Trend update: red is out - green is in

This is a great time of year for so many reasons. For one, the change in the weather is spectacular, we can all breathe a sigh of relief, the brutality of this summer has passed. And second, this is when there is quite a bit of diversity in the produce being grown in Virginia. Tomatoes and peppers, reminders of the summer are still here while greens and winter squash hint of the autumn season to come. Mmmm I can almost smell Thanksgiving dinner just thinking about it! Though I'm going to miss the long days of summer and spending much of my time (when I'm not out in the fields) in bare feet. Goodness, I sound so nostalgic and summer hasn't even left us yet!

Well, enough about me and my thoughts of the seasons, this is supposed to be a farm blog...... so here it is

Farm news

The last batch of tomatoes are slowly turning red, I don't think this one is going to be a bumper crop.
It's green, greens, greens out here!

our wee one is a chicken whisperer





Adam and I harvested honey from the hive about a week or so ago. There was one super full of honey. I don't know how much it will be, someone told me a super is about a five gallon bucket full. It doesn't look like that much, but it could be because the super probably weighs close to 50 lbs. We'll find out soon enough, hopefully we'll be able to extract it from the combs this week.





This year we've learned compost tea rocks! And buying compost from a company your not too familiar with sucks! We keep the compost tea brewing and it's doing it's job better than ever. We made our last batch using vermicompost - worm poo. Our friend Don Dillon makes it, it's quality stuff! Occasionally he and his worm poo can be found at Eli's Green's at St. Stephen's and South of the James farmer's markets, ask him about it. For you home gardeners interested in making your own compost tea it's pretty easy, all you need is a five gallon bucket, water, high quality compost and and aerator, like those used in fish tanks.

Eventually the rest of this drum of compost tea will fill up with foam. That's when you know it's good.


On the flip side of compost, it is possible to get inferior compost. We bought some, as in a few dump truck loads, from a company near Richmond because their delivery rates were cheaper than the folks we usually buy it from and boy are we sorry we did. It's filled with weed seeds and that's not something we need more of here!
You may say, well maybe those weed seeds were already there and then I would say not so, because new weeds that we haven't seen here are popping up in the beds and not the aisles, the proof is in the pudding.
an example of the wretched weeds

tilled beds with compost added and little carrots sprouting up through the ground

a few week later - pigweed pigweed pigweed carrot pigweed pigweed carrot pigweed pigweed...you get the drift

they are a nuisance, but luckily, easy to weed


Henny Penny update
As of today she successfully hatched 5 chicks - 4 of them are white and they came from white eggs so those I know are from the white leghorns. The fifth is black and brown, I think that one came from either the Speckled Sussex or the Golden Laced Wyandotte hen. Of the three that survived the first brood two are looking like they're roosters - darn it! We don't need any more roosters, the other two supposed to be hens roosters are having their last rites preformed tomorrow.