End of the Year Sales!

On December 24th we close our doors for the 2016 season. (We'll see you again in the Spring - our doors will be open on May 1st and our greenhouse will be overflowing with flowers!)  

For the last week of the season, stop in to take advantage of our awesome end of the year sales! Stock up on homegrown and locally grown produce for the winter, and finish up your Christmas shopping.

25% off  Apples

25% off  Poinsettias

20% off  All Gift Shop

20% off  Jams

Produce Available

Homegrown: Apples, Winter Squash, Garlic

Locally Grown: Potatoes (5lb, 20lb, or 50lb bags, while supplies last), Onions (3lb, or 10lb bags, while supplies last)

Early Autumn at Kirby's

We love Autumn at Kirby's! The colors, the smells, and the delicious flavors of Fall, are all filling our market right now.

Our first planting of Mums is in full bloom! Keep the color going all season with later varieties that bloom through October.

In Season

Homegrown: Apples, Sweet Peppers, Hot Peppers, Broccoli, Beets, Kale, Turnips, Cabbage, Garlic, Tomatoes (Plum, Canning, Regular, Heirloom, Cherry, Grape), Pumpkins, Gourds, and Apple Cider

Locally Grown: Parsnips, Carrots, Potatoes, Onions, Shiitake Mushrooms, Pears

Pumpkins!

Big and small, warty or smooth, yellow, orange, red, or white... create a beautiful pumpkin display with stacks, piles and rows of these amazing vegetables. Add perennial foliage plants for more texture and color.

Asters give the perfect pop of purple color to contrast with the warm tones of pumpkins and mums.

Apples!

 Honeycrisp, Autumn Crisp, Cortland, Macintosh, Gala, Blondee, Jonamac, and Gingergold

We have three different kinds of beets: Golden, which had a very mild, sweet flavor; Candy Cane, with beautiful red and white stripes; and regular Red Beets. Pickup a peck or half bushel to put up some beets today!

Candy Cane Beets

Find what you need at Kirby's to create an Autumn feast, or a simple dinner. Beets, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, and turnips  - choose a few or all of the above and fill a pan for roasted fall vegetables. 

The end of September is the very peak of growing season, as the last remnants of summer overlap the beginnings of Fall. So much is ready now! Enjoy some lingering flavors of summer with Roasted Red Peppers and Roasted Tomatoes.  Browse our Recipe Index for more seasonal recipes.

Bartlett Pears, ready to eat!

Winter Squash Varieties: Acorn, Butternut, Buttercup, Delicata, Sweet Dumpling, and Pie Pumpkins.

Happy Fall! Hope to see you soon!

September Color

This is such a beautiful and exciting time of year! Summer and Fall merge, in a glorious display of color.

You can find pumpkins, strawbales, gourds, apples, and apple cider at Kirby's. A great start to the Fall season!

 We love growing a variety of pumpkins and gourds...

This giant gourd variety grows into some very interesting shapes and colors.

Little orange and white pumpkins are adorable, in just as many shapes and sizes.

---

Our large Mums are exploding with color!

And there are a lot of colors to choose from. Complement your mums with some interesting foliage plants from our perennial area. Perennials are all 25% off!

Produce Update

Tomatoes are at their peak, while peaches are beginning to come to a close. Right now we have Cresthaven peaches, which are a freestone variety that's excellent for baking, eating, freezing, and canning. We also Babygold, a clingstone variety that is our personal favorite for canning. They have excellent flavor, you don't have to peel them, and their firm flesh holds up well in a jar.

applecrates

Apple Varieties Available now:

Honeycrisp, Autumn Crisp, Gingergold, McIntosh, Paula Red, and Jonamac

Other homegrown produce in season:

Sweet and Hot Peppers, Eggplant, Lettuce, Kale, Beets, Broccoli, Garlic, Cauliflower, Plums, Pluots, and Nectarines.

Locally grown produce in season:

Potatoes, Onions, Carrots, Parsnips, and Shiitake Mushrooms

Field Update: Spring Growth, May to June

beets

In mid-May, we were planting every single day. Peas, then lettuce, pickles, squash, beets, beans, broccoli, and more broccoli. As soon as the weather was warm enough and the soil was dry enough, we had to move as fast as we could.

peachbloom

The well-drained soil that we have on our Brockport farm is very important to us at this time of year. All of that Spring rain soaking the soil and slowing us down on our Albion farm, just drained away to the south, through the sandy soil here in Brockport.

In May the apricots bloomed, then cherries, followed by peaches, plums, and finally apples. Such a beautiful time of year.

Now it's June! This Spring season started out cold and wet, slowing us down a little. We're very thankful for the warm temperatures that the end of May brought us, and it's amazing how much things have grown. It means that we're packing fresh peas, CA apples, rhubarb, lettuce, and basil in our very first CSA share of the season.

Take a look at what can happen in three weeks!

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  - - -

Peas

From bushy little pea plants, to taller bushes with lots of bloom supported by string...  and now we have peas! (See if you can find the pea in the photos.) Edible Pod Peas are for sale in the market as of June 8th and we'll have them for weeks.

peashoot

peaplant

tendrils

apea

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  - - -

Lettuce

Lettuce came out of the greenhouse three inches high, and now look! It doesn't take long for lettuce to be ready for harvest. We have heads of this incredibly tender lettuce for sale in the market, right now!

lettuces

le

lets

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  - - -

Strawberries

According to Farmer Tim, our strawberries have the best bloom he's ever seen! The weather has cooperated so far and we haven't lost any to frost this season. Picking should start in 7-10 days, we're looking forward to an amazing strawberry harvest!

sblossom1

strawberry1

greensberry

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  - - -

 Pickles

Pickles were planted while the weather was still cold, so they were covered with a row cover. Row cover is a very large sheet of light weight fabric that insulates the plants from damaging temperatures.  From small pickle plants tucked under the row cover with just a few true leaves, and now they're starting to look like vines! In the third photo, you can see our "control group" on the left, that was not covered by row cover. The plants weren't burnt by the cold, but you can definitely see the difference in size.

pickle

rowcover

pickleplant

compare

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  - - -

Squash

It's incredible what can happen in a few weeks. We'll have squash on our table in about a week!

squash

squash2

quish

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  - - -

Beans

We'll start out with green beans this year. Yellow beans are in the second planting, along with more green! We started growing beans just three years ago, and we all really enjoy the difference you get in homegrown, handpicked beans. They're the sweetest, most tender beans you'll ever eat!

beans

bigbeans

Can you tell we've been working hard?

hardatwork

May 1st Farm Update!

 

On a drive around the farm today, beautiful signs of Spring were everywhere. The apricot trees are the first to flower!

 

 

Peas

We had a cold start to the season this year and there will be a slight delay because of it. Even for cool weather crops like peas, you have to wait for the soil to warm up enough before you can put seeds in the ground.

For the past two years, peas were planted in the first week of April, but for 2014 they weren't in the ground until the third week. Although this is closer to normal, it does mean that we'll have to wait a little longer for those delicious green pods to make an appearance.

 

Strawberries

When the forsythia blooms, we know it's time to rake the insulating layer of straw off of the strawberry plants. The sooner their green leaves can bask in the warm Spring sunshine, the sooner we can bite into a sweet, red, strawberry.

 

Broccoli

This is the earliest broccoli has ever been planted at Kirby's. Thousands and thousands of plants were seeded. Starting in June, broccoli will be harvested every week until cold temperatures kill the plants. We're in for another epic year of broccoli!

Peaches

Last year we all enjoyed a phenomenal peach crop - we just about had more peaches then we knew what to do with! Unfortunately, it looks like this year we'll be lucky to find a peck basket in the entire orchard. It’s sad news for us, and our customers. Luckily many of our other stone fruits weren’t hit as hard; it looks like the plums, prunes, and apricots will be bearing a normal crop!

 You might remember a few days this past winter, when the temperature dropped to -11F.  That was too cold for the tender young growth of the peach trees to survive. The trees themselves weathered the winter, but those young buds are the source of this season's peaches.

barn

If you're wondering how we can predict the yield for a crop that won't fruit for months, there is a simple way to find out if your blossoms will turn into fruit.

Sometime in April when the buds on the trees are just beginning to break out, Tim Kirby cuts a handful of small branches. He sticks them in a bucket or jar and keeps them in a warm place. The buds will open enough to reveal the flower. With the help of a magnifying glass and a small knife, you can see whether the inside of the pistil is black or green. A black heart is a sure sign that the fruit doesn't have a chance.

---

​ Thanks for reading! We know our customers like to stay informed of how the weather is effecting the crops, and how the season is coming along. For the rest of the year, we 'll  post a Field Update on the first and third week of the month. See you soon!

-

2014 CSA Information

March is here, and that means that Spring is right around the corner. The greenhouse is already toasty warm and filling up with green plants. We're savoring these first moments of warmth and growing things! In July we'll look back and wonder where the time went.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

And now for the news you've been waiting for!  The CSA Store is open and ready to accept your membership for the 2014 season.

Prices are posted on our website (here), along with updated FAQs.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Registration Deadlines

Early Sign Up Bonus: 

All members that register and whose first payments are received by April 1^st, will get an early sign up bonus.This year the bonus is your choice of a six pack of annuals. Any six pack we grow - so you can choose flowers, vegetables or herbs! Paying online with your credit card is the easiest way to make sure your payment is received by April 1^st (a little more reliable then the mail) but if you would like to send a check, please mail it early enough to be sure we receive it in time.

Regular registration deadline is May 1st. 

(You can still join later in the year if we have space, but a $20 processing fee will be added for all late registrations.)

Kirby's Winter Apple Pick-up

Have you heard? You can get great apples from Kirby's this winter. Even while the snow is piling up, and that last Mac in your fridge is too soft to eat, we're pulling bins of crunchy apples out of CA storage each month! We think that if you live in WNY, you should be able to get your hands on a good apple when you want one.

empire

We're opening the market for one afternoon in January, February, March, and April, just for apple pickups. If you missed the January pick-up, don't worry, February 18th will be here before you know it.

Be sure to place your order one week prior to the pickup date.

To Order: Send us an email with the name of the person picking up, your phone number, and your order.

Pay for your order when you pick up, cash or charge. Prices, pick up days and times  are listed here.

The first time apples have ever been sold at Kirby's in January! I'm pretty excited.  You can get decent apples at the grocery store, but they're so expensive. And even though they're good, they're still not as good as CA (Controlled Atmosphere) apples. The high quality apples that come out of Controlled Atmosphere storage rooms are the reason we decided to try this venture. After the room is sealed, all of the oxygen is removed, keeping the apples from deteriorating. When you take a bite, they're juicy and crisp as the day they were put away in storage. Pretty amazing!

In February we'll both Cortland and Empire available. Cortland are great for pies, sauce, baking, and they're pretty good for eating fresh too! I'm looking forward to a nice warm apple crisp, yum.

(If you did order apples in January, you'll notice our ordering process is a little different. We discovered a few hang-ups with the online software we were using, so we decided to go with email and good old fashioned cash!)

Autumn's Chill

cortland

The produce on our tables is always a reflection of the changing seasons. Right now we have: Brussel Sprouts; Winter Squash;  Romanesco;  Cauliflower; Cabbage; Apples; Broccoli; Swiss Chard; Kale; and Pumpkins.  We also have Local Potatoes, Carrots, Onions, Grapes, and Pears. It has been a particularly long season for tomatoes and peppers. Plum tomatoes were hanging in there for a while, but no doubt the hard frost last night put an end to them as well.

Kirby Pumpkins and Roc Brewing Company

 Pickin' Pumpkins with the Brewer

Jon of Roc City Brewing Company came by our pumpkin patch about a week ago, to pick up pumpkins destined to mingle with some hops. It was a lot of fun to discuss the farm, pumpkins, brewing and distilling with such an inspired, enthusiastic person! That weekend, six pie pumpkins and two Cinderella pumpkins were roasted and added to the brewing process for three new pumpkin beers.  I can't wait to taste them!  Here's a photo of Jon's haul on Facebook.

Boos & Brews at the Brewery!

The big event,  to celebrate the season and these new seasonal beer, happens on October 26th at the brewery.  Go to their event page for details. I'll be there with a nice display of pumpkins and other fall things. It sounds like  it's going to be a fun event! Stop by and say hi, and wear a costume!!

The First Day of October

It's the first day of October, and it feels like summer outside!  Warm sunshine like this may not be typical Autumn weather, but it's still great for visiting your local farm market to pick apples, get a bargain out of our Orchard Run bin, enjoy the ambiance, or pick out the perfect pumpkin.

Our Pick-Your-Own apple orchard is open for picking whenever the market is open. Monday - Saturday : 9am-7pm, Sunday 10am-5pm. Bring your own bags, or use ours!

We have a wonderful selection of gourds and pumpkins (just check out the previous blog post), Mums, and straw bales to help you create beautiful Fall decorations.

Apples variety we have now:

• Twenty Ounce
• Cortland
• Macoun
• Gala
• McIntosh
• Autumn Crisp
• Jonamac
• Empire
• Honeycrisp
• & Snap Dragon!

And don't forget the freshly pressed apple cider!

Other Produce in Season:

• Plums
• Sweet Corn
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Cabbage
• Swiss Chard
• Kale
• Beets
• Garlic
• Tomatoes
• Sweet Peppers
• Hot Peppers
• Locally Grown: Carrots, Parsnips, Raspberries, Red and White Potatoes, Onions, Bosc Pears, and Quince

Wk17half

WK17full

Field Update: September at Kirby's

Here's a collection  of snapshots from the farm market yesterday. So many beautiful Fall colors to enjoy! Click the thumbnails to enjoy the full image.

Summer is blending into Autumn, as you can see on our produce tables! Sweet corn is coming to a close soon, and peaches are almost done. We have tons of prunes and tomatoes right now, but we're coming up on the last week of pickles. Sweet peppers are going strong, we just started our last planting of beets (they're beautiful!), our yard is filling with pumpkins and we're getting more squash and gourds every day! Stop by to enjoy those last tastes of Summer. Before you know it, they'll be gone until next year!

In-Season Update, End of August

Our list has stayed mostly the same since last week, with the addition of prunes & apples! We have Jerseymac, Paula Red, and Zestar in the market right now. Zestar is a relatively new variety, developed to beat other early varieties with crispness and flavor. It's a delicious, sweet, juicy apple.

• Tomatoes
• Peaches
• Prunes
• Plums
• Eggplant
• Watermelon

• Cantaloupe (big & small)
• Pickles
• Sweet Corn
• Red Peppers
• Green Peppers

• Hot Peppers
• Broccoli
• Beets
• Locally Grown Potatoes
• Locally Grown Blueberries

This is canning season, right through most of September! The time of year for putting all of this fresh produce up in jars or in freezer bags. Drying, jamming, pickling, stewing, and saucing! Call us at 637-2600 to place an order for pecks, 1/2 bushels, or bushels.

Eggplant, ready for parmesean, baba ghanoush, or eggplant lasagna!

Peaches are beautiful this year - large, sweet, and juicy!

Fresh prunes are delicious eaten as a snack, stewed, roasted, or baked into desserts.

Dill pickles, sweet pickles, relishes, salad..... yum!

Tim and Linda Kirby discuss the harvest of the day.

Crates of Zestar and Paula Red arrived yesterday, August 22nd.

August Field Update

Castleton Prunes (a type of plum) will be ready to harvest in about a week.

This is the peak of summer, and our farm market is filled with an amazing variety of Kirbygrown fresh fruits and vegetables! 

A bin full of green peppers waits in the shade.

• Tomatoes
• Peaches
• Apricots
• Plums
• Eggplant
• Cantaloupe

Gingergold apples are one of the first varieties we pick. In just a few more days they'll be ready!

• Pickles
• Green Beans
• Sweet Corn
• Red Peppers
• Green Peppers
• Watermelon

• Hot Peppers
• Broccoli
• Beets
• Locally Grown Potatoes
• Locally Grown Blueberries

Peaches: Red Haven peaches came in on Saturday. Available by the quart, four quart, peck, or bushel, they're great for baking, eating, and freezing.

Cantaloupe: The first variety of cantaloupe in our market is a small, single-serving variety. It's supers sweet, and so delicious!

Watermelon: It's been a while since we grew watermelon, but it was worth the wait! We have smaller yellow watermelons, and traditional red, both with seeds. They're incredibly flavorful, crisp, and juicy.

Tomatoes: Coming on slowly because of the cool weather, we're hoping to have tomatoes by the bushel by 8/22.

Apples: Jerseymac is our first variety, and Gingergold are close behind.

A full load of apples for the 2013 harvest.

60 bushels of fresh green peppers wait to be taken to our short-term storage facility.

Fruit harvests are shaping up to be fantastic this year!

The weight of ripe fruit will often stress or break a small tree.

Peaches are always picked tree-ripened: firm to the touch but fully colored.

Meanwhile, in our Garden Center, our beautiful Mums are just beginning to show color. We have dozens of varieties to chose from!

All of our Perennials are still 25% off! Find some amazing deals on clearance.

July Field Update

Early sour cherry variety.

Hello from the farm! The persistent rain this Spring is a continuing challenge. It slowed things down and delayed the harvest on Spring crops like peas, lettuce, and beets. And then, it shortened the strawberry crop! I don't mind waiting for peas, but I am disappointed that strawberries are already done here.

We've said good bye to Spring crops of Rhubarb, Strawberries, and Spinach - it's time to embrace Summer!

To help you keep up with the changing seasons, here's a loose prediction of what the next month or so will look like.

Peas, Regular and Edible Pod

: Right now we're in our third planting with one more to go. We should have peas for two more weeks (mid-July)!

Lettuce: Our fresh lettuce will be available until mid-July.

Zucchini and Summer Squash are here now and will be until at least the end of July.

Sour Cherries showed up at the end of June. There isn't a lot of the first variety, so they won't be around too long. Later varieties will be here in mid July, and should last about 2 weeks.

Sweet Cherries arrived on June 28th, and they'll be around just into the beginning of August.

Broccoli

Fresh broccoli crowns, available by the pound.

: our broccoli plantings are shaping up to be pretty epic this year, with a total of about 400,000 broccoli plants in the field.  We're in the first harvest right now! 

Recipes: 

Broccoli Soup, Broccoli Salad, and Roasted Broccoli

Coming Up:

Pickles

will start showing up in about two weeks.  We're doing a planting each week for the entire month of July, with the last one going in on August 1st. This means we should have a steady supply for all of August and well into September, if Mother Nature cooperates.

3,000 feet of Beets were planted two weeks ago. We're looking forward to having lots to pick in about six weeks!

In our next update, we'll have news on tomatoes, peppers, sweet corn, and peaches.

2013 Bulk IQF Cherry Orders

It's that time of year again! We're now taking orders for our big annual IQF fruit sale. Call in your order by August 4th, and then pick them up on Friday and Saturday.

cherries

Available for One Weekend Only:

* Sour Cherries in 20lb bags & 40lb bags

* Blueberries in 30lb bags.

Call by August 4th to place your orders! (585)637-2600

Pick up on Friday August 9th

or Saturday August 10th

 9am-Noon

Bring a cooler to keep those cherries frozen!

Go to our IQF page to read more about our IQF fruit.

Strawberry Season!

If there's one thing a rainy Spring is good for, it's nice big strawberries. 

strwberries

As of this Thursday, June 20th, you can come by the market to pick your own. Bring your own containers or buy a few baskets from us, and spend an hour or two in our strawberry patch picking berries. It's a great way to save a little money on this delicious fruit, and a great way to relax. Our berry patch is full of nice thick straw to kneel on and it's looking pretty weed free so far (good job Farmer Tim)! We recommend coming in the morning, just to avoid the heat of mid-day.

If you'd rather enjoy some delicious strawberries without having to work for it, you can buy them by the quart and flat in the market.

We also have homegrown beets, lettuce, zucchini, edible pod peas, swiss chard, and garlic scapes.

For an even sweeter treat, grab a fresh cookie, turnover or scone. They come in every Tuesday and Friday from Greg'ry's Bakery in Bergen.

Field Update, May 31st

So far the weather has set us up for a pretty average Spring as far as timing goes. Patches of hot weather got things started, alternating with those cold snaps that slowed everything right back down. The rain we had earlier this week was very much appreciated by the plants, fueling the burst of bloom in our strawberry and pea fields. Read on for more details!

Spinach! Now filling a basket on our produce table, it's freshly pulled from a field behind the market and rinsed in clean, cold water. We only have one planting so it will be here for just a short time... but it WILL be back in the fall! Homegrown spinach is so tender and delicious. And full of nutrients of course!

Next up: Peas! The very first blossom showed up one week ago today. We expect to pick about three weeks after the first bloom, so look for peas around June 14th.

Our strawberries began to bloom right before the coldest weather hit in May. Even with the added protection of a row cover (light-weight fabric that provides a layer of insulati0n) our very first strawberries were killed by the cold. We were sad to lose what is always the biggest berries of the season, but the hundreds of blossoms in our field right now makes us feel a lot better! The strawberries out there right now are already getting some pretty good size to them. We should be picking in about two weeks if Mother Nature continues to be kind.

The quilt of lettuce growing in the greenhouse has been planted in neat rows in the field. When you drive by, you might notice two rows of white plastic next to rows and rows of black plastic. That's the lettuce! White plastic will prevent the tender leaves from burning. Black plastic absorbs heat, which can be great to get plants going in the Spring, but it's just too hot for lettuce. Lettuce will be ready for sale around June 14th as well.

Broccoli is the undertaking of the year! Every week for eighteen weeks, our Captain of Seeding, Ron, is planting 15,000 broccoli plants. This photo shows you just a small percentage of what is soon to be acres of glorious broccoli. We'll start picking around July 1st.

Spring Crop Updates

peachbud

Here's a little taste of Spring to start your week off right. Just a sample of what's happening on the farm right now, starting with....

peafield

Peas! With the warm weather we've had over the past several days you can practically watch the plants grow. The strength and perseverance of this tender little plants is evident in the second one from the bottom. See those chunks of earth it pushed through?

The next two photos were taken within five minutes of each other, showing the bloom period of two different peach varieties. The earliest peaches are bursting into flower, while the later varieties are still clusters of tight little buds. So far, it looks like we'll have a good crop of stone fruit. Keep your fingers crossed that Mother Nature is kind for the rest of May!

lettuces

How about a quilt of lettuce? That's at least NINE different kinds, seeded in the greenhouse and headed to the field for planting soon. Our plan is to make variety bundles of three different kinds, something we're putting together especially for our CSA members (but we'll have it for our market customers too!). I can't wait to have a nice big bowl of fresh picked salad!

Have you started your own seedlings indoors? What are you growing?

Check in tomorrow for a sample of some of our favorite Spring blooming perennials!

New for the 2013 CSA Season

The most exciting addition this year has to be our new software, allowing us to organize packing, orders, and most of all accept online sales! This means convenience for our members, and way less paperwork for us.

To sign up for our CSA online, click here to go to our store.

Thanks to two seasons of wonderful members and great success with the CSA, we've increased available shares to 300! Farmer Tim insists we can do more, but we've convinced him to take it slow. 

We're also trying out some new crops: bok choi; radishes; golden beets; collards; celeraic; celery; kohlrabi; spinach; 5 new varieties of lettuce; patty-pan squash; and chinese cabbage. Selected to fill the gaps, these vegetables will add variety to the beginning and end of the season. There are several things in there that I've never tried (kohlrabbi and celeraic) so I'm looking forward to trying them out, and learning new recipes.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

We have three different pickup locations to make it more convenient for you to get your hands on our delicious homegrown produce:

Kirby's Farm Market; Rochester Public Market; and Bindings Bookstore. The greatest difference between these locations is that the market is the only one with a swap table.

Informational Meetings have been scheduled for all of the pickup locations (except Public Market). We hope you can make it to the meeting nearest you, to learn more about our CSA.

UPCOMING INFORMATIONAL MEETINGS

Kirby's Farm Market (Brockport) on March 28th at 7pm

Bindings Bookstore (Albion) on March 26th at 7pm

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

March on the Farm

grasses

Even though the ground is still frozen (and no doubt snow will be flying before March is done) we're already seeing the first signs of Spring. With the mild winter we've had this year, green things are popping up pretty early. Have you noticed the daffodils poking through the ground? Maybe a patch of snowdrops or helleborus blooming? At Kirby's, it always gets green long before the rest of WNY thaws out completely. In our greenhouse, the first batch of hanging baskets has been planted. Happy little annuals are growing vigorously on the benches, gaining some size before we hang them up.

14 trays of onions were seeded this morning. Onions are a first for us! Farmer Tim was inspired  by our CSA program to add a few new crops. He's excited about the idea of giving our CSA members as much variety as we can throughout the season. There will be more plantings of lettuce and spinach too. Our regular customers will benefit as well, when that amazing homegrown lettuce stays around for a few weeks longer then usual, and homegrown green onions and beans show up on our market tables.

Soon there will be trays of tomato, cauliflower, broccoli, and pepper seedlings growing in the greenhouse. And before you know it, we'll be out in the fields harvesting delicious produce for your table!

2colorbskt

fleur

chenile