Bay Branch Farm » in the dirt

Harvesting Garlic

Annabel — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 01:45:26 +0000

Well, the dog days of summer have arrived and the garlic tops have started to yellow and fall over. It’s time to harvest! Last fall, we used ag fabric as mulch and used a torch to put holes in the fabric for the garlic bulbs. We had some trepidation in harvesting it given this experiment, but all in all, it wasn’t too bad. We pulled the staples from the ag fabric and we plan to use it again this fall. And the garlic, for the most part, is huge! Spink wants to keep it for seed so we can double production next year. All I want to do is cook with it. The flavor is beyond compare!

Bulb just picked.

We took the staples out of the ag fabric and carefully dug out the bulbs.

When we finally got all the staples out, we just pulled the ag fabric up and over the top of the remaining garlic.

Garlic drying on an old swing set we picked up off the curb lawn.

Harvesting

Annabel — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 01:44:07 +0000

I wanted to share some comments about how we harvest our veggies. Since we are following the SPIN method, we harvest using our garden cart right over the rows. We generally each take a side and put the produce into a plastic tub placed in the garden cart. It is hard to believe, but we actually got 25 lbs of lettuce from one of our bins earlier this season. The more amazing part is that we actually managed to sell all of it and people asked for more! Sadly, our latest bed had to be composted (actually, we fed it to some local chickens, one higher option on the food chain than composting it). I think we left it out in the hot sun too long and it got bitter and tough. Lettuce is a cool weather crop and hot sun just doesn’t make for a good crop.

Since it’s been so hot, we try to harvest early in the morning before the sun starts beating down. We also hydrocool our veggies, which is basically a process of plunging the items into cold water to keep them fresh and crisp until they are washed, bagged and put in the fridge for storage.

Harvesting arugula in the rain. Notice the garden cart straddles the bed perfectly allowing us to harvest with ease.

We lifted this design for a wash screen from our friends at Urban Growth Farms. It is totally awesome for washing root veggies! Behind that you can see the basin sink we use for washing the greens. Spink built a table from an old counter top that we picked up on Craigslist, which serves as a great weigh and pack area. And, for storage, we bought an old fridge (gotta love Craigslist), which is meeting our needs currently. When we got that 25 lbs of lettuce, the fridge was packed to the gills with greens…pretty sweet!

The wash station for root crops

Tomorrow morning (at 6 am!) we will be harvesting green onions and carrots for the first time. We will probably employ the pitch fork or broad fork to help uproot both of those. Will post some pics of that later. Open to any harvesting tips you have to share!

What grows in clay and rocks?

Annabel — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:57:17 +0000

We have been pleasantly surprised by the success of many of our beds, especially considering the poor quality of our soil (mostly clay) and the numerous rocks that still plague us! While we’ve had to scrap a few beds due to poor germination, the bulk of the rows have really produced. For example, last week Spink harvested 25 pounds of lettuce from one 30′ x 25″ bed! Here are some recent pictures of what’s growing. We add compost every time we turn a bed over, but we still find clumps of clay and rocks every time we go out there. We are constantly weeding and picking rocks (hard to know which we do more frequently!). Overall, though, we are thoroughly pleased with this year’s yield to date.

First market day is coming soon. Please come out to see us and support locally grown food at the Lakewood Farmer’s Market opening June 26th at 10 am in front of Marc’s Plaza on Detroit.

Carrots and green onions - planted April 2nd

D'Avignon radishes planted May 21st

Potatoes

Leeks and onions

This is supposed to be a bed of spinach, but all we got is rocks! Had to pull the rocks and start over on this one....

Turning over beds

Annabel — Wed, 26 May 2010 01:35:17 +0000

Sunday, May 23rd we turned over two of our beds. We harvested the radish bed, pulled out more rocks (will the rock picking ever end???) and added some compost before planting more radishes. The other bed we turned over because we ended up with poor germination of our carrots and decided to start over from scratch. Not sure what happened there, but we only had a few sprouting. We are trying the burlap method again. Will post if this turns out better than last time. We do have another bed of carrots on which we used the burlap sacks and those are looking great!

Aerial View of the Farm

Annabel — Sun, 23 May 2010 01:16:23 +0000

Below is a view of the 21 beds we have planted. The green ones are ready to harvest or are in mid-harvest now.

First Harvest!

Annabel — Tue, 18 May 2010 02:32:43 +0000

The cool, wet weather has pushed our harvest date a bit later than expected…but we are pulling radishes out of the ground and harvesting baby arugula. Gotta love Spring!

Arugula

Radishes

Farm Update – 1 Month Later

Annabel — Sun, 02 May 2010 21:05:36 +0000

We started prepping and planting on April 2nd. It’s now a month later and we are still standing, though weary with fatigue and rough, calloused hands. The hard work has resulted in 20 beds (30′ x 25″) planted using the SPIN method. There is also an area of onions and potatoes that has been planted and will tie up that area of the farm for quite some time. We still have concern about our soil….lots of clay and still many rocks in the ground.

Can plants grow in clay and gravel? I guess we will find out! Despite this, the rows appear to be growing. A few more days like today and the veggies should thrive! Almost two months until our first market, so we will need to find other buyers in the interim. Interested? Check out our CSA!

Veggie Update

Annabel — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 01:58:24 +0000

Check out how things are growing at the farm! Since the beginning of April, we have managed to get 15 beds (30′ x 25″) prepped, composted, tilled and seeded. In addition, we’ve put in a few additional beds of potatoes and onions. Things are growing nicely so far.

Removed the burlap since carrots are sprouting. Took about 2 weeks for the carrots to germinate.

Onions and leeks planted April 17th.

Onions from seed planted April 2nd.

Spinach planted April 9th.

Crooked River Coffee – Yaya Carrots

Annabel — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 03:15:05 +0000

Being big fans of the Tiny Farm Blog, we are now trying one of his tried and true methods of carrot germination – the burlap method. We got burlap sacks from our friend at Crooked River Coffee, a local roaster in the area. We are excited to see how this method works. Basically, the burlap helps keep the soil warm and moist, while suppressing weed growth. As soon as we see the carrots begin to germinate, we’ll remove the burlap sacks. We’ve laid out the burlap end to end and used landscape staples to hold it in place. The other beds contain greens and other vegetable crops. Will post an update soon with results!

Jang Seeder

Annabel — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 02:36:02 +0000

Last year we purchased a Jang Clean Seeder for planting rows of veggies. The past 2 weekends we have used the seeder and wanted to share an update of how it works. Since, we are still awaiting germination on most of the plants, we cannot comment too much on its precision in terms of the number of seeds it plants. However, we have deciphered the gears to use and the planting wheels to use for each of our seeds, which was no easy feat! Hoping to see beautiful rows of veggies any day now (arugula is up, but too small to tell how the rows are going to shape up).

Here is a brief video showing the seeder in action:

Jang Clean Seeder

Jang in action