Verdant Furrows

Incomplete Double Rainbow All the Way Across the Sky!!!

2010-09-02T21:21:00.003-04:00

Ohhh my god!!! A double rainbow right in my backyard! It's so amazing. Oh my god!!! It's so lackluster and hazy!!! What does it mean!?!?!?!!?! Too much!!!!

On the slaughter of two roosters.

2010-08-06T15:10:00.001-04:00

I snagged the bird and nicked him Powell, Colin.

Go him through a "take my flock FREE" flyer. He wasn't stolen.

He and another dozen chickens flicked into the chicken tractor

pastured and raised in woods as best as we could manage factors

Real quick on diet: bugs and grass but we don't lie about grain

Cause in addition to the peckin' we want some eggs layin'

Now back to this guy, he was not the biggest cock in the coop

but like a man he struted out like he didn't give a poop

Though he wasn't alpha he'd get eggs fertile still

He'd already hatched some chicks before competing with Sweet'ums from Hurdle Mills

Sweet'ums was his biggest enemy. The Orpington Buff.

While that great big rooster was chill with hens, with Colin he was rough.

Napoleon was our bantam cock, was the animal of which I was most keen.

But that little non-tyrant had the most sense so he quickly split the scene.

For it wasn't long before those chicks I mentioned came to be mature birds.

And our male to female ratio indicated it was time to thin the herd.

So we gave away a bunch of young roosters to friends. That cleared the air.

But still with Sweet'ums and Powell we were left with one of Powell's male heirs.

So three spurred, combed, and waddled men were fighting over the roost

and from this competition there'd been claims of hen abuse.

Well to start, I haven't seen a measure of pleasure from hens heavy mounted

I've counted zero solicited illicit encounters with the boys

But I do agree that with extra roosters the hens have even less of a choice.

So now I'll tell you the story of how cock culling continued:

Another layer of characters, my farm mates willing

came with various reasons to stage a killing.

Out of respect for life or a taste for poultry

We'd go full butchery even if the meat was paltry.

For Sweet'ums a oardin was given for his crimes

but the other two were sentenced to their end times.

We wanted death humane we tried the bleeding out method

We held him upside down cut his jugular, carotid, jugular, carotid

But even after minutes he was less than dead

So we ended up scissoring off his head.

Things went quicker for rooster's rooster son.

We used a gun.

TOTALLY XtReMe!!!!!!!

2010-08-03T08:25:00.004-04:00

This summer has been part of this year and the year has been one of extremes. I certainly make reference to the weather; some say climate change and others say "Durrrrr. I'm a skeptic."

I know that this past winter was extremely cold and snowy for Orange County, NC. And I know that this summer has been extremely oppresive, between heat, humidity, ground-level ozone...

But this year has seen other extremes. Extreme Farm Sports.

I want to introduce to you Xtreme H2OMelon Smashing.

Here it is demonstrated by its inventors Ben and Vince.

Annual Post

2010-03-02T16:44:00.005-05:00

I am an annuals grower. This is the time of year that I like to write my annual blog post. I'll just start some blogus vulgaris seed in my new sprouting box and hopefully something will pop up in the next week.

It was a perfect day; I dread the summer.

2009-03-18T17:36:00.008-04:00

Today was beautiful and perfect and I had to come inside because it was too nice and I was afraid of getting high on it.

The fog rolled out by midday today after nearly a week of clouds and precipitation. The plants and animals all seemed eager for a more efficient photosynthesis/vitamin D synthesis.

The cover crop is lush.

In less than two weeks it has tripled in height. These plants have plodded on through the winter growing but barely.

Meanwhile, our slightly less hardy crops are starting to fill the field or emerge.

And in the hoop house...

This is our new rooster, named after a Muppet Show character which I do not remember, who is being taught to tango?

Drainage?

2009-03-01T17:54:00.004-05:00

This looks pretty bad.
The beds are running against the slope to prevent wash out. I didn't think they would catch the water so effectively. This is after 2.5 inches in 48 hours.

The Out-of-Shape Farmer

2009-02-10T14:39:00.004-05:00

Spring is here?
No, but it is that time of year when I realize that my body has turned to mush over the past couple of months.
I am now at a new farm, yet to be titled, where the vegetable bed making has just begun.

I moved in with Sam in August and we have been scheming since. More than at any other farm I have worked on the task ahead daunts. The motivation is first-class as well.

Most of this field will be in vegetable production this year. Delicious cucumbers are just around the corner.

The farm is just a couple of miles down the road from the Breeze incubator farm. Sam really helped me dig myself out of the weeds and get the most out of my rows this fall and winter. I went to every market held through this past weekend. However, the time has come for the Breeze field to be plowed and we will have a few weeks of lull with nothing to sell.

Marketing!

2008-07-19T22:21:00.002-04:00

Starting next week I will be selling at the Orange County Farmer's Market in Hillsborough.
CSA deliveries may need to move to Tuesday.

2008-07-16T13:32:00.001-04:00

What a fruitful week! I am now hunting for a second fridge so I can store the abundance that I expect will be coming for the next couple of months.

Our first melons are only two weeks away according to Karen McAdams, one of the Cooperative Extension agents who have put together the incubator program. As long as I keep the plants somewhat weeded it looks like we’ll be eating lots of watermelons and muskmelons (the group of melons to which cantaloupe and honeydew belong). This week we had a bumper crop of cucumbers. The rains were apparently well timed. Of course the squash are still coming on. We also have our first tomatoes ripening. I just stumbled upon the eggplant. I hadn’t even notice flowers on the plants and all of a sudden there were fruits.

Also lots of weeds.

Rain

2008-07-09T14:14:00.000-04:00

The rain this week was a very welcome respite from the drought that was as recently as last Wednesday classified as severe by official sources. It was a relief to farmers including those of as at the incubator farm who irrigate out of ponds. We had begun to see the water level of our pond lower over the past few weeks. Most plants seem to do better with a periodic rain in addition to just being irrigated.

That said, the weather and I are not in lockstep. The heavy inundation every evening several days in a row made the ground to wet to till when I had the chance. I am running out of room for the next succession of plantings and I had hoped to open up more space. This will have to wait a little while longer.

Delay until now

2008-06-29T13:11:00.002-04:00

Shares will start to go out Wednesday.
The squash is coming quick and the beans are just about ready.
Ill have some greens too.

Weeding and Waiting for Flowers

2008-06-18T18:49:00.004-04:00

The weeds came up quick despite the lack of rain. They are mostly under control within my domain although there are plenty between my beds and others'. I put down a bunch of straw and hopefully that'll hold them off for a while.
My beds are about 80% full now. That means I wont be planting too much more until some stuff is done. So far I haven't seen many blossoms. A few of the tomatoes and one of two varieties of string beans have started to bud. The squashes have grown lush but they are still budless.

Whats up with these peppers? They forgot to mature as plants. I'm going to call them Juno peppers.

2008-06-12T22:28:00.004-04:00

I planted 300 sweet potato plants today. Four varieties. I am very excited. Here is the CSA flyer:

William Cramer’s Verdant Furrows

First Time CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)

8 Weeks of delicious, nutritious veggies

Including Tomatoes, Beans, Squash and Zucchini, Carrots, Okra, Kale, Chard and other Greens, Cucumbers and more

Late June to Late August

The cost of a Small share for about $10 worth of produce each week is $80

Example week:
2 palette-wetting Tomatoes
2 crunchy cool Cukes
4 perfectly sweet Squash
1 bunch of raunchy Radishes
1 huge handful of Green Beans
1 eye-popping Hot Pepper

The cost of a Large share for about $20 worth of produce each week is $150

Example week:
3 juicy red Tomatoes
A Sweet Pepper
4 flavorful Squash
1 bunch of nutrient-packed Kale
A whole pound of Green Beans
1 handful of luscious Okra
3 big yummy Cukes
1 bunch of rabbit-taunting Carrots
A little bag of Basil

These eight weeks (starting sometime in the last two weeks of June) will be an experiment both for the farmer and the customer. This will be the first time I have managed my own CSA. I have many tasty things planted at the PLANT @ Breeze small farm incubator site in Schley (a few miles north of Hillsborough) and in a garden at a friend’s in Hillsborough. I hope to provide up to eight small shares worth of produce during these summer months and I plan to provide the opportunity to renew subscriptions after this first trial ends.

I will do my darnedest to see that all shares are interesting and varied.

2008-06-07T11:48:00.008-04:00

Lil Fenugreeks

<-Huge Truck

Hot Truck

2008-06-06T23:26:00.002-04:00

Today we (papa farmer and baby farmer) bought a truck and traded in my car. Its going to be running on biodiesel so my business will be less petrol derived and less carbon dioxidious. But honestly I think the plants are really digging the CO2 and heat trapped by it. Things are growing fast and as long as irrigation stays online(knock on wood) it looks like there will be some very verdant furrows indeed.

I'll be posting info on the CSA soon. Also, pictures...

Hot Stuff

2008-06-05T12:38:00.000-04:00

If we jump head on into this heatwave maybe the rest of the summer will seem like a breeze. Hopefully the tender little plants and everybody else will make it through to more temperate times.

This is the first year I am managing my own "market garden." After several years interning and working on other farms I felt it was time for me to try my hand at planning in addition to planting. Luckily I am not entirely on my own. I am working within a small farm business incubator called PLANT@Breeze. That is People Learning Agriculture Now for Tomorrow. Acronym came first?

So I am planting in a few rows there in Schley as well as on the land of friends, the Heydas, in Hillsborough proper.

I've got tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, okra, squash, carrots, bush beans, spinach, and radishes in the ground now and I have several trays of other plants that will go out in the next couple of weeks.