We are sprucing up the joint!
Yes, it’s the week before the Farmyard Jam. We are catching up on our laundry and some trim painting on our sheds. We are giving it our best effort to impress all who come to be part of this fun community event.
For those of you unfamiliar with our Farmyard Jam, it is an old-style farm and music festival featuring local bands, farm tours, food trucks, craft beer, and games for kids. We hope you will join us!
Join Growing to Give for an evening of fun,
music, and delicious food at our festival fundraiser.
[Click Here to Purchase your Farmyard Jam Tickets]
The Farmyard Jam celebrates the power of community and the impact of sustainable farming in helping our neighbors. Your ticket purchase supports our mission and contributes to our efforts in building food security in Maine.
Now on to other farm news:
Beetle Juice
July brings on the bugs. We do bug patrol when we get to the farm in themorning and usually another round before we leave for the day. We collect hundreds if not thousands of Japanese Beetles weekly. I read that making a spray from these beetles by pulverizing them in a blender, straining out the remnants, and putting this liquid in a spray bottle would deter them. Ellen bought us a blender at Goodwill and cleverly put a bug decal on the lid. No one would want to mistake using this blender to make margaritas!
Let the experiment begin.
You can tell by the look on my face that the smell was not pleasant. I followed the recipe, adding a little soap for good measure. Did it work
Well, it’s hard to say. We wanted to think it helped, but the lack of bugs the next morning could have been related to it being overcast. I will try again–we have plenty of bugs to pulverize–but this time maybe I’ll add a dash of cayenne pepper. 🙂
Another recipe we concocted was a blend of six cover crop seeds to sow into two plots of rye that have been crimped. These two plots need some TLC, so we decided this season to plant them only with cover crops to help break up our clay soil. The seeds we chose will do just that–roots that will go down deep and help break up the clay base. Josie and Margaret decided which ones, mixed them up, and went out to plant. This heat and almost daily rain showers have them sprouting already!
We hosted the other half of the Stantec team and this group included Genevieve’s mom, Melanie. They helped us get our sweet potato slips and hot peppers planted. Thanks to Stantec we have hundreds more plants growing and thriving.
Another great group of volunteers that we had last week was a group of New Mainers. When it comes to growing and sharing food, the language barrier is a non-issue. The kids were great at harvesting, and everyone went home with a box of fresh vegetables. Thank you, Luis, for bringing your family and friends. I hope we see you at the farm again. A special thanks to Matt Starr (one of our board members) who has worked really hard to make this connection between the G2G farm and farmers from other continents.
Speaking of Matt, he brought one of his long time friends to volunteer one afternoon. Matt is from NYC and his friend Julian is from Queens. Can you guess what new experience I gave them? They were so funny–asking me if they were doing it right!
Gleaning is really becoming a big focus now. Three gleanings a week, and on Friday, there were 11 of us picking and cleaning 13 different vegetables. This week we added celery and big beautiful onions to the mix. We are sending out single stalks so recipients can take just what they need. How many of us have had to compost that limp celery in our vegetable bin? Such a waste!
At the wash station, I have always hated seeing all that soil we work so hard to nurture get washed off and lost to the grass beneath the wash station. Sometimes it just takes another set of eyes. Sharon put a bucket underneath and collected it. Duh, Theda.
My friend Vera came with her family and her own gleaning basket. She got to choose what went in it. It was very artfully arranged!, I might add.
We have over 1,000 tomatoes in the field, which means everyone is on tomato duty. It gets unusually quiet as everyone gets into the “TOMATO ZONE”. One side effect of working with all these tomatoes is coming out with a tinge of yellow all over your skin and clothing. I don’t recommend running errands after this shift–this comes from personal experience!
Thank you, Jan, you never seem to mind all that trellising. One day she had on all green clothes, and we forgot she was out there!
Josie and Burnham have started to install the rainwater collection system(this is Josie’s summer intern project), and we will mostly use it to fill watering cans. It’s an educational tool for kids and adults alike, possibly to integrate into their own home water-conservation measures.
The farm is looking truly beautiful, and with our flowers adding a nice dose of color, it is summer in Maine at its best. Many bouquets are now going to agencies that provide home care and assistance. Thank you, Dodie and Christine, for all the energy and organizing you have put into this.
It has been brutally hot and humid for weeks now! Ugh, I am not a fan, but I want to thank everyone who has shown up to help mow, glean, plant, arrange flower bouquets, trellis tomatoes, weed, water, paint, build, go on bug patrol, etc. This includes my crew–Genevieve, Carol, Margaret, Audrey, Josie and Tim–who never complain. Thanks, everyone for always being so positive!
I am proud of them and what we have nurtured and created this summer. I hope many of you come on the farm tours this Saturday at the Jam, so Genevieve and I can showcase the beauty and bounty of this place.
Always grateful, especially in this heat!
Theda