The Neighborhood Farm
A collection of market gardens in and around Needham, MA
News from Needham's Neighborhood Farm
5/17/10 - 13 months - that's not too long between entries is it? Last year was a difficult year for farmers and gardeners in the Northeast. We had a tremendous amount of rain and cool temperatures. The combination was perfect for a number of plant diseases. The most devastating disease we had last season was late blight - Phytophthora infestans. Late blight is a fungus-like disease that destroys tomato and potato plants. This is the disease responsible for the Irish Potato Famine. It is difficult for organic growers to combat late blight. Conventional growers can use strong systemic fungicides (chemicals that move through the entire plant - from leaves to stems to roots to fruit/tubers). Organic growers can use a copper spray which is somewhat effective but is toxic to bees and aquatic organisms. We didn't feel comfortable spraying copper (our tomato plot was next to bee hives and the Charles River) so we didn't use anything. We lost our entire crop of tomatoes and most of our potatoes. It was sad - especially for tomato fanatics like us. It also created an enormous amount of additional work - we had to remove our infected plants and replant the gardens with other crops. As a result this blog fell by the wayside.
But its a new growing season, and we're trying again - both with the blog and with the tomatoes! We're growing 48 varieties of tomatoes this season (we'll post the list soon). Hopefully we will have a drier (but not too dry!) and warmer (but not too warm!)summer this year. And hopefully late blight won't make it to New England this year (last year it arrived on infected tomato seedlings imported from the South and sold by the big box stores). For more information on late blight, please read this article from UMASS.
4/17/09 - We planted the first of our onions in the ground today. It was a perfect day - sunny and warm - and it seemed like it was time to plant things. The garlic we planted last fall is about 6 inches high now. The rest of the onions, scallions and leeks will go in the ground next week.
Many other seedlings, including the spinach, arugula, salad mix, and beets, have left the greenhouse and are "hardening off" at various garden sites around town. Hardening off is a way to make seedlings stronger before they get planted in the gardens. Life in the greenhouse is a relatively perfect for a seedling, but out in the garden they won't have such perfect conditions. It will be alternately hotter, colder, wetter, and drier than they would prefer. When hardening off the seedlings, we gradually add a bit of stress every few days - we put them directly in the hot sunlight, we don't cover them at night when the temperatures dip down around 40, we don't water them as often. Once the seedlings have toughened up a bit, they'll get planted in the ground.
We have a TON of seedlings, and we'll start selling them in a few weeks so people can plant their own gardens. Among other things, we have over 30 varieties of tomatoes this year. We'll post a list soon. Meanwhile, if you have any special seedling requests, or you want to get them early, send us an email.
3/20/09 - Today is the first day of spring! It isn't very warm, but the sun is strong, the crocuses are blooming, the snow has melted, and the onion seedlings are 2" high. There are even 5 ambitious tomato seedlings that have emerged. So far this season, we've seeded over 100 flats of vegetables. (Huge thank yous to Martha, Babette, and Stef for your help! And an even bigger thank you to Powisset Farm for sharing their greenhouse space with us!) Over the next 2 weeks we'll clean up the gardens, repair the fencing, put in more fencing, and add compost to the soil. Soon we'll be planting the potatoes and onions in the ground. Its amazing how quickly spring progresses.
The best sign of spring I've seen all day are these photos of First Lady Michelle Obama and some students digging up the lawn at the White House. They're going to put in a vegetable garden! The following pictures come from the White House Blog.
2/18/09 - Wondering what those blue bags hanging from the trees on Kingsbury St are? We're tapping the trees for maple syrup! Those trees are sugar maples - the source of our favorite springtime treat. Dave Cournoyer, the head of the graphics department at Needham High, and the Needham High environmental club tap sugar maples each spring. Dave has a sugar shack at his house and he boils down sap that he collects from all over the region. More information about maple syrup will follow soon.
2/5/09 - We've teamed up with two farms in Western MA this winter. Heaven's Harvest Organic Farm and Enterprise Farm have coordinated deliveries of organic citrus and organic vegetables from farms along the Eastern seaboard. Most of us don't eat a strictly local diet, and despite our best efforts to eat in season, we want more than storage vegetables at this time of year. Food grown in the southeastern US travels about 1000 miles to reach us, whereas food grown in California travels about 3000 miles to reach us. Food from the southeast is about 2000 miles closer to "local". Once a week (for veggies) and once a month (for citrus) the produce is brought up and distributed.
The first box of citrus was amazing. There were navel oranges, juice oranges, and tangelos - my new favorite fruit. All of it certified organic from Eagle's Nest Farm in Florida. The first box of vegetables was also wonderful. The box had some expected winter veggies like potatoes, onions, turnips, and kale, but it also had some wonderful southern surprises like 2 big heads of lettuce, green beans, summer squash, eggplant, cherry tomatoes, and corn. There were even apples in there!
More citrus is coming up at the end of February and at the end of March. Let us know if you'd like to order some. The veggie orders are coming weekly through the end of March. You can join late if you want to. Just let us know you're interested and we'll get the details out to you.
12/30/08 - Our first year is officially behind us, and it exceeded our wildest expectations. We grew more vegetables than we thought possible, we were overwhelmed by community support, and we met some of the kindest and most interesting people right in our own neighborhood.
2009 will be our second year. We decided to expand slightly, but not dramatically. Our goal for 2009 is to streamline our production techniques and to eliminate the gaps in availability of certain crops. To accomplish this, we're making maps of each garden bed, plotting out what will be grown in each as the season progresses. We are also choosing new varieties of some crops. If you have a particular request, please email us and let us know. The only thing that is definitely out of the question is sweet corn. It requires too much space, and besides, Volante's does an amazing job growing sweet corn.
If you are a Needham resident, please sign a petition for the Needham Community Farm. The NCF is a nonprofit organization with a mission to create an educational farm in town, similar to the farms in Natick and Newton. The NCF is looking for permanent space to grow vegetables (you may have seen their garden site by Newman School on Central Ave). They are hoping to get permission to use the land at the NIKE site, out by Ridge Hill. (Extensive environmental testing has been done - we think it will be a good place to put a farm.) There is a petition online, urging the town to allow them to use the land for this purpose. We think this farm is a wonderful idea and will become an amazing resource for the town.
10/20/08 - The bunny troubles continue. A large rabbit dug a burrow inside our well fenced garden. How did it get inside? Apparently by parachute. Not only is the burrow inside the fence, it is smack in the middle of the lettuce bed. We are hoping to relocate our furry friend outside of both the lettuce bed and the fence, but we didn't have a humane trap. We sent out an email to our subscription list asking to borrow a Have-A-Heart trap. Not only did we get offers of traps, we got some remarkable rabbit related advice from Friend of the Farm "Pa Smash." Pa Smash was gracious enough to let us share it with all of you.
Thanks Pa Smash! If the Have-A-Heart doesn't do it, I guess we'll be putting out a call for Jack Russells.
9/1/08 - We are not alone! During the past month, we've learned of a few farms that are similar to ours. A wonderful case of synchronicity! Clearly this is an idea whose time has come.
The most recent farm we've heard of, and the impetus for this blog entry, came from today's Boston Globe. Here is a link to the article describing a farm in Chico, California.
Another farm is Community Roots CSA in Boulder, Colorado. They've been doing this for a few years now and, we are pleased to report, they are very successful!
There is also an organization out of Canada called SPIN Farming. SPIN stands for Small Plot Intensive. They offer educational materials and support to farmers looking to grow on small pieces of land. We haven't worked with them, but they seem to have a lot to offer.
We're feeling inspired by all these like minded folks. It makes us optimistic as we look past the end of this season and start planning for the next one.
We've got a number of things going on at the moment. Notably, we started bringing our tomatoes to the Hopkinton Farmer's Market at Weston Nurseries. That market is on Fridays from noon to six. We've been having a great time out there. You can see some more pictures in the photo gallery. We also made some changes to this website. Poke around and see what we've added.
8/4/08 - There is a lot of interesting local agriculture going on in our area right now. Here is a quick plug for another farm project that we think is especially worthwhile. A group of Needham residents is working to start the Needham Community Farm, much like the Natick Community Organic Farm and the Newton Angino Community Farm. Those of you who are in Needham may have seen the Needham Community Farm test garden plots out at the Newman School/Historical Society on Central Ave. There are four new garden beds with tomatoes, salad greens, corn, potatoes, carrots, and lots more. A lot of the produce is donated to the Needham Community Council, and some is available for sale on site. Hopefully a permanent farm site will become available sometime soon. This would be a wonderful, educational organization to have in town. More people are needed to help if any of you are interested in getting involved. Check out the website at http://www.needhamfarm.org
Our gardens are looking great. We've has so much rain that everything is enormous. We have a lot of cherry tomatoes all of the sudden. We are growing 7 different types of cherry tomatoes this year. There are some pictures of them posted in the photo gallery. We've also picked a few big heirloom tomatoes. So far the tally is half a dozen Black Krims, five Cherokee purples, one Tiffen Mennonite, one Pineapple, and about three dozen Glaciers that are growing in the greenhouse.
The biggest problem we've had is with our basil. Most of our garden sites were lawns not too long ago. As we now know, there is a kind of beetle (the Asiatic Garden Beetle) that is commonly found in lawns and apparently LOVES basil. There are countless beetles at one of our sites and they decimated the basil we had there. When we dug out the plants we found about half a dozen beetles in the roots of each seedling. Wow! We tried some organic controls including diatomaceous earth and soap sprays, but there were just too many beetles. In the end we planted more basil elsewhere (thank you Powisset Farm!) and we are squishing any of the beetles we find.
7/11/08 - Our first farmer's market was a success! We made it on time and with all our produce, plants and supplies! A miracle. We had a wonderful time. The market had a festive atmosphere - people were really excited to see local produce come to town. There were 2 other farms, a bakery, a nursery, and a company with composting products. There were even performances by some talented young Irish step dancers. If you get a chance, come visit us on Wednesday afternoons in Dedham Square. It's a fun event. We posted some more pictures in the photo gallery.
We ate our own tomatoes for lunch yesterday! So far there are only a few, but within a couple of weeks we should be inundated with tomatoes.
There have been a number of bunny and insect problems in our gardens lately. We've tried fencing out the bunnies, but they've found new ways through. We have been unable to identify our insect pests despite numerous consultations with other local growers. We can't find any of the insects, we can only see the damage. It's a mystery. We're hoping that they will depart for greener pastures now that they've eaten all the basil. Sometimes you just have to accept a certain amount of loss and focus on other things.
We've had some amazing help over the last couple of weeks. Jeanne cleared an astonishing number of weeds out of one of our gardens. She is a holistic health counselor with some wonderful resources on her website. Check it out.
Julia and Isaac came to market with us and thank goodness they did! I don't know what we would have done without them. Without them both (and their vehicles) we literally wouldn't have gotten there.
Overall, things are growing, growing, growing. We had rain daily for over a week and everything took off. Some of the tomatoes are over 5 feet tall already. Now that we're having a string of hot, dry, sunny weather we're expecting things to start ripening quickly. Come on tomatoes!
6/13/08 - We sold our first produce of the season this week! The farmer's market doesn't start until July 9th, but we began selling produce via email. On Tuesday, we emailed our subscribers and offered them 2 types of salad mix, spinach, Chinese cabbage, cilantro and scallions. They replied with their orders and picked up their vegetables the next day. We're pleased with the response we've received so far.
Next week we should be offering greens, peas, some herbs, heirloom tomato seedlings, and flower seedlings. If you would like us to email you with our list of produce, please subscribe to our newsletter.
The hot weather earlier this week stressed out many of our crops, but cooler temperatures have returned and everything seems to be recovering. A cool, rainy day would be helpful, but it doesn't appear to be in the immediate forecast. Working with and around the weather is one of the trickiest parts of farming and gardening.
New photos are finally up in the photo gallery. Check out some of our garden sites from around town.
This week we would especially like to thank Kristin and Julia, our fabulous volunteers who helped us get a lot done in a short period of time. Thanks guys!
5/22/08 - The first tomatoes are in the ground as we push our luck for a pre-Memorial Day start. The greenhouse is packed with more things waiting to go in the ground.
We will have a stand at the new Dedham Square Farmer's Market. The market will be on Wednesday afternoons from 1 - 6 in the parking lot at the corner of Providence Highway and Eastern Avenue (across from Staples on one side and CVS on the other). The first market day will be July 9.
We are also thinking about taking orders for boxes of produce (like a CSA share box) week by week. If you are interested in this, please subscribe to our newsletter and we will keep you updated with prices and availability.
4/28/08 - We've turned 2 lawns into gardens already! We have 2 more lawns and an old herb garden to go. So far we've planted sugar snap peas, shell peas, carrots, beets, swiss chard, lettuce, spinach, and scallions.
I was hoping to plant potatoes, more greens, and herbs today, but it rained so hard I couldn't see through my glasses. We'll try again tomorrow. At this time of year it feels like every minute counts. The hardier crops need to get planted outside and the tender crops need to be seeded indoors. The potatoes are sending out eyes that seem to be longer every time I look at them.
We are still thinking about how we are going to sell our produce. We would really like to sell in Needham, but with no farmer's market that is more complicated. It seems silly for both us and our local customers to drive to another town in order to buy and sell our produce. Any marketing ideas are welcome - please contact us if you've got an idea!
The seedlings are huge and healthy! Almost time to plant them outside in the gardens!
Seeded flats in the greenhouse. This picture was taken before anything had sprouted, but right now these onions are over 2" high.
Collecting sap from the maple trees
The contents of the January citrus box
The contents of the 1st winter veggie box
The Needham Community Farm website
The Problem
These onions are hanging in the garage, drying. We ran out of space on our flat, mesh drying rack, so we hung some. We suspended them from some 30 year old skis which permanently live on the ceiling of the garage. Knew they were there for a reason!
The Sungolds are ripe!
A garden in early August. Note the 7 foot tomatoes on the right.
Flower garden and greenhouse
Garden in mid-June
Newly seeded herb garden
New garden site in early spring