Author: bloomingglenfarm

19 Dec Register now for an early bird discount

As the weather turns to freezing and the ground hardens, the wind howls and the landscape grays, our preparation for 2017 begins in earnest. The heavy fabric row covers are draped over the strawberry plants, a thick layer of leaf mulch is spread on the garlic and the greenhouses are battened down for gusty weather. We will be spending (quite a lot of) time entering our crop harvest records into a computer program, then the seed catalog ogling and ordering will begin. Planting charts from last season will be analyzed and edited. Adjustments in timing will be made, and the complicated game of crop rotation chess will begin.

Taking a cue from the energy of the earth drawing inward, we like to use this time to reflect back on the past season. Typically we talk about crops that have done well, and those that failed. Bugs that plagued us, and lessons learned (and there was plenty of both). Over the years we’ve seen all sorts of weather events- hail and wind, lightning strikes, drought and downpours, frost too early and frost too late. This year was hands down the hottest farm season we can remember in our 18 years of farming. It was hard on both the plants, and on the farmers. Not hard as in drink some water, put on your sunscreen and your straw hat, and head on out there. Hard as in, how do we prevent heat stroke, how do we keep this farm growing and producing food? I am quite sure we are only beginning to see the tip of the (rapidly growing) iceberg of challenges that we will face farming in a changing climate. Politics and that little thing called scientific evidence aside, ask anyone who does manual labor outside, day in and day out, where there is no thermostat, and you’ll find plenty of anecdotal evidence for global warming.

It’s scary and it’s overwhelming. But wait, there’s actually some really good news. By supporting organic agriculture you are doing your part to combat climate change. Really? Yes!! Numerous studies have demonstrated that a switch from conventional to organic farming methods can decrease the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Nitrogen heavy chemical fertilizers used in conventional agriculture are a serious contributor of N2O (nitrous oxide) production- a major greenhouse gas. In addition, chemical fertilizers damage the mycorrhizal and microbial interactions that store carbon in the soil. A 30 year study by the Rodale Institute proved the soil’s ability to reverse climate change, but only when the health of the soil is maintained through organic regenerative agriculture. That’s the kind of agriculture we do, the kind that uses cover crops, residue mulching, composting, crop rotation and conservation tillage. Take cover crops for example- crimson clover, tillage radishes, rye, vetch and buckwheat are some of our favorites. There are a lot of reasons to grow cover crops- erosion control, nutrient management, attracting beneficial insects and increased soil organic matter. But now when I look out over the sea of green on our fields I see a blanket of carbon sequestration.

Plants need CO2 to grow, so through photosynthesis they suck carbon out of the air. What the plant doesn’t need for growth is exuded through the roots to feed soil organisms, whereby the carbon is humified, or rendered stable. Carbon is the main component of soil organic matter and helps give soil its water-retention capacity, its structure, and its fertility. And that’s a win win for us. Using methods of organic agriculture not only reduces atmospheric CO2, it boosts soil productivity and increases resilience to floods and droughts.

So if your own health isn’t reason enough, let’s really start to think and talk about how this community of eaters is doing a vitally important job in supporting the health of these 40 plus acres of soil.  Soil is an incredible thing. A teaspoon of soil contains more living organisms than there are people on earth! And these 40 acres of organically managed soils at Blooming Glen Farm, in our little corner of Bucks County, can convert carbon from a greenhouse gas into a food-producing asset. As my dad would say, that’s turning a setback into a comeback. Since the first day that I discovered agriculture as a way to speak my truth in the work that I do, I have been motivated by a desire to do meaningful work on a local level. Moving out of 2016 and looking toward 2017 I look up a bit from my grassroots focus and recognize with more gravity the global importance of the work we do here. One in which good healthy food, a result of good healthy soil, is just one of many benefits.

So take a moment and go on over to our website and register for the 2017 season. If you register by March 1st you will receive an early bird discount, so don’t delay. That early bird discount is a thank you to those folks who make that commitment to us in the off-season, in those cold wintry months when you may not be thinking of sweet spring strawberries and sugar snap peas, and juicy summer tomatoes and watermelons, but we are. That’s our job, and that’s what we do in the “off-season”. We do all that planning and tweaking of plans, and supply ordering and hiring. And we couldn’t do it without your support and commitment to help us pay those bills in the winter and early spring. Farming is a crazy business, all that work and investment has to happen months and months before the first seed even hits the ground, then it’s months and months more before that seed becomes a marketable crop. But it will! If our 11 years growing here at Blooming Glen Farm has taught us anything it is that a seed wants to grow, and if we do our part to help it along its way, the avalanche of crops will follow.

We are excited to have a new addition to our offerings this upcoming season. We will be offering a pick-your-own flower share. This will be an add-on for delivery share members who may want the opportunity to come out to the farm and pick a bouquet of flowers, or for those folks who might have their own garden and therefore are not interested in the veggie share, but would like to partake of just the pick-your-own flowers. More information can be found on our website. (*Folks who register for the CSA share with pick-up at the farm in Perkasie will continue to receive PYO flowers as a part of that share, so you do not need to register for the additional flower share).

Spread the word. Tell your friends. Register now. We need you. The soil needs you. The earth needs you. Thank you for your continued support. We wish you and your loved ones a joyful, healthy new year in a world where peace and love for one another and for this beautiful planet prevails.

Post and photos by Tricia Borneman, Blooming Glen farmer and co-owner.  Tricia and her husband Tom have been farming together since 2000. Blooming Glen Farm is celebrating its 11th season bringing high quality certified organic vegetables, herbs, fruits and cut flowers to our local community.

05 Oct Superfoods of fall

The signs of autumn are here. The warm color of the light at dawn, as the sun breaks through the mist. The view from our hilltop of the golden hued trees shedding their leaves. We shift to a later start, an extra hour to sleep, or plan, or sip coffee, as we move toward darker and colder mornings. Sweatshirts and muck boots and warm layers abound.  Fields that sat empty during the drought are able to get tilled and seeded with cover crop seed, as a stretch of rainy days has finally moistened the earth. Out into the fields we spin seed- crimson clover, rye, vetch- a mix depending on our plans for next year, or the needs of the soil in that particular field. Out on the farm we are cleaning up the fields of summer crops, cutting down the cherry tomato and eggplant trellis twine, removing stakes and lifting mulch.

Our annual organic inspection was last week, another marker of the passage of time. Though this was the third year, we still get excited and a little nervous. We do enjoy the challenge of the audit where we trace a crop from seed to sale- on a 40 acre farm growing dozens of different crops it is no small task tracking everything that happens over the course of a season. We look at it as a fantastic opportunity to test our record keeping systems, to see where we need change and improvement. And we enjoy chatting with the inspector, hearing about the greater organic community which we can often lose sight of during the mayhem of our farm’s personal challenges.

Looking ahead to the remaining weeks of our season, we have garlic to plant, fall greens and roots to continue to harvest. Our sweet potatoes are out and curing in the warm greenhouse. The last of our potatoes will be dug as soon as the ground dries. Winter radishes and fennel will soon follow.

The vegetables are a reflection of what our body needs to eat as the weather turns. Nutrient packed greens fortify us, winter squash contains the summer rays in its golden flesh. Celeriac, turnips, beets, carrots, radishes- all roots, ground us. Root vegetables are a true comfort food, delicious and satisfying, they fulfill carb cravings and often a sweet tooth- think beets, carrots and sweet potatoes- without bombarding our body with sugar. They are a powerhouse of nutrition, packed with vitamins, minerals, and disease-fighting phytonutrients, from the lowly turnip to the earthy beet.

In our CSA share and on our farm stand this week you’ll find kabocha squash- this is my favorite squash to eat, and that’s coming from someone that really loves winter squash. Acorn, delicata, butternut, they all have their place, and their recipes are in a steady rotation in our house, but oh so sweet kabocha, with your beautiful blue gray skin, you’re the one we hoard and store for the winter, the one my daughter requests the most. You are definitely the least well known and perhaps most under appreciated of all the winter squash we grow. So I am here to sing your praises. Enjoy kabocha while we have it! This Japanese pumpkin is an excellent source of beta-carotene- just look at that bright orange flesh! I halve or quarter it, roast, scoop out of its flesh and mash and eat as a side with our greens. No need to add a thing! So incredibly moist and delicious all on its own.

The fall greens are abundant and beautiful- kale, collards and swiss chard, broccoli raab, arugula, and those magnificent beet greens. If you do one thing for yourself and your health, eating your greens should be it. Sauté, add to a soup or blend them raw in a smoothie. Find ways to incorporate them into your daily diet and you will see and feel a difference in your well being.

Our spaghetti sauce and ketchup is ready for sale…made almost entirely from ingredients grown on our farm. It was prepared and bottled locally by The Bauman Family in Sassmansville, Pa. This historic apple butter factory has been in their family since the late 1800s. A massive wood fired cast iron boiler from 1926 sends steam through the copper coils that heat up the vats of tomatoes (or apples).  It is quite an amazing operation! We hope you’ll purchase a sauce or ketchup to enjoy this winter- they taste fantastic and make great gifts.  The labels were designed by Michael Alan, an artist from Philadelphia. He has just completed the illustrations for a beautiful cookbook/history book, Colonial Spirits. Truly a collaboration, and an extension of the season, that we are so excited to share with you!

Important CSA dates: Tuesday Nov. 8 and Thursday Nov. 10 is the final week of CSA pick-ups for full shares, and week B half shares. Tuesday Nov. 1 and Thursday Nov. 3 is the last week for week A half shares. The last boxed delivery shares will go out Wed. Nov 9.

Please note: *We will be taking this season off from holding our annual harvest festival in order to get inspired and energized for the 2017 season.

Post and photos by Tricia Borneman, Blooming Glen farmer and co-owner.  Tricia and her husband Tom have been farming together since 2000. Blooming Glen Farm is celebrating its 11th season bringing high quality certified organic vegetables, herbs, fruits and cut flowers to our local community.

08 Sep Hot and dry heading towards fall

Hurricane Hermine brought us a whole lot of nothing in the way of rainfall.  The dry weather continues, with an added dose of late summer high temps reaching the hundreds over the next few days. The spiking temperatures are pushing along our late tomato planting, just as the first rotation dips off. Hopefully that means we won’t have much of a gap in the tomato harvest. Jeff is pictured here mixing up a fish kelp and sea salt fertilizer to run through the drip lines of the tomato plants. It is a mild concentration to support plant growth during fruit set.

The summer crops of peppers and eggplants are peaking, and we are getting back into harvesting some of the fall greens- currently rainbow swiss chard, tuscan and curly kale.

With weather this dry we have to keep the irrigation pipes moving. Since the only moisture in the ground is coming from the morning dew, we need to irrigate to get the direct sown crops to germinate and continue growing. Pictured in the very top photo are teeny carrot seedlings in the beds to the left of the irrigation pipe and larger beets on the right.

We’ve also direct sown purple top and hukurei turnips (we’ll be harvesting the hakurei’s in the next week or so), broccoli raab, arugula, and winter radishes- (pictured below).

The harvest of our popcorn crop has begun… we grew a larger eared variety this year so we could run it though a hand crank popcorn sheller, and prevent a lot of blisters from getting the kernels off with small hand tools. We are excited to try the three new varieties we chose- Dakota Black, Pennsylvania Dutch Butter Flavored and Calico.

Many of our CSA members have seen our note attached to the onions we are giving out in the share. You may remember this spring we mentioned the appearance of a new insect to our region- Pennsylvania experienced a “First in the Nation” sighting (lucky us) of the allium leafminer, introduced from Europe. The Department of Ag used our farm as an observation site- monitoring the bugs life cycle with sticky traps. Unfortunately the dire warnings were well founded. In addition to losses we experienced in the spring onions, we are seeing major damage in our storage onions as well as garlic. We made the decision not to plant leeks this fall until there is more information about how to prevent infestations- I can guarantee you it will be a hot topic at the PASA conference this winter. The onions you are receiving in the share are not the best quality. But we decided to give them out quickly, with the thought you can cut off any bad spots, rather than us composting them all. As our note read, if this is not to your liking, it’s probably best you don’t take them from the share.

CSA share 9/6/16 (week #15/A). Top photo on-farm pick-up, bottom left large box share delivery, bottom right medium box share delivery.

The winter squash harvest is complete- it was a bountiful butternut year, along with kabocha and delicata. Kristin Moyer did a chef demo Tuesday at the farm featuring grilled spaghetti squash, acorn squash and root veggies, with herbs and greens that was absolutely delicious. We will be posting her recipes shortly. We will also share recipes from today’s demo with personal Chef Rich Baringer.

And last but not least I feel I need to introduce our resident spider. Or should I say spiders. We are now up to three spiders greeting you as you walk down the path next to the CSA distribution room (they are along the wall of the red shed, under the pear trees). They’ve been there for a number of weeks, happily stringing their beautiful webs and catching lots of bugs, being the subjects of lots of photographs and attention. They are orb weaver spiders, specifically yellow garden spiders (or zipper spider as I’ve always called them), argiope aurantia, and all three are females. They make a vertical zigzag band or zipper, above and below the middle of the web. They are not dangerous to humans, and are unlikely to bite unless provoked (best to observe from a distance, as we do want them to stay).

Post and photos by Tricia Borneman, Blooming Glen farmer and co-owner.  Tricia and her husband Tom have been farming together since 2000. Blooming Glen Farm is celebrating its 11th season bringing high quality certified organic vegetables, herbs, fruits and cut flowers to our local community.

04 Aug Summer frenzy

This is the time of year when we just try our best to hang on tight and survive the ride. The fields get fuzzy around the edges as all non-essential and semi-essential projects are neglected, our summer help of college and high school kids desert us for vacations and back to school, and the few full time full season employees we have left that survived one of the hottest summers I can remember are pretty darn tired. But it’s August on a vegetable farm! That’s peak harvest season for the summer crops and we still need to look ahead and plan for fall. Harvest, harvest, harvest! That’s about all we seem to have time for these days, with a bit of trellising and planting thrown in when we can fit it.

The field tomatoes waited for the cooler weather to ripen- people think well, it’s hot out, the tomatoes must love it, but actually the optimum temperature for tomato ripening is between 68-77 degrees. Anything above (or below) that will slow down the process. And it certainly was way above 77 degrees for the last month! But not anymore- this afternoon we harvested 1,245 pounds of red beefsteak tomatoes. Then it was onto the green bell peppers (the sweet fryers are a week or so away), and off to plant some fall fennel and greens.

The winter squash is looking to be a bumper crop, which is perfect, as our summer squash is winding down. Earlier this week we harvested all the spaghetti squash, so look for that coming up in your share and at markets this weekend- a nice change from all the zucchini heavy meals I know I’ve been making! The acorn and delicata squash look amazing, as do the butternuts and kabocha. Speaking of fall, the sweet potatoes are vining out nicely (see photo below).

Enough talk about fall! It is still summer, and we have watermelon on the horizon- lots of gigantic red ones and some super sweet orange ones as well. The cantaloupes this week were smaller than we would have liked (this planting was one that went through that late frost way back in mid-May, and just never bounced back), but they are still super sweet and tasty- keep them in the fridge and eat them soon.

Another summer time favorite, the Italian eggplant, is beautiful this year- big glossy purple globes. The sweet corn has been awesome (this week’s yellow variety is definitely the best corn I’ve ever eaten), and we hope to have a few more weeks of it (if we can get the corn cannon going to scare off all the blackbirds that like to munch on the tips- argh!).

For our second planting of tomatoes we experimented with mulching it with a heavy carpet of leaves, instead of using plastic. It was very labor intensive, but we are hoping that not only will the leaves help build up organic matter in the soil for subsequent crops, but that it will also suppress the weeds for this crop of tomatoes. And the leaves are free from Perkasie- they’ve been breaking down here at the farm since the town delivered them last fall.

On a more serious note we are definitely very short handed on the farm. We have lost a lot of full season employees that we did not anticipate losing, for various reasons. This farm is much larger than anything that Tom and I are able to handle on our own. The farm suffers when we have to retrain people constantly to do work that requires a lot of attention to detail, as well as physical and mental stamina, all during a season when people are used to vacationing, trips to the beach, and a slower pace. Farming is hard work, and it is definitely not for everyone. Actually it seems to not be for many people at all, and that’s becoming increasingly a problem. We’re really not sure what the answer is when it comes to labor, and I know we are certainly not the only farm to struggle with this issue. But I do know being shorthanded means we have to make a lot of decisions about what work to prioritize, and what to let go. For you all, this might mean less blog posts and things like classes and cooking demos scheduled, and out on the farm things looking a little rougher around the edges than we’d like- (there are definitely lots and lots of weeds not getting weeded, but maybe we are the only ones noticing ;). But we are hopeful that we will get more help hired in the coming few weeks, and get back on track. And we are super grateful for those field workers we have that are willing to put in the effort, the long days and long weeks, and see the season through.

Laura, our friend and CSA greeter, will be leaving us when her kids head back to school. We’ll miss her but we’re so glad she helped us out this summer! We will be looking for a new CSA greeter for Tuesdays (and possibly Thursdays) starting in September through the end of the CSA season in mid-November. The hours are 12:30 to 8pm. The ideal candidate has great customer service skills, has been a CSA member for a number of years, and really values the farm and the food. Must be physically capable of restocking- lifting up to 40 pound bins. Please email me directly for more details if you are interested.

Enjoy the bounty!

Post and photos by Tricia Borneman, Blooming Glen farmer and co-owner.  Tricia and her husband Tom have been farming together since 2000. Blooming Glen Farm is celebrating its 11th season bringing high quality certified organic vegetables, herbs, fruits and cut flowers to our local community.