Adirondack Erratic

Sunwarm Gardens is my kitchen-garden-turned-market-garden. A small grower in Canada at Tiny Farm Blog calls his 2 acre farm a “micro farm.” By this standard, I have a “nano farm.” However, it does produce enough food to keep my family in fresh produce from May through November AND sell a portion at our farmers’ market.

I am located in an area that might be thought of as transitional to Zone 4: we do occasionally have temps fall below -30 F, but that is becoming rarer. Our last frost might happen during the first week of June; our first frost during the first week of October. I’ve found from conversations with other local growers that my hillside, south-facing site gives me an advantage in keeping frost away.

The soil here is acidic, sandy and rocky. My garden sits on a mix of glacial till, with rocks from pebble to watermelon in size cropping up continually. There is good drainage; that, and the generally low humidity and cold winters might help with disease. With a few exceptions (potato beetles come to mind) insect damage is usually not too much of a problem here. That is, if you don’t count the damage to the gardener from black flies and sweat bees!

Though scenes like this are still months away, I have put a few winter photos of my garden into an album. I’ve also posted a few pictures from ski outings for my family and friends (you will need a password to see these.)

Greetings! I’m jumping into the blogging world to organize my thoughts, and to give others a place to connect on some issues of general interest. I plan to record my growing season progress in the garden and at the market, hoping they might be useful to other growers and customers in the area. We have an unusual microclimate in the northern Adirondacks, and I’d like to share my experiences and learn from others who are gardening and farming here.

I may also use this blog to let people know about articles and podcasts on other topics that I follow, including discussions of ag policy and its influence on how we and the world live, and science and skepticism, a way of evaluating and understanding scientific claims.

There will also be photo galleries, and possibly a recipe or two sometimes!