Things are non-stop go, go, go here on the farm.

Mom and I are running around getting the fields cleared for this year’s crops, crossing our fingers constantly that the new warm nights we’re seeing will stick around – and wondering if the evil wind will ever five us a break.

We’re entering the second month of running the farm stand and all of our friends and neighbors stopping back by has reminded us why we quit doing the Farmer’s Market! It has been beyond lovely to sit and have actual conversations with folks, getting to know customers in a way we just haven’t had the time to do in the past!

I’m hoping that the next few months will give us the opportunity to get know more of you better while proving fresh veg to the community.

That being said. We will almost certainly be closed on Mother’s day. Either that or I’ll be running the stand. Mom deserves to enjoy her special day!

If all y’all haven’t ordered or stopped by lately, I have some beautiful iris and narcissus bouquets available for sale.

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Location:Jay Rd,Boulder,United States

While I’m working my tail off to get the greenhouse set for spring and the fields ready for the May planting season, mom’s slaving away at transplanting all of our happy little seedlings into bigger homes. While I’m good at it, she’s exceptional! She’s fast and she seems to get a lot less stressed plants than me. Since it’s a fairly inactive job, I’m happy to leave it in her mighty hands.

Nicolle posted about us at her blog Rhythm of the Seasons and for some fun adventures in local eating, I highly recommend Boulder Locavore

And since Nicolle mentioned that she wasn’t sure what’s up in the greenhouse in her blog, here’s a few pictures of our second home right now.

Whew! I think I avoided showing the worst of the weeds and mess!

Okay, I’ve got 3 hours of daylight left and 300 things to do. Don’t forget the farm stand opens Friday!

Cheers!

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Things here on the farm are keeping me busier than ever, especially with out addition of a new puppy to the family!

While a new puppy in the family is a lot more work, Lady Bug is really happy with her new play-mate and I’m happy when she’s happy.

In addition to the new puppy, my chicks started hatching right after he was adopted, so I’ve been running around like a maniac. A maniac surrounded by adorable babies!

Okay, I’m off to get some field work done in this gorgeous weather!

I hope all y’all have a great weekend!

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A big part of my spring preparation every year is making enough compost to fertilize the soil here on the farm. Because we’re on a very heavy yellow clay, good top soil management is key to our survival. That’s a big part of why most of the fields on the farm have black landscaping fabric covering it. While this does mean a lot of extra work to lift the plastic and apply compost, it keeps the 50+ mph winds we regularly experience here on the farm from blowing away all my hard work.

I have multiple piles going at any given time during the year, but spring is one of the best times for me to maintain them; as I’m not as busy as I will be in April/May.

One of the greatest challenges to our composting is that the USDA regulates compost and its production for farms very closely. This is primarily to ensure that the compost used in farming that contains manures doesn’t end up making consumers sick.

It’s absolutely valid reasoning, but it does make for a lot more work and documentation. Sigh.

Okay, on to the good stuff!

For the most part, I use a “hot” composting system which indicates that my main source of nitrogen for the piles is manure. I have to carefully regulate my ratio of carbon to nitrogen for my piles (30:1 or better), turn them many times and keep a consistent heat of between 131 and 171 degrees for at least 15 days to ensure that the compost burns off any viruses, weed seed, and weed roots.

Yeah, that’s a good manure source.

One of my favorite parts of composting is the worms! While many people think that any worm will do, this isn’t necessarily true. Some worms are more active and capable of eating various materials than others.

The best worm for compost, without a doubt is the big fat red ones you find right under a pile of leaves that’s gotten wet. Or in my case, under the boards of my greenhouse.

These worms are super active, work near the top of the pile to keep moisture and oxygen in the pile (super important!) and can gnaw their way through everything from vegetation to boards, as you can see!

They’re the hard workers that make your winter garden mulch come apart so early in the spring. But it takes a LOT of them! It takes almost half a pound of them to cold compost a 30 gallon trash can in 8 weeks!

Needless to say, I hunt and excavate these fellow like mad every spring to add to my piles. And when the piles are done, I’m adding awesome critters to my beds!

Anywho, I thought all y’all might enjoy seeing my buddies up close and personal. See you in March!

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I’m super excited that so many of our greenhouse plants have finally decided to get moving again, the web site has a ton of great stuff listed again! Whew!

The incubating eggs are doing extremely well, too! I candled them yesterday and it looks like 37/40 are doing something. While that’s no guarantee that they’ll hatch, I’m very hopeful.

My compost piles are nice and comfy warm still and the little bit of moisture coming down will save me some trouble; but I still have a ton of work to do outside to get us ready for spring.

Right now my biggest concern is the revamping of the asparagus rows. Asparagus, while very hearty, has a tendency to spread while simultaneously binding around its own roots. This can cause it to start coming up small and more stringy. And nobody likes stringy asparagus.

Unfortunately, it takes 3 years for asparagus to settle in for a full crop and only two years to become over-spread. It also has to be buried over 6 inches down (and dug up from there too). And a plant will only produce for 8 weeks of the year when it’s reached full maturity.

So if you ever wonder why small farms price asparagus so high, especially those of us who are dedicated to hand labor and not machinery… Now you know.

Any-who, I’m off to see what kind of outside work I can get done today and plant another bed of spinach in the greenhouse. Yay!

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Location:Jay Hill Farm

His name is Lord Limington and he makes his home here in our greenhouse.

I’m happy to report that he has settled in beautifully, as you can see from this photo!

While I doubt we’ll ever be a local source of citrus for BoCo, it’s super cool to see that we COULD have a small batch of trees for the family.

Jealous yet?

Here’s a close up of the maturing babies!

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Location:Jay Hill Farm Greenhouse Jay Rd,Boulder,United States

Welcome to day 3 of the eggs incubating! I’m also going to be re-potting the artichokes (yes, I said artichokes!) and transplanting some of our hot peppers. With any luck, we’re looking like we’ll have much earlier season for some of our crops than we ever have in the past.

I’m really looking forward to the increase in egg production this fall, though. I know we’ve been short a lot the last few winters and I’m doing everything I can to get all y’all your fix.

I hope this day is lovely for all of you, spring is just around the corner!

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Things are starting to move at a faster pace here on the farm.  I’m trying hard to get myself in gear for the upcoming rush of planting, digging, and hauling that comes with March.

The snow we got yesterday, while annoying to drive in, was a blessing for the farm and our fields.  With any luck we’ll be fully melted by tomorrow and back at it!

I’m excited to say that we’ve added some new produce to the site, 3 types of radishes as well as our famous Egyptian bunching onions and baby turnip greens.  The turnips are the size of a small marble right now, but they tend to grow pretty fast.

I’ve also planted new beds of beets, carrots and radishes over the last week, with any luck, we’ll have a really strong spring for y’all.

The chickens continue to lay slowly, especially with this spate of cold weather.  They tend to just stop on us, so eggs are still hard to ration.  Please feel free to order in advance to pick up the day listed as available in the order online section.

I hope y’all are enjoying this sunshine, I’m off to plant… something.

Cheers!

And voila!  Amazingly enough, -15 degrees at night and -1 during the day forces me to be a good girl and get those pesky jobs done.  It’s that or explain to Mom why it sounds like I’m playing World of Warcraft. *sigh*

Somehow we’ve survived the last few days… *crossed fingers*

The lettuce got hit particularly hard, as did the kale.  But since I’ve had them “sold out” for weeks now… I suppose that’s not much of a change.  It will slow down how quickly we can get back on track with them though.  Doh!

I’d better get back to perfecting this and uploading our old blog entries.  I hope life is great for y’all!

Cheers!