm while standing in a pile of woodchips and horse manure. We would also like to thank the UW Horticulture Society for coming out and helping on Saturday. Their help really made it possible for us to get this project off the ground. A big thank you also needs to go to Kate Carlson for making delicious meals both days for all of our helpers!
Although we were not able to finish the project, we were able to get all of the heating coils made and three quarters of the compost pile built this weekend. The pile is approximately twenty feet in diameter and will eventually be ten feet tall. As of right now we have four of the six coils installed. If you are interested in coming out to see the last of the build the current plan is to work on it the second weekend in November. Let me know if you are interested. Food will be included!
With all of the work that has gone into the biomeiler project we have not had time to get our seed garlic planted. I was hoping to get that in the ground this Wednesday, but we need to make a decision on our fertilizer application. We used up the last of the Chickity Doo Doo last month when we fertilized the fall greens and we did not order more right away. We need to get ahold of the company and see how quickly we can get a pallet of pellets. Tyler would like to be able to incorporate them into the soil before we plant the garlic. I am hoping that we will be able to do that, but we may end up just top dressing the planting because we are under a time crunch to get them in the ground.
Normally we would be able to get the garlic in the ground next week, but Tyler is starting a job off farm for the winter season this coming Monday, so he won’t be available to help. Tyler’s parents are also leaving for Florida, so I will need to be inside taking care of Devin, leaving Shelbi in charge of fall clean up and garlic planting. Hopefully we will be able to find an easy way to get all of the garlic in the ground. When you are planting almost seventy pounds of garlic by hand that is a lot to ask of one person!
We decided this summer to not save any seed garlic from our Silver Rose variety. The bulbs did not size up as well and they have not stored as well as the Music and Susanville varieties. Next fall I would like to buy a third variety, but it was not in the budget this year. Thankfully the Susanville and the Music did so well that we are actually increasing the total poundage of garlic that we are planting this year. Hopefully this will mean more garlic scapes in the first couple of boxes! I think the garlic scapes were one of my favorite items in this years boxes.
Don’t forget that we do update our blog posts twice a month during the winter months so you can find out what is happening on the farm. Shares for the 2015 season will go on sale January 1st and I will send out an email letting you know when they go on sale. Again, thank you so much for your support this season and have a Happy Halloween!!!!