MARCH 3, 2000
Can this really be March? It came in not like "a lion", but more
like mid-April! Trees and flowers are budding and blooming, and we're
worrying that another cold snap is inevitable! The past 2 weeks have
seen the garlic jump about 4 inches, and it looks GREAT! We had a
river scare 10 days ago after a torrential rain storm (I'm sure many of
you heard stories about the flooding in Northern KY), but our river (the
Kentucky) didn't get up quite high enough to get the garlic! We have
made up some of our rain deficit from last year's drought at this
point, but still have a few inches to go.
MARCH 28, 2000
The wind has arrived!! We are about to blow off this hilltop
today, and our temperature has gone down a good 20 degrees! All the
beautiful daffodils are bent over double and pollen is swirling off the
elm trees like snow. I love this time of year, though, looking out
across the river valley at the trees just beginning to leaf out on the
other side. There are little pockets of that yellowish-green new
leaf color here and there amidst still very wintery looking oaks and locust
trees.
The cute little wrens are stashing nesting materials EVERYWHERE!
You can't leave anything lying around outside, or you will find it has
been used as a stash spot. They are building a perfect cozy nest in a 5
gallon bucket on the front porch...first just twigs and leaves, and now
a soft layer of moss. It's so interesting to see the progress!
OCTOBER 17, 2000
Finally!! Time to write again! The earlier and earlier
sunsets are forcing us to stop outside work sooner in the evenings, or
at least giving us the excuse to stop! It's a tired time of year...
the farmers' market has been going on since April 15th, and after our last
market (October 28th) we go straight into planting next year's garlic crop!
Overall it seemed like a pretty good year, although we found that plenty
of rain can be almost as hard to garden with as too little! The weeds
were unstoppable!!
FEBRUARY 3, 2001
What a winter we've had this year! And it's not over yet!
We were still planting garlic in late November when the seige of arctic
air began. The ground froze solid and put an end to any more planting,
and most other outside work as well. As it turned out December was
our coldest on record. And what a bear it was! But we did manage
to have a white Christmas, and even had time to take some hikes in our
woods to see the frozen waterfalls and other icy beauty. A bit of
a thaw in January gave us a chance to do a few things in the garden before
it froze up again, and now we're in that grey nether world of February!
The grow table is sprouting all kinds of onion sets, lettuces and kales,
and giving us hope for an early spring. The next project is our annual
trip to Bayou LaBatre to pick up the EcoLogic fertilizer for the year.
It'll be nice to get away for a couple of days to someplace warmer, and
the "girls" (Echo and Luna) will love a trip to the beach on Dauphin Island
to romp in the sand and drink too much salt water!
JUNE 10, 2001
Well howdy! Time is obviously flying by and we are into the 2001
garlic harvest already! Tonight is an early night, quit at 8PM to
be prepared for an early Monday, with some help from our friend,
Josh. He's been helping us once a week since last fall's planting,
and being young and energetic, he helps us get a lot done in the time he's
here. He will also be a big help in getting our produce to market
more than once a week this summer.
The garden is blossoming, both literally and figuratively! We
were in a bad drought for so much of the early spring, and all of a sudden
WHAM! rain! And almost too much of it all at once! But
now we've had a few days of sun and warmth, and the garden is showing its
appreciation!
FEBRUARY 1, 2002
So much has happened both on the farm and in the world since my last
entry! We were in the thick of last fall's festival season when the
World Trade Center towers were hit. As we sat making garlic braids
in our kitchen on the morning of September 11th we watched with horror
the events unfolding before our eyes on TV. Two workers arrived,
stunned from hearing reports on their car radios on the way in, and we
all watched together, shocked and silent.
Somehow, the days kept on passing, with a kind of dreamlike feel.
We especially noticed how clear and blue the skies were for days on end,
and how eerily silent it was in the garden with no aircraft passing over
for those first days. It was a very sad time, and our work was something
to focus our energies on to keep us going.
The following weekend we had both the Garlic Festival at our Lexington
Farmers' Market and the Ohio Valley Harvest Festival in Louisville scheduled.
We had been working feverishly to have enough braids and bagged garlic
ready to cover both events, when suddenly we wondered if the events would
even take place! or would anyone even feel like attending these events
if they didn't get cancelled?
We were amazed, after the fact, at what great crowds we had at both
events. Everyone seemed to need that sense of community, spending
time with old friends and assuring each other that we could get through
this!
And so life on the farm is gradually settling back into the old routines,
even if our world is fundamentally different now. We finished our
market season the last week of October, had the best garlic planting weather
we've ever had in November (dry and warm!), and had the opportunity to
go back to the Farmers' Market in December for 3 weeks before Christmas.
Our market had been offered space in Victorian Square in Lexington, a city
block all under one roof, refurbished as a shopping/entertainment venue
about 15 years ago. It worked out perfectly for Blue Moon Farm, as
we have always missed out on the Christmas market for our products, had
an abundance of greens to sell, due to the long warm fall weather, and
we loved being in the sparkling holiday atmosphere! Some of our market
vendors are still hanging in there, and hope to go all the way through
winter until we move back outside in spring!
DECEMBER 10, 2002
I'm so glad I call this "Random thoughts when there's a minute to write"!!
As you can tell by the dates, things have been busy, to put it mildly.
Our 2002 garlic crop was GREAT! The spring flood came in April and
some of the garlic patches went under the river, but it went back down
quickly and the garlic was fine. Rains kept up til around the start
of garlic harvest, and then they SHUT OFF!! The first garlic out
of the ground was muddy, but by the time we were on the last varieties
the ground was like cement! It was really hard on the equipment,
and resulted in short tempers and much hand-digging, but we got it done!
The rest of the summer was a severe drought that put a real crimp in
our vegetable production. We got our first baby squash in August
(usually June), and never harvested enough tomatoes, peppers or eggplants
to sell. We thought it would never rain again, but boy were we wrong!!
All it took was the arrival of garlic planting time and the rains and snows
were upon us! November was wet, wet, wet, and as soon as December
started we got a snowstorm and frigid temperatures that totally stopped
our planting. The weather forecast tonight looks better, so we should
be able to make some good progress in the next week.
The big news from the farm this year is the addition of a 14' X 48'
greenhouse! We're excited to think about being able to extend our
season, both early and late. Updates to follow!
The "family" is doing well, Echo, at 11 1/2 is the old lady. We found
a tumor on her leg that was cancerous, and it has been removed. We
keep our fingers crossed. Luna Blue turned 5 in September, and has
become a real lover. She thrives on hugs, and snuggles right in for
them! Machashi is now 6 and is a sweet kitty. He spends a good
portion of his winter days in a little bed by the fire, or climbs on my
lap to sneak under the bottom edge of my sweater to nap!
Leo and I are tired, as usual this time of year, but already looking
at the seed catalogs and planning and plotting for our next season!
We wish you and your family the best of the holiday season, with the
gifts you can't find in the mall....gifts of love, peace and harmony.
Merry Christmas!
JULY 23, 2003
Well! It sure has been a long time since I wrote! We have
our 2003 garlic harvest hanging in the barn, curing, and are trying now
to get the rest of the garden whipped into shape and making some money
for us! We're currently picking Roma beans, Provider beans, blackberries,
baby squash, a few flowers and this week will be the first basil harvest.
The spring was not kind to us, with way too much rain and even more grey
days. It took us until late June to get most of our summer sets in
the ground....it was too wet to prepare the ground for them. Just
as things were beginning to dry out it was time to start garlic harvest,
which means everything else takes a back seat! During the course
of garlic harvest the ground went from globby mud to cement! We found
ourselves in disbelief that we were doing the rain dance after the monsoon
season we'd had!
We've been back at the farmers' market every Saturday since April 12th.
MAY 11, 2004
This is not a normal spring on the farm. In March, Leo was elected
President of the Lexington Farmers' Market. With him putting in about
40 hours a week on that job, our spring planting is suffering. Good
thing garlic is planted in the fall!! The crop looks wonderful at
this point, and we are beginning to get excited about the harvest which
will begin in 2 weeks or so. We have been selling "Baby Green Garlic"
at the farmers' market since it opened April10th, and this weekend will
have Garlic Scapes for the first time this year. We have one customer
who calls scapes "garlic candy"!! She keeps a bag in her refrigerator
to munch on for a snack! A lady after our own hearts!
The struggle continued all winter of whether to go through the rigors
of applying for USDA Organic Certification this year. It's a real
heartbreaker for us.....something we've worked so hard to keep up since
1994, and something we were so proud of. Finally in a fit of sanity,
we decided it was just going to be too much paperwork- documenting every
seed we put in the ground for tomatoes, beans, peas, lettuces, kale, spinach,
beets, squash, flowers, fennel, basils, parsley, cilantro and on and on.
Not such a big chore for the agribusinesses who grow only one crop on a
farm! That's only one reason we decided to give it up, and I must
say that just having the decision made was a great relief.
So we now call ourselves "sustainably grown", and continue to do everything
the way we 've been doing it for many years.......since long before we
were ever "certified" in the first place! Our customers know us and
know that we didn't grow organically to be cool, we did it because it is
our philosophy.
FEBRUARY 27, 2006
Wow!! Can it be 2006 already? I can't believe it's been
so long since I wrote! I guess it's a sign that our lives just keep
getting busier! I know 2005 was incredibly busy for us.....our farmers'
market, the Lexington Farmers' Market, started a Sunday market the end
of June, so we lost our day to "catch up" from the week past, and gained
a second trip to Lexington each weekend! We also started a Garlic
Scape Pesto project, and were able to offer a limited amount of delicious
garlicky pesto (NO basil!) to our customers. They flipped for it!
This project ate up (no pun intended) a tremendous amount of time, as we
do not have our own commercial kitchen, and had to drive one day a week
an hour each way to a friend's kitchen to process the pesto. We owe
a debt of gratitude to Buddy Hall of Applecreek Farms who was so generous
with his time and expertise in helping us to create this successful product!
He makes some wonderful products of his own. You can find his website
at www.applecreekfarms.com
Other new products were fresh basil pastas made for us with our basil
(green or lime) by our friend the baker, Steve, at Sunrise Bakery in Lexington.
He and his Mom, Nancy also made some terrific blackberry muffins using
our blackberries, and delicious focaccias with garlic scapes (in the spring),
and freshly sliced garlic the rest of the season. He makes them look
like works of art!
So the year really sped by! We could never have done it without
the help (GOOD help) we had on the farm.
There was some sadness in our lives this year too, as our oldest Rottweiler
(our sweet Echo) reached the end of her long life (long to her, not to
us!) We celebrated her 14th birthday on August 1st, and lost her
on October 12th. She is so sorely missed....the first dog we had
who lived her whole life on the farm....lucky girl. You will find
some photos of her on the "Our Family Photos" page, and a link to a memorial
page.
Because we'd known for quite a long time that Echo was nearing her
end, we began the search for a puppy. Our younger Rottie, Luna Blue
is 8 now, and needed somebody to help keep her young. We needed
to get a puppy in the winter so we would have time for bonding and training
before the craziness of our season was once again upon us. And so,
on January 3rd, Moonshadow came to live with us at 6 weeks old! Her
photo is on the "family" page too. What an absolute sweetheart she
is. I have spent my winter wearing her out between naps, and saying
"no bite"!!
Leo started the first fertilization and cultivation of the garlic patches
today. This may be the earliest start ever! It looks beautiful
and green, and promises a rewarding season ahead.
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