Work Activities
During the Year

at Snakeroot Organic Farm

Work Organized by Job

Firewood Gathering: Felling trees, cutting into 4 foot sections, stacking in woods, stacking onto woods trailer, cutting to length, stacking in woodshed. Done in November, December and March.

Harvesting & processing: Each crop in its season. Picking, sorting, grading, washing and prepping for market. Starts in May and continues until November.

Mulching: Late June, July & November. Raking and collecting hay. Applying hay and/or wood chips around celery, field tomatoes, greenhouse tomatoes and garlic.

Pruning Cedars & Spruces: Using a bow saw to trim off lower branches of these trees to improve the value of the trees for future harvest.

Field seeding by hand: April for onion sets. November for garlic.

Seeding by push seeder: January and February in the greenhouses. April thru August in the fields.

Shelter Building: We are still in the process of building simple cedar pole shelters for our equipment and firewood. This work happens from November to May, when other farm duties permit.

Sugaring: Sugaring begins in February when we tap our trees and continues into early April at the end of sap flow. We are 95% on tubing, and are currently expanding our sugarbush a little each year.

Transplanting: April thru August. Most transplanted seedlings go from pots or cell trays into the garden. Earliest transplanting is into the greenhouse beds in March and April.

Trellising: June, July & August. Tomatoes & cukes in the greenhouse.

Weeding: Late May thru September; heaviest in June & July. Done by hand and by hand hoe and by wheel hoe. This is the one of the biggest jobs during the summer months.

Minor or Occasional Jobs

Trail Building and Maintenance: Ski trails and woods roads need clearing of fallen trees and low branches, ruts and holes filled in. Posting signs and map making.

Rock Picking: March & December, mostly, as well as after each field tilling. Rock Sorting by the Nearing’s method.

Brush Chipping: any time of year, as occasionally needed.

Work Organized by Month

[Many minor jobs related to ongoing farm maintenance and living are omitted.]

January

Cleaning big greenhouse to prepare for in-ground planting.
Cut trees for next winter’s firewood for house, greenhouse and sugarhouse.
Create new brochures for market and update old ones.
Prepare pot and pak labels for spring.
Work on web sites.
Enter last year’s income and expense data into database.

February

Plant garlic, beet greens, carrots, spinach & cutting lettuce and scallions in big greenhouse.
Plant onions in small greenhouse.
Check tubing, tap maples & begin sugaring.
Start rosemary cuttings.
Make this year’s crop rotation plan.
Fillout Organic Certification forms.
Work on web sites.

March

Continue sugaring: checking lines, boiling sap, finishing, bottling & labeling syrup.
Fell trees for next year’s firewood.
Fill house woodshed with firewood.
Start onions, lupine seeds, leeks, scallions in trays.
Turn on heat in big greenhouse.

April

Finish sugaring. Pull taps and rinse out lines. Put maple equipment away for the year.
Dig & pot lupine plants. Search for volunteer lupines and transplant into 4 inch pots.
The beginning of our busy season, with the greenhouse work of filling planting and labeling seedling trays, and transplanting and watering seedlings.
Transplant tomatoes into greenhouse beds.
Field plant onion sets.
Field transplant onions, leeks, first scallions, parsley.
Field plant onion seeds, first spinach, beet greens, & peas.
Gather firewood.
Fill house woodshed with firewood.
Start fennel in greenhouse.
Veggy harvest begins from greenhouse beds.

May

Start attending Orono (Sat.), Unity (Sat.), Pittsfield (Mon. & Thu.), and Waterville (Thu.) Farmers’ Markets.
The greenhouse work is still going on, but we now also do planting and transplanting of frost-hardy crops, putting on row covers, and begin weed hoeing.
Field plant beet greens, spinach, peas, beans, carrots, cutting lettuce mix, potatoes.
Field transplant cabbage family, lettuce, fennel, chard.
Harvest begins for rhubarb, greenhouse carrots, beet greens, & lettuce.
Start cabbage family, squash family, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, for field and pack sales.
Put up greenhouse firewood for fall.

June

June sees the last of the intensive greenhouse work, and there is much more planting, transplanting, weeding, hand hoeing, wheel hoeing, and the first of the field harvesting (radishes, lettuce, beet greens, spinach, scallions).
Attend 4 farmers’ markets, 5 days a week.
Field transplant tomatoes, broccoli, peppers, eggplant, lettuce,
Field plant carrots, beet greens, basil, cilantro.
Mowing the hayfields, gathering the hay and mulching the tomatoes and celery is a large effort.
Harvest begins for greenhouse cukes, field carrots, lettuce, beet greens, new potatoes.
Start attending Orono (Tue.) Farmers’ Market as month ends. Now attending 4 farmers’ markets, 6 days a week.

July

July sees harvesting and weeding getting into high gear.
Time to remove the row covers and weed the crops that have grown under their protection.
Greenhouse tomato harvest begins.
Garlic scapes are cut for market and garlic rounds are harvested for replanting in November.
Mulch tomatoes.
Harvest begins for cucumbers, beans, summer squash & the first field tomatoes.

August

August sees most of our work revolving around the harvest.
Attend 4 farmers’ markets, 5 markets a week.
Beans, cukes, broccoli, carrots, tomatoes, summer squash and zucchini are on 48 hour picking schedules.
Gather Lupine seeds.
Pepper, winter squash, and melon harvests begins. Potatoes, melons and winter squash are picked about once a week.
Garlic harvest takes a week.
Slice and dry tomatoes.

September

The beginning of September is a continuation of August’s schedule.
The frost watch begins. We harvest all of the tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, melons, basil and cukes that are left in the field as the night of the first frost approaches.
Harvest all of the winter squash a few days after frost.
Attend 4 farmers’ markets, 5 markets a week.
Slice and dry tomatoes, peppers, onions.
Harvest oregano, sage, marjoram, thyme, summer savory, winter savory and lavender and hang to dry.
Clean tomato seeds.
Onion harvest takes a few days.
Re-seeding the harvested ground to winter cover crops (rye or oats) now begins.

October

October’s harvests are mostly underground items: all the potatoes, carrots, beets, rutabagas, parsnips, and gobo get harvested in that order.
Kale, chard, spinach, scallions, broccoli, leeks, cilantro and lettuces still being harvested almost daily for market.
Plant field garlic rounds and bulbils.
Attend 4 farmers’ markets, 5 markets a week.
Drying vegetables and herbs is in high gear, especially tomatoes.
Clean tomato seeds.
Greenhouse production continues to the end of the month.
Waterville and Pittsfield markets end.

November