Plant Sale--May 29, 9am - 3 pm

The Farm at Miller's Crossing's
5th Annual Spring Plant Sale
Saturday May 29th
9am - 3pm

Certified Organic Plants

Vegetables

Heirloom Tomatoes

Peppers of all colors and temperatures

Salad and Cooking Greens

Flowers

Exotic and ever blooming annuals to make your gardens and containers bright from spring until frost

Hanging Baskets & Containers

Easy carefree color anywhere you like

Bring your family and enjoy our 200 acre farm

For more information call Katie or Chris at (518) 851-2331

Directions:

From Route 9 head east on Route 23 from the light in Claverack, +/- one mile take a left onto Route 217, +/- one mile take your first right onto Roxbury Road West End. The farm is 1/8th of a mile on left.

From the Taconic State Pkwy take Philmont/Harlemville exit. Go west on Route 217 through Philmont and Mellenville, past Ockawamick School on your right and take next left onto Roxbury Road West End (approx. 5 miles). The farm is 1/8th of a mile on left.

www.farmatmillerscrossing.com

To Market, To Market We Go

The Hudson Farmers' Market is up and running. As the saying goes, "It takes a village," or in our case, "a large extended family" to make things run smoothly. This past week, Chris helped set up before he went off to NYC for a meet and greet with the Long Island CSA members. Katie came with the kids, who love to patronize the other vendors--especially the lemonade stand. Hannah (Chris and Katie's niece) worked along side Katy and Katie, helping customers with their plant choices, as well as fresh produce including mesclun, baby arugula, spinach, radishes and spring turnips. This week, we were treated to some wonderful live music which makes the market even more enjoyable.

Behold, The Strawberry!

I had quite a surprise on my morning walk with Lucy. I was in the back upper field across from my house and as I was walking by the strawberry patch, low and behold, there were a few ripe berries. Don't tell Chris or Katie, but I ate one in the field and brought back this one, which, as you can see, was also devoured. What a great way to start my morning. Later this week, the temperatures are supposed to slowly rise, so I think we may have to pay another visit to the strawberry patch....just to make sure all is well. The deer love the berries too, so hopefully the double electric fence will keep them away.

Pictures from the Farm

It was a beautiful, sunny morning on this Cinco De Mayo and I couldn't resist taking some pictures from around the farm. The Hudson Farmer's Market kicks off this Saturday, May 8, so stop by and give these plants a new home!

Staying Cool

This past weekend we had a burst of summer heat. The kids stayed cool in the stream.

If a tree falls in the woods.....

and no one is there, does it make a noise?

This one sure must have.

A few weeks ago while I was on a walk, I noticed this tree that is along side the path to the stream had "moved". As it turns out, the tree--a HUGE oak tree--had slid down the side of the embankment, roots and all. Because the roots are still in-tact, the tree is still alive and the buds have all come out. The tree is so big that Chris doesn't know how he will get rid of it. Right now, it's not in the way, although the embankment is a bit open and some of the ground has shifted. Further down the path, there is a dead tree that is leaning over the path. That tree will probably come down at some point--the only thing that is keeping it from falling are several smaller trees that are unwillingly supporting it.

New Farm Equipment

Every year we add an arsenal of new equipment to make the hard jobs easier, the heavy jobs lighter and the inefficient jobs more efficient.

Here you can see our new electronic leaf.  This little apparatus helps insure that we can sucessfully propagate herbs and plants for our bedding plant business.

When this leaf dries off it lifts up and turns on these misters.

The misters are different from the sprinklers that we have in both greenhouses.  They have a very fine spray intended to keep the leaves moist, rather than soaking the soil.  Below you can see the cuttings that we have taken.  These cuttings are the vegetative (non-woody)tip of the plant that is stripped of it's lower leaves and planted into soil.  Many greenhouses operations use a rooting hormone, but we have not found such a thing that is certified organic (though I have heard that a willow bark tea has small amounts of the hormone necessary).  The cuttings are planted into 128 cell trays (128 plants per tray) and the trays are placed on the heated floor of our greenhouse.  The floor is at a consistent 72 degrees.  We have had great sucess with this new system....much better than the 10%-50% sucess rates in years past using a humid germination chamber.

We have improved our radiant floor heating with the oil fired boiler pictured below. Oil heats more efficiently than the older propane system we had last year, and we hope to see a reduction in fuel usage this year.

The water is heated to about 180 degrees before it is pumped out into the tubing which runs every two inches throughout the entire greenhouse. As the water heats the root zone of the plants that are growing on the floor, it cools off, and is pumped back into the boiler to be reheated.

This little contraption below is our much anticipated heat exchanger that warms the water coming out of the watering hose to a lovely 70 degrees.  The plants no longer have to  endure 50 degree water chilling them to their roots. The warm water just makes them that much happier!!!!

Here is our new offset Kubota cultivating tractor.  Now with three tractors that fit into our narrow vegetable field system, we can cultivate, seed, and transplant all at the same time. We have a 1950's era Cub cultivating tractor which only cultivates, we also have a John Deere that seeds, transplants, and cultivates. Alot of time on the farm is spent changing equipment on the tractors. With only one tractor that seeds and cultivates, we were always one break down away from being without an important tool. With a second high clearance cultivating tractor that has a three point hitch we can spread out these important tasks and do them simultaniously.  

Below is the new/used 14' disc harrow. This implement helps in the tillage process by cutting and leveling the rough plowed ground, and brings us one step closer to a smooth planting surface.

Above and below you can see our new box scraper. Hooked up to the three point hitch of our tractor, this heavy duty two-way steel blade with cutting teeth allows us to do basic road maintenance and barn yard clean up. We have declared war on the potholes that destroy our trucks and tractors on a daily basis.

So there you have it...a sampling of the equipment that will be hard at work here in 2010!