Latest developments in the field

It’s vocabulary time at Ambler Farm, and the word of the week is: parthenocarpic. The term refers to the production of fruit and vegetables without fertilization (it comes from the Greek parthenos, which means virgin). What does it have to do with Ambler Farm? Here’s a clue: what do you think is growing under the two rows in the organic farm covered with the long white tents?

 Answer: cucumber and squash, both of which are parthenocarpic (that is, the varieties grown at Ambler Farm are). And since they don’t need to be pollinated, Farmer Ben is able to use row covers like the ones shown in the picture instead of pesticide to protect them from the cucumber beetle, which would otherwise be ravishing both their roots and leaves.

Also worth noting are the planting beds that lie under a stretchy black covering, with openings created for seedlings. This is a new biodegradable film made from corn-starch that breaks down into mulch and can also be composted. In the time it takes seedlings to set strong roots and begin to grow, the material interacts with temperature, humidity, and microorganisms in the ground and breaks down into water, carbon dioxide, and biomass without leaving any toxic residue behind. In the meantime, it keeps the soil warm, keeps out insects and weeds, prevents erosion and also promotes healthy plants by keeping dirt from splashing up onto their leaves.

 Developed in Europe, the bodegradable film has been approved for use in organic agriculture in Canada but not yet approved by the Organic Materials Review Institute in the U.S. Ambler Farm is one of the first in the area to try out this promising new technology.

In the next edition of this blog, we’ll publish a row-by-row map of the organic production garden, indicating exactly what’s growing where.







  RestaurantUpdate

Produce from Ambler Farm is gaining a following at restaurants around the area. So far, we’re selling mainly greens, but as the season goes on, we’ll sell other items as well. Barcelona and The Tuscan Oven have been serving Ambler Farm produce for a year or more. Now they're joined by some new names. Next time you dine at (or buy our produce from) any of the establishments listed below, please applaud their decision to support local food -- and Ambler Farm.



Barcelona
63 North Main Street
Norwalk, CT 06854-2703
www.barcelonawinebar.com

Dressing Room
25 Powers Court
Westport, CT 06880-3621
www.dressingroomhomegrown.com

LL Farmstand
730 Post Road East
Westport, CT

Martel Restaurant
2316 Post Road
Fairfield, CT 06824
http://www.martelrestaurant.com/hours.html

Schoolhouse Restaurant
25 Cannon Road
Wilton, CT 06897
http://www.theschoolhouseatcannondale.com/

Tuscan Oven
544 Main Avenue – Route 7
Norwalk, CT 06851
http://www.tuscanoven.com/

Post-script
If you haven’t heard the story about how the Schoolhouse’s e-mail mishap created an instant social network and won it some new friends, you can read all about it right here.

The Farmer in Winter

The farm stand is open for business (Saturdays from 10:50 to 5, and Wednesdays from 2 to 6 at the Wilton Farmers Market). In the organic farm plot south of the Red Barn, young green plants stand in neat rows in freshly composted beds, a promise of the bounty that lies ahead.

Much as it may look and feel as though things are just getting started, Ambler Farm's “farming” has actually been underway for quite some time. Here’s a brief account of what’s been happening since early January, when Ambler’s Farm Manager Ben Saunders completed his growing plan and placed his seed orders.

It takes about 36,000 seeds to produce the 18,000 or so seedlings that Ambler Farm sells and also plants in both the farm plot and educational gardens. This year, Ben is growing about 60 different vegetables and flowers. Although he orders most of the seeds from outside suppliers, he has also saved some from “gladiator” plants, as he calls them, that did particularly well last year, like the butternut squash that survived all the rain and blight and is actually still good enough to eat.

Getting from germinating seeds to seedlings in the ground is a complex logistical operation that calls for careful planning, many seed trays and a whole lot of organic potting soil – not to mention a flair for making a lot happen in a small space. Most seeds start in 10x20-inch trays with 128 cells. They’ll spend about three weeks there before Ben moves them, one sprout at a time, to trays with fewer cells. The Ambler Farm greenhouse, which is actually an extension of Farmer Ben’s house, is where all these seedlings spend the first 6 to 8 weeks. Starting in mid to late April, Ben begins to move them into an unheated hoop house for “hardening off” so that they’re accustomed to being outside before they go into the ground.

The farm plot itself contains 50 planting beds, each about 30 inches wide and 140 feet long. If you walk down to have a look, you’ll see that some beds have two rows, some have three and some even have four rows of plants growing, depending on the spacing requirements: only 100 plants in a row, for instance, for land-hungry tomatoes, versus 300 in a row for the more crowd-loving broccoli. 

 

Every variety grown at Ambler Farm has a defined harvest window – from 60 days in some cases to nearly 100 in others. For some vegetables – carrots and cabbage, to name just two of many – Ben will plant varieties that ripen at different rates so that as one fades, a new one is coming up. In other cases, Ben will continue to plant seedlings as the season progresses. There’s a good lesson here: you don’t need a lot of land to grow a lot of food (as long as you're willing to do the hard work). Thanks to “intensive" organic farming, Ambler’s relatively small production field -- it’s less than an acre – is able to produce a relatively large amount of delicious produce all season long.

Ambler Farm Rocks

Four letter word: it's "rock," every farmer's bane and one of Connecticut's most abundant natural resources. On a beautiful November morning, Ambler Farm manager Ben Saunders and able assistant Will Keelips use brawn, brains, tractor and chains to wrestle a formidable boulder out of the ground. Ben hopes to get all 4 acres of the south field cleared before the ground freezes so that it will be ready in the spring for planting with pumpkin, clover and alfalfa. For the full story, visit us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/amblerfarm).