Winter on a farm

"What do you do in the winter?"

This is the question most people (inlcuding my own family at Christmas dinner!) ask me this time of year.  It is true that farmers get to hibernate a little bit, but there is still plenty of farming happening in the winter.  Since the farm stand ended in November, we began prepping our soil for next year.  Soil samples were taken and we applied 32 tons of lime on our vegetable and chicken pasture fields.  Having the correct soil pH is essential for soil health, improving vegetable yields and for growing nutritious grass for animals to graze on.  With the help of the NRCS, we began an erosion prevention program at the farm.  Since Moose Hill Farm's fields are quite sloped and quite wet for most of the year, the NRCS came out with their specialized equipment last fall to help map out the farm's contours much more accurately than I could with the naked eye.  I re-plowed as many of these new contours (and a new separate flower garden!) as I could before the first snowfall came.  This work will be resumed sometime in March when the ground thaws.    

Now that the fields are buried in snow, there is a lot of "indoor" work to be done.  We will continue to grow and sell salad greens in our greenhouse to the Egleston Farmers Market in JP through the end of January.  Then we will have to start prepping the greenhouse for next year's seedlings.  I like for the greenhouse to go through a period of rest the month before our spring seeding begins.  With nothing growing in the greenhouse for that time, we can be sure that all "bad bugs" and plant diseases die off during the hard freeze that usually happens in February.  Speaking of the greenhouse, 6000lbs of potting soil has already been delivered to the farm for the seeding to commence in March.

What seeds will we be planting?  Well, those decisions are being made right now!  There is nothing like flipping through all the colorful seed catalogs this time of year next to a warm fire with a cup of hot tea in hand.  This is the time for a farmer to dream and swoon over all the yummy harvests to come.  And then onto spread sheets; lots and lots of spread sheets.  Spread sheets that manage the farm's budget and what new equipment and supplies to buy.  Spread sheets that manage how much to grow for the CSA, for our farm stand, for our new flower garden and for our new spring seedling sale.  Spread sheets to keep track of how many seeds to order, when and how many seeds to plant, and when and where to plant those seedlings in our fields.  Even the chickens get their own spread sheet.  This means Farmer Molly gets to drink a lot of coffee and listen to a lot of Pandora stations during January and February. 

Then there is the business of deciding what freindly, helpful faces you will be meeting in the fields next year.  Hopefully there will be a nice mix of experienced and new apprentices and work-for-shares to help bring in the 2014 harvest.  This is also the time of year that your farmer and apprentices get to expand their farming knowledge.  Through conferences, online courses, and farm visits, we get to learn about new and improved growing techniques.

This is the time of year to strengthen and make new connections to our community.  We are so excited to be working with the City Harvest Youth Crew again and are very excited about our new connections with the Norfolk Aggie High School in Walpole.  And of course we are very pleased to be working with our hunger relief partners again.  In fact, we have a movie night that we are really excited to tell you about...

Come to the farm on January 16th at 7pm for a viewing of A Place at the Table, from the makers of Food, Inc.  This documentary tackles the hard hitting questions of why there are so many starving and malnourished families here in the United States.  Open to everyone, it is being held in the Main House conference room (the entrance where the eggs are sold out of).  We will have a discussion afterwards about how the farm can play a role in hunger relief in our community.  We ask that you bring either $5 worth of non-perishable goods or a $5 donation.  All proceeds go to the Canton Food Pantry; one of the the food pantries we supplied fresh produce to this past CSA season.  Come visit your farm in the winter! 

Farmer Molly