In my three years as a member, I manage to always be otherwise engaged for any farm trips.  I’m always disappointed to miss it.  I’ve gone on the website a lot to show my kids pictures of the animals and I vow that I will make it up to see them in person.  But it never works out.  Until this year.  I was so happy that the barbeque was on a day I was free.  My husband was happy that the menu included pulled pork.  It’s one of our favorite things.

So even though a 5 hour roundtrip with two kids 3 and under can be dicey, we were excited.  We got up there faster than expected.  We immediately shed our sweatshirts, it was a beautiful day.  There was chickens running around everywhere along with a couple of strutting roosters. Read the rest of this entry »

Good day to all. It is so hard to find time to “blog” these days but I find myself confined to the house at the moment to watch my son Noah play with his wooden train set. Hopefully enough time to share a little update to you all as to the “going ons” here on the farm.

I’m afraid most of what I will blog about today is our worries related to such an unseasonably wet June which is usually sunny and summer like.

A very wet spring and early summer is great for some crops and not for others. The leaf and root crops love these condition while for others it poses a great threat for fungus infestation due to the unseasonable moisture in June. We have noticed severe fungus infestation in our first succession of Zucchini, Peas and green house Tomatoes. Read the rest of this entry »

CSA

As I alluded to above, the Vegetable CSA has had ideal growing conditions and we are anticipating wonderful bounties this season.  The next couple of weeks are going to be very busy and essential to our success this season: we are planting and seeding all of the frost sensitive crops as well as 2nd, 3rd or 4th successions of all season crops: cucumbers, zucchini, winter squash, pumpkins, carrots, greens, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, sweet potatoes, beans, edamame, celery, leeks, celeriac and corn.

Apprenticeship Program

It is our mission and goal to train the next generation of young organic and biodynamic farmers. It is a relationship of mutual benefit: while we train them in organic farming practices they assist us in our efforts to grow delicious, healthy food. This year we have attracted a very eager and ambitious team of apprentices who have proved to be hard working as well.  We have 6 apprentices this growing season most of whom are eager to stay on through the winter season and beyond. This year for the first time, the apprentices have been able to join the CRAFT program in eastern NY and western MASS, visiting other farms and meeting apprentices from all over the region.

Please be sure to introduce yourself to our new apprentices, Christian “Yan” Tutschka , Lucas Jackson, Maeve Mangine, Anna Sauerwein, Madeleine Daughtery & Dominick Grant.   Without whom we would not be able to provide you with good wholesome local food.

Volunteers Needed

We are looking for volunteers the weekend of the June 6th to help with mulching tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, sweet potatoes, cucumbers and peppers.  Please email us if you are able to help out and we will give you more details. Email us at woodbridgefarm@sbcglobal.net

Creamery

Most of you are aware that we have made considerable progress with our creamery and are getting anxiously close to making cheese!  We are very excited and have just last week begun to train the cows to walk into the milking parlor:  a small 12’x 20’ room with four head gates and milking stanchions.  Such a room is very foreign to our herd and getting them comfortable to enter and exit was definitely easier said then done.  They have now mastered going out to and back in from pasture through this milking parlor room. Our next step is to separate the male steers from the milking cows by moving them to the Baily Field pasture.  This will enable us to concentrate on our dairy herd (9 in all) and train them to stop in the parlor, put there head in the head gates to eat and be “hand” milked as they have been in the pole barn since March.  After this is accomplished we will separate the calves from their mothers.  The final step is to then introduce the dairy herd to the milking equipment and start milking and soon after making cheese.

With our above average creamy Devon milk (6% butterfat) we plan to make “raw milk” cheeses. Mainly bloomy rind camembert/brie and washed rind  Morbier type cheeses. We will also experiment with Alpine Gruyere style cheese and stick with what we make well.  The ripening period for raw milk cheeses is a minimum of 60 days.  So we hope to offer you a taste of our creations sometime in August if all goes well.

The retail section of the new creamery building is a little bit slower to be realized then that of the now functioning milking parlor and fromagerie.  We will keep you informed as to its progress.

New Pasture

Last year we had cleared 9 acres just beyond the “forest pig pastures” and seeded it for new pasture to accommodate our dairy herd’s appetite for grass.  During this clearing process we have lost a little top soil and the grass is coming in “spotty”.  So we have re-seeded in the problem areas and hope to have full nutritious green pasture next year or even the year after that.  We have also leased roughly 6 acres of pasture 2 miles from here to help with more pasture for the beef herd as the pasture in the Baily Field would not be enough.

Pork

We will welcome the arrival of 25 heritage breed Tamworth piglets sometime early June.  One of the oldest and rarest breeds of swine, they will again be raised in the woods on a fresh piece of “forest pasture” not too far from last years location.

Beef

We will be harvesting four steers this summer.  Two in the coming month and two in the fall.  As always they are purely grass fed.  Let us know if you are interested as they usually sell out quickly by the side.

Mushrooms

We have started a small shiitake mushroom project inoculating 16 logs and hope to have a harvest this fall.

Farmer’s Market

We have joined the Greenwich Farmers Market and will be selling our produce, beef, pork and cheese every Saturday from 9:30 a.m. – 1 p.m. through November 2009.

Last Saturday we visited Woodbridge Farm to meet with the farmers and help with some spring planting. One member was kind enough to share her thoughts on the trip…

Read the rest of this entry »

As we quickly approach another wonderful season of hard work and good eats we often get caught up in all the “going ons” here on the farm and forget to reach out to all of you with a little update on how we are doing and what we have and will be doing to provide you with real nutritious food that you know.

Last year had its challenges.  Mainly with mother natures providing more water then needed.  New London County, in which we farm, was designated a “Natural Disaster” area by the USDA.  We were amazed at what we were able to provide in such conditions.  For more information click here. Unfortunately as a diversified farm and not a farm producing a commodity, we would not qualify for aid of any sort.

We have been quite busy in the early part of this year recruiting apprentices to learn Organic and Biodynamic methods of farming and to enjoy the fruits of their labor.  Although we stress a lot every year around January, we seem to always - “Knock on wood” - attract a very energized group of young adults who are determined to get as close to their food as possible and obtain the skills necessary to produce them.  A desire we believe is spreading around the globe.
Since the last week of February we have been sowing in the greenhouse peppers, celery, celeriac, tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, leeks, scallions, onions, swiss chard, kale, pac choy, dill, & egg plant.  All but some of the tomatoes and peppers will eventually be transplanted out to our fields.  This week and next we are watching the weather closely as at this time of year we have to take advantage of every sunny/dry day that we get.  It’s important to have an opportunity to till and prepare our beds in order to stay on a very rigorous CSA sowing schedule.  For instance this week & next we have scheduled to direct seed and transplant into “roughly” 2 acres, spinach, peas, carrots, parsnips, turnips, salad greens, pac choy, onions & potatoes.   So far it looks challenging with the rain today and chance of rain for the rest of the week.
We are very excited to announce that through a long term lease, we have ”reclaimed” 10 additional acres for Organic/Biodynamic vegetable production.  This land is currently in the second year of transitioning to certified organic (a 3 year process). It’s always a very good feeling when “we” have an opportunity to transition (reclaim) land that had been conventionally farmed back to its natural state and rebuild its soil utilizing biodynamic, organic and responsible farming methods.  I do not use this word, “WE” loosely.  It does not take just us the farmers to accomplish this, but you the CSA member, a member of our farm as well.  It takes this support structure to have a chance at taking back what is rightfully all of ours, “real food” one knows.  In this lands case it was 10 acres of hay fields that was not treated awfully but did have commercial fertilizers put on it as recent as 2 years ago.  We are going to grow part of our vegetables on this land this year, which means that some of our vegetables are going to be in transition to organic while the majority of crops will be certified organic as usual.

We look forward to another season and hope to see some of you on the farm some day soon.

–David and Julia
Woodbridge Farm