One Straw Farm

Composting Gear

Peter — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 23:11:24 +0000

As many people know, compost is an important ingredient to growing good vegetables. The process to creating compost takes as much time as there are ingredients. Below are a few pictures of some of the gear necessary for creating a good compost pile. The first two pictures show a parts of a yellow piece of equipment which is a hay shredder. The machine is towed behind the tractor at less than 1 mph (seriously) shoots hay onto the compost pile. The 600lb bail of hay sits in a trough with a hydraulic operated conveyor beneath it. The conveyor pushes the bail into the mouth of the toothed shredder which spins and shoots the separated hay out the mouth underneath, and onto the pile. The second apparatus, which looks like a wing over an arm with spiraled teeth, is a compost turner. Every time a new ingredient is added to the compost pile we much run the compost turner over the pile to chop it up and mix it in. As it rolls through at, once again, under 1 mph, the toothed arm spins to chop up more solid items to mix them in, while the wing over top keeps everything contained in a neat pile. When it is all said and done, each pile receives at least 5 bails of hay and has the turner run overtop at least 10 times; as I said it is a lengthy process!

Late Blight

Peter — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 15:55:41 +0000

Unfortunately we had a horrific sight in our second wave of tomato fields the other day, the first signs of late blight on those plants. As many may remember from a few years ago, late blight hit the east coast tomato crops hard. That year most of our tomato plants were wiped out, leaving out tomato supply very limited. This year we caught it early and it had only affected a portion of a field that we can see. The affected part of the field we tore out of the ground and either had it burned or thrown under a new compost pile. In both cases the disease will be killed, either by flames or the bacterial process of composting. Let us just hope that we caught it before it could spread further. Patrick will have a video out later of us disposing of the blight.

Digging Potatoes

Peter — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 17:04:29 +0000

I am so sorry that it has taken so long to get up a blog post! We have just switched over to a new web software, and it has been a little bit of a hassle to get everything organized, but without further ado… Here are some shots of the potato digger in action. The digger has a horizontal plow blade that digs into the ground to root up the buried potatoes and two flanking circular plow blades that dig the ground on the sides and keep the potatoes from flying sideways. The potatoes then run up a metal conveyor belt and out the back to be thrown onto the ground to be gathered up. The conveyor is gapped so that dirt will fall through the cracks, but narrow enough so that even the smallest potatoes stay on to be run out the back. On a dry day of digging this can be quite a dirty job, as the digging blade likes to throw up a little bit of dust!

Closing in on the Tomatoes

Peter — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 11:02:42 +0000

The tomato plants look very healthy, the fruits are growing quite large. With a little rain, and if the plants keep growing at their current rate, our customers may see tomatoes earlier than they have in a while. This year has been good to our crops and allowed everything else to come in early, with a little luck the same will happen for our tomato plants. As always though, no promises can be made, so keep enjoying the produce on the tables now. Still, keep your fingers crossed for an early tomato season!

Summer Berries

Peter — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 11:00:06 +0000

For the first time ever One Straw Farm is growing strawberries in the middle of July. Due to annual popular demand for the little red berry, this summer Uncle Drew decided to try a new variety of strawberry that can withstand the midsummer heat. This new variety of strawberry is not as high yield as the cultivar that we grow at the beginning of the summer. While we will try our best to make sure that every customer can get strawberries while we have them, we can make no promises. What I can promise is that the strawberries that you do get will be sweet and fresh.

Useful Space

Peter — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 16:51:23 +0000

We are in the process of growing a field of blueberry bushes at the farm. The bushes are now 2 years into their growth and are bearing some fruit already, but they will not be fully developed for another few years. This means that the field that the bushes are growing in would be relatively useless to us throughout those years in terms of gross farm production, but that is where a little creativity comes in to help. Over the past two years Uncle Drew has saw to it that those fields are still productive, even when the blueberries aren’t. Right now we have herbs like time and oregano growing in between the fledgling blueberry bushes, and we have peas growing in between the rows in the field. Now we have a field that would be unproductive to us over a four year span that is now growing three types of produce for our farm and our customers.

A New Greenhouse

Peter — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 16:32:57 +0000

Yesterday we began putting up our shelter for the pigs in the field, which happens to be a greenhouse. When used for growing plants, greenhouses are enclosed and their purpose is to trap in solar energy within the house, and regulate the amount of sunlight that permeates the glass or plastic that can reach the plants. Many greenhouses are also designed to to blog passing wind to further control the indoor heat and atmosphere. In order to further regulate sunlight you can attach layers of dark shade cloth to the top of the house. Because ours is going to be used as a cover for animals, the purpose is going to be to keep them cool. This means that we have to keep the front and back, as well as a portion of the sides of the house open for air to be able to pass through to keep it cooler. Also, we are going to add an extra layer of shade cloth to the top, so as to block as much sunlight as we can from reaching the pigs in order to keep them cool.

The Packing Shed

Peter — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 18:19:39 +0000

Here is a video of the guys bringing in a load of kohlrabi from the field. Before it can go to market the have to trim off excess leaves, wash all of the veggies, pack it in crates and then store it in the cooler until it is ready to get packed onto a truck destined to either a market or a CSA drop site. Every vegetable gets the same treatment and, as always, is handled with care.

Tomato Update

Peter — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 18:42:49 +0000

Here are the tomato plants as of this week. Over the past week they have shown a lot of growth, and even are producing baby tomato fruits. they are still about a month away from harvestable maturity, but, nonetheless, are looking healthy and early compared to years past. Who knows, with the way that everything else has been coming in early this year, maybe tomatos will follow suit, fingers crossed!

White Hall Palms

Peter — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 02:15:21 +0000

Kale is an enormously leafy plant before the leaves are picked off, but after the guys have been through a field and picked the stalks clean, what is left behind on the plant looks kinda cool. The curly kale looks a little bit like a palm tree without its bulk of leaves, and the lacinato looks like something you would find in the age of dinosaurs (maybe thats where its nickname of “dinosaur kale” came from).