In the Garden – Sunrise Farm Project

A Farmer’s Work is Never Done

Barely five years ago, I had a very naive view of gardening. It wasn’t a bad view, it was just far away from how I approach my garden and farm now. But back then, I thought that sometime in the middle of May (based on our zone), we would till the garden, plant our 4 crops, and hope for the best. Sometimes, there would be watering and weeding, but other than that, my time would be spent on other household tasks and routine summer activities. Once the end of the summer started to creep in (sometime around the middle of August), beans would be picked and maybe canned, tomato sauce was made, and pumpkins were counted in anticipation of their late September harvest. We’d clear the garden once the plants died back after the first frost in October, and I’d wait for the next growing season to start.

But now I know I was wrong. Well, wrong for me and what we do here on the farm.

For me now, the growing season starts before the snow even melts, with tomatoes and peppers and sometimes flowers under grow lights. When the snow has melted, the cool weather plants get direct sown in the grown- typically peas, radishes, kale, and beets. Those are tended, and if we’re really lucky, maybe we have a quick harvest before May even comes. But then there’s succession planting. More radishes and beets to ensure a later harvest. Then come the warm weather crops. Beans, cucumbers, all varieties of squash, and moving the tomatoes and peppers outside in the middle of May.

As I have now learned, beans, summer squash and cucumbers should probably be planted at least twice, to avoid pests and hopefully to extend the harvest. The cool weather plants are harvested and replaced with a round of warm weather plants. Harvest can start as early as June with some varieties, and some plants will continue to produce throughout the season, or can be replaced with a quick turnaround plant until the end of July. In August, as the green beans and zucchini are coming in regularly, the cool weather crops can be planted again. Some in fact do better in August than in April, and may produce passed the expected early October frost.

Even after September, when the pumpkins are finishing up and everything is dying down, I begin planning the following spring’s plantings. I make note on what did well, and where it was planted. I try to keep crops rotated to avoid nutrient depletion.

What I used to think was a few months of work is nearly a year-long process of preparation and maintenance for us on the farm.

While my vision was once rather relaxed and idyllic, I love the yearlong pattern of it all now. Picking out a few new varieties to try among the old favorites that have done well for me for the past 4 years, writing out harvest and planting plans. It is all some form of work; we are never really at rest, just different stages of labor. But definitely a labor of love.

Bless the Rain

What a spring and early summer we’ve had! Here, on this last week of June, just days away from July, we got quite the bit of rain after over 5 weeks of dryness. It will probably not be enough to correct the near drought we’ve been in, but we are thankful nonetheless.

The late May and early June heat wrecked our spring vegetable plans. I always was under the impression that plants loved sunshine no matter what, but there are a few plants that prefer the cooler days, and actively dislike the heat. Peas and spinach have been two plants I wanted to harvest, but disappointingly, a bunch of nothing. Both plants I will reattempt in a few weeks to see if we can get a fall harvest from them.

May is always the month of end of school madness, with different activities honoring our graduating seniors (at the school where I teach), and for my just-finished-3rd-grade son. Both Evan and I have been putting in long hours on the farm as the school year wound down, and into the beginning of summer ‘vacation’.

We’ve been tracking the rain that finally came down today for over a week. Things we never thought we would include in our job descriptions: weather-watchers. It’s really challenging and discouraging to watch your crops fail due to lack of rain. While we are not as bad off as some, it was agonizing to wait for rain. Despite the lack of rain, we still expect a vegetable harvest throughout the summer, just not as soon as we had hoped.

No matter the weather status, there is always plenty to do on the farm. Follow along on Facebook or Instagram for more day-to-day farm happenings.

Waiting for Better Weather

After a week of heat, we didn’t want snow.

It felt like we jumped from winter to summer this week. From the cool temps to sunshine and hot. Beautiful weather makes me want to plant everything outside, but the future-cast said that I needed to hold that thought for a little bit longer. Because we dropped again to the cold and snow.

My daffodils are in the beginning stages of blooming- one of our first signs of spring. Buds are developing on the trees. Chickens are hatching in our kitchen. So far, this April has been a great improvement on last year’s April, not too hot, not too cold- with the obvious exception of this past week in the 70s and sometimes 80s.

Peas were planted on Good Friday, as tradition sometimes dictates. Usually I don’t put much stock in those sorts of superstitions, but this year, it happened to line up with when I wanted to plant anyway. According to the Farmer’s Almanac, this tradition can be traced back to both the Southern United States as well as Ireland. When Easter is celebrated in March, Good Friday is often too early to plant any seeds, even if the plants are cold hardy. I planted radishes, lettuce, peas, and kale the first week of April, but with limited success so far. I hope between this week of heat and the rain we’re getting next week, more success will come.

Livestock acquisitions typically happen in April and May. Our March/April chicken hatch was wildly successful, with almost a 95% hatch rate on our fertile eggs. As this is our first year incubating, we will likely take a break as we approach our mid-May planting season. If all goes well, we may try for an end of June hatch for the birds we want to keep for ourselves.

We are also still working on some larger livestock projects, and may add feeder pigs, sheep, or goats into the equation this year. However, our main focus is a successful garden.

As April turns into May and summer approaches, our busy farm season will soon be upon us. Follow us on Instagram or Facebook for more snapshots of our farm life, as well as vegetable and flower availability as we start our early summer harvests!

Soil Blocks and Seedlings

After unsuccessful false starts last year, I made the decision to push back my indoor sowing by a few weeks. The length of cold spring in 2022 was discouraging, and it was hard to keep plants alive long into May under grow lights.

I started sowing my tomatoes and peppers the last week of February. This year, after reading about soil blocking from several sources, I took the plunge and purchased two soil blockers. Why use soil blockers? Some of the benefits include less plastic usage and less need for storage space. I had a lot of fun “playing in the mud” making my blocks this year.

Tomatoes are typically the first to sprout. I’ve already moved 4 varieties from their tiny ¾” blocks to 2” blocks, and I’m hoping to move more this weekend. My peppers are a little slower, but I expect they will be thriving in a few more days.

Also on the early train are small peat pots of herbs- basil, chives, oregano, and lemon balm. If you’re wondering why peat pots- I’m using a mix of them and soil blocks this year because the pots were available. I don’t want to put all of my eggs in one basket, so to speak. The herbs are definitely slower to start, but I’m hoping to include herb cuttings with our early CSA boxes.

After this next snowstorm we’re predicted to get, I’ll be watching the weather and temperatures to plan out the early spring vegetables. Radishes, kale, spinach, lettuce, and peas all appreciate the cooler temperatures, and make good early spring crops. We still have a few weeks before we are out of frost danger.

What is a CSA?

Here on the farm, we are passionate about providing a sustainable, close to home, food source for those nearby. Hence this year’s creation of a CSA. Community supported agriculture, or CSA, provides an opportunity for local families to take part in both the risks and rewards of small scale farming.

As an amateur historian, I took it upon myself to research more about the origins and development of the first CSAs. Here I found that CSAs had a longer history than I expected, and that small farmers have struggled with the same issues for many years- how to grow more for others without having to absorb all the cost. Subscription farming fails to deal with the beginning of the season financing, while utilizing the CSA model helps farmers start the growing season with stable financing. Michigan State University also offers a similar explanation– as we grew toward a global economy, we lost touch with the people who produce our food. By supporting a CSA, you are able to know who grows your food. Sometimes you can even participate in the harvesting!

In doing additional research for the farm, I’ve worked through some of the writings of Virginia farmer Joel Salatin. His ideas of livestock helping improve the land has been inspirational to us as we pursue reviving the land from decades of soy bean farming. While he doesn’t run a farm on a small scale like ours, some of his ideas have bled into our methodology for our own farm. We want people to have a hyper-local food source, to have a dependable source of fresh food in the summer months.

Do you want to know where your food comes from? Do you like trying new varieties of foods? Do you want produce that was picked less than 12 hours ago? A CSA might be for you! Many CSAs, including our own, grow a larger variety of veggies then you would see in the store. This year, we will be growing different colored carrots and beans, several different types of salad greens, and many colored tomatoes.

We are getting really excited for this year’s growing season, and are offering more variety than ever before. From more than 8 different varieties of heirloom tomatoes and peppers to kohlrabi, radishes and bok choy, our CSA will help you experience the best of summer’s produce.

Please contact us if you would like to learn more about what we are offering this year.

2022: A Year in Review

Our year was clearly quite busy, as evidenced by our radio silence these last few months. Between the garden harvest and the early winter weather, our schedules have been quite full. Here’s a brief review of our 2022 on the farm, as we gear up to do so many new cool things this year!

January– Many woodshop projects, including a number of beer flights and cutting boards

February– Trying out our hand at wood burning as well as the creation of new benches for different spaces around the property.

March– Seed starting! Many varieties of tomatoes this year.

April– Getting started on the new 1 acre garden. Abnormally cold temps led to slow growth on the early spring veggies. Pigs came home at the end of April and really filled our days!

May– We brought in a new batch of laying hens. The hops started to establish themselves again.

June– Finally our spring veggies produced something! And we ordered more hens!

July– The veggies start rolling in– first turnips, then the first harvests of zucchini and beans. We harvested our first pig late in the month.

August– The flower season is at its peak in August. So many blooms! Tomatoes think about producing, and zucchini is giving us a bummer crop.

September– Apples start to roll in, and our first batches of applesauce are processed. Veggies continue to roll in, and the flowers still look amazing. We had a surprising harvest of watermelon too. And we dealt with escapee livestock, as the remaining pigs got out several times.

October– We added several new tools to our meat processing arsenal, and had a successful attempt at bacon curing after the first too salty batch.

November- Settling in for the cold weather- early snow hindered our clean up process.

December- Weather turned mild again, and we were able to do more yard clean up. Our youngest birds laid their first eggs.

The second half of the year is full of busy tasks that don’t always seem worth talking about. As per usual, you’ll catch a bit more from us through our Instagram page.

Thanks for sticking around, if you’re still here!

Rolling into Summer

Busy with vegetables, pigs, and chickens.

After an unseasonably cold April, May hit us like a ton of bricks and we scrambled to get a huge variety of projects done quickly. From the vegetable garden to the pig pasture, we ran all over the property this past month.

Our one-acre garden plot is way more than I anticipated, and it took all month to slowly get plants and seeds in the ground. In the end, I accepted defeat, and we seeded half of the acre for green manure. That still leaves us with nearly two thousand linear feet of vegetables, a giant undertaking after my 100 foot plot of years past. We have multiple root vegetables- new to me this year, three new varieties of beans- plus three from last year, 6 winter squash, 5 summer squash, 3 watermelon, and assorted peppers and tomatoes. With the new produce, I’m hoping that we’ll be able to preserve a variety in addition to sharing the bounty through our roadside stand.

We added some new chickens to our flock to offset the decline of our older hens. They are a great source of entertainment to the kids, and make short work of the compost we generate in the kitchen. The chickens are still all enclosed- several coops with outdoor access via a covered, fenced run. It’s not a perfect model and we are working toward more of a free range style to help with soil improvements, but it is a long term project that will need regular reassessment and adjustment. We are still working to determine the role of our chickens in the cycle of farm life, and that will dictate how we develop our chicken systems in the future.

The pig acquisition was an adventure, and continues to be a learning experience. They are really friendly animals, and their tilling abilities are unparalleled. Following the pasturing model from Out of Ashes Farm, who followed a scaled down Joel Salatin model, we realized quickly that our field is relatively inadequate for feed supplementation. However, the electric pig fence has proven to be an invaluable investment, and we are slowly working on pasture improvements. This lesson is helping us realize the healing that still needs to take place on our land, and we are making other adjustments as we go to speed up the process.

We are excited for the summer ahead of us, and watching how all our projects develop.

Sprouts

When spring starts to creep closer, we start thinking about the summer vegetable garden. Last year was my first year starting seeds indoors with a solid game plan. I sprouted peppers, tomatoes, squash, and a few flower varieties inside with the hopes of having a head start on several of my plants. This year, I have done more research and have a better plan of attack for the sprouting and transplanting of my early plants.

One of my big errors last year was mixing trays. Something that wasn’t immediately obvious to me was the variance in germination rates between different plants, leading to some early issues with my tomatoes. For my zone, and for the varieties of plants I am growing, it is most beneficial to plant a full tray of a single plant, rather than trying to maximize space. Peppers and tomatoes get the most benefit from being started early, both plants needing heat and a longer growing season than sometimes is available in Michigan. I’m starting my peppers first, and tomatoes will be a few weeks down the road.

Another issue I had last year was the hardening off process. Seedlings grown indoors need some exposure to the outside world before being planted in the ground for the season. I struggled with gradually moving plants outside, not to mention the transition from part-time outside to full-time outside. I am working to set up my growing space to better kick start the hardening process with an oscillating fan (simulates the wind) and up-potting the bigger seedlings as May approaches.

My peppers and tomatoes did alright last year, but I’m hoping with the correct adjustments this season, the harvest will be more bountiful. Sometimes it is hard to wait to try new things, and I’m finding that a large part of farming and growing is trial and error. As I work to solve the problems from last year, I’m sure there will be a different set of problems that come out of this growing season.

As far as the varieties themselves go, I more intentionally planned my choices around our food needs and the probability of our CSA launch. The kids really enjoy pasta sauce, so I needed a few heavy paste/sauce tomatoes. On top of that, two of our three enjoy snacking tomatoes, which necessitates the inclusion of some cherry and grape varieties. I also am trying some early producing varieties, so that fresh tomatoes are available all summer long. In regards to peppers, I applied similar principles- snacking varieties for the little kids, spicy peppers for making salsa. I hope to narrow down my options going forward, but I’m also excited about all the different colors my garden will hopefully produce this year.

In this third year of planning and tackling a garden, I’ve come to realize more and more that my own ideas of ‘what I like’ and ‘what I don’t like’ have matured and grown. As a student, I loved reading and history. As a teacher, those same things still apply. However, as a gardener, I’ve come to appreciate and understand more of the applications of “real math” and “real science”. The stuff in the textbooks never comes close to the lightbulb of comprehension when considering the life cycle of a pepper plant or the geometry involved in building a fence.

Stay tuned for updates on the sprouts via Instagram or Facebook. We’ll have a seedling sale in early May, and hopefully our cool weather veggies will be ready to go too!

-Mary

New Year, New Plans

The winter months are a good time to make plans for our more active spring and summer seasons. The biggest planning event is our vegetable garden relocation and expansion.

With the end of our farm field lease last fall, we made the decision to tackle large scale farm expansions. The first expansion is for our vegetable garden, which will be expanded to the scary size of one acre and relocated to get less slope and more sun. I am actively planning the layout and varieties for this new larger garden and am really excited about the potential of the new space.

In addition to the vegetables, we may also be growing the flock. We have enjoyed our first year and a half with our birds. The responsibility of caring for livestock has stretched all of us but seeing the joy of our kids feeding the birds snacks in the sunshine definitely outweighs the negatives. The bird expansion requires some new buildings once the snow is gone, but we are hopeful that we can successfully bring in some new members to our flock.

Our expansions don’t quite cover the breadth of our new vacated field, so we will also be working on additional projects in the fields to prepare them for future livestock expansions. The research is currently focusing on growing pasture lands and creating deer sanctuaries. Fencing and fast growing hardwoods are also on the research topic list. As some of the other expansion projects get crossed off the list, we’ll intensify our research to get the lesser priorities handled.

We’re excited to be tackling some bigger projects this year. I’m very excited about the new garden and will be sharing more about that soon.

Summer Projects

Here at Sunrise Farm Project, our conversations center around what we learned and how we can grow from the things we learned. This spring and summer, we took on a few projects that were new to us. Not all of them were as successful as we had hoped, and others we will improve next year and as we continue to grow.

Sprouts

Building indoor grow shelves and sprouting plants early produced mixed results. I have never grown tomatoes and peppers from seed, but in order to have heirloom plants, it was something I needed to try. Seeds grew, but the moving outside process (hardening off) and planting in the grow proved challenging. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the plants that survived and the plants that didn’t. As I continue to do more research, I will be trying a few different things next year, and hopefully build a better system.

Peppers and Tomatoes

My peppers almost seemed like a bust, and my tomatoes did almost too well. Somewhere in the middle summer weeks, with the heat and the rain, nearly all of my tomato plants took off, and I was never able to get them back under control. This led to an uneven tomato harvest, with huge plants, but less fruit than expected. Some of my plants were getting to be bigger and taller than some of my children, and required lots of extra staking. My one surprise tomato plant was the Chernobyl tomato. Producing a yellow tomato the size of a Roma, these tomatoes are prolific, still bearing into September.

The peppers were slow to take root outside, and for a brief time, I thought they weren’t going to survive. The Hungarian wax pepper was the first to recover, with a nice yellow-green fruit, and strong tall plants. My middle child was very excited to eat peppers fresh from the garden, and had quite a few for snack. My miniature bell peppers did finally start producing, and I watched them like a hawk, waiting for the first tiny fruit to come along. They are such a cute little pepper, great for little kid snacking or adding sliced into salads. Our orange ones did the best, though I think there’s a rogue purple one in the bunch. At the encouragement of some friends, I will be attempting to transplant and winter my miniature peppers indoors—stay tuned for that experiment.

Beans

Planted four different varieties this year—one was a dry bean variety that was poorly labeled in the seed catalog. I was attempting to create some color and variety in the earlier vegetables, and my varieties delivered. A classic green bean, a sunny soft yellow, and a funny purple striped variety called Dragon Tongue filled the garden from mid July into September. Once the school year started, it was a challenge to keep up, and had I planned better, we may have had better late harvests. I’m saving seed, and will try these varieties and a few more next year as well. Having fresh green beans to eat has always been a summer expectation of mine, and I want the little ones to grow up with that experience too.

Pumpkins and Squash

Two words: squash bugs. Destroyed all of my seedlings and made for a disappointing pumpkin patch this year. However, I did spend some time researching and planning, and with the vegetable garden move that we plan for next spring, I’m hoping I can keep the pests at bay.

We learned a variety from this year’s garden projects, and I’m looking forward to trying again next year. Next year’s vegetable garden will be relocated and enlarged to accommodate a greater variety of vegetables. I’m hoping to intentionally succession plant some of the faster producing vegetables to prolong the harvest. And we have a few surprises up our sleeves as well.

Stay tuned for the fall harvest and cleanup!