Early Harvest

       I have written a lot lately about the adversity our little farm project has faced and I have written about some of the qualities needed to keep this project going. I'm happy to write about the beginning of success and what this means to us. We are still dealing with problems as any farm will but it feels like we are making headway and by headway I mean we are finally seeing and eating some of the fruits of our labors. Last weekend we picked our first yellow crooked neck squash and now they are coming so plentifully that we have a refrigerator full of them and I will be blanching and freezing a bunch this coming weekend. Our cucumbers are also coming in at a rapid rate and Kathy has made two one quart jars of refrigerator dill pickles and a full container of bread and butter pickles. I was so impressed with the taste and quality of her effort that I suggested we buy more canning jars and sell her pickles at a roadside stand and to friends and facebook fans. The tomato plants have many fruits set and we are waiting for them to ripen to that beautiful red color that makes them look and taste so good. We picked our first batch of green beans the other day and it looks like there will have to be a day dedicated to just picking beans. This accounts for some of the early harvest and while there is more to come it is nice to taste the first fruits of your labor. There are still vegetables to come and we should see winter squash growing well and brussel sprouts shooting up and getting ready to be harvested. I pulled five pounds of potatoes from the ground which we had tonight for dinner and it looks like we'll get about fifty to sixty pounds this year.

     There has been a lot of success lately with the early harvest and the latter harvest of onions, raspberries, bush beans, kale, and squash should be good. I anticipate being to sell many of our vegetables and berries in the next month. There are still some questions regarding our buck rabbit Chase and so I have made a decision to keep one of his sons from the last litter. Chase has been to the vet and is making progress so I haven't given up on the sire of several excellent litters but I have found on the farm better to be safe than sorry. This is especially true as we have more requests for rabbit meat than we have rabbits which may be a difficult but not undesirable place to be in.

       Kathy and I have been researching setting up a honey bee hive or two next year and one of the first things every book recommends is check your town zoning laws to see if it's even allowed in your town. I thought this would be good advise to follow and while checking our zoning laws I found that we are allowed to have chickens which we previously banned in town. This was one of Kathy's desires for our farm and when we were told we couldn't have them it led to us raising rabbits and thus we turned lemons into lemonade. We have found that we can add ice to our lemonade and are planning to add chickens to the farm next year. It turns out that the early harvest has inspired us to grow our farm rather than give in to disappointment and quit. We still have a lot on our plate but we'll can, pickle and sell all we are able to until our plate is clean. Early harvest, what a great time and I can't wait for the latter harvest to come and to continue with excitement of growing our farm.