Well it sure doesn't seem like spring is just around the corner but I guess it is. Fields are frozen and muddy, but it's time to get going. I got my first seed order today and it's time to get them started inside. I still haven't gotten lime down on the fields and that worries me. I read a good article today about burning the asparagus patch. I have thought for a while that it seemed like a good idea. All those left over weeds that build up late in the summer make a great nesting place for rabbits and other pests. Burning the patch in March gets rid of them and allows you to get a good leaf mulch down before they start in again. The article says the asparagus will come up through the mulch but the weeds won't. I'm going to burn all my fields when they dry out enough. Becca doesn't like it but I think it's a great way to get started fresh.

One exciting note about this year is that my friend and neighbor, Jim Joyner, and I are trying a new method called Aquaponics in a green house he has. We have been growing lettuces and other greens in it for about a year now and are ready to go at it full throttle this year. The plants grow in a gravel bed with water running under the beds. This promotes quick growth, and also allows you to control the root temperatures by adjusting the water temps. So, in the heat of summer you can run cool water under them and continue producing nice fresh leaf lettuces which normally would bolt in such hot weather. Most people have heard of Hydroponics, which is similar. The difference is that the plants still get the vital nutrients and minerals from the Aquaponic method where with Hydroponics the plants grow only in water, and therefore don't have the taste or health values of things grown in soil. We plan on introducing a few new things to the beds this year and also grow through the winter as well.

We are also making a bigger effort to grow our market and restaurant sales this summer. I have a few ideas of how we can do this. The biggest is that we will not plant in the traditional rows as we have in the past. We started last year with what are essentially raised beds in the fields. These beds allow us to grow much more per square inch and eliminate a lot of the work involved in the row planting. I have enlisted our neighbor Jake to help us again this year. That man can do the work of three men in the fields. Between him and my two kids should have us in good shape when the weeds hit.

Well, I guess I need to get to work instead of sitting here blogging. It sure is cold out though...

Come on Spring!!

It's almost the end of September here at Blues Hill Farm. In some ways it's sad to see the days getting shorter. Anna and I were cutting okra yesterday after supper and it was dark by the time we got done at a little after seven. In another way it is a relief to know the summers sweating is coming to an end. This year the heat wasn't as bad as in the past but 85 degrees in the middle of a field is still plenty hot. Either way it is nice to live in a place where the seasons change and with each one comes something different to do on the farm.
This year was kind of mixed as far as farm production. Some things did very well while others didn't do as well as I would have liked. Farmers can always complain about the weather in some way or another. This year I got to complain about too much rain. It seemed like every time I was ready to weed it would rain again. Some of my beans and squash just got swallowed up. I even had to get out the weedeater to clean up the okra patch. It is doing fine now though. Good old tough okra. Each year I try and learn from my mistakes and this year has taught me I need to come up with some better ways of keeping the weeds down. I was lucky enough to get some help from our neighbor, Jake, at the tail end of the season and he has been a great help. I hope to be able to depend on him next year as well. He is a heck of a farm hand.
This year we also plowed up about 75 percent of our front yard so we could grow more there. I got some great squash and tomatoes from it and I will plant it in cover crops this fall and be ready to use it next may. My back field seems to stay wet until late in May so I think this will really help. I also discovered a great new kind of potato this year. It is called the Wood Prairie Blush. It comes from our friends at Wood Prairie Farm in Maine. I had been buying seed potatoes from them for years and this year they told me about these and I gave them a try. It is a cross between a Yukon Gold and a red potato. I loved them and so did my CSA members and friends. They produced very well and were by far the best tasting potato I've ever had.
I hope to take on more restaurants next year and just keep growing. We will be holding our annual Shiitake Mushroom workshop this fall in October and I will post more information about it this week. Thanks for visiting our site and don't be a stranger! Farmer Johnny

Tags: Seasons end

Wow! I can't believe our farm has a web site now. Thanks to my wife, Becca, and son, Hank, it has really happened. I would never have been able to do it. I thought you had to hire someone and pay lots of money to get something like this.

I'm excited about all the possibilities this brings. I will tell you up front that I'm better at digging in the dirt than I am at writing or using the computer. Hank had to show me how to do this part too. I think I will keep this as a journal about what kinds of things are going on here on the farm.

I suppose I should give you some background about me and my family first. I grew up just outside Nashville on the Cheatham County line. We lived in a house in the woods where my father had also been raised. We didn't do a lot of farming there although I spent almost all my time in the woods or fishing. During the summers I would stay on my grandfathers large farm in Cannon County. I would pick beans and tomatoes, haul hay, and just about everything else kids can do on a farm. My cousins and I rode horses and sometimes even wrestled calves when no one was looking. Just about all my mothers relatives had farms so I experienced a lot of different aspects of the farming life. After high school my parents bought a farm in Coffee County where we raised beef cattle and a large garden. I spent many mornings bottle feeding calves we had gotten from a dairy down the road. I would often get to class at the local community college and realize I had calf stuff on my pants legs.

Not long after that I left for a bigger university, and thought I was putting the farming life behind me forever. It was paved roads and clean pants for me. Ten years later I met my wife and we soon started our own family. We bought a house in a nice subdivision and settled in. When my daughter turned 2 (Hank was 4) I started to grow tired of the city. I was worried about them playing outside on our fairly busy street. I started a little garden in our backyard because we were craving something fresh. I was also wanting to grow things for myself. We had poor soil and too much shade so all we got were a few cukes and a couple of sad tomatoes. Becca and I started talking about going back to the country. She too had grown up on a farm in Columbia, TN. We both wanted our kids to have the same life we had enjoyed when growing up. Woods to roam, creeks to wade, and most of all, dirt to dig in and grow our own food. Like most farm kids we had grown tired of it by the time we were teenagers, but now were feeling the call to return home.

So after two long years of looking at every falling down shack in a 80 mile radius we found our farm. The first day we drove up following our realtor I turned to Becca as we made our way up the winding, shade covered driveway, and said; I sure hope this is it. It was...

We moved in in April and I got out my hoe and headed up to the field one morning. I stood in the middle of the green field and turned in circles. I was very excited about getting our garden going. It then dawned on me that I had no idea how to get started. All those years on the farm hadn't prepared me for this. I had always worked on the farm, but had never actually planned a big crop or prepared the ground for one. I had been just cheap labor. I struggled through those first few years and made lots of mistakes. If not for my wife's teaching salary we certainly would have starved. All while sitting on some of the most fertile ground I had ever seen. Kind of like dying of thirst floating on a raft in the ocean.

After a while I started figuring things out. I read books and questioned anyone I thought could help. I broke things and planted things that never came up. I will always remember the first year I grew enough things to have a meal consisting entirely of vegetables we had grown. I felt like I had hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth!

Since then our farm has continued to grow. About five years ago I grew a crop of beans and potatoes that proved way too much for us to eat and store. I began selling baskets of produce to some friends. Then the next year I grew too much for them and us. I found a restaurant willing to buy anything I had. Now we supply the restaurant with some things and have a CSA. I still learn new things every year and keep trying to grow more as well as newer varieties. I can also say I enjoy it more than anything I've ever done. My children have been learning right along with me and seem to love it as well. Hopefully when they feel the call to return home after their young adult adventures they won't be as clueless as I was.

I always tell people; I traveled a long way to get right back to where I started. Home, on the farm.

Tags: getting started organic farming