Winter just refusing to let go..Carrot Ginger Coconut

Good Morning, What a nice day yesterday, hope everyone enjoyed it. New link on the blog to the CSA I have started. Check it out. I think it is very unique and a going to be a great value. Herb Roasted Chicken soup with Potato getting made today along with a nice tropical sounding Carrot/Ginger/Coconut.  Short post, gotta go.

                                              A Polish Turban Top

A cruel April Fool's Joke is in the works here on the farm.

Good Morning, So for Friday we are to get something like 7-14 inches of snow. Ahrg! Ah well, still have the snow blower on the back of the tractor but this stuff really slows down CSA sales at a critical time of year for the farm. Off to make soup tomorrow. Thinking about a Carrot Ginger with Coconut. We will be doing a tasting at Hunger Mtn Coop this Saturday and I will have it at the farmers market in Montp as well. Red Hen will have it on sale also. So today's chore list is to clean up the peep enclosures, get some transplants of lettuce into the ground, wash some pots and pans, and start mucking out the chicken coop while it is thawed out still.  The peppers finally started to germinate today. Now if I can just coax the eggplant and ground cherries along the rest should go fairly well.

                                                         Red Swiss Chard

Slow growth and low temps

Yeah so the month of March is just killing me with below normal temps. It has managed to kill some seedlings as well. A number of people I talked to in the last couple of weeks are very winter weary. It's been a cold tough one this year. Its really tough when I drive to Burlington and all the snow is gone up there and I have 2 feet of it here still. Plants are up and running just wish April would hurry up and come and with it a real shift in the weather pattern.  Interest in the CSA seems to be picking up, "winter" market this Saturday in Montpelier and my middle daughter Olivia will be handling a soup tasting and demo at Hunger Mtn CoOp this Saturday from 11-2pm. I am off to try and cut some spinach for some small orders.
Trying to figure out which tasty soups will get made and delivered tomorrow as well.  Joe

Clam Chowduh heading out the door.

Soups today are a classic Clam Chowder without Bacon. I used smoked salt instead.  A nice Jacobs Cattle Bean Soup with plenty of Tomato, Basil and Garlic in it.  It will be at Hunger Mtn CoOp and Red Hen Bakery. The Bakery has my eggs and spinach for sale now too.
Farming slowly trudges along around here. Everyone including the chickens need to see some lawn soon. Seedling are coming up in the greenhouses and under the grow lights and progress is getting made. This time of year is such a pain because trying to get stuff done is so inefficient. Finally repaired a crosstie in one of the greenhouses yesterday. Got some harvesting done. Trying to get things cleaned and organized as we go. The new peeps are all feathered out and should really be out on pasture but we still have 2 feet of snow around here and no warm temps in the forecast for a few more days.

Getting the last of some paperwork done and still need to get the CSA schedule figured out. Well need to label some stuff and get going.

So its time to announce the CSA for this season

Hello All, This post is for you followers here in Washington County. I am teaming up with George Gross at Dog River Farm just on the other side of Montpelier from me to form a csa. We are calling ourselves the Central Vermont Food Hub. The website and blog page are up and running, you can even purchase a share online. We have several goals in creating this CSA. Develop and promote Washington County growers and producers. Give all of us a new and stable market that is really local. Our CSA will deliver to your work site with a small number of subscribers (5). This cuts down on fossil fuel consumption. Instead of 100 cars driving out to the farm, we hope to have one truck making stops at our work place. The fun part is that we are not just offering vegetables. We will be including Red Hen Bread, Pesto, Marinara, Gazpacho, Chilled Cucumber Dill soup,Maple Syrup, Eggs, and other locally made products as we find them. The bulk of the shares will still be great summer produce but with some extra value added by sourcing other great local products. You will still have to do some cooking and prep, but I will still be sending out culinary guidance on the CSA's blog page on a weekly basis. So check out the website, etc.
centralvermontfoodhub.com

Any questions please give me a call, tweet, comment, email, etc. Thanks Joe

New Greenhouse is here.

Hello All,
My new seeding house was just delivered today. Can't wait to scrape the snow away and get it built. Should be a real nice place to hand out and get seeds going this time of year. Thinking I should get a jack hammer to get down through the frost line so I can set my ground posts. Soup making tomorrow. Have not decided what they should be yet. Weather is looking to be good for soup eating though, a bit unfortunate on some level. Ah well, gotta go water the seedlings.

Have some soup with this snow!

Good Morning,  Thai curry coconut squash soup and a fine herbed cream of chicken with rice going out the door this morning. Things are sprouting in the greenhouses and we have started harvesting spinach and salad mix in earnest this week. All that fine weather last week really helped. Now if it would just return and stay. My new greenhouse shows up tomorrow. It's a small one that I will be setting up as a seedling house. Hoping to have enough room in it to put a couple of comfortable chairs on one end to enjoy some early/late season sunshine and warmth. Tomato, eggplant and peppers are seeded. Now the wait for germination, here goes the season. Really curious to see if my over wintered fava beans made it and will produce a fine early crop for this season.

Claytonia, Miner's Lettuce, Winter Purslane

Montpelier Market Today! 10-2

Good Morning, Putting the finishing touches on a tasty cream of mushroom soup. Just added some pesto to an Italian sausage and Potato soup. They are both looking good. Sugar on Snow today at the market as well. I have plenty of spinach and salad mix. The warm weather and sun means the bags of greens are getting heavier and the price is staying the same. Hope to see you at the market.

Joe

Spring has sprung Soup going out this morning.

Good Morning, What a day yesterday! I actually found a bit of time to locate my beach chair, a beer, and sit in the door way of one of the greenhouses and just soak up some sun and warm temps. Man did it feel good! Every fall I look forward to winter and I am ready for spring right now.
So Cream of Mushroom soup is off to the Co-Op this morning. I am trying a smaller container of two servings to see if I can entice people to try a bit more soup.

Blue Russian Kale

March in Vermont aka Soggy Bottom month.

Rain, snow, rain, soggy bottom sitting on the tractor trying to move all the slush and muck. 

Snow! Holy Crap! Almost lost the greenhouses

Whew! What a day. Went outside thinking I had a bit of snow to move away from the greenhouses and discovered between 2-3 feet of it had drifted up on the south facing sides. Went into the houses and the trusses and cross ties were under serious load stress. Got the snow moved and one house just unloaded all at once. Crazy watching everything just flex back into place. The second house took alot more effort to get the roof cleaned off. No snow on the north side at all. Same think happened with the valentines day storm a few years back. So I guess once again I am a great testimonial for Ed Persons' Greenhouses. Also the snow blower that I bought for the tractor easily paid for itself several times today. 

Soup heading out the door in the morning, I will let you know what it is. I am exhausted.

Market Today! Wet weather Great Soup and Salad.

Heading to market with a great Miso Vegetable soup w/ Wild Rice and a very meatatarian braised beed minestrone. Alot of rain on tap so a great day to be indoors listenting to music and eating great food.  Plenty of sweet sugar spinach and mesclun today as well. Wicked Happy Hen Eggs also.
Joe

March 3rd Sunny and Soupy! Market This Sat. 10-2

Hello All,
Just finished an awesome brown rice miso soup and an Oxtail Minestrone. All headed to market this Saturday.
Gotta go pick spinach in the greenhouses, it may be 24 outside but its 70 in the houses. Great Tshirt weather for this time of year.
Joe

March 1st Farm and Soup in like a Lion?

Good Morning, Well getting ready for market already. Spinach is looking good and just cut 70lbs yesterday. Have to wash and bag today and then deliver at midnight since I have to go to Burlington to pick the kids up. They go to florida and I shovel snow. Hmm? Salad is waking up but not as quick as I would like, or my customers for that matter. Working on forming a Central Vermont Food Hub based/focused in Washington County. Have to see how that goes. One more project.
Soil tests are back for each row in each greenhouse. Ouch. A real surprise at what is not in there.

Finally soups for today--Smoked Split Pea (no meat), Cream of Parsnip w/ Cider, Tomato Orzo w/ herbs..
Available at Hunger Mtn CoOp, Red Hen Bakery.

Tigger Melons  Exceptional Perfume mild flavor