Farm To Fork 2011

Wild Hare Farm is proud to be participating in this year's Farm to Fork
picnic at the Breeze farm in Orange county. We are very excited to be paired
with Acme Restaurant from Carrboro. Owner/Chef Kevin Callaghan is
fantastic and does a tremendous job supporting local farms. Come by and see
us and the great folks from Acme, plus check out the culinary delights Kevin
creates with our produce.

It's Tomato Time at WHF

We look forward to tomato season all winter and spring. We have
been harvesting several varieties, such as these beautiful Cherokee
Purples from our hoop houses for a couple of weeks now. The
volume of tomatoes is starting to significantly increase and within
another week or so we should also have field tomatoes. Here's a nice
look at some of our hoop house tomatoes.

2011 Piedmont Farm Tour

Wild Hare Farm is participating in the 16th annual Piedmont Farm tour. It's a great opportunity for us to show our farm to long time customers and to meet new folks.

We are a small sustainable farm and we are Certified Naturally Grown.

For more information on the Piedmont Farm Tour visit Carolina Farm Stewardwardship assoc web site.

Parrot Tulips

I usually add some comment about color or stem length or something to indicate how nice the variety of flower featured is. In the case of these parrot tulips it is simply not required. In a word, these tulips are awesome ! We just starting pulling these and should have them for roughly 2 weeks.

The little flower that could

If you are not familiar with ranunculus then check them out, if you are familiar then you already know, these guys are fantastic. They have a great vase life, come in multiple brilliant colors such as red, orange, yellow, white, pink, etc. They start as a small tight bud and open up to look very similar to a rose. Needless to say, they really brighten up a room. We have these now and should have them through Easter, possibly a little longer.

March Madness

We are not talking basketball, although being in the heart of Tobacco Road with one half pulling for Duke and one half for UNC can lead to lively and interesting debates. The cats can't help break the deadlock as they all pull for the Clemson Tigers (go figure) and the poodle pulls for the Gonzaga Bulldogs. The Wolfpack was not really an option for the poodle as both the Duke/UNC members have thumbs and either one of us would take him the animal rescue shelter if he started any of those howling shenanigans and wolf finger puppets like they favor in the RBC Center.

Getting back to the topic, March Madness for us is 3+ days of above average temperatures (close to 80 deg) and all our tulips think it's summer. Not a great picture from my cell phone, but that is an 8ft table. About 3 inches deep in tulips across the 8ft span. The table was covered not once but 3 times in about 2 hours on Sat morning alone. Trying to harvest and process hundreds of tulips in an hour then get them in the cooler before they blow open is our version of March Madness.

Pink

Normally I like red, orange, yellow in tulips, but the pink tulips we had this year were just bad ass as you can see from the picture. Oh yeah, the whole time I was pulling them I had Pink's "Get The Party Started" running through my head, go figure.

Greenhouse Ballet

Our Greenhouse is small, very small. It is a conventional Quonset style house, uses a propane heater with 2 layers of poly, etc . There are several reasons for it's size: minimum space to heat, construction cost, matches our hoop house frames, as well as others.

We pack it. I mean cram it full of tray starts, flowers in crates. I've even considered using duct tape for ceiling attachments. I am kidding about the duct tape, but barely.

This all sounds great, small tight house which uses less gas which is good for our wallets and the environment and it's easier to manage as everything is all in one spot.

Now comes the tricky part. Watering. Luckily we are both skinny (even though we both eat like wolverines). It requires a dance somewhere between ballet and a halfback coming through the line of scrimage.

When our greenhouse is completely full, it sometimes require both of us to snake the hose through the house around crates and benches along our tiny walk ways. Motions have to be planned and choreographed to ensure nothing is broken, knocked or in general trashed.

We should sell tickets for cheap entertainment as some form of demented farm version of Cirque Du Soleil. Folks would of course have to sit outside and watch through the door as there is no room for them inside the Greenhouse.

Tulips for Valentine's day

"They're Here". Our first tulips of the 2011 season, just in time to give to your sweetie for Valentine's day. For Saturday's market we also have paperwhites and anemones. We'll hope to have tulips of various colors and types through April.

Paperwhites

For market this Saturday we'll have several bunches of cut paperwhites along with turnips, radishes and spinach. The paperwhites are a clear white flower as the name implies, they are fragrant but not overpowering and will add a little early spring ambiance to your home. Quantities of produce and flowers will increase as warmer weather approaches so be sure to shop early.

The days are becoming a little longer and our work days are increasing as well. We are busy filling our greenhouse with seedlings and tending the crops in our hoop houses. We are also attending more farm related meetings/presentations. However we still have time to sit by the wood stove and enjoy a good book.....for a little while longer.

First market of 2011

Tomorrow will be our first market of the New Year. Should be a chilly start to the day but we are looking forward to seeing everyone. We'll have turnips, radishes, spinach and some very pretty paper whites, some of the nicest we have ever grown.

Pictures from 2010

2010 what a year. The hottest summer on record and one of the coldest Decembers. Here are a few pictures from the year, starting with spring flowers, strawberries, summer flowers, tomatoes, peppers, hoop houses, etc. See you in 2011.

White Christmas

We haven't had a White Christmas in this part of North Carolina since 1947. This is at least our 4th snow storm of December, maybe our 5th....I am starting to lose track. Here are some random shots from around the farm.

Feliz Navidad

Rudolph was unavailable due to this week's mandatory FAA preflight checks and some minor electrical issues (soon to be corrected). Eli our crazy poodle was up to the task and extends "Merry Christmas" wishes to everyone from WHF.

Increasing Infrastructure

Infrastructure, you've got to have it to be successful farming, the conundrum is how much. Not enough and you don't have what you need to accomplish the tasks and too much requires maintenance, time and capital. Every one's situation is different and no one model fits every farm. Our goal has been to build what we can afford while being mindful we may want to add on at a later date. We have purposely remained small and have elected to build on a scale we can handle ourselves. For instance, our hoop houses are 16x48 ft and two people can cover a hoop house without additional assistance.

Some of the things I worked on this summer was increasing the size of our equipment pole barn and increasing hoop house space. The barn and other construction projects this fall are in large part why I have been remiss in blog entries. The original barn was built in 2007. It was roughly 24x36 ft, 3 bays, 6x6 poles with a 5v tin roof. I would have preferred to have made it larger at the time, but with the cost of materials and other higher priority projects, the size was kept smaller with plans to increase it at a later date.

Here's a picture of the original barn with the new addition just starting.
The 3 new bays prior to the roof being added.Here is a picture of the new addition's sheathing and rafters with the old roof.
A look from the old roof to the new roof sheathing.
I had a roofing company bend a couple of pieces of the 5v tin on a "break" to make the transition from the old roof level to the new roof level, this keeps rain from blowing in the side between the roofs.

I added some basic lighting and a couple of electrical outlets to make life easier.
Here is a shot of the barn with the new addition. I plan to add a couple more bays a few years from now when we out grow this space.
We also built another hoop house this year.

Mater Matters

Even though the summer heat is already cranking up....we really like this time of year because we have tomatoes. Been looking for to a fresh tomato sandwich since last October.

There isn't anything better than a tomato sandwich. Big slice of tomato, mayo, salt and pepper.....love it. We have several varieties of slicing tomatoes currently, Cherokee purples, big beef, pink girls and small sun golds on the way. We also have basil. Some olive oil, tomatoes, onions, little garlic and fresh basil over pasta.... in fact, that is what we are having for dinner tonight.

Speaking of onions, we have some beautiful white and red candy varieties.
And if for some crazy reason the tomatoes don't sell at market....it is not a problem as that just means more for me!

Farm To Fork

Wild Hare Farm is excited to be participating in the 2010 Farm To Fork Picnic. We are honored to be paired with Amy Tornquist of Watts Grocery as well as Sage and Swift catering. The New York Times recently ran an article on Amy's exceptional culinary talents and Watts Grocery. She has been more credits than I have space to blog in.

For more about Farm To Fork: http://www.farmtoforknc.com/

For more on Amy and Watts Grocery: http://www.wattsgrocery.com/

Say hello to my "lily" friends

If you didn't see Scarface then the play on words will be lost.


















Our first calla lilies of the season are starting to come on. I am not much of a photographer so this picture doesn't do them justice. These guys are cool and we'll have several different colors available.



















Asiatic Lilies. Over the course of the summer we will have these in white, yellow, red, pink and orange.



















We also will have oriental lilies in red, white and pinks on and off through out the summer.

All of these flowers have a great vase life. The orientals have a strong sweet fragrance, the callas and asiatic are not fragrant, they are just eye candy.

Mother's Day

OMG ! It's almost Mother's Day and the conundrum of what to give mom.

Not to worry, WHF will have you covered.

What mom doesn't love beautiful flowers?









For Mother's Day we will have several varieties of flowers available: fragrant stock, tall delphinium, bachelor buttons, agrostemma, poppies, dutch iris, lilies and last but certainly not least tulips.





This is our last planting of tulips and we'll have red parrots, a neat red fringe, along with multiple varieties of regular long stem tulips in pink, yellow, red and orange.






To ensure you stay in mom's good graces and score extra bonus points we have delicious strawberries to compliment the flowers. Or you can eat the strawberries yourself and your secret will be safe with us.



Merle ensuring the bachelor buttons meet WHF quality standards.

Photos from around the farm

Strawberries ready for market.
















Hoop House tomatoes.



















Onions. We have 3 varieties this year.















Bee hive from Cedar Grove Bee Works.











Crimson Clover cover crop. Bees are happy.














Delphiniums.













Sunset at Wild Hare Farm.