Colvin Family Farm

We had 40 folks out to the farm yesterday for our first CSA shareholder day ever--we did have a list of activities planned, but we spent so much time touring the main field that we didn't have time for the games! Mom did teach interested folks how to do their own sprouts, do a simple stir fry, and how to garden using the simple Square Foot Method that we've used for many years now.
Little kids pulled/ate baby carrots, "picked" (normally known as "gathered") fresh eggs, petted chickens, and just ran around the farm enjoying themselves--adults walked around the farm tasting Kohlrabi, fresh Carrots, Fennel and Dill while picking or packing produce into bags, baskets, buckets, pockets and even hats!
We did try to spend one on one time with everybody answering questions, and just in general showing everybody what our farm is, how it works, and why!
Feedback would be appreciated as we would like to hear what you really liked/might not have liked about the day--what do you think would have made it better etc...anything we hear from you will make next day better for you and any others that come!

I really appreciate everybody coming out, and hope that you had as much fun as I did!

Looking forward to the September Field Day!

Adam Colvin
www.ColvinFamilyFarm.com

Week #9 At Colvin Family Farm



We had a lot of work to try and catch up from last week (the family was gone on vacation) and also to get ready for the Shareholder day! In this picture Dad is using the wheel hoe to clean out a path while little Levi is "helping" with his little hoe.



It's rained off and on pretty much every day over the past week--making for another interesting challenge for catching up with the farm work!



This is a shot of the "current" section of field that is coming on--from the far right you can see several beds of Broccoli/Cabbage, there is also Arugula, Green Onions, Red Mustard, Lettuce, Spinach, Carrots and Radishes visible.



This is a view of the onion patch--it is almost time to harvest the crop--the tops are dieing back, and the bulbs have pretty much reached the size they will stay at.



This is a closeup of how the paper mulch that we used this year has decomposed--we actually had to run through them twice to clean weeds out of them. Next year we think we will try some white plastic to see if that will do a better job of weed control for us.



We also grew Red Onions on paper!



And our leeks are coming right along! We look forward to these coming in--Potato Leek soup!



This is a picture of one of our garlic beds...



...This is a freshly pulled Garlic bulb...


...and here it is laying cleaned on the straw mulch, and in the bed it was harvested from (forgive me for all of the garlic pictures, but it is a new crop for us, and we really have had fun growing it!)



Just one last picture of garlic--this picture was taken when a bunch of it had been cleaned and dumped into a tub--look for fresh garlic in your share tomorrow!



Napa Cabbage--Large shares will have this chinese cabbage this week--it is great sauteed, in stir fries, Kimchi, Sauerkraut, steamed, or in Broccoliws!



We also have broccoli! We are a little disappointed in the variety that we grew this year--it is a fast grower as advertised, but it's heads dispersed pretty quickly in the heat instead of being nice pretty little tight balls of buds.



This flower isn't called "Buterfly Weed" for nothing! this is one of my favorite wildflowers, and I don't even like orange! There's just something about the way that the deep green leaves go with the rich orange--it's pretty!



Another butterfly on some more butterfly weed--but this picture also shows white Yarrow (up front) and wild daisies (in the background)--it is really amazing how many different wildflowers bloom around here!



Like I said--they don't call it Butterflyweed for nothing!



This shot shows some of our new Brussels Sprouts seedlings--we have always had our Brussels Sprouts come in late, so we thought that we'd start them earlier just for an experiment!

CSA Farm Knoxville, CSA Share Knoxville,

As I type this, I've been run indoors by the rain--it's a nice gentle rain, but there's certainly enough that we had to get in out of it. I'm going to put together the newsletter, while Caleb and Isaac work on washing and drying the Spinach that we were harvesting.
While it is important to get one or two inches of rain each week to maintain our crops, it is often bothersome when it comes--right when we are trying to get something important done! But, we don't have to worry about not having something to do! Right now we are trying to wrap up one of the busiest seasons on the farm--getting all of the main crops in, while maintaining all of what we have already (namely keeping ahead of the weeds and harvesting)!

We are getting ready to have an interesting next week--the whole family (excepting Caleb and I) will be taking a vacation starting Monday. They will be headed to a camp down in Georgia for a week of fun & games with our church. Caleb and I are going to get a lot of things done while they are gone--hopefully we'll be able to catch up on a few things!

I hope that you all have a good week--enjoy your vegetables!

Adam Colvin
Colvin Family Farm (CNG)
www.ColvinFamilyFarm.com

Farm Update May 30th-June 5th Week #6

Because it is raining, I'm going to be using some of the pictures I've been collecting but haven't had room/time to use in previous newsletters.



This is our grain thresher--We read about it in one of our favorite farm magazines Farm Show. The gentleman that was selling them claimed that the foot powered thresher modeled off of the centuries old Asian plan could thresh up to 80 lbs of wheat an hour! After having spent many hours last year trying to knock the grain out of the heads of the wheat with sticks (like we've always read about) we were game to give it a try!



This is a close-up of the foot pedaled drive system.



And a closeup of the head--when you step on the pedal, the head will turn quickly, you are supposed to feed the heads of wheat, oats of other small grains into it, and it knocks the grain out of the heads and sifts it into a bucket--we hope it works! If it does, you all should get some wheat berries (or flour or cracked cereal for those of you who don't have a wheat grinder) in your share within the next couple of months!



We had mom help us with the radishes last week! She is a big help...



...except for when she slows us down with "sentimental goop"--who needs a picture of a heart made out of radishes?



Speaking of mom--three weeks ago, mom and I were finishing some packing down in the house, while Caleb and dad were working on it up at the packing shed--it was 12:30 in the morning, and Mom accidentally let a huge moth into the kitchen (not this specific one)--it not only was huge, but it was flying all over the place and was just a blur. Well it kept bumping into Mom, and so she decided to "euthanize" it (which means she was trying to stomp it)--as she was doing that she said--"Adam this is a huge moth", to which I replied (jokingly now) "Oh, it's a bat!".....Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad idea at 12:30 in the morning--I don't know if any of us at the house have recovered from the blood curdling screaming that went on--and Dad ran full tilt down to the kitchen to find out who had died etc...etc... It was horrible (but hilarious!) It is at times like this that we like to quote from the FFA (Future Farmers of America) creed: "For I know the joys and discomforts of agricultural life and hold an inborn fondness for those associations which, even in hours of discouragement, I cannot deny....."

 

Market Update:

Again we will be at:

Market Square Farmers' Market (Knoxville, TN)
from 9:00AM-2:00PM

Dixie Lee Farmers' Market (Farragut, TN)
from 9:00AM-12:00PM

Maryville Farmers' Market (Maryville, TN)
from 9:00AM-2:00PM

And we should have:

Spinach
Butterhead Lettuce
Mustard Greens
Turnip Greens
Kale
Lettuce Mix
Red Leaf Lettuce
Boc Choi,
Radishes
Green Onions
Collard Greens
Mixed Cooking Greens
Chard
Beet Greens
Napa Cabbage

Some items will sell out quickly so come early for the best spread! We appreciate you all supporting us, and look forward to seeing you at one of the markets!

Hello everybody!

As usual on our farm we've had a busy week full of mundane things that we do every day of the week--along with a double handful of things that have never happened before (just enough to keep us hooked on farming)--It is fun to watch the different vegetables come in and replace the ones that are winding down--like mini-seasons, we get to watch the seasons change up close. So close that we often don't even realize that they've changed! It will suddenly dawn on somebody that--ahhh!!! look at all of the green leaves that have popped out all over the place (or something similarly silly). It is just funny that we don't always catch the obvious because we're so busy noticing the minute details of things!
New for this newsletter, I've posted all of the pictures as 640x480 pixels instead of 320x240 pixels (sorry to all of you dial-up folks). What is the difference? Well, now you will be able to right click on the picture and choose to "view image" and you'll see a larger version of it--with the smaller photos that we've always sent, you couldn't see the small things in a detailed photo--that always has bothered me, and now I've fixed it--please let me know if you all like it this way better or would prefer to see it the way I've always done it!

I hope that you've had a great week--and enjoyed your vegetables. I have the recipe/letter that Mom wrote last week posted on our website, so click on the picture below if you want my Great Aunts' (pronounced "ant" down here in Tennessee) wonderful Spinach Salad! See you all!

Adam Colvin
Colvin Family Farm (CNG)
www.ColvinFamilyFarm.com


Farm Update

We have three new flowers blooming on the farm--Foxgloves are blooming in one of Mom's beds--I think they're one of the prettier flowers she's planted!



The daisies are one of Mom's favorites--it blooms all over the fields and on the sides of the roads up here on the mountain.



A lily somebody gave momma--she planted a semi-circle of them in the edge of the vegetable garden (yes--flowers in "my" vegetable garden).



Mom snapped this picture of Dad cleaning out some cabbages early on this week--patience and persistence (two different qualities) are necessary to do a good job on weeding.



I took this picture today--it has several of us working on harvesting different vegetables--green onions, spinach & kale.



These cabbages & broccoli were planted from plugs (little bitty baby plants) just last week and have taken off! They've probably tripled or quadrupled in size!



Several small raised beds full of Snap Peas--we'll be having Snap Peas in our CSA shares next week! They are one of the #1 favorite Spring vegetables--I like mine simple--steamed and buttered with salt to taste!



This bed of kale is looking good! It is one of the more familiar varieties of kale (green frilly leaves) and will last throughout the Summer and into the fall.



A view of some of our beds. In the foreground is Arugula (bolted Arugula), than Kale, Mustard, Turnips....etc...



Our onion patch seems to be doing well--the tops are bigger than we normally raise them already, and several of the bottoms are starting to bulge!
We've decided that we probably needed heavier paper as we've lost several sections due to wind, wet, and other weather. However it has done a fine job of keeping the weeds in check--the principle is right, we just need to continue perfecting it--maybe a different method of laying it would fix it--maybe some other kind of mulch would work best--I don't know but it is something we are looking into and discussing quite often.



Garlic Scapes--Garlic Curls--whichever name you use for these garlic flower buds, they are awesome for flavoring stir fries, soups, casseroles etc... and will be accompanying our CSA shares in the near future.



We harvested our first batch of beets for the Spring--they are beautiful, from the size of a large shooter marble to the size of a softball, they are all sweet, tender, juicy...delicious!



Charity posed for this picture in a feed sack--she's worth more than a sack of chicken feed!



Mowing--finding time to do the "normal" chores around the house can be an interesting thing! Several chores (including mowing) have been passed on to younger brothers as they start to take over more responsibilities on the farm.



While we were working over in the peas or potatoes (sorry I can't remember which), Titus heard some growling in the top of a tree--ends up it was a coon--no six or seven coons (properly known as racoon) in their den! I've wanted to see a den tree of coons as long as I can remember, and to think when we finally find one it was within 100 yards of the house!



Up in the top of the tree, one of the boys snapped this picture down the hollow--it has one of the coons showing up (look closely in the middle for the masked face).

Again, I'm late getting this out--by the time you all read this you have probably already seen us at market. Because it is so late, this will probably be one of the most "thrown together" newsletters yet as there are hundreds of little things that need done before we wrap up the day, with another early day coming up!

I hope that you all have had a great week--we look forward to seeing you again,

Adam Colvin
Colvin Family Farm (CNG)
www.ColvinFamilyFarm.com

Farm Update Week of May 16th-22nd, 2010



This has got to be one of the coolest pictures that I've got recently! It is a closeup of a ladybug eating an aphid! Ladybugs are one of the best bugs to have on your farm as they effectively control aphids, scales, and other detrimental insects on vegetable crops! This one happened to be noticed in a pile of harvested lettuce--it's funny how many farmers' buy these little insects, and we have to sort them out of our produce!



This week I've included several pictures of us harvesting your vegetables as I thought you might like to see a little bit on that end! This picture is me harvesting a bed of lettuce with our greens harvester. This machine is amazing as it will cut and hold six pounds of baby lettuce in thirty seconds!



This picture shows Dad and the little boys Luke (far right) and Levi (middle) as they clean your green onions together--real family farming in action!



This is Isaac harvesting Spinach (he's in the back top left corner). We have over 600 feet of 3 foot wide beds filled with Spinach right now! Full of the best crop of Spinach we've ever had!



Here Caleb (left) is rinsing the Spinach--they will still need washed at your house, but this takes off most all of the mud and gives us some time to grade out any culls that we might find.



Next it is brought into our walk-in cooler to be packaged into bags which are packed into cases which are packed into the van and brought to you at the market!



This past week we hauled our tractor over to our leased acreage so that we could put in our warm weather crops (melons, sweet potatoes etc...). On our way over there we had a tire flat on our 16 foot flatbed trailer--This is a picture of Dad changing the tire on it with the rock that flatted the tire!



No wonder it went flat! This rock was wedged all of the way through the tire!



Again, this is a picture of our potato patch--I hope that  you aren't getting tired of seeing this patch over and over again, but it has amazed me each week how much that they've grown!



Butterhead lettuce was brought to market last Wednesday, and will be available tomorrow (if you're early).



In this picture I caught a bumblebee sipping nectar out of a wildflower next to our property line fence.



Dad and the little boys went out and cut firewood this past week in the "old brown truck." They came home with boquets of wildflowers for "momma."

Hello Everybody!

I tried to get this out yesterday, but our trusty "old faithful" laptop up and died on us in the middle of creating it. So, I am now creating this on our new Dell Inspiron Desktop computer. It is about as much better than our old computer as the DSL connection is over our old dial-up!
Please let me know if I'm boring you with all of these pictures--I can't believe how easy it is to load this thing down with 30-40 pictures, and I will try to restrain myself if you all aren't able to make yourself read all of the way through it!
We've had an extremely busy week--this time in May would probably rank #1 as the busiest time for a diversified vegetable producer as so many vegetables "suddenly" can go out at the same time! Yesterday we put in Sweet Potatoes, Winter Squash, Watermelons, Cantaloupes, Popcorn, and others (pictures will be up next week). This week we also got out all of our Summer Squash, Sweet Corn and Cucumbers!
I hope that you enjoy the newsletter--hope to see you all at one of the markets tomorrow!

Adam Colvin
Colvin Family Farm (CNG)
www.ColvinFamilyFarm.com

 Farm Update--May 9th-15th

Our potatoes are starting to pop up! This 3/4 acre patch right here should yield several tons of potatoes this season!



We planted three varieties--Russet Burbanks (a regular white potato),



Chieftain (a red skinned potato),



and Adirondack Reds (not only is this potato red skinned--it is red clear through the center!).



Our early patch of Summer Squash and Snap Beans.



Caleb told me that he was going to plant some beans and squash back in the third week of April (way way early for up on the mountain). I told him that he could waste the seed if he wanted to etc... but he has had the last laugh as those beans and squash that he planted could be 3-4 weeks earlier than our "early" batch of beans and squash! (this picture by the way is of a row of beans).



A row of Yellow Straigtneck Squash.



A new picture of our Onion patch--the paper mulch is working pretty well on the onion patch--on other vegetables we've had trouble with the wind ripping it when it is wet--still experimenting though!



I hope you all like Spinach! Because next week...



...we will have a lot of it! This is a picture of one of our two 150 foot long 3 foot wide beds of spinach. Right now they are just shy of big enough to pick, so they will be brought to market for the first time next week!



Another angle on the greens beds.



Radishes--a bunch of them! You will be seeing radishes out of this bed within a week or two--mild, but zesty!



Head lettuce is coming along in several different beds--Red and Butterhead, Romaine, and Looseleaf.



These collards were planted to raise full-size. hopefully we will have them large enough to harvest within another week or two.



Winterbor Kale--spaced to raise to full-size. A lot of this will be sold through the "Three Rivers Market" in Knoxville.



Napa Cabbages,



Boc Choi,



Turnips,



and Mustard are looking great!



We just planted another 200 foot bed of Carrots.



Our early chard bed that came in didn't come up very well--due mainly to the operator of the seeder (yes myself) who just didn't know what he was doing.



The collards,



and beets however came up sort of spottily because of us not keeping the soil moist at all times--it's extremely important yet extremely hard to keep the soil moist so that no hard crust will form over the seeds, and they have a soft moist layer of soil to push through.



Our worm bins--set up to harvest "wormcasting tea" that we use as a foliar fertilizer. Feeding leftover vegetables to the worms makes it so that we can use the nutrients in the vegetables to raise more! Sustainable farming practices in action!



A close-up of the inside of a worm bin.



And a closeup shot of the worms.



This is a picture of a freshly planted bed of green onions.



Within a week they start to sprout.



And by five weeks you have a bed of green onions ready to harvest!

Howdy everybody!

I hope that you all will forgive me for putting all of these pictures in here, but I "got happy" with this new DSL Internet connection, and I really wanted you all to be able to "see" how the farm looks right now! Because of all of the pictures, I have less wording (or more like the same amount just spread out)--in this newsletter. I hope that you'll be able to get a good idea of how things are going with this update!

We are having a great early Spring season! We're pretty sure that we are past any damaging cold weather--which is one of Springs two major weather concerns--the other seems to be cooperating better than usual as well--the soil moisture--It's been allowing us enough time for planting, weeding and harvesting! Our produce is mirroring the great weather with lots of new growth--see below for details!

Thanks to all of you for supporting our farm--we hope that you enjoy the Spring--and our produce!

Adam Colvin
Colvin Family Farm (CNG)
www.ColvinFamilyFarm.com

This Week In Pictures!



Here we are getting ready to plant a BUNCH of our Brassicas (cabbage, broccoli, kale etc...) by getting the flats outside near the field. In the background the tractor has a 55 gallon barrel drum full of water to "water in" the plants.



After several months of waiting we finally have Spinach coming up (and in great abundance)! Altogether we have more than 300 feet of three foot wide raised bed!

<img height="240" width="320" src="http://gallery.mailchimp.com/6fb07eafbb15d6ce70ac9b7d0/images/4.1.jpg" alt="Cabbage and Green Onion Beds">

A picture of some Broccoli in the foreground, and Green Onions in the background.



Our Chard is doing pretty well--we hope to have it in our CSA share boxes this weekend!



The Mustard greens are doing wonderful!



Our lettuce mix is always a hit at the farmers' market--here is a picture of a 120 foot long bed of it.

<img height="240" width="320" src="http://gallery.mailchimp.com/6fb07eafbb15d6ce70ac9b7d0/images/9.1.jpg" alt="Lettuce Mix Close-up">

And a close-up shot of it (I love our new DSL connection!)



Turnip Greens in a bed.



Kale close-up



Our main bed of kale



Our Beet Greens are almost ready to harvest!



The bed of Arugula!


<img height="240" width="320" src="http://gallery.mailchimp.com/6fb07eafbb15d6ce70ac9b7d0/images/12.1.jpg" alt="Arugula Close-up">

And a closeup of the Arugula.



Vetch--this little fellow is one of the best cover crops available! He adds nitrogen and "green manure" to soils which gives a great boost to vegetable crops!


<img height="240" width="320" src="http://gallery.mailchimp.com/6fb07eafbb15d6ce70ac9b7d0/images/17.1.jpg" alt="Squash Coming Up!">

Summer Squashes coming up!



Snap Beans are coming up too!



This patch of ground is full of Potatoes! Right at 3/4 of an acre, it is the largest patch of potatoes we've raised to date!



With the blackberries blooming we are almost certainly done with our cold weather! We are tickled as it has been one of the best Springs for vegetable production in years!



This is our new Maryville Farmers' Market vegetable hauler! When you see it it will most likely have lost the pin striping and wacky looking running boards! The only reason we bought it is that it gets 20 miles a gallon and Astros are dependable and roomy.



Practically another Astro, we also bought this little GMC Safari for hauling produce--this one will be used for the Market Square Farmers' Market and restaurant/grocery store deliveries.



In our raised beds we have some kale growing--it is almost full size!



Also, we have Cilantro coming along!



As well as dill--hopefully within another week or two we will have these herbs at market!



Our chives are blooming! These are one of the prettiest little herbs that there are! Hopefully we will be able to put these in our CSA shares soon.

<img height="240" width="320" src="http://gallery.mailchimp.com/6fb07eafbb15d6ce70ac9b7d0/images/27.jpg" alt="Baby Butterhead Lettuce">

Baby Butterhead is coming along!



It is really neat to watch asparagus poke its head through the ground! This stuff grows fast! These will probably be 4-6 inches (harvestable size) in another day or two!



Our garlic beds--we've never raised garlic before, so it is exciting to see them grow! They are already almost calf high! We are watching for the little "scapes" to show up, and will be having them at market when they do!

Market Update:

This week we will be at:

Knoxville--Market Square Farmers' Market (9:00AM-2:00PM)
Maryville--Maryville Farmers' Market (9:00AM-12:00PM)
Farragut--Dixie Lee Farmers' Market (9:00AM-12:00PM)

We will be bringing:

Our Mixed Steaming Greens!
Baby Lettuce Mix
Arugula
Kale
Radishes
Green Onions
Turnip Greens
Mustard Greens
Lemon Balm

We hope to see you at the markets!

I was tickled early one morning last week to be able to catch this picture of a Blue Heron wading through the edge of our pond! We don't normally have waterbirds land in our small pond, although we've had wild ducks, Canadian geese etc.. before. This picture also has a good view of the different colors of Spring showing through--the white of dogwood, red of maple, different shades of green from willow, poplar, walnut, and grass accented by the blue and white of the sky (also reflected off of the pond), but it still shows the drab shades of Winter gray and brown that the Spring colors are slowly covering--it is a beautiful time of year!


A close-up of a dogwood blossom--they are a lot whiter and larger than usual this year! The background of this picture is the water from our pond--I liked how it accentuated the whole dogwood branch!


This close-up shows an apple blossom with a bee in it. This tree right here was one of the six that we found in an abandoned orchard when we moved to the farm ten years ago.


I asked momma to judge between this picture and the last one and see which one she liked best--she didn't choose the one I liked--so since I am making this newsletter (mwaahaahaahaa...the power)--I thought that I'd put "mine" in too--notice how there is a leaf centered on the little group of blossoms--how it and those other leaves sticking up and out frame it against the beautiful background of blossoms etc... If it hadn't been for that sentimental bee in the last picture you'd of only seen this picture!


We got our boxes in! The biggest order we've ever made for boxes--collapsed flat they stacked up to fill a full-size pallet five feet high! The order consisted of:

Single Layer Tomato Boxes      100
1 1/9 Bushel Boxes             100
1/2 Bushel Boxes               100
Produce Bags on a Roll 4 rolls of 1,000
Pint Pulp Cups                 600
Quart Pulp Cups                250
Quart Master Trays              30
Pint Master Trays               50

Getting our field ready to plant is far more than just running through it with a tiller! This shot shows us as we shovel compost from the tractor's scoop into a marked out bed! The boys with rakes come behind and spread it evenly over the width of the bed.

The beds look like this when they have been marked and compost has been spread over them.

Then they are tilled back in--mixing the compost in and crumbling up the clumps--creating a smooth clean seedbed. You can see in this bed that it has been planted about twenty-five feet in, the rest is blank, to the right is fully planted, and to the left is ready to be tilled in when we need more bed space!

Our onions have really greened up! When we first planted them they were little brown sticks--they have taken off, and hopefully within a few months will have grown into baseball to softball sized sweet slicing onions!

It is extremely important on several crops that you keep the top of the soil moist if you want to get even germination--carrots, spinach, lettuce, and beets are very finicky about coming up if they have to try to bust through dry dirt. So, we mist the top of the dirt with watering cans (we have fourteen of them) with water that we pump from our pond. Just this past week we purchased a 8.5 hp gas engine water pump. It will pump water through a 2 inch pipe fast! Dad timed us as we filled two 55 gallon drums and it did it in less than 1 minute! That is a handy time saver!

March At Colvin Family Farm

Winters come as a welcome rest on a farm, but between the long nights, the cold, the snow, ice and mud, we really look forward to Spring. So it is with the usual anticipation and excitement that we are watching the early signs of Spring start appearing. We have Spring Peepers in the pond making a racket nearly around the clock, our jonquil's are about to open up, and our Garlic is starting to peak through the blanket of straw that protected it from the harsh winter storms--plenty of signs that Winter has about run it's course and Spring is rolling in.
I have decided to try a different format for our newsletter this month by letting pictures do some of the talking! I hope that you like it.

These Jonquils will open during the next few days--their ancestors were probably planted in our yard more than 100 years ago! There are many abandoned "homeplaces" back in the woods around our place that  are marked only by the stone chimney, and the patch of jonquils that keep blooming year after year. Jonquils are one of the first signs of Spring on the mountain!

We have had six tandem dump truck loads of compost hauled onto our property in preparation for the season's use.

We have been working certain spots of our fields in preparation for planting our early Spring crops. In this freshly worked patch we will probably plant Collards, Turnips, Radishes, Lettuce, and Beets. (I'm sorry this picture isn't really clear, but we don't live in the "rolling foothils of the Smoky Mountains" for nothing!

We are finally gathering eggs from our young chickens! They are a real treat after having eaten "factory" eggs for months

Here are the chickens themselves on a recent snowy day!

We have built tables in our greenhouse! Please notice the "rustic, adironack style" legs! Over the next couple of weeks, we will be planting thousands of plugs of vegetables--such as: Lettuce, Kale, Cabbage, Broccoli, Peppers, Tomatoes etc....

Our new potting table! We will be able to go into production with this handy dandy potting table which features under-table storage for empty flats.

Planted in mid-October last year, we are excited to see our Garlic finally poking through the straw blanket that has protected it throughout the Winter.

Acting on our friend Eric Gibian's advice, we decided to use 100% Recycled, Unbleached, Kraft Paper as our mulch this year. Right here we are punching a grid of 3/4" holes set six inches apart for planting our Leeks and Onions next week!

I hope that you all have a great month--we look forward to seeing you again soon at the farmers' markets!

Adam Colvin
Colvin Family Farm (CNG)
www.ColvinFamilyFarm.com

CSA Farm Knoxville

 

We are getting the last orders of seed and supplies in for the season, and are getting started on finding what has been back-ordered, it is frustrating when you have something that you really need back-ordered and have to track it down somewhere else. Last year we had to order our snap peas five different times before we finally got them! It's going to be exciting using the new pieces of equipment we've been able to get for this season. Johnny's Selected Seed is a great supplier of innovative and affordable tools for the small farm, and we are excited about trying one of their 48" "Greens Harvesters"! It should save us hundreds of man hours as harvesting greens is one of the most time intensive parts of harvesting! See a video of it working here! We have also started planting our early vegetable starts--Broccoli, Chinese Cabbage, Kale, Cabbage, Lettuce and Spinach! To avoid having to heat the greenhouse for 40 flats, we have set up three levels of tables in our kitchen that should hold what we need it to for a few weeks anyhow. The weather has been horrible! It's been one of the wettest, coldest Winters that I remember! Starting about midnight on the 31st of January we were out of power for more than 52 hours due to a heavy ice storm! With temperatures hovering right under freezing it was very uncomfortable. We are planning on working the ground the first chance that we get--we might have one or two days out of two or three months that the fields are dry enough to plow, and we will utilize the first one that comes along because we know that we might not get a second!

 Hope you all have a great month

 Adam Colvin
Colvin Family Farm (CNG)
www.ColvinFamilyFarm.com

 Knoxville CSA, CSA Farm Knoxville,

My eyes are still getting adjusted from being out in the blinding whiteness of the snow--everything looks dim and dark when you first come in compared to outside. We didn't get the 2-3 inches that it takes to fully cover everything with a full blanket of snow, but the temperature has hovered under 10 degrees at night for the past week and not over the mid twenties during the day--which froze our pond 3-8 inches--thick enough for us to skate around on it! It was the first time in the past several years that it has frozen that solid, and the kids (Dad included) enjoyed it fully!
We are finalizing the plans we've made for 2010 and starting to implement them. We are sending our seed orders out, searching all over for the best deals on the best equipment that we can afford, and trying to set up CSA drop offs that will be most convenient for our customers. It is amazing that even though we finished selling produce last month, we are getting ready to plant starting next month!
I want to let each of our CSA members that helped us by recommending us for SARE scholarships for the 2010 SSAWG conference know that we received them--Thanks! that conference will be a huge help!

Adam Colvin
Colvin Family Farm (CNG)
www.ColvinFamilyFarm.com

Knoxville CSA

A Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) serving in the Knoxville, Maryville, and Farragut TN area (share boxes, bags, baskets)

 
It has begun—Mud Season. Thick mud, thin mud, sloppy mud, sticky mud, slick mud—mud of all types, loved by little boys, hated by moms (that is an understatement) tolerated by men (what can we do about it?)—Mud. 

I remember a book that my great aunt gave me on my tenth birthday entitled, “Good Old Days On The Farm”. It was a collection of hundreds of stories written by the depression era generation reminiscing on the “good old days, back on the farm”. I spent many hours reading those stories (often up in my favorite tree), and learned many lessons from it as many told about how the farm taught (or rather ingrained in them) character, perseverance, thriftiness, family love, and of course old fashioned neighborliness—doing unto others what you would have done unto you. As I was growing up on our farm, I could relate to many of the memories told about, some of my favorite stories were, “The Old Fashioned Washtub,” “Our Old Fordson Tractor,” “The Iron Pump,” and “1,250 Pounds of Ornery Mule,.” One that I can relate to right now is the one entitled, “Country Mud” by Gilbert C Kettelkamp. It talks about how anybody that grew up in a rural area would have little difficulty recalling their experiences with the stuff. It is a great story that talks of mud and how it shaped country life, although it was merely “tolerated” he says that now he looks back at mud as one of his favorite memories of his younger years. Although I cannot remember mud being the road surface as he could, and certainly haven’t yet decided that it is one of my “cherished memories,” I have had a lot of the same experiences with it! With all of the rain we’ve had lately and with the grass not growing this time of year, it is getting muddy all over the place. Since it gets the most traffic, the front yard seems to be the worst spot. It is conveniently situated right in front of the front door to our house, and yes that opens right into momma’s clean kitchen floor (at least it was clean before us boys walked through it). Coming up with creative ways to keep it cleaner, momma places the person who has been the most serious offender (at present myself) in charge of sweeping and mopping!

I hope that you have a wonderful Christmas!

Adam Colvin
Colvin Family Farm (CNG)
www.ColvinFamilyFarm.com

Knoxville CSA

A Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) serving in the Knoxville, and Maryville, TN area (share boxes, bags, baskets)

 

This week we are pulling all of the carrots that successfully grew this Fall. We planted one-half of a bed in our garden (4 ft. by 100 ft.) early enough in September to make beautiful baby carrots from 2-4 inches long, but the 2 ½ more beds that we planted later in September didn’t grow enough root to overwinter (which was our original plan) so we made the decision to go ahead and clear the carrots out so that we could put a cover crop in their place. Although it is bothersome that that plan didn’t work out, it is yet another valuable lesson learned on our farm—next year we should be able to plant earlier so that we will have several beds of full sized carrots to overwinter, so that the following Spring we will have a lot of carrots starting on the first market day, rather then having to wait until the middle or last of June.

I keep thinking it will stop raining one of these days…we’ve had so much of it recently that it is turning the farm into a muddy mess. I wish that I could take a “rain check” on it and use it next Summer when we will invariably need it. The best amount for us would be 1 ½ to 2 inches each week—raining softly, and spread out over a few nights, but even though that rarely ever happens, if it isn’t too much, we usually have enough to pull the crops through.

It is a beautiful day, the sun (no it isn’t raining [whoopee!]) is up and starting to shine over the fields that are slowly turning green with our cover crop. It is going to be a beautiful day!

 
Check out our website for more pictures of the farm! 

 
Adam Colvin
Colvin Family Farm (CNG)
www.ColvinFamilyFarm.com

Knoxville CSA

Drizzling, cold, bleak, dreary--if you went by the weather, then you would think that we were having a terrible week. However there are things that bring cheer to a rainy day--Winter Rye cover crops are turning the fields green, lettuces and other greens are still growing in the greenhouse...It has been a slower week on the farm, but there is still plenty to do! We must keep the frost blankets covering the crops that are left--continually combating the wind that fight to lift them off. We must slog our way around the fields caring for the livestock, open and close the vents on the greenhouse to maintain a consistent temperature--on and on, the small things add up to a full day, then a full week. Just as November slipped by before we could fully realize that it was here, so will December. It is amazing how time flies! There are only three months till we start planting in the greenhouse, and it just gets busier from there! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

<P>Market Update: This week we will be able to bring up to market:

<P>Green & Red Lettuces, Fresh Carrots, Mixed Greens, Salad Mixes, Green Onions, Radishes, Arugula, Turnip Greens, Mustard Greens and Kale. Also look for our wooden toy stand! We will have all kinds of old-fashioned wooden toys, as well as other crafts! Hope to see you Saturday!

 Adam Colvin
Colvin Family Farm (CNG)
www.ColvinFamilyFarm.com

Knoxville CSA

Apples, apples...more apples! This week has been the week for us to put them up. We hauled six crates (4'x4'x3') of "Yellow Delicious" grade outs from the Oren Wooden's Apple Orchard here on the mountain. Most of them were stored in a bin for hog food throughout the early winter, but we also processed twenty bushels into apple sauce and juice. Total yield for this week was 44 quarts of apple sauce, and 52 quarts of apple juice. Our shelves are pretty well stocked for Winter as we have a total of 188 quarts of Apple Juice, way over 50 quarts of Apple Sauce, more than 200 quarts of Green Beans, and a bunch of Tomatoes, Summer Squash, Potatoes, Meats, Jams and Jellies canned. We have sixty pounds of fresh venison packed in the freezer, a 350 lb hog ready to butcher--I think we're ready for Winter! It is also a busy time of season as we start to catch up on maintenance projects that we got behind on during the busy season (okay one of the other busy seasons). Projects to get done include the final season's mowing and trimming, making sure to get around everything everywhere so the farm looks good all Winter. We are also planning on ripping out some temporary raised beds we had built in front of the greenhouse, changing the oil in all of the vehicles, checking the antifreeze in all of the vehicles and tractor, organizing all of the farming equipment that is coming in from the field etc... etc... Hope you've had a productive week!

Adam Colvin
Colvin Family Farm (CNG)
www.ColvinFamilyFarm.com
A Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) serving in the Knoxville, and Maryville, TN area (share boxes)

Knoxville CSA