Corn Box

Here are a few of our farm hands just finishing up a huge job unloading corn. Good day to be a teenager!

Educational Tour Farm Hands, Fall 2009

Had a great time this morning for staff training. It was raining, so instead of the Ag Classroom, we met at the house. This is a great group to work with, some of the best folks around. Welcome new tour hands Jean, Daffney, Karl & Larry!

That's how we do it!

Check out Uncle Russell trying out the new slide....that's how we do it!

It takes a tractor....

Better appreciation for machinery if you do it manually first!

Slide Video #2

How do you spell hiney?

Fall Preparations

August and September seem to be our busiest months! Not necessarily with guests, but with preparations. Enjoy this 3 video series with Uncle Russell putting in our new 100' slide!

More Strawberries.....

A bit more....

Strawberry Season?

Ok, from now on, let's just agree Aunt Mary is taking the summer off! At least I hope that's all it will be. My intentions are good to get back to blogging, but you know about good intentions.....

This is a little bit of what's happening in the strawberry field at Vollmer Farm. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Planting!

Wow, a month really flies by fast! Sorry, again for the delay in posting.....

Here's a great video of Uncle Russell, Jacob and Margaret planting pumpkins on an old tobacco setter. These are "Prize Winner" variety and will be a great addition by the farm market. We love our guests to be able to pick-your-own!

Hope you're enjoying your summer,
Aunt Mary

Bodacious Corn!

Bodacious isn't just an adjective here, it's the name of the variety of corn we're growing. Should be ready about mid-June. Here's a great informational bit from Farmer John!

Where have you been?!?

Well folks, sorry for the noticable absence. Honestly, I don't have a good excuse, just the month of May. It's gotten to be the busiest month of the year! Between strawberries, end of season dance recitals, conference track meets, band concerts and more, I've just been barely keeping my head above water. But the end is in sight, EOG's are over, high school exams start Thursday and last day of school is next Wednesday!

I went to the field today with Farmer John to check out the strawberries and corn among many other things and the good news is we still have plenty of beautiful berries. The picking is still good and the fruit is as good as it's been all season. The corn should be ready sometime the week of the 8th, I can't wait!

We're picking a few blueberries now for the market, but won't open the fields for pick-your-own until later in the month.

Thanks for your patience, enjoy June!

Wildcat Whopper!

Best deal on the farm! The mascot for Bunn High School is the Wildcat. This is a great dish to share with friends or family.....

Fabulous 5K!

More Strawberry Jam!

Strawberry Jam!

Here are three videos taken about 10 days ago (I know, I'm getting worse!). They're from our Strawberry Jam, April 25th. It was lots of fun with a 5K, the band playing and people picking. We were able to donate over $700 to the Bunn High School Relay for Life team and Band. We plan on raising more next year!

We've already decided to add a kids run for next years event. Let us know your thoughts!

Kids Playing

Well, Aunt Mary's catching up on lost time! Here's a cute family of kids who visited today. They picked berries and spent time playing in our new play area behind the market.

Farm Hand Fun!

Well, several titles other than "Farm Hands" come to mind when viewing this video, knuckleheads, Frick & Frack, and more.....
Obviously, it's hard to stay upset with these guys for long, they enjoy themselves too much! A few notes....

1. We stay open until 7 (not 5).
2. The idea was for them to get a video of people picking berries (there are some beautiful berries coming out of the field).
3. We didn't (but probably should) dock them for crashing the pumpkin house!

Stay tuned for more!

Blackberry Update!

Easter Saturday Farmer John & his crew were out planting our new blackberry crop. It's a double-feature, it will also serve as parking guidelines in one of our fields we use for cars in the fall. We should have blackberries in 2010-yahoo!

Face Lift!

Well, I just couldn't stand the ugly back of our market building any longer! I harassed Uncle Russell about some inherited awnings we had on the back of the farm until he gave up and agreed to hang them. Thankfully, we’ve got good friends and neighbors who’ll lend a hand!

Growing Goats!

They grow up so fast!! Here's another shot of Spanky & Spunky, a favorite "kids" pastime, climbing. Don't worry, goats are climbers by nature, you can't tell in this video, but the ramp is pretty darn wide. Come visit them on weekends at the farm!

Uncle Russell & Baby Goats!

Meet our newest additions to Vollmer Farm! Since this video, Uncle Russell and our neighbor have named them Spanky & Spunky (glad they weren't in charge the day my children were born!).

Farm Hands, Prom & Pick-up Trucks!

Here's a little ditty that Aunt Mary managed to tie into the blog....sorry, please indulge a Mama! I hope you enjoy this little tidbit from Jacob and his buddy, Graham, on prom night. Note to self....do not employ teenagers on prom day!

Blueberry Math

Oops! Forgot that you've been patiently awaitin the answer to the blueberry math posted on the earlier video.....Ok, here's what you've got:
To find out how many plants Farmer John will need to purchase for his new blueberry patch, you need to know:

1. He is planting on 1.4 acres
2. There are 43,560 sq. ft. in an acre.
3. Each blueberry plant uses 50 sq. ft. of space

43,560 /50=871.2

871.2 * 1.4=1219.68

Round off to 1220 plants!

To figure out how much money he needs to take with him, you need to know that the plants cost $3.50 each. 1220 * 3.50= $4,370.00

Great job!!

Walla, Walla!

Walla, Walla! No, Aunt Mary's not sweet talking you, that's the name of one of our favorite onion varieties. Farmer John tells you a little bit about the variety as well as leeks-very European!
This crop is hand-planted, you can see some of our farm-hands in the background planting.

Strawberry Picking Delayed!

Well, it looks like strawberry picking will be delayed! We had hoped to be open by April 1st, but I guess the strawberries “fooled” us. We are planning now to open the market the week of April 6th and be opening the fields to the public for picking by Friday, April 10th, Easter weekend! Stay posted here or sign up for our email newsletter for the latest updates. Check out the “why” in the video with Farmer John & Uncle Russell.

"Margaret"-a self-video!

Margaret did a bit of work with the video camera on Sunday afternoon. I couldn't help share it!

Margaret & Goats!

Here's a quick video from Sunday of Margaret with the goats. We have 5 goats: Billy the male, Dusty a female, Rose the mama and Freddie & Molly the two babies. I apologize that there's not better footage. We took some great videos when they were newborn, but that was before Aunt Mary really knew how to operate the video and I accidentally deleted them!
The goats live in the Back Forty near the giant slide. We are hoping to have the babies up around the front of the farm some this spring on the weekends in our new play area.

Newest Crop-Blackberries!

Well, you're catching this crop at the beginning. I'll keep you posted!

Blueberries & More!

Hi All! We're enjoying some nice weather today and looking forward to more throughout the weekend. I'll try and get plenty of video over the next few days, there will be lots happening! A few things planned:

1. Working around the outside of the market, getting the new play area finished.
2. Clearing out work areas for strawberry harvesting.
3. Planting two varieties of beans in the field.
4. Putting in a freezer in the CSA building for managing berries.
5. Preparing field for new asparagus planting.
6. Doing some staff training

And more! We're counting down the days for strawberries and it's a busy time.

Check out our blueberry bushes, they're coming along nicely. I'll give you the math answers on Monday!

Broccoli Update

So sorry for the extended delay in posting, the rain has kept me and everyone else inside! The first chance we had today, we hit the field. It was great to see the sun peeking out and the leaves stretching up.

Lettuce, #5

Good afternoon! I've just finished uploading a series of 5 videos on how we seed our organic lettuce in the greenhouse. Please scroll down to "Lettuce, #1" and then come up (I'm sure there's a better way to do it, but I haven't figured out how to override the system!). Hope you'll stop by this spring to try some.

Lettuce, #4

Lettuce, #3

Lettuce, #2

Lettuce, #1

Here's a video series on how we grow our organic lettuce. Enjoy!

Tomato Math

Good morning. I had a good friend who's a 4th grade teacher suggest a bit of math, so I've done my best. Here's a bit of averaging & multiplying, have fun!

Update on Strawberries

We caught Farmer John out in the patch today for an update. Things are looking good here at the farm, it's so nice having this warm weather!

Boy Bloopers!

Why do teenagers enjoy Bloopers so much?

Johnny & Jacob Frost-protecting

Hopefully the weather will improve soon and we'll have some other things to show you! In the meantime Johnny & Jacob were out tonight, giving Uncle Russell and Farmer John a break and filmed these videos.
Understand they are 15 and 17 respectively and have a flair for the dramatic!

Tuesday morning at the farm

Here's another video of Uncle Russell frost-protecting on Tuesday morning. Nice shot of the ice on the plants and showing you a picture of why we have to walk the fields all night long when the weather is this cold.

It's actually Tuesday night around 8:30, sorry for the delay in posting. We've finally made Uncle Russell go take a nap, Jacob and Johnny are out in the fields this evening. They can stay out until around 10pm, but then need to go to bed as they have school tomorrow morning!

Monday Night, Frost-Protecting with Uncle Russell

Well, we've got at least two, potentially three nights coming of COLD weather. Here's a brief video Uncle Russell took on Monday night around 5:30, it's just stopped flurrying here at the farm.

Rain, rain go away!

Rain, rain go away, Farmer John wants to play!! It has been raining for two days here at the farm and it's been good, but we've had enough.

We're busy trying to decide how to manage the weather over the next three evenings (like we could!). The wind is going to be too gusty tonight to do much, we're hoping for a nice blanket of snow to cover the berries and help keep the wind from blowing our strawberry covers off.

Farmer John will be out of town for the next few days, so Uncle Russell will be backing him up doing frost-protecting on Monday and Tuesday nights.

Imagine walking the fields at 13 degrees (we're typically 4 degrees cooler than Raleigh) and knocking the ice off of sprinkler heads-YIKES!! We've done all we can with covers, frost-protecting and prayer to help the berries, we'll keep you posted!

Farmer John in the Blueberry field

Farmer John is busy this morning! He's been seeding warm weather vegetables in the greenhouse, covering up the vegetables already in the field, working on an organic strawberry test plot with NCSU and now he's in the blueberry field! It's just 11:15am!

Broccoli

Here's a photo of the broccoli that was planted yesterday!

Cauliflower Follow-Up

Well, it's Thursday morning and we're back in the vegetable field. After talking with Farmer John, I've learned a little bit more about transplanting vegetables! These plants have been growing in the greenhouse for a couple of weeks. They've been in a nice controlled environment with moderate temperatures.

Yesterday morning, when they brought them out to the field, it was just about 30 degrees, NOT moderate! So after planting Farmer John was feeling quite disappointed, he could tell the plants were stressed from the harsh adjustment. He made a quick trip to Virginia to pick up additional row covers (like a blanket) to put on the plants to provide a easier transition.

This morning the plants are doing better, they're looking good! Here are a few photos of the early morning here on the farm. Farmer John, Billy & Benton are putting the row covers on. These will stay on until we're looking at a block of warmer weather and then it will be time to move them over to a warmer season crop like tomatoes.

Planting Vegetables

It's the last week of February and we're starting to plant our first spring vegetables. We have a great crew to help us. We use an old converted tobacco setter to put the plants in the ground. The plants have been growing in the greenhouses located in the Back Forty and are the perfect size for transplanting into the field.

This video shows Benton driving the tractor and Christina on the plant setter, putting cauliflower in the field. The rows are mounded up and covered in plastic. This allows better weed control, better irrigation and makes it nicer for picking! The setter pokes holes in the plastic. Christina is dropping a plant in every other hole to get the correct spacing for when the plants start to grow. You can get a quick glance of Farmer John in the background, he's writing some labeling for the different varieties of cauliflower!

Uncle Russell in the Ice!

Uncle Russell is in the field in the early morning after watering the strawberries all night. We use overhead irrigation to create ice on nights when the temperature is going to drop much below freezing. The making of ice actually creates warmth and insulates the berries.

With care like this, we should have berries on April 1st, no fooling!