Photo Update 6.3.14

Well, with four inches of rain in the last week the plants have been getting plenty of moisture. You can see things just growing and popping up. It seems as though some stuff has doubled in size - the garlic is standing tall, the broccoli is gaining great size and the peas just keep climbing. The weeds, of course, are popping too - time to attack them! The beets (below) got their first thorough hand-weeding.

Freeing beets from radishes that went to seed.

 After hand-weeding a row or bed it is just lovely to look back at the pretty rows - so gratifying! Mmm, next comes beet thinnings!

Colorful beet seedlings.

Sunday we went on a little farm date, for an event at Star Thrower Farm (Glencoe). We we able to tour their sheep farm eat some delicious local and foraged foods, and be rejuvenated by a day off. (Thanks Mom!) Slow Food Minnesota hosted the event - they are a pretty cool organization.

Sheep in pasture, with their guard llamas.

 On our insect farm tour (below). Discussing insect roles in agriculture and bees!

There were so many momma sheep and darling lambs!

 Back to the farm...my first irises bloomed and the second ones are ready to open up. I had no idea what color they were going to be, but these look black - sweet.

And into the field...as I said the peas are climbing! Strawberries in the foreground are moving from blooming to berry-making.

Strawberries in the foreground, snap peas climbing the fence.

The second planting of broccoli is ready to go it, and the first planting is looking great!

First broccoli planting.

 Kale and two plantings of radishes, amongst the weeds.

Basil, looking gorgeous. Ready to make pesto this summer?!

The first planting of lettuce gearing up for CSA deliveries!! The second planting is gaining size too. Now we have all four successions planted. Soon we will install a shade tunnel over the lettuce to protect it from summer heat and prolong the harvest season.

Tomatoes are tall enough to get their first trellising - we'll install posts and the first line of trellis string. After that, then they will get their first pruning. There are many flowers already!

Spinach - get your salad spinners ready CSA and Farm Share members!!

The new "Bee Hotel" went up this morning :) Making great use of these pretty scraps of fence posts.

Vera and Lilly, having breakfast. We think Lilly will have her piglets first, she is larger and last night she started some more nesting behavior. Stay tuned!

Have a great week! Enjoy the nice temps and sunshine :)

Photo Update 5.27.14

What a fine weekend it was on the farm! We transplanted and seeded absolutely everything that needed to get in, which amazingly was followed up by a 1.8" rain. More fencing was finished and stakes put in - I love seeing this structure being added to the field. Now we have many heights, hues, seedlings and plants (and weeds).

A view of the field from the West end.

Awesome tomato transplants are in the field
(aka farmer selfie).

The field is getting full and the orchard went into full bloom this week. The bees are a-buzz amongst the trees, doing their busy work. The renovation John has been doing becomes more and more evident every year, with the health and production of the trees. This year 57 of the 58 trees are blooming, a record.

Mason bee house in the orchard.

Apple blossom, on the right is the "king blossom".

A view from the road. Many apple trees blooming and
one tall, lone pear tree.

There is much excitement amongst the animals of the farm too - with baby chicks and piglets expected in the coming weeks. Around the first of the month twenty heritage breed chicks will arrive. Mid-June, as CSA begins, the two sows will farrow and welcome their little piglets into our growing herd.

Lilly.

The momma's bellies are hanging low and we can even feel the piglets moving inside. We moved Lilly and Vera to fresh pasture for farrowing, which also has to buildings and better shade.

Now that's a pregnant sow!

 We have been busy with more than just the plants and animals - we've been having some wonderful opportunities to connect with people. At the end of May Brooke went to Northfield to visit our farmer mentor's farm, Open Hands, touring and learning with Erin and Ben. Then Ben came to visit our farm and we spent a whole afternoon talking about many aspects of the business. Continuing education is very important to us, we are grateful for the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service and the Land Stewardship Project for creating this opportunity for us.

John, our farmer mentor Ben and Brooke.

Then we held our Pre-Season Member Meeting with our CSA and Farm Share members - what a great time! We had a wonderful turnout and the evening was just energizing. Seeing people - old and new customers - looking forward to our CSA, fresh produce and connecting first-hand with a farm is so cool. All members who attended went home with a mason bee home, which John created out of cedar sections.

Mason bee homes for farm members.

 Now, a walk about the farm...

Glaskins Perpetual rhubarb, first season of harvest.

Sparkle strawberries, in their first season of production.

From left to right you can see: a corner of the
asparagus bed, strawberries, snap peas and
two plantings of wax beans.

The garlic and shallots are growing by leaps an bounds.

The first squash went in last
weekend - acorn (pictured) and zucchini.

An early cabbage gaining size.

The lettuce bed, with four plantings of lettuce
already in the ground.

Why hello carrots! It's lovely to see you again.

One of two onion beds, with shell and snow peas in the background.

Tomatoes! Getting the tomatoes in the ground is always so thrilling.
John and I disagreed about what is the best smelling plant
to transplant - he went with tomatoes and I went with basil.

2014 apple tree grafts are starting to "break bud". They spend one
year in this nursery bed, before moving to their permanent locations.

Sign in the garage. We use the back door a lot.

 There is so much more than what is pictured!! Spinach, potatoes, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, parsnips just started coming up, melons are waiting in the wings, broccoli and more broccoli. It's going to be a great year!

•Tentative start dates for CSA and Farm Share deliveries are June 16/18 - the first pre-season newsletter has gone out; another will follow to confirm the start date.

•Farmers' Market begins July 5th.

•Not getting our emails? Make sure to put goodfood@alternativerootsfarm.com in your address book. We had to add an email with yahoo's most recent updates - alternativerootsfarm@yahoo.com is still our main contact email, but newsletters will come from the other email.

Bee House Project

When we think of pollinators, often the first thing that comes to mind is the honeybee. Honeybees do their share, but behind the scenes there are a variety of other native bees handling the majority of pollination services, which receive little recognition. Today we are focusing on our native orchard and mason bees. See our bee houses project for orchard and mason bees from last year.

These orchard and mason bees go about their day gathering nectar from a surprising number of flowers and bringing it back to their nest to provide food for their soon-to-be offspring. While they are visiting flowers, pollen from the flower sticks to the bees body hairs; then, when they visit another flower of the same variety, with the attached pollen, pollination occurs. A female mason bee will lay 5-6 eggs in 5-6 different chambers (6” long nesting tube), according to the US Dept. of Agriculture. Up to 75 separate flower visits may be needed, per foraging trip, and up to 15-40 foraging trips may be required to provide enough of a provision of nectar and pollen for a single chamber.  

So, lets do the math...how many flowers could a female mason bee need to visit to fill 6 chambers with the necessary pollen in a nesting tube:

75 (separate flower visits/foraging trip) x 27 (foraging trips/single chamber) x 6 (chambers) = 12,150

That is potentially 12,150 flower visits per season for that single bee to raise her young!  If that’s not pollination at its finest I don’t know what is!  

These amazing little creatures do not create colonies like the honeybee, rather they are solitary but gregarious (they construct nests near one another). Being gregarious is what makes building nesting boxes a viable idea for your garden pollination needs. While it is important to provide nesting habitat for the bees, it is equally important to provide an array of flowering plants that bloom throughout the growing season. A list of native flowering plants can be found on the Xerces Society website.  Finally, it should be noted that these bees rarely sting; they are typically very docile and mellow – so don’t worry about inviting more bee stings into your yard. 

Take a look at the simple design we came up with for constructing your own Mason & Orchard Bee House and start helping your pollinator friends today!

Orchard Update

The apple trees are blooming!

Oh the trials and tribulations of a first year orchardist! As I am sure you have all seen or heard on the news, fruit growers are hurting this spring. After an extremely warm March, most of the trees at the orchard were in the pink bud, or blooming stage, very early. The problem with the early bloom is the potential for freezing nights, which can really set back or kill the delicate flower buds. Lo and behold we have had plenty of freezing nights since blooms have occurred--7 nights below or at 32°F to date, 1 night as low as 26°. Along with the cold nights we have had cold, cloudy or rainy days, which keep our friendly pollinators housed up and not able to go out and collect nectar. So this spring has been what I would call a triple negative (1) early, warm  temps have allowed the tent caterpillars to flourish, (2) warm temps stimulated early blooms making them susceptible to frost, (3) pollinators are not out doing their business during cold, rainy days, influencing adequate pollination for fruit production. On the positive the orchard is not only pollinated by our friendly bees, wind can pollinate as well!

John and the Orchard 4.21.12

At this point we could either think of the situation as a glass half empty or half full...I like to look at this year as the glass half full. Yes, there will definitely be far fewer apples, but the potential for larger apples is higher. So for the fortunate apple eaters this year that should be a treat! After all the work that has been done on the orchard this year (restorative pruning--pruning hadn't been done in years; mowing--also not done in years; general tidying up) the harsh realities of this less-than-ideal spring weather become a great learning experience, and all the work out orcharding has just been delightful. The orchard is just looking beautiful this time of year!   --John

Mason bee house in the orchard

Close up of blooms. Damaged buds may look okay, but
will be browned inside when cut open.

Brooke in the orchard.

Bee Houses

Part of our mission on the farm is to promote and develop wildlife habitat--including habitat for pollinators.  John built these darling houses for Mason and Orchard Bees.  They don't produce honey, but they do an excellent job pollinating--even better than honeybees.

The tubes you can see are bamboo (a renewable resource) sections cut to 5 1/2" - 6" lengths.  Amazingly the Mason Bee Queen will produce males or females based on whether these tubes are more or less than 6 inches in length--crazy cool!  We have two houses hanging up in the yard now.

Mason Bee {photo starlisa's flickr}

John tried a couple different kinds of tubes for the bees to use, to experiment.  Something has been working on the houses, but no sighting yet!

Along with the smaller bees, we are planning to provide the proper habitat for the cuddly bumble bee.    We are excited about our little bee friends, and this will tide us over until we get our first honeybee colony in 2013!