Happy Spring in whatever guise you celebrate it!!!

Happy Spring in whatever guise you celebrate it!!! Passover and Easter are early this year – but we all need the blast of color that those holidays bring after this LLOONNGG traditional New England winter…I’ve never been all that fond of tradition and this winter is no exception! We’re only now getting to clean out the goat pens (and this is critical with new babies only about 2 weeks away!!).  Usually, we clean out in mid-January during the “thaw” which barely happened and then again, the beginning of March…Remember the snow? Ugh!!!  It took too long for us to have the farm open up enough (and find on farm time enough!!) to get the job at least started. We’ll post some cute pictures once the babies are on the ground…it makes the work worthwhile to smile at their antics…

Since I mentioned cleaning pens – and therefore the manure that comes from that job – let’s take a quick look at that farm product.  Goat manure is a very decent soil amendment but, like anything else, can be overdone.  Fresh manure is loaded with nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium etc.  All good things but…There are no legal definitions or any other protections for the consumer of purchased manures – either by the bag or from a local farm.  There are brands that are better than others (and that’s worth learning) and there are the conversations that you’ll have with the farmer that you buy your manure from. 

Veggie and quality flower gardens can use a decent application of manure annually.  Some fruit bushes can handle the intensity of manures (especially Rhubarb – best tasting rhubarb comes from an annual application of at least 2 cu ft per established plant – learned that from an old Yankee gardener and he was dead right!!! – best rhubarb I’ve ever had…)  Fruit trees and many other fruiting bushes need a light application if anything and might be better with none or well composted with wood debris. 

And here comes a lesson on composting – animal manures of all kinds should be composted and mixed with other carbon sources if not already mixed in to a fair amount of carbon rich bedding (like shavings and sawdust, straw and hay – that kind of thing).  Un-composted manures carry the risk of spreading E.coli onto beds that will have edible plants grown in them and therefore, can be dangerous to people.  That’s why the USDA organic standards mandate that there’s a lag time of 120 days before you can grow a crop that contacts the soil (like carrots or onions) and 90 days for crops NOT in contact with the soil (like staked tomatoes, cukes – that kind of thing). 

Here on the farm, we try to get our key tomato bed (tomatoes LOVE manures and rich soil support) done in November with our last clean out before winter so we’re more than ready to go when the planting season starts in mid-May. We also try and get a load of wood chip dropped each year and use that as a great mixer for the beds as well – the decaying wood can absorb and buffer a lot of the excess nutrition found in a good manure.

The picture below shows the tomato bed in the background and our broccoli in the front along with some chard and marigolds – we love the cheer of marigolds!

And one last thought – the quality of the manure is entirely based on the quality of the animal and the foods that it ate…we’re EXTREMELY careful with how we manage the food for the goats and that means that the manure we use is superb as well.  I know, I know – a truly funny thought…but…if you look at farming books from before WWII, they talk about the reality of feeding for rate of gain, quality of products AND quality of manure to return to the fields…perhaps there’s something to be said for tradition after all!!

Now – onto more inspiring topics than managing manures!!!

With the arrival of Passover and Easter all sorts of other arrivals are immanent!  Let’s see…dahlias and other summer bulbs are already in the store. Baby chicks started coming in this week.  Potatoes should be in the end of next week.  Bare root strawberries, asparagus and rhubarb right after that. Then the Side Yard Nursery will really start coming alive as the pansies, early cold veggies and the start of perennials and shrubs start arriving.  Many of you have been in with the stunning amount of vole damage discovered as the snows retreated L.  We’ll have lots of new fruit trees to replace the ones the voles decimated.  AND – we’ll ALL remember to put the wire cages around their trunks to protect them from the next major snowy winter.  Everyone forgot that the norm for young fruit trees in New England is to protect their bark for the first 5-7 years of growth…drat those voles for reminding us WHY we have to do that!

Food circles: small, self-sustaining networks of production and care.

Now that we’re talking about food crops – and because the national and world scene does make one pay attention to supply chains – have you ever heard of a food circle?  Most of the time, food circles are developed in urban areas around concerns of food access/food justice.  I’ve had several conversations in the past winter with people coming in to the store talking about a slightly different kind of food circle, and I wanted to drop a thought about it here. 

There are a lot of people trying to get some kind of personal control over parts of their food supply.  It’s been called homesteading or 5 Acres and Independence (a classic!) or permaculture or…the versions are as diverse as the people trying to make it work. Part of what the conversations have been about is the fact that different farms and farmers will have strengths and weaknesses.  Makes sense, of course…personally, my sister and I are really into Nigerian Dwarf milk goat genetics, tomatoes, squash and cucumbers. This means that we generally have extra milk, tomatoes and squash, but don’t grow beans (green or dried), lettuce or eggs.  That meant (before the store) that we could trade our excess for someone else’s excess.  And this doesn’t have to be limited to food.  This concept is actually the true start of a micronized local economy and can be built up from there, but that’s a HUGE topic!!!  No worries!!  Not going there!!!  Just dropping ideas into the zeitgeist…

This concept, in its expanded form, can also lead to true agricultural development in the region as individual farms develop enough experience and depth of product to have enough quality food to sell.  Homesteaders can become regional providers.  Think about all of the local vendors that we have in the local displays at the front of the store.  And there’s room for more. 

In fact, there’s an unexpected potential coming into the region that you might want to know about…

Introducing Bionutrient Dense Food –

how to know it and how to grow it!

Last month I showed you the pictures of the rabbits – with the fundamental difference between siblings raised on different quality food supplies.  This is a topic that has interested me for at least 30 years because it ties into everything connected to land, healthy systems, and healthy plants and animals (like the goats and the tomatoes!)

Dan Kittredge from the Bionutrient Institute - https://www.bionutrientinstitute.org – will be presenting fascinating information on research that’s been done into the variations in quality in our food supply.  This is a HUGE step!  Everyone seems to intuitively know that there are differences in the food supply but it’s been incredibly difficult (and expensive!!) to prove it. 

Dan and his organization have spent the last 10 years working on exactly this problem and have finally amassed enough data points to demonstrate that reality – that there are real differences in the quality of the food we purchase and eat – AND – that the products that test strongest are not from one particular approach (like organic, conventional, regenerative, biodynamic or any other “growing dogma”).  He’ll go over the one point that all high testing products had in common…and isn’t that enough to make you curious?!?  There’s even enough information gathered for a really interesting (and fairly dense!) article in the journal Nature.  Here’s the link if you’re curious… https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-52713-0.epdf?sharing_token=gxi_wHorytqVCfF8vneUUdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Pw52-uxf0pdDHhnWl4tKvy65tdqGqJgdThN0YNwWwR68KHMrNQgHC7FjYHcWPzendlHN0KA3uF1eV5lod1s6mTBygdXPNk1REXzQrH0vmzUmPLyKlTBBu06osPwC8kG2Y%3D  and I did warn you about the density -think of it as the precursor for nutrient dense food J

The program will be focused on the research but also on the potential for a training program in the North Central Mass region for farmers who are interested in developing stronger growing programs to produce better quality products – and this applies to more than vegetable production!!  Remember the rabbits (and our goats!), and some of the earliest work was done on beef…  There will also be a support program for everyone else who’s interested in the program but who’s not managing a farm program for production.  All in all – it’s an outstanding opportunity for the region – pass the word!   Here are the particulars: May 3rd, 2:30-4:30pm, at the Westminster Senior Center, 69 West Main St, Westminster, MA and it’s free! 

And last – but not least!!

– here are the workshop options at The Good Earth!

Here’s the list for the store’s offerings through early May (no workshops mid-May – July 4^th – way toooooo busy!!!)

4/4   Garden to support Bees, Butterflies, Birds and other Pollinators  

          10:00-11:30 $15 - limit 10

Pollinators are in fairly desperate need of support across the region.  Numbers are falling. But you can help!  Learn how to make positive changes in your yard, your neighborhood, and your town.  There’s LOTS to be done– YOU can do it.

4/11  Adding Fruit Trees/Shrubs into Your Yard 

         1:00-2:30 $15 – limit 10

Thinking about adding Fruit trees and shrubs to your yard? Come learn the tricks and solutions that can help you be successful!            

4/18     Building a Raised Bed 

1:00-2:30, $15 – limit 10

Raised beds are a boon to anyone who can’t (or won’t) get down on the ground and can be placed anywhere regardless of soil quality (or no soil at all) below the bed…But…a lot of raised beds don’t thrive and produce.  There are tricks that will assure your success and that you can put into practice.  

4/25     Learning How to Do Container Gardening

            1:00-2:30, $30– limit 10       

All sorts of plants can be grown in containers – even corn and carrots!  Learn about soil mixes and fertilizer support needed for successful container gardening and take home your own planted pot.

5/2       Introducing Beehive Management for the Homeowner

         10:00-11:30, $15 – limit 10

Learn the basics of hive management, including how to keep bears away, maintain a healthy hive, harvest honey, winterize the hive and other details that lead to a success with honeybees.

5/2       Mineral Mixing Day - our most popular workshop!

1:00- 2:30 ($15 plus cost of mix) – limit 12

New England soils are very old and damaged soils – but you can change that!!!  Learn how to mix a complex stone dust mix that gets added to all kinds of soil to bring your soil back to life.  This is where you get a chance to learn what different minerals do, how they look and feel, to mix the spring mineral mix -and get to take some home to experiment with!