[Snakeroot Organic Farm logo]
 • HOME
 • What's New Here
 • Snakeroot Poultry

THE BASICS
 • About Our Farm
 • Annual Farm Tour
 • Community Supported
    Agriculture Plan (CSA)
 •
Directions to our Farm
 • From a Run Out Hayfield to
    a Prosperous Organic Farm
    in Ten Easy Years

 • Get Real. Get Organic!
 • History of Our Farm
 • Pictures of the Farm
 • Where We Buy
 • Where We Sell
 • Our Yearly Work Schedule
 • Just Pretty
 • Subscribe to our e-newsletter.
 • Newsletter Archive.
 • What We Will & Won't Ship

OUR PEOPLE
 • Working Here
 • Our Apprentices
 • Our Farm Workers
 • Pictures of Us at Market

WHAT WE GROW
 • Fresh Vegetables
 • Fresh Fruit
 • Fresh Herbs
 • Perennials
 • Aloe - a magical plant
 • Our Bird Houses
 • Lupines
 • Rosemary Plants
 • Lovage, Tansy & Yarrow
 • Our Product Brochures
 • Dried Vegetables
 • Dried Culinary Herbs
MAPLE
 • Maple Syrup
 • Maple Syrup, p.2
 • Sugarin' Is Like Ice Fishin'
 • Our New Sugarhouse
TOMATOES
 • Tomato Seedlings
 • Tomato Seeds We Offer
 • Tomato Seed Production
 • Paste Tomatoes
GARLIC
 • About Garlic
 • Garlic for Sale
 • Garlic Year Round
 • Mulching Garlic
 • Growing Rounds from Bulbils
 • Whole Bulbil Cluster Method
 • Planting Garlic

MULCHING
 • Using Mulches
 • Combatting Quackgrass
    with Mulch

 • We Want Your Leaves!
 • In Praise of Chips

FOOD & FARMING INFO
 • Buying in Bulk for
    Storage, Canning & Freezing

 • Winter Storage Tips
 • How to Freeze Our Veggies
 • Building Techniques
 • Our Outbuildings
 • Evolution of the Farm Table
 • The Story of Our Cooler
 • Prepping Veggies for Market
 • Crop Rotations
 • Drip Irrigation
 • Low Pressure Water
 • Planting with Spreadsheets
 • Greenhouse Vegetable
    Production

 • Let-tuce Begin
 • Recipe Favorites
 • Our "Remay Roller"
 • Gardening Class Notes
 • Your Most Expensive Crop

OPINIONS & IDEAS
 • Being Green
 • Digging Potatoes by Hand
 • Farmers' Markets in 2012
 • History of Pittsfield
 • Hybrids or Open Pollinated?
 • Making Websites
 • Open Source Software

FARM TRANSITION…
    Our Retirement Plan
 • How Should a Farmer Retire?
 • Impediments to the want-to-be     farmer
 • Reducing the Value
    of the Land

 • Who Will Farm Here When
    We're Gone?

 • Apprentice Terms and Stages
 • From Apprentices to Partners
 • Transferring Farm Ownership





…and now for something completely different…

At dawn
Canoe bow waves are quickly lost
    on the shoreside
But go on out of sight
    on the lake side.

-1986


The constant swish-swish of skis
    On a day long ski.
The constant swish-swish of wiper blades
    On a day long drive.

-1990


My dog, trotting barefoot
Steps on a garden slug
And thinks
Nothing of it.

-1999


Word spreads quickly
as I approach the pond.
All becomes quiet.

-1997


Hidden in the vines
a large warted cucumber
jumps out of reach.
A toad!

-1997


Delicate puffs
of marshmallow snow
carefully perched
on a branch,
await the trigger of my hat
to melt their way down my back.

-2010
Deep in the tomato jungle
Fruits of yellow, purple and red
Tell of their readiness
To go to market.

-2010
Sugarin' Chores
Snowflakes hurry through my flashlight beam,
As my boots knead new snow with spring mud,
On my nightly Hajj to keep the boil alive,
For as long as possible until the dawn,
To match the power of the flowing sap,
With my meager evaporator and will.
The prize at the finish line are jars of syrup
And Spring.

-2013

Pittsfield Garden Forum

Warsaw School, Pittsfield

21-Apr-2012, 10am-1pm


Waking up with your garden:
Getting (re-)acquainted with your soil and planning your plantings
presented by Tom Roberts, Snakeroot Organic Farm

You really can't step into your spring garden without being reminded of your final activities the previous fall.

The way you put your garden to bed each fall determines how easy it will be to begin again in the spring.
  • Leaving weeds, mulch, crop residue in place, or . . .
  • Fall tilling?
  • Winter cover crops
  • Fall bed prep for early spring planting—you can then start planting in your garden before your neighbors have even begun to till.
  • Overwintering crops in garden – no protection: parsnips, sunchokes, scallions,
  • Overwintering crops in garden – under cover: spinach, chard, parsley, leeks,
  • Plant garlic in the fall, not in the spring, for best size.

Why doing your indoor "homework" helps keep your garden organized.
  • Do you have a sketch of your garden layout from last year? From the year before?
  • Keep track of varieties: not all varieties perform the same.
  • Know when to start which seedlings for transplanting.
  • Study seed catalogs starting when they first arrive in December. Make notes in them about what varieties sound good. Order your seeds early; that's one less thing to do once gardening time arrives.

When (and when not) to begin working in your garden.
  • Know your wet spots and dry spots.
  • Working wet soil damages it structurally and biologically.
  • You can plant or transplant even when soil is too wet to work.
  • Most gardeners waste their first gardening month by not gardening.
  • Know which veggies can take freezing temps; those can be planted or transplanted in early April. Examples: Spinach, peas, carrots, onions, leeks, scallions, napa, bok choi,
  • Extend your season with row covers; plant two weeks early, then cover.

How planning ahead pays off.
  • Make a sketch of what to plant where in your garden. Keep previous year's sketches. Make notes on them.
  • Succession plantings: same or similar short-season crops after one another.
  • Rotations: annually change the locations of veggie families.
  • Group short season crops together and long season crops together.
  • Use floating row covers on crops for flea beetles, cucumber beetles, squash bugs, and potato beetles.

Buying vs. growing your own seedlings.
  • Not every veggie does well with seedlings, some are better to direct seed.
  • Seedlings can gain you three to six weeks of growing season.
  • Growing is cheaper, but it takes time, space, and almost daily attention.
  • Needs a sunny location, like a greenhouse or sun room for more than just a dozen plants.
  • Six hours of sun a day, minimum. Can be grow lights.
  • Know how long before planting in the garden to start your seeds; it's different for each veggie.
  • Buying: buy by the roots, not by the tops. Root bound, synthetic feeding,
  • Inspect your plants closely insects and diseases.
  • Get locally adapted varieties, not ones that do great in Georgia.


Possible succession planting schemes:
Note: These successions below apply to any one piece of your garden. You can also plan on planting many short season crops somewhere in your garden every few weeks. Examples: lettuce, radish, dill, basil, scallions, spicy greens, arugula, napa, bok choi, broccoli, summer cabbage, daikon, carrots, beet greens, spinach, and peas.
  1. April: radishes, lettuce, scallions, spinach -> June: radish lettuce, scallions, basil, dill, cilantro -> August: radish lettuce, scallions, spinach
  2. April: Broccoli, peas, beet greens, carrots -> July: broccoli, beet greens, carrots,
  3. October: Garlic -> August: broccoli napa, cabbage, bok choi, lettuce.
  4. April: Onions -> Late August: napa, bok choi, lettuce, scallions.


Nifty Garden Tools: wire weeder, stirrup hoe, digging fork, Cape Cod hand weeder, Earthway seeder, Agribon and anchoring pins, slitted row cover and hoops, compost.




We'll be bringing some tomato, echinacea and lupine seeds we grew ourselves; these we are willing to give away.

We would bring some seedlings (broccoli, onions, leeks, shallots, etc.) for sale, promote our markets, and offer CSA's.



27 Organic Farm Road, Pittsfield Maine 04967
http://www.snakeroot.net/farm
owned and operated by
Tom Roberts & Lois Labbe
Tom: Tom@snakeroot.net (cell) 207-416-5417
or
Lois: Lois@snakeroot.net (cell) 207-416-5418

Gardening for the public since 1995.



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