Last night...

We discovered sprouts!  Yay!  This stuff is actually working!

Tiny, yes, but sprouts nontheless.  I feel silly being so excited about it.  They're only cucumbers, forcryingoutloud!  But, really, they are so much more than "just" cucumbers.... they are the first physical manifestation of this dream of a farm.  We're making it happen.  This photo actually makes me want to think they are encouraging each other

C'mon, little seedlings!  You can do it! 

A-planting we will go....

Last Sunday we planted seeds ~ finally.  314 seeds, to be exact.  In eight pounds of potting soil which was, in turn, in 234 - 3" round pots and 4 - 10 square flats.  Sounds like a lot, but there's still more to do.  We had to stop because we ran out of table room for them all

In fact, where you can see the seed box in this picture there now sit two more of the plastic trays.  They hold the 4 - 10 square flats.  One set of 4 is Genovese Basil, the other is Greek Oregano.  The 13 trays hold:  Red Brandywine Tomatoes, Yellow Brandywine Tomatoes, Red Pear Tomatoes, Yellow Pear Tomatoes, Russian Pickling Cucumbers, Marketmore 76 Cucumbers, Waltham Butternut Squash, Early Summer Yellow Crookneck Squash, Costa Romanesca Zucchini (I love that name.... ), Table Queen Acorn Squash, and Long Island Cheese Pumpkins.  The plug you see in the wall coming up from behind and beneath the pots is for a heater - the seeds won't germinate if they're not warm enough.  They also need light - more than they're getting from the windows (there are 2 in the room and you can sort of see one of them at the top left of the photo) so we will be hanging grow lights.  Before we do that, though, we are building shelves for more layers of seeds.  There will be at least two more tiers of seeds, with grow lights attached to the bottom of each for the tier of seeds/pots below, before we're finished.   I'll post pictures of it all as we go along.  In the meantime,  I'm excitedly anticipating germinating seeds.  As soon as something sprouts, you'll see pictures.  I will be happy to see sprouts when they finally poke their little heads out of the dirt, because I've never planted this many organic/heirloom/untreated/open pollinated seeds before and I will breathe a little easier knowing they are coming up.  It will be interesting to see what our germination rate is. 
Because we are putting so much into this, I was pretty meticulous (oh, ok,..... anal) about how I planted them.  I had previously created a measuring stick to use when planting seeds because, let's face it, can you really tell how deep a 1/4 inch is when you're sticking something that small into the dirt? 

It's not very deep.  In fact, it barely looks like the seed is in the soil

but, being one to follow directions, I did what it said on the seed packet then covered them over and am hoping for the best.  The bigger seeds, like squash and pumpkins, go down a full inch.  That's a little easier for me to be a little less compulsive about because, conveniently, my first finger joint is about an inch from the tip of my finger so I could just push those babies in and be done with it.  The herbs, on the other hand, were a whole 'nother story!  OMG!  The seeds were so fine it looked like pepper.  Like, what you have in a shaker on your table to put on your food.  Wow.  I've never planted anything with seeds that small before and I'm a little worried that they won't come up.  I think they got a little too flooded when we watered them.  In fact, it was that experience that prompted me to go out and buy a new watering wand attachment for the hose with a "mist" setting.  That's about perfect in the way it delivers the water but it may be too late for those poor little herb seeds.  Time will tell.  I've got the flats covered with plastic and keeping warm, so if they're going to make it that's the best I can do for them.
I'm anxious to get finished planting everything that's going to be started indoors because I still worry that we're behind where we need to be but life has intervened, once again.  In this case, it was in the form of the computer crashing yesterday.  We had a heavy thunderstorm the night before and when I went to plug in and turn on the computer yesterday morning what happened was.... nothing.  That was NOT A GOOD THING!  It took all night (and much later than we really should have stayed up on a weeknight) to restore things to working order.  It was a little dicey when we turned it on this morning, too.  I'm almost afraid to shut the thing off but we are having more storms today and will have to shut it down soon.  This time, I think I'll unplug the phone line in addition to unplugging the power cord.  That's the only thing we can think of that might have caused the problems.   Wish me luck!

Here a chick, there a chick, everywhere a chick-chick

We went to a workshop today on raising organic chickens put on by NOFA-Mass (http://www.nofamass.org/).   It was held at Golden Oak Farm in Hatfield, Ma. (http://www.goldenoakfarm.us/ ) and, in spite of some cold rainy weather, it was great!  These folks really know what they're doing and were happy to share knowledge with those of us who are just getting started.  Or, getting around to getting started.  I didn't take pictures because it was too rainy (oh, and, ummm.... because I forgot the camera) so I can't share photos with you.  Please do, however, look at the website for Golden Oak Farm.  Not only did they do a great job of presenting the workshop but they also have a really good website with lots of information and.... lots of pictures!  They do more than chickens, too, for those of you who might be interested.  What else?  Well, you're just gonna have to go look!  Trust me, their website is worth the time.

The workshop started in the barn, where we all gathered and introduced ourselves.  There was an instruction/ discussion time about a variety of things, and then we started looking at how they were keeping their chickens.  We saw the brooder, the coop, the outside pen, their modified versions of Salatin pens that they're using, and their processing room.  All very informative.   And, once again, all I can tell you is that there are pictures of all of this and more on their website.  Sorry folks, I'll try to do better next time!

We learned a lot today and, honestly, I am still processing a lot of it.  I think the two things that intrigue me the most were the concept of deep bedding (never heard it referred to as that before) and the "circus tent" arrangement that they use to keep hawks and other flying predators away from the chickens when they're outside.  Basically, ropes tied to a central pole on one end and the enclosure for the birds on the other ~ it really does look like a circus tent.  The ropes are spaced close enough on the enclosure end that the wingspan of the particular predators they have there won't fit through and it keeps the chickens safe.  If you do look at their website you'll see what I mean.  In this case, I really do wish I'd brought the camera because it's much easier to show than to tell.

The other nice thing about the day was that there was a pot luck lunch at the end for anyone who was interested.  We brought stuff and stayed for that and it was really nice getting to know some of the other participants and our hosts a little better.

Seeds!

I was so excited when I took this picture that I didn't even realize that I'd forgotten a whole 'nother bunch of seeds from another company.  We ordered from 5 different companies this year in an effort to grow all heirloom and all organic.   Specifically, we ordered from Bountiful Gardens, Pine Tree Garden, Seed Savers Exchange, High Mowing Seeds, and Fedco Seeds.  It was the Fedco seeds that didn't make it into this picture.  In fact, I got so excited about organizing them in the new whiz-bang plastic box I got today that I didn't even realize I was missing the Fedco Seeds until I got to the herbs and realized I hadn't seen my bouquet dill anywhere.  That's when I realized what I'd done, so I went and got the Fedco order and added it to the box.  They're all alphabetized and separated by category:  veggies, herbs, and flowers.   Except that the box isn't quite big enough, so the flowers are wrapped with a rubber band and laying sideways:

 I know there will come a day when I look back at this and laugh at myself but, for now, I am happy with this.  Doing anything towards bringing this farm to life feels good. 

I bet you noticed the Pot Maker box in the upper left corner of the first picture, didn't you?  I've never used one but, with the number of seeds we are dealing with here, it seemed like a good idea.  I'll let you know how that works.  Maybe this weekend.  I am really worried that we are behind already but there have been so many things to do that these seeds aren't even started yet.  Things won't go in the ground until Memorial Day so I still have a couple of weeks to get some things started and I'm really hoping that will be ok.   I was encouraged this weekend when talking to friends who said they would buy from us.  It was totally spontaneous.  We were talking about the farm and what we are planting this season, as well as the fact that we were planning to sell at some of the smaller local farmer's markets and they said they would buy from us.  We're not a CSA, and it wasn't any kind of binding commitment, but it was very encouraging.