This Week at Ramsey Farms

Last Sunday
Another fantastic work day on the farm! My mom had to get on the road early Sunday morning - sure wish she could've stayed longer! It was still way too wet to till. The main job I tackled was continuing sifting through compost, adding worms to my worm bin in the process. One more productive afternoon and the compost will be done until the next batch is ready.

Meanwhile, Chris continued his clean-out of the northwest corner of the farm. He discovered a concrete pad about 10x8' underneath the decades of overgrowth and yard debris, along with a roll of old chain link fence, an old hose, a tire, a tarp, a 12-foot long mental pole (oops typo, Chris just informed me that the post isn't "mental", it's metal), an exhaust pipe, and various other uninteresting relics including an old Sundrop bottle, a tennis ball or two, and a decaying baseball. It appears that the concrete pad is truly just thin concrete slabs on top of dirt and surrounding by a million red bricks. We have found over 1,000 bricks in our yard over the years.

The moral of that story is - no matter how you try to bury it or hide it, if you don't clean up your own mess, someday somebody else will have to do it for you. Take care of your own problems and issues, don't try to shrug them off on others.

My friend, Stephanie came for a farm visit and to soak in the sun while enjoying the great out of doors! She played soccer and baseball with our four year old and worked on her tan. She also kept me entertained while I sifted through compost. I enjoyed giving her a tour of the recent farm changes and showing off the pretty sprouts and plants in the cold frame. We all enjoyed ice cold beers in the hot afternoon sun when the workday was done. The high today hit 72.

Monday
Great afternoon and evening in the garden and playing outside. Daylight savings time means the sun didn't set until about 7:30. It was the perfect backyard day with a high of about 74!

• Homemade Salsa - Quick & Easy to make on days you don't want to even be inside!

Tuesday

I mailed more sweet basil seeds off today for a trade! I can't wait to receive my borage in the seed-exchange. I received another trade - nasturtium and yellow summer squash (two varieties) from Taryn in Ohio.

Today was one of those days that "required" that I take the old laptop outside to work in the sun and fresh air. The temperatures topped 83 degrees today. (Frost warning tomorrow night!) There is a chance of rain in the morning, so we covered the area for potatoes and beets in plastic to help keep it dry.

• Pure & Perfect Body Moisturizer - No harmful chemicals or fragrances, just pure Shea butter, natural oils, aloe, and vitamins.

Wednesday

Today was a dark and rainy day with a high of 77 when the sun did finally venture out from behind clouds. I'm glad the planting areas were covered in plastic to maybe help them stay drier than without a cover.

I made ranch dressing, ketchup, 40 minute hamburger buns, and tuna burgers. We harvested about six radishes from the cold frame and a bowl of kale so I made...kale/radish salad to go with our burgers and baked potatoes! :) The radishes from my own garden are absolutely yummy - crunchy and zesty! Mmmmm! Lettuce by next week?

Thursday
Cold but gorgeously, blindingly sunny today. Too cold to do any work, but sunny enough to vent the cold frame and hopefully dry out the areas we're planting this weekend. I received my borage seeds in the mail from Zech in Ohio in trade for sweet basil seeds I sent him last week. (So exciting to receive something as fun as seeds in the mail!)

I made an oregano-thyme-Parmesan bread to go with our dinner of grilled pork chops, rice, and sauteed veggies! I am so ready to start eating salad from the cold frame!

Chris and I re-measured the newest "back row". The planting area is 4-feet wide and 40-feet long! I'm referring to this part of our garden now as the "Back Forty". Because the dimensions vary from the original garden plan, I redesigned that section using the garden planning software.  The Back-40 will still have corn, cucumbers, and bush beans and will now (probably?) also be home to sunflowers, more radishes, more beets, more carrots, soybeans for edamame, and some sort of dry, hearty bean like a kidney, navy, or black bean.

Friday & Saturday
The Ramsey Farms Bakery sold it's first loaf of bread! :) My friend, Amy ordered a one-pound loaf of herb bread.  It was nice to give her a tour of the garden when she came to pick up her bread. I made a half-pound loaf of the herb bread for my neighbor, Mike and was happy to be able to put that in his hands while it was still hot from the oven! I also made two loaves of sourdough French bread for all my farmhands.

Chris used Mike's tiller again for the "Back Forty", row 1, and row 2. The soil was still very heavy and wet, so we put off planting in row 2 and the back forty until next week. We did purchase our seed potatoes and corn seed Saturday. I have cut the potatoes and they will sit at room temperature for a couple days to form a protective layer on the cut side. This is to help prevent rot or disease.

I uncovered the sweet peas in the kids's raised bed, reseeded mesclun and lettuces in the cold frame and row 1, uncovered & reseeded the chamomile in the herb garden, planted beets in row 1, weeded in all the planted zones, harvested six or seven radishes and a basket of mesclun mix greens and made another batch of homemade creamy ranch dressing (with fresh herbs from the garden) for a salad for our dinner.

Our daughter's birthday is Monday so she had several friends over Saturday evening for a slumber party. My friend and the new Recreation Coordinator here at Ramsey Farms, Stephanie, dropped in about sunset. We all celebrated the lovely evening with a bonfire and garden party complete with cake and ice cream under an almost full moon.

Support our Farming Efforts ~ 8x10 prints $40, 11x14 prints $50

Be sure to check out this week's other posts: Quick & Easy Salsa (not for your skin) and an Incredible Skin-Nourishing Lotion (for your skin)! :)

Be nice to yourself this week - we all have much to celebrate and appreciate! Get outside when you can and find a way to celebrate the March Equinox on Thursday. Let Spring restore your hope, excitement, and lust for life. Kiss your children, plant a flower, hug a tree. Go on, try it. Have a fantastic spring week! :) ~Ramsey

Compost

Why compost? 

Create the best, free nutrition for your garden! Recycle! Good for the environment by not using chemical fertilizers. Reduce waste in our landfills. I like the fact, too, that the plant life goes back into the earth to nourish more plant life. Ahhh....life! It's a wonderful cycle.

What goes in? 

Egg shells, banana peels, apple cores (until I learned I can make my own apple cider vinegar with them!), onion paper, vegetable scraps, fruit peels, tea bags, coffee grounds & filter, hair, paper towels, yarn & fabric scraps, dryer lint, dead leaves, grass clippings, and more. Here is a great link with a long list of items you can compost and what those particular items added to your compost!

What comes out? 

What we get from our compost is rich, organic fertilizer full of nitrogen & other nutrients for the soil to raise healthier veggies, fruits, herbs, flowers, bushes, trees, and houseplants.

"Gaston Gold" pure compost

Compost fully lining the new cold frame on top of a healthy mixture of soil & more compost

And don't forget the worms! The new worm bin will increase our compost production with high-test vermicompost

Grow Healthy ~ Eat Healthy ~ Know Your Food

Worms on the Move

Worms on the Move

About 200 worms moved into the new outdoor worm composting bin Chris built.   We filled the lower and middle beds with piles & piles of shredded newspaper and papers that had soaked in non-chlorinated water. The top "drawer" is our working bin where the worms will live and be fed.

The top bin was also filled with piles and piles of wet, shredded papers (great recycling project for the kids!) then the contents of our indoor bin were carefully dumped onto the shredded bedding. Additional worms were also added. There was still food in the indoor bin so I simply placed a small piece of cardboard over that food area and nice damp, dry, brown leaves added to fill to the top.

The worms will feed on the finely chopped vegetable scraps and crushed egg shells as well as their shredded newspaper bedding. As the population grows they will get to where they will require about one cup of produce scrap per week and then some.  Just add the food matter, cover it back up with the cardboard and you're done! And there is no smell. If it does get funky it may be because it's been overfed or the wrong type of kitchen scraps have been used. I won't feed them until the current food source is almost gone.

The worms' waste (yep, I am talking 'bout worm poop, folks!) is called castings. These castings essentially
look like soil. Worm poop is like black GOLD if you are into gardening, farming, or growing any type of healthy plants. Vermicastings are the best fertilizer you can get and it's all natural! You don't need much space to practice worm composting at your house and it's a great way to compost your basic kitchen scraps while creating your own fertilizer for your flower beds, potted plants, herb garden, or anywhere. Or maybe you just want tons of worms to go fishin'! :)


One of this blog's dedicated readers, Alysha from PA, wrote in to ask if we could double or quadruple our worm population by cutting the worms in half (or fourths). I actually wondered this too but the way worms are designed if they are cut in half at the "right place" the body area that contains the vital organs could grow a new tail. However, the tail portion would not be able to regenerate a new head. So you get baby worms the old fashioned way, Alysha! They do it. Woms are hermaphrodites, meaning each worm has both male and female reproductive parts so each worm can mate with any worm in the colony. I do wonder why they need another worm if one worm has all the necessary parts...but I guess that a worm's sex life is just none of my business! ;)

If you'd like to learn more about worm composting or vermiculture, come on over or drop me a message (or comment below).  Let's build your worm bin together! We will be more than happy to share all we know even if it's isn't that much! :)

Worms & Bugs

Spent part of my mornings this week hand-picking green imported cabbage worms off my cauliflower,

cabbage, and kohlrabi plants. :( I wonder if those would make good fishing bait?  I am researching lady bugs to help control these particular green worms and other garden pests and what to plant to encourage the pretty red beetles and other beneficial insects to move into my yard and garden.  We don't use pesticides or chemical fertilizers in the garden because we want it to be organic and all natural.

I learned a new word this week: insectary. Basically that's a garden plot or area that is planted specifically to attract beneficial insects!  I am already planning strategic companion plantings to help attract the good bugs and repel the bad ones as well as creating borders and small spots for these helpful plants.

Another beneficial for your garden is vermiculture - or worm poop! My daughter is the resident "expert" on vermiculture having learned about it in a summer camp several years ago and we had our very own under-the-kitchen-sink worm farm for at least a year.  We lost those poor worms to a kitchen sink leak but today I became a vermiculturist a.k.a. Worm Farmer again!

The new worm farm is a very small shoebox-sized plastic box with small air holes drilled into it and containing a nice worm-loved mix of wet shredded newspaper, a little garden soil, a few wet, brown leaves, and a little food by way of coffee grinds and shredded green.  Ramsey Farms Worm Farm (lol) is already home to about 55 to 60 red wrigglers I "hunted" from my backyard today.  They include both the Eisenia fetida and Lumbricus rubellus species.

These little guys will multiple faster than bunnies, eat kitchen scraps like egg shells, coffee grinds, and raw vegetable scraps, and the end product is a rich, rich compost to use in the garden or mix with topsoil to make an excellent potting soil for spring plants!  I was itchin' to do something garden-y today and I got to dig around in the dirt for a while, but I am already planning a much larger worm farm to build outdoors in the coming months that can help supply nutrients to my entire garden.