Fast forward to July...

Life got awfully complicated this summer, with my parents having some significant health problems that required everybody to drop everything and help out. Neither the garden nor the blog has been well attended-to, but we're starting to develop some sort of equilibrium now, so there will be pictures on here again soon!

State of the garden: Most of my plantings have perished in the weeds/rabbits/woodchucks/deer/neglect. What has made it? The sweet corn, the tomatoes, the broomcorn, the popcorn, the pumpkins, the long island cheese squash, either the potimarron or the sunshine squash (I'm not sure at the moment - I'll tell you in a few months!), the hops, and the flax. In fact, the flax is thriving, and will be ready to harvest in a few short weeks.

In preparation for the flax harvest, we've built a flax break - I'll post pictures soon. Actually, I'll post pics of a lot of things.

Planting

The hops are up! All 6 have leaves poking out of the ground, which is about the most exciting thing ever. Now it's a race for the sky!

The garden's all planted, as of this weekend. I thought for a little bit about taking pictures, but at this stage it's just a large rectangle of dirt - not much to see there. The planting took two Saturdays, and ended up being more of a "put everything in the ground" than a well-planned planting session. Next year, there will be a plan of attack. And twine.

So, today we planted:
"Titan" sunflowers
"Elegance" mixed greens
"Jade" mache
"Spargo" spinach
"Deertongue" lettuce
"Focea" lettuce
"Bright Lights" swiss chard
"Red Ace" beets
"Nabechan" bunching onions
"Vermont Cranberry" beans
"Kenearly Yellow Eye" beans
"Lemon" cucumbers
"Genuine" cucumbers
"Caveman's Club" gourds (These have really neat-looking seeds! They're still obvious cucurbit seeds, but all angular and weird - I'd never seen them before.)
"Spaghetti Squash" squash
"Potimarron" squash
"Honey Orange" melon
"Long Island Cheese" pumpkins/squash
"Sunshine" squash
"Tom Fox" pumpkins
"Diablo" brussel sprouts (replaced some that were eaten)

Last week (5/7) we planted:
"Hermes" flax
"Miniature Colored Popcorn" corn
"Red broomcorn" broomcorn
"Cream of Saskatchewan" watermelon
zucchini (a nondescript transplant from Lowe's, and they've ALREADY been eaten)
"Vision" sweet corn
brussel sprouts (a nondescript transplant from Lowe's)
"Walla Walla" onions
tomatoes (a mix of transplants - "Black from Tula", which I grew, and which have been eaten; one "Early Girl" from Lowe's, which has suffered heavily from frost; and two "Black Krim" from Lowe's that are faring better.)

I may yet replant some Black from Tula - perhaps next week? I know there's an ice cube's chance they'll make it by frost, but somewhere in my heart I'm still hoping for a "Black from Tula" this year. I've also got some really late-season crops and some "replant every 2 weeks" crops waiting in the wings (parsnips, more beets)... but at this point, it's really: cross my fingers, pray for just-enough rain, and hope for the best. Next Saturday maybe it will be photo-ready.

Bike, Scarecrow, Hops... oh my!

A weekend of firsts:

A sixth (!!) birthday meant a first bike, and first bike-riding lessons, on a gloriously sunny Saturday over at the farm. He was so excited, and he had a phenomenally good time.

Pre-flight systems check

"Mommy, I did it all by myself and Daddy!!"

What are you looking at??

He and I also made our first scarecrow together, which ended up being a fierce viking to overlook the garden plot. The scarecrow's made of old clothing, an old pillow, yarn for hair, an old plastic viking hat, and a patriotic pinwheel to add motion and reflective light-play. I sewed in a hanger when I put him together, so  hanging him up was easy - we put a nail in a big stick, put the big stick in the ground, and then hung him off the nail. A length of yarn through his belt loops runs around the stick to keep him from flying away in a strong wind. We doused him with some stinky perfume and put a bar of Irish Spring in his back pocket to make him smell more "human", since deer are my main problem.

Admiring a job well done.
(For reference, the real one here is a solid 4' tall!)

Wheee! 

Grrr... What are you looking at?

We also got our very first "farm" crop ever into the ground! We've gotten a late start with the snowing and the raining and the flooding, but we put 6 "Cascade" rhizomes into the ground (from Thyme Garden, cost about $35 with shipping and handling). Later - next week? - we'll put up a PVC tepee trellis system to support the hops as they grow.

Hop rhizomes, after soaking

Rhizome in prepared hole

The circle of  planted hops, marked with flagging tape

Clarification of where the hops are: 7' radius circle, with rhizomes equally spaced at 6 locations around it.
Later, in the center, we'll place a 15-20' pole, with twine secured to the top.
Hop bines will later run up the twine, and it will be awesome.

Assuming that we didn't plant the hops way too late - I don't think we did - I believe we can hope for a hop harvest in October. It probably won't be a super-impressive harvest, as in the first year hops are mostly establishing their root systems and don't produce as much as they would otherwise. I'm very eager to see how much I get from these, though, as this is something of a feasibility study for further hop growth. I'm absurdly excited to be growing these, though, and I hope they do well. I'm already wondering if the guys are interested in Fuggle or Nugget for more variety next year. :-)

Pre-ordered hops

Inspired, largely, by this manual *, and by my co-workers' continuing homebrewing successes, I've pre-ordered 6 rhizomes of "cascade" hops. My plan is to include small-scale hop production on the farm, producing more-or-less specifically for my coworkers' brewing needs. I'm convinced it will fit smoothly with the planned farm operations, adding another diversified income source. If production ultimately exceeds my coworkers' demand - which I expect will take several years - I hope to take my excess to local homebrew suppliers. I'm also generally  supportive of the whole concept of hop pillows, both for my own use and for sale. Maybe with lavender? Mugwort?

Hops made NY,  and NY can still grow hops. I can't see a market for buckwheat, which historically was grown in some quantity on this farm, but hops should do just fine and will certainly sell. While I don't brew, I'm certainly eager to try growing some of the older and less-common varieties of hops in the coming years, if my market base is amenable.

(I'm really trying not to look at how easy it would be to make small batches of malt to order. Almost absurdly so. Just.... not this year, guys. Ok??)

So, yeah. The upshot is that there will be organic (because, really: why not?) hops produced on the farm starting this summer. I've heard the first year's harvest is usually pretty small, but that suits me just fine - I've got my plate kinda full this year. I need to refine my trellis design a little, but I'm excited.

This coming week marks the start of Cornell's Northeast Beginning Farmer class, "What Do I Need to Do to Start a Farm Business?" (BF103). I imagine in a week or two I'll have something interesting to say about it. Also, the yak is spinning up nicely, but slowly. Pics will take awhile.


*Oh, who am I kidding? Really I'm being heavily influenced - in this as in all things - by Fred Gee's In a Place Called Chenango. I've never forgotten his song about Coy's hop farm in Smyrna. Actually, I don't think I've ever forgotten any of his songs - I've been his biggest fan since he came to sing at Oxford Academy & Central Schools for our local history unit in 4th grade, and again for Oxford's bicentennial (uhm... 6th grade?). Mr. Gee, if you're still out there, you're probably why I'm an archaeologist.