Sweet Local Farm

You would think in this period of relentlessly consistent rain that the last thing on our minds would be collecting rain water. However, every New Englander knows that in an instant we can be bombarded with searing hot weather coupled with a month-long dry spell.

Here are two 60 gallon plastic barrels that I have rigged up to collect rain water from the roof tops of our farm.

No, the flavor of the rain water is not ‘grape’ and ‘fruit’. These were purchased off of Craig’s list and apparently came from a candy factory in Massachusetts.

To read more on this Project, visit: http://sweetlocalfarm.com/projects/rain-water-harvesting/

The rain has stopped for a few days and now things are finally starting to really take off.

Yummy crisp lettuce:

Healthy fresh broccoli:

Gigantic Kale:

My new favorite food, Swiss Chard:

Pumpkin vine that survived the bunny:

Cucumbers ready to be pickles:

Corn and beans:

Pretty and delicious yellow squash:

And this little guy says hi:

our barn

Everything I Really Need to Know, I Learned Growing Up on a Farm
Source: Progressive Farmer Magazine — a column written by Editor Jack Odle

Faith. I’ve watched the planting of tiny seeds and had the assurance that they would sprout and make a good crop. I’ve watched a newborn calf struggle to its feet and understood this fragile animal would grow into a productive cow.

Compassion. I’ve seen my Dad get off his tractor to move a bird’s nest out of the way so he could cultivate the field.

Patience. I know everything happens according to nature’s schedule. We can’t speed it up or slow it down; we can only work within its constraints.

Listen to our friend, Jessica Ilyse Smith, report on GE Corn for a radio program called Living on Earth. Click the mp3 to download and listen to the radio program entitled “GE Corn Causes Concern”.

The idea of genetically modified food, or frankenfoods, really freaks me out. Food is so good in its natural state, why mess with it?

Here is an interesting article written on Global Post.

The Chicken Poop Solution

Fifty miles outside of Beijing, a farm with more than three million chickens is collecting its daily torrent of guano, harvesting the methane, and using it to generate 14,600 megawatt hours of electricity a year, enough for more than 10,000 homes. That might not stave off the electricity shortages in Beijing’s suburbs, but it will help.

The manure scheme is good news for everyone. In the past, the methane went into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. The fecal matter seeped into the groundwater, potentially causing illness. Using the biogas from the manure instead of dirtier coal-fired power is expected to cut the equivalent of 95,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year.

Appears like it’s a great solution to our impending energy crisis. However, I can’t help but agree with this commentor:

“good for green energy concerns, but the conditions those chickens live under are abhorrent by even today’s low standards.” – Posted by Branker on July 22, 2009 03:02 ET

A looming question I have is, what are the true effects on our planet of excrement produced by large-scale factory farms?

Upon a little research, I came upon this article on GoVeg.com: environment-pollution

Animals raised for food produce 130 times as much excrement as the entire U.S. population, roughly 89,000 pounds per second, all without the benefit of waste treatment systems.

The use of excrement as energy does do some good to help alleviate the other problems it causes, such as water contamination and air pollution. But in a perfect world, we would be relieved of these problems to begin with by completely reducing the existence of factory farms and relying on small scale local farmers. If most small farmers are anything like us at Sweet Local, 100% of that excrement is going back into the soil to help produce healthy crops.

We had been raising 15 healthy pumpkin vines in pots in anticipation of planting them when they got big enough. They finally got to a healthy size, so we planted them in a patch of our field that we had been preparing for a few weeks now.

This patch in particular had a lot of weeds. So rather than try to pull them out or rototil, I put a tarp over it for an extended period of time to deny the plants of sun and water. What developed under that tarp was a very unique eco-system, that consisted of a snake, a baby bunny, an unidentified animal (looked like a cross between a rat and a groundhog), hoards of toads, and many insect varieties.

When the pumpkin vines were big enough, we removed the tarp and planted each of them. The next morning, there were only 6 remaining. Our guess was that the baby bunny has a special craving for young pumpkin leaves. The 9 that had disappeared were completely devoured. Not even a little bit of stem was left.

In an attempt to save the surviving plants, I built these make shift ‘pumpkin cages’ that will remain over each pumpkin vine until they run out of space. These have been in effect for over a week now, and the plants are doing great.

Come Fall Harvest, it will be pumpkin pie for us all!!

Myself, my Grandma, and my sister rock it out at the Hot as July Dance Party

Make sure you turn your volume up.