News From The Farm, December 7th

December 7, 2020

Dear Friends and Customers of Many Hands Organic Farm,

Sign up for the 2021 CSA
Expenses stay swift on the farm. Our hardworking staff members are scurrying each week to put the farm to bed, and plan for next year, including organizing our barns and sheds, bringing in wood, processing lard and soup stocks and developing more supplies of soaps and salves. Seeds and tubers and supplies need to be bought, fertility materials, pork, chicken and turkey deposits to suppliers – the list goes on. Your early commitment to the CSA with money up front helps us keep our income more consistent with our outgo. Thanks!
https://mhof.net/community-supported-agriculture/

Products available now

  • Spinach- $10/1 lb. bag
  • Lettuce Mix- $10/1 lb. bag
  • Arugula- $10/1 lb. bag
  • Mustard greens- $10/1 lb. bag
  • Ground pork in 1 lb. packages – $10/lb.
  • Lard – $20/quart
  • Pork stock – $7.50/quart
  • Eggs at the farm – $8/dozen
  • Comfrey salve – $8/2 oz.
  • Hemp salve – $10/2 oz.
  • Garlic powder – $10/2 oz.
  • Lavender soap – $6/5 oz. bar
  • Peppermint soap – $6/5 oz. bar
  • Dandelion tincture – $6/2 oz. bottle
  • Yellow dock tincture – $6/2 oz. bottle
  • Frozen applesauce – $6/quart

Make arrangements to pick up at the farm or we can ship some things to you. Call at 978-355-3853 or email Julie@mhof.net

Accomplishments on the farm last week
One of the most common questions I get this time of year is, “What do you do in the winter, anyway?” Our attempt here will be to give you a blow by blow of what we are up to so you can really enjoy the farm experience with us.
Last week with the help of Clare, Anthony, Ari, Maya, Lindsy, Dustin, Logan, Kaden and Stu we finished up hoeing, and mulching two large beds at the back of the south field where we will continue to build our perennial herb collection next spring. We also spread carefully calculated minerals for next year’s crops on about 5 acres of land – carbonatite – https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=carbonatite, greensand, manganese sulfate, elemental sulfur, sodium borate, and zinc sulfate. We also cleaned up the hose area on the chicken house, cleaned out the brooder house and garage and the back cubby behind the barn along with the north side of the barn. Just in time for the snow!

Looking Ahead
This week we will make progress on weeding our hoop houses – the chickweed has moved in – and will start the spreading of the basalt rock dust on all of our fields. These 22 tons of material will significantly improve our trace mineral stores on the farm, which should be available for the microbes to digest all winter as they have the time and motivation. Maybe we will get to reorganizing the inside of the barn too.

What we can use here
We are especially looking for clean brown cardboard right now, to put under our trees before mulching them with wood chips.

What I learned this week
I paid for son Dan’s Principles of Biological Systems two day course that he ran in October and found it inspirational and educational. His talks are available here – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI99ERb9iBmwgrJPbv3iKdA

Today’s Health Tip
I recently was introduced to this great website that sells a number of great herb blends for human ingestion. http://cherokeevalley.com/medicinalherbalteas.html. I ordered some of their tea blends and also got some great ideas for what to add to our perennial herb section next year.

– Julie