Wintry Mix

Frith Farm is receiving a wintry mix of hail and rain on this gloomy Friday, so I'm taking this opportunity to introduce a bit of spring into a not-so springy day. 

This week on the farm has seen a number of hours spent in the greenhouse. 

Though Daniel had planted several dozen trays before the apprentices arrived, the greenhouse is nearly bursting at the seams now that Josh, Will and I have planted thousands of seeds this week. 

A lot goes into seeding in the greenhouse, mostly because at Frith we make our own potting soil. 

Will, on a seed-blocking shift

A combination of peat moss, compost, lime, fish meal, green sand and perlite must be thoroughly mixed and then compressed into seed blocks before any seeds ever leave their Fedco packages. 

After we measure out the seed blocks, each seed is hand planted and then covered with a thin layer of peat moss. 

Here are some seeds planted at the end of March.

Collards, a southern treat!

And here I have to note (just in case your attention is wandering after being confronted with pictures like the above) that I too normally find any post whose topic is seeding pretty boring and repetitive. They're just plants, right?

Endless onions...

Which is true. 

Except now I associate these trays with a lot of hard work by Josh, Will and me, and a lot of planning (and of course, hard work!) on Daniel's part. 

Liz, watering the air (?)

This year Frith Farm will be supplying not only a 60-70 member CSA (sign up for shares now!), but also we will be selling at both the Scarborough Sunday market and the Portland Wednesday market. All those crops and harvests must be synchronized to allow us to offer a wide selection throughout the growing season. 

Fortunately the greenhouse allows us to get a head-start even when there's a wintry mix in the middle of April!

In other farm news, the chickens have had a big, and slightly disruptive, week as they were transferred from their winter coop to the Egg Mobile. 

Home, sweet home

Overall, the transition went smoothly. 

I say "overall" because some chickens just did not get the relocation memo. 

If you happened to drive by the farm on Monday evening around 8pm, you would have seen Daniel, Josh and Will cornering upwards of 50 chickens, waving nets about, and at times making diving tackles after the wayward layers. 

Arthur, meticulously protecting every last one of his chickens.

Our youngest ladies have had no experience spending the summer season in an Egg Mobile and were understandably a bit skittish about roosting in an unfamiliar place. 

Although I missed Monday night's excitement by falling asleep on the couch, Tuesday night featured a repeat, albeit with fewer chickens refusing to cooperate. 

By Wednesday night all the chickens were used to the routine and enjoying being able to forage on new plots of land as Daniel readies the soil for new beds. 

We've rounded out the week by taking advantage of disadvantageous weather. 

Although I've been somewhat sidelined by a particularly nasty rooster run-in, the boys are out at this very moment attempting to burn brush piles in the relative safety of a rainy day.

Next week promises higher temperatures and more time direct planting in the beds....stay tuned!

Spring at the Farm

Welcome to the 2013 season at Frith Farm!

I'm Liz, an apprentice here and will be spearheading our attempt at dedicated blogging this year. 

Although the temperatures are still well below freezing most nights on the farm, Daniel and his team of three apprentices are already hard at work, preparing for the warmer days to come. 

First of all, I thought I'd direct your attention to the Team page of the website where you'll find short bios of this year's apprentices. 

Josh

Will

Liz

We are all really excited to be learning about farming with Daniel here in Scarborough and we're also excited to meet our CSA customers. Feel free to introduce yourselves as the season starts up and ask us any questions that we can (most likely) be able to answer for you!

Our first week's big focus was the farm's new, mega-sized Egg Mobile, built by Daniel and painted, staple-gunned with chicken wire and outfitted with laying boxes by the apprentice team. 

Taking the Egg Mobile out for its first spin!

An Egg Mobile is really useful for several reasons. Because it is essentially a chicken coop on wheels, we are able to move the chickens around so that they can forage for worms, bugs, clover and grasses on different areas of the farm. This helps us out with feed cost and also produces a more high-quality egg. Chickens are also helpful in spreading out compost that we have added to the soil. 

This year we have around 275 laying chickens, who are already producing about 60 eggs per day. This number will increase with longer days and the maturing of our youngest layers. 

In other news, our first crop has made it to the surface! Garlic cloves planted in the fall and covered with leaves for the winter are feeling their first rays of sun. 

Garlic headed for the sun!

No post would be complete, of course, without some pictures of the farm pigs.

Though yours truly (Liz) has fallen in love with one pig in particular (Miracle!), they are all friendly, if perennially hungry, and always welcome a nice pat on the head or scratch behind the ears.

You'll know Miracle by her very feminine white eyelashes!

Little Large Blacks

Our latest porcine addition to the farm is a pair of Large Black heritage hogs. They are the future mothers of Frith Farm piglets, currently betrothed to our young Tamworth boar. They are barely 40 lbs now, but by early next year should be pushing 600 lbs or more. Even at this size, Large Blacks are known for their docility (partly due to their large floppy ears that impair their eyesight), their forage ability, their mothering traits, and their excellent meat quality. Right now our little Large Blacks are known on the farm for their unequivocal cuteness.

Mainely Lambs

While perhaps the state's most tired pun, 'Mainely' applies to our lambs in that they are Katahdins, a breed developed in Maine and named for the highest mountain. I will of course avoid all puns describing Katahdins as the pinnacle of breeding success, or the highest point on Maine's ovine landscape. The meat breed requires no shearing and is known for its natural resistance to parasites. We brought in 6 lambs this year, and hope to breed a few of the females this fall, with the rest for meat. They have the sweetest disposition of any of our animals, and bah with eagerness at their daily move to new pasture.

Herb Garden Expansion

We recently expanded our u-pick herb garden to accommodate our increase in CSA members this year. We sheet mulched the grass with cardboard and a thick layer of compost, then transplanted the herbs from our greenhouse directly into it. By the time the roots grow down through the compost, the cardboard should be decomposed. The result is an instant (well, several hour) transformation from sod to herb garden, with no tilling necessary.

Heritage Hogs

We are embarking on a pig breeding adventure this year, which has begun with the purchase of some heritage breed piglets. They are Tamworths, one of the oldest recorded pig breeds developed in Ireland and England, brought to the U.S. in the mid 1800s. Tamworth pigs are known for their cold hardiness, vigorous foraging, good mothering traits, and exceptional meat flavor and quality. Their instinctual intelligence has not been bred out of them, so they are alert, curious, energetic, and amazingly smart. It is wonderful to see them at work in the woods, foraging for roots, grubs, acorns, and mushrooms in their natural habitat.

Right now they are 30 pound piglets, but the plan is to raise up and keep a Tamworth boar to breed our Large Black (another heritage breed) females that will arrive on the farm in a few weeks. If all goes well, we will have our first round of Frith Farm piglets next Spring!

Baby Broilers

New meat chicks have arrived! They are 3 days old and correspondingly adorable. The livestock trailer serves nicely as their brooder, and is set up in the courtyard for easy viewing by all visitors to the farm. It's hard to imagine they'll be 5 pounds or more in 10 short weeks!

Groundwork

With warm April weather comes lots of hard work. For us the season begins with feeding the soil. We are expanding this year, so opening up some new plots from pasture. For this we use a Berta plow, after a generous covering of compost, rock powders, and leaf mold.

In beds that were formed last year, we use a no-till approach, simply spreading compost on top and planting into it. Avoiding tillage allows the soil structure to improve and earthworms to thrive, and of course requires less work and fossil fuel use on our part.

So far we have seeded carrots, parsnips, turnips, spinach, lettuce, mesclun, and arugula, with peas, radishes and many more on the way. Our overwintered spinach and kale is a bit battered from winter, but deliciously sweet from the cold, and our garlic is up and looking good!