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And so it begins

by maryellen | Mar 3, 2010 | in| Add Comment

The first seedlings are planted.  More flowers this year, to sell as seedlings.  But as in years past, started in the basement, under lights, to postpone as long as possible heating the greenhouses.

Wavy and Henry (and Shelby) helping clean out one of the greenhouses to get it ready for tomatoes.  Wavy's still in her pajamas at like 3:00 (!!) because it was one of the last days of school vacation.

Back in the saddle

by peter | Feb 25, 2010| 3 comments

Wow.  It has been a long winter here at Old Shaw Farm.  And we apologize about not blogging much.  But this winter we have been doing a lot of thinking about the farm, thinking about our family, and planning for future.  A lot of this work has been driven by the financial realities of farming, and the financial needs of our family. 

You see, we haven't been making enough money on the farm to support our family.  Actually, we haven't even come close.  And this winter, for a variety of reasons -- financial, personal, physical, spiritual, emotional -- we decided that some things need to change around here.  We have been trying to grow 40 different crops each year, and on the scale we are at, that is difficult to do efficiently, so we have decided to scale back, and just focus on crops we are sure are making us money.

That sounds easy enough, but the big problem with dropping a lot of crops is that it means we need to rethink our markets as well.  For example, if we are only growing 6 crops, instead of 40, all of a sudden it doesn't really make sense to be doing a CSA, or even farmer's markets.  A CSA with only 6 crops just wouldn't be very popular.

Where does all this lead?  Well, we decided that this year we would continue to build our seedling sales, to grow our greenhouse tomatoes, and to do the Danville Farmer's Market.  But we also decided to take a year off from the CSA and the Waitsfield Market. 

This will make us a lot smaller this year, but it will also make a lot of other things possible.  First, it will allow Peter to work part time off the farm again, and make our life more financially sustainable.  Second, it will give us some time to develop a new plan for the farm moving forward.  And third, it will hopefully give us the space to breathe a bit, recover from some built-up burnout, and to fall in love with this farm again.

Just like a plant must sometimes be pruned, it is our hope that this pulling back time will lead to a period of even more vigorous growth.  Although some of these decisions have been tough to make, we are excited to see what happens next.  We also want to thank each and every one of you for your support and love over the years.  We couldn't be doing any of this without you!

But now, the days are starting to get longer, and it is actually getting to be time to get back to work!  The greenhouses need to get cleaned up, our early herbs and onion seedlings need to get started, some gear still needs to get repaired, the tool bench needs to get cleaned up, so on and so forth.  So check back for more posts soon, and thanks again for all your support.

Shelby, the amazing puppy

by maryellen | Jan 3, 2010| 3 comments

Shelby likes to pull the sled back up the hill for the kids. 

Shelby

by maryellen | Dec 25, 2009| 1 comment

Shelby the puppy joined the farm today.  We love her!

2009 it's a wrap!

by maryellen | Nov 22, 2009

 

We did the Thanksgiving Farmer's Market at the Round Barn in Waitsfield this morning.  It was really nice to see everyone out, and it was nice to have the market in such a beautiful (and warm!) space.  It was a great end to a great season.

Photo by Waverly

by maryellen | Nov 3, 2009

Wavy took this photo the other day from midway up the farm road.  I love it.  She captured the beauty of the season.  Twilight, clean and windswept.  All the leaves are down.  Those are the greenhouses in the distance. 

Photos by Beth

by maryellen | Oct 18, 2009| 2 comments

My dear friend Beth came to visit and took some fabulous photos!

The Cub.  (Our weeding tractor).

Greenhouse with fall greens.

Henry the proud pumpkin farmer.  (These are the pumpkins he and Wavy grew in their jungle garden.)

Broccoli

Snowy Harvest Morning

by peter | Oct 13, 2009| 2 comments

Harvesting brussel sprouts in the snow.

 

Jamie working hard.

(Un)stuck in the mud

by maryellen | Oct 8, 2009 | in

Peter was not feeling well, so Tamsin very kindly offered to do the CSA drop in St. J yesterday.  (Thank you Tamsin!)  But after she loaded the van and was ready to be off, the van got hopelessly mired in the mud.  I had no idea what to do.  Luckily, Peter is a come through in the clutch kind of guy.

Before and after

by maryellen | Oct 5, 2009 | in

The old cherry (tomato) house waiting to be cleared out and cleaned up.  Rotten tomatoes and flies, oh my!

One of the lower greenhouses that's been "turned" and planted to crops for fall.  Turned means that we've pulled out the tomatoes, cleaned up the mess, put down compost, and replanted.  It's a challenge to find the right balance between harvesting every last tomato and getting them out in time to get the fall crops growing before we completely lose the daylight the fall crops need to get growing.  This is dandelion greens, and we've also planted scallions, baby bok choy, salad turnips and a lot of spinach.

Brussel sprouts

by maryellen | Oct 4, 2009 | in

The brussel sprouts are thriving this year,

Survey says

by maryellen | Sep 24, 2009

These are the comments we've gotten so far in response to our annual survey of CSAers:

More beans 'n' peas

I wonder if the older people in our community would find it daunting to come pick up a basket.  And maybe nervous about commitment to amounts.  I'd be interested in their use of CSA and concerns.  I think we could get volunteers to deliver their baskets for them.  (I'd do it.)  Two thoughts: An Area Agency on Aging grant for CSA to older folks in St. J and surrounds could be fun.  They like small grants for social and pragmatic goals.

Many thanks Maryellen, Peter and crew for another fine year of veggies!  Overall, I loved the basket as much as I always have, but these are my thoughts/suggestions for the year:
**Love getting berries and melons
**Green beans?
**Peas, please! (Is it too late for peas when the CSA gets rolling?)
**More baby greens/mesclun mix!  I would always choose that over head lettuce and miss the weekly supply of earlier years.
**Didn't find the herbs useful since I grow so many, but understand that others might.
**Maybe fewer tomatoes (I know some would consider this blasphemy!) But there were generally too many tomatoes for one person - though I never wanted to go without entirely.
**Best beets in the world!
**You grow some great tasting potatoes!
**Kale?  Did we get kale this year?
**More peppers when the season permits!
**Love your winter squash and appreciate any variety.
Thanks Again!.
p.s. Just submitted some comments, but forgot to say how much I loved the cabbage! Would love cauliflower, too!

We didn't need the herbs.  We would have preferred something else.  A choice or herb add on?  We love the recipe section of your new website.  In general, we love the mix of veggies.  We missed salad turnips this year.  We would love broccoli rabe.  We love when you added berries.

More salad turnips and bok choy. 
Lots of tomatoes
Various berries, if possible
Melons

If possible, could we have lettuce/salad greens every week?  This is a real staple and we'd rather have it from you than elsewhere.  Also, garlic every two weeks or so?  Love the variety in general.

Thanks to all who've responded to the CSA!!  Feedback from our CSAers is really helpful to us, in deciding what to grow, how to organize the CSA, and more.  If you haven't filled out a survey form (St J CSAers didn't even get them this week, it was raining too hard), feel free to post a comment to this post or send me a contact us message - you can do either anonymously.

Digging potatoes

by maryellen | Sep 21, 2009 | in| 1 comment

Peter loosens them with the disc on the tractor.  Then we loosen them from the other side with a fork.

Then its like an Easter egg hunt in the soil.  All the green and damaged ones get left in the field. 

In the 30 minutes between the first photo, and the second, the early morning fog had lifted and the sun was shining warm.

Goodbye tomatoes, see you next year!

by maryellen | Sep 20, 2009 | in

We had a hard frost last night, and another one expected tonight.  But even before that frost, we've been pulling the tomatoes out of the greenhouses to plant them to fall greens.

Vermont's Local Banquet

by maryellen | Sep 17, 2009| 1 comment

We got into Vermont's Local Banquet!!  Vermont's Local Banquet is a beautiful magazine --informative and distributed free all over Vermont!!  They gave us a whole big sidebar about our squash recipes from us!!  Read it (scroll down for the OSF recipes).

Thanks for publishing our recipes Vermont's Local Banquet!  Thanks for the awesome magazine!

If you're visiting because you saw us in the magazine, welcome, and please add a recipe of your own!!