Farm Update

Plants, planting, contest and near disaster at the dump We are finally beginning to prepare some new beds and a few other areas for planting! We are officially on our way into the 2014 season. We have our spring organic veggie plants now available. Broccoli, cauliflower, kale and chard. Fifty cents per plant. Vicky will have her planting clinic soon. We will keep you posted. The first veggie of the season is always asparagus. Because you never know when those first delicious spears are going to pop through the soil, we have decided to play Americas number one fun game, "WHEN WILL OUR ASPARAGUS SHOW ITS FACE"! Go to our Facebook page submit your guess and if your date is correct you win a coveted Rousedale Farm t-shirt! If we have more than one correct guess we will draw one winner from them all. Good luck. The other day when it was snowing, who knows which snow day it was, I headed to the dump with our trash and recyclables. I made my way to the giant dumpster to toss my paper and glass in. I decided not to use the metal stairs to carry my large plastic trash cans up to dump the contents, but instead lifted the trash can over my head to empty it over the side eight feet up. When I did all the recycles crashed down on to the floor of the nearly empty massive dumpster, but so did my trash can, as I lost my grip on the slippery handle. I was somewhat startled at first. I had never thrown in my trash can along with the trash before. I climbed the metal stairs to take a look down into the cavernous steel dumpster. There lay my ten dollar trash can. It was in practically new condition. What was I to do? It was a goner. There was no way to reach the thing. It was on the bottom of the steel cavern. I thought to myself, "maybe the darn thing cost twenty bucks". I looked around. The dump was quiet that snowy day. I put one leg over the side. I looked around again. Should I really be doing this? I put the other leg over and I jumped into the dumpster. I immediately sensed I was dropping a lot further than I thought i would. I made my way over to my thirty dollar trash can and tossed it back to safety. Now I had to get out of the house sized dumpster. I went back to where I thought the stairs were. I reached as high as I could and grabbed the top of the wall and attempted to pull myself up. I struggled. I tried to get leverage with my feet on the wet steel walls. A sense of panic began to come over me. "What if I can't get out of this thing? Do I yell for help from inside the dumpster? It's got to be against the law, roaming around in a dumpster. Do I call Vicky and ask her to come and save me? I can hear the conversation now....You're WHERE! Plus I may be buried alive before she could save me." Terror turned into panic. Panic turned into fear. Fear miraculously turned into strength and somehow I pulled myself up and over the side to safety. I looked nervously around. I appeared to be alone with my embarrassment. I picked up my fifty dollar trash can and drove home. Vowing to always keep a strong grip on my trash cans from now on. Thank you for allowing me to come clean with my story. I didn't even tell Vicky about this. Guess I'll find out if she reads the blog.

Locally Yours, Vicky and Steve

We will have organic veggie plants to sell this year!

As I sit here waiting for another 1/4 inch of ice and 12 inches of snow, I close my eyes and smile because I know our farm plan this year is to start planting in 14 days and, darn it all, we will do it!! We are actually expecting our onion plants to be delivered Tuesday! I wonder if anyone has ever planted onion plants with a snow shovel and a pick axe? But enough of this hilarity...I know a number of you love to plant some of your own veggies. I know it's relativily easy to find vegetable plants, but not so easy to find organic vegetable plants. Well, we are going to make it a lot easier this year. We are buying extra plants this year, besides what we are planting, to share with you. The first group that we will have by mid March, and their variety will be:
Broccoli-Blue Wind
Cabbage-Farao and Primax
Cauliflower-Snow Crown
Chard-Fordhook Giant
Kale-Winterbor

The second group we will have mid May and their variety:

Cucumber-Marketmore
Canteloupe-Athena and Ambrosia
Watermelon-Sugar Baby and Crimson Sweet
Pepper-Red Knight. California Wonder and Hot Wax
Yellow Summer Squash-Multipik
Zucchini-Raven
Tomato-Celebrity, Big Beef, Cherokee Purple,Brandywine, and San Marzano

Most plants will be .50 cents per. Melon plants will be 1.00. Tomato and peppers plants .75 each.
We also will hold two planting and growing clinics at the farm to help you get started.

On the chicken front, 100 hundred new laying chickens have arrived and are being housed in a brand new coop building. Some of the rest of our flock are getting older and it was time to infuse with some young ladies to keep those eggs a'comin!

Remember you can follow along with various farm adventures on our facebook page. Just click on the box on this page and it should take you right to it.
Locally yours,

Vicky and Steve