A special NYFC Thank You to the 2012 Bootstrap Bloggers
With the close of the 2012 Bootstrap Blog season, we at the Young Farmers’ Coalition would like to extend a warm thank you to our six Bootstrap farms this season. You’ve followed them all season – from the early planning and big dreams of spring through the frustrations and challenges […]
Bootstrap @ Hartwood – Finding Time to Make Changes
The crops are mostly out of the ground, the fields and yard are picked up for winter, and our off-season project list has grown to seemingly impossible lengths. We don’t want to praise anything too much though—last month’s blog where we celebrated our equipment making it through the season may have jinxed us. Two days […]
Bootstrap @ Hartwood Farm – the New, the Old, and the Ugly (Equipment)
Equipment at Hartwood Farm: The New, the Old, and the Ugly With enough rain falling that the fields are too wet to work for the first time all year, we found ourselves in a reflective season’s ending sort of mood after Matt drove our tractor down to the shop for hydraulics repair. While we are […]
Bootstrap @ Hartwood – Reflecting on the Drought
Since last writing, we’ve had two of four weeks with “normal” rainfall—a .75” week and a 1.5” week! What this means is that our plants are still alive and our pond, while continuing its steady decline, does still have water enough in it for irrigation. These two rainfalls saved our pasture, which is a huge […]
Bootstrap @ Hartwood – The Best Laid Plans…
Well, many areas of New York received some good drenching over the last few weeks. Unfortunately, we were not among them. We did get about ¾” between 3 rainfalls, and that helped us have a few days off irrigating and kept our pasture and cover crops alive longer, but it didn’t touch the pond level […]
Bootstrap @ Hartwood – Dealing with Drought
We planned to write more about farm finances, but were sidetracked by a lack of rain so bad that the corn fields around us are curling up to look more like grass than corn. The weird thing is in our area, if you weren’t trying to grow anything, you probably didn’t notice the dryness. There […]
Bootstrap @ Hartwood Farm: How We Bought the Farm
By Maryellen Sheehan | Not owning farmland should not keep anyone from farming.
Bootstrap @ Hartwood Farm – Introduction
Hi all! We are Matt Robinson and Maryellen Sheehan of Hartwood Farm, in Fenner, NY. We are thrilled to be part of this season’s National Young Farmers Coalition Bootstraps Blog! This is our first year farming out on our own land. Between us, we worked on farms for a number of years, had a CSA […]