Spring Happenings 2015 and a BIG Announcement...

So much to do and so little time is our motto this spring... maybe that is every farmers motto in the spring but it seems especially so this year! 

First our BIG announcement!

We are the proud new owners of the Whitakers Farm Stand on Rt.16 next to Leavitts Bakery!

This has been a local family run farm stand for over 30 years and has a very large customer base. The Whitaker family was ready to retire from the "farm stand" life and offered the stand to us. This is a huge opportunity for us to grow our little farm and we are very excited to do so!

We are renovating the farm stand building and are hoping to open mid June. Besides our own veggies, honey, maple syrup, eggs, and broiler chickens we are hoping to have berries, meat, cheese and other local products. Stay tuned for updates on our grand opening date and hours of operation. 

Second, we are putting up a new High Tunnel! 

This one is twice as big as our other 2 tunnels and will help us to provide plenty of ripe and juicy tomatoes to the new stand. 

The day the tunnel was delivered the pieces lying on the ground are like a giant puzzle!

The guys putting the bows into place:

Once all the bows were in place we started on the perlings (the horizontal bars at the top).

The end walls are now up and we will be ready for plastic soon! Look for more pics coming this week.

And last but most definitely not least is the veggies! 

We have been non stop seeding and planting in order to get ready for the new stand. This is our earliest year yet for almost all of our crops and we have never had this much in the ground by Memorial Day! 

Besides planting we have been tilling up ground all over the farm to make room for all the little seedlings. Here is a freshly tilled area for all our carrots and onions:

The first little tomatoes are just starting to form up!

Check back for more updates coming soon...

Memorial Day Work Weekend 2013

We had an "all hands on deck" work weekend that ended with just the right amount of fun! Check it out... 

It was a wet and soggy start to the weekend but the ducks were loving it! They even found their Canada Geese friends had come back for a visit.

Our tomatoes have grown A LOT since this post and were needing to get into the ground in the worst way! We finally had all the plastic mulch and drip tube that we needed to get them in.

The beds were made and the drip tube was laid.

 Then came the plastic mulch. We decided to give the red mulch a try since it is supposed to help tomatoes grow stronger stems and larger fruit.

Next came the tomatoes! They were so big they already needed to be supported with the strings and clips!! On the outside edges we will be adding in some herbs and maybe hot peppers.

The farm stand got a fresh coat of paint, inside and out!

We are still working on the trim but it's looking pretty good.

Here is a view of the inside, honey, maple syrup and pastured eggs for sale each and every day until we start adding some produce as the season progresses. Check out our For Sale tab above for more info.

We also spent some time moving this low tunnel greenhouse which we constructed last fall as an extension to the winter chicken coop. We decided to use it to plant the peppers in. That would allow us to have more space in the high tunnels for tomatoes and cukes.

The broiler chickens also got moved to pasture this weekend. Here they are all snuggled together in one corner... not sure how any one bird will get to the water except by walking on the others??? Crazy birds!

 And finally came the fun! After a family barbecue and dessert we waited for dark and then the fireworks!! Jason our resident fireworks expert brought a Chinese lantern. It was a blast to watch it float really high and then slowly back down.

Our family firework experts are becoming quite good at putting on a great show! Had some amazing fireworks right in our back yard! 

 Can't wait until the 4th of July for the best firework show yet!

Update: October 2012

Things are winding down on the farm. James the oldest grandson in the family got his first lesson in tilling the fields today! He did a great job!!! It was such a beautiful fall day too, sunny, blue sky, fall colors, and a view of the mountains! Under the row cover we have some broccoli and cauliflower still growing.

We even got a smile out of him in this one! Who doesn't love riding on the tractor right???

In house one we pulled all the cucumbers except a few experimental ones that we started way too late but decided to leave them in and see what happens. The peppers are still hanging in there and actually have blossoms forming and peppers still growing! 

These may be the only cucumbers we get from these plants, the growth has slowed way down and although they have new blossoms they are growing VERY slow!

We also have some greens growing in this house. They are loving the cool temps!!! It seems like every time you walk in here they have gotten bigger! 

House two is another story... these tomatoes have finally succcumbed to the late blight that is so rampant this year. The greenhouse protected them for quite a while but in this photo you will notice towards the top the browning and dead leaves. On closer inspection it's a mess in here!!!

We still have some good reds here and there and lots of greens too. Maybe some green tomato mincemeat is in order???

Growing Update

The growing has begun in the high tunnels! We have cukes and tomatoes already planted and will be adding peppers and eggplant soon. You can see our soon to be farm stand off in the background, it needs quite a makeover but will be so cute when finished!

 We had some very frosty nights as you can see from this photo of Mt. Washington bright white and covered with snow. It was such a contrast from the greenery and blooming flowers down here in the valley.

St. Patricks Day at Grand View Farm

 What a crazy winter we are having this year! March 17th when we are usually buried in snow, we are enjoying an early spring! The crocus' are out and so are the...

 ...bees!!!

Our birthday boy, Mr. St. Patrick himself with the bees, we had to add this one just for the record books! It was in the 70's and is predicted to be the same all week!  Instead of making maple syrup today, it looks like we are making honey!

And what were the bees in such a "buzz" about so early in the season? 

The silver maples had just blossomed! This huge tree is just in front of the hives, as soon as you got close to it you actually could hear it buzzing! It was an amazing sound!!! Something we have never witnessed before!

The high tunnels got a dose manure and soil amendments today too. They are now ready for spring planting!

Fall Harvest Time

Doing some much needed harvesting and cleaning up this weekend! We ended up picking the last of our carrots! 6 buckets full!! That leaves just the eggplant and peppers to be cleaned out of house #2.

We all worked together passing pumpkins and squash from one to the next and into house #2. Here they are all lined up and ready for dividing.

 This is the bounty that went to each family! A wheel barrow full of squash and pumpkins!!!

More Veggie Updates 7/23/11

Our outside veggies are growing nicely and some are loving this heat wave we've had the past few days more than others. The broccoli was planted later than hoped for and is just starting to produce heads. It is doing well considering it is a cool weather crop and has some cabbage looper issues.

Here you can see some cabbage looper damage. The little green worms love the brassica family (broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts, cauliflower) of plants and eat the leaves. Once full, they form a cocoon and turn into a little white moth who then lays lots of eggs on the plants and the cycle starts again. We have been picking these off by hand but have not been able to keep up!

We harvested lots of peas on Saturday! Snap peas and shell peas. They have been enjoyed by all and are loved by the kids who pluck them off the vine and eat them raw for a garden snack!

The pumpkins are loaded with blossoms and bees and some nice fruits are forming.

Green peppers are coming along nicely! There are not a lot right now but they are loaded with buds and the plants look really nice.

Our eggplants are blossoming and are starting to form tiny veggies. Unfortunately we also noticed the were seriounsly infested with aphids. We hope to control them before loosing the plants.

We also harvested LOTS of green beans, cucumbers, zucchini, and summer squash on Saturday. It was a full day of harvesting! We will be canning beans this week and enjoying all sorts of fresh ones at meals!

Inspection Day 7/20/11

Today was inspection day, two representatives from NRCS came to inspect the high tunnels and sign the necessary paperwork so our grant can be completed.

We are all so happy to move on from the "rush" of needing to have them completed! Now let the harvesting begin!!

Tunnel #1 Update 7/16/11

We are all so thrilled to see our veggies GROWING bigger and bigger each day! Check out these green tomatoes! We can't wait to sink our teeth into these!!

The cherry tomatoes are doing really well also. There are even some starting to turn orange.

We just started to pick cucumbers. If we are not diligent about snipping off runners it is like a real jungle in there!

The leaves are huge!!

This is the very first vine to reach the top bar! We will now train it to come back down over the bar and let one of the runners go so it will now have two vines.

Outside tunnel #1 is looking really great with the addition of these doors that let the sun shine through in the morning!