Hamlet Organic Garden

Last week we officially kicked off the 2010 season by starting the first seedlings in our small, woodstove heated greenhouse behind our place in Brookhaven.  We seeded some scallions, mini onions, Walla Wallas, and a red variety called Red Wing.  Our new greenhouse is made of polycarbonate panels, which stay warmer and last longer than the 6mil plastic we were using on the old structure.  Not to mention, our cats can’t scratch holes in it!

Check out the great article about the Hamlet Organic Garden in the Long Island Green Guide!  Here’s an excerpt:

“Sometimes, to find a better way of doing something, all one has to do is look close to home. For hundreds of Long Island families who love fresh, organically-grown produce, that means being a member of the Hamlet Organic Garden, a local bastion of the ‘growing’ activity known as Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA.Since 1996, the “HOG” as it’s affectionately called by members, has grown certified-organic vegetables, fruits, herbs, and cut flowers on a five-acre farm field in Suffolk County’s Brookhaven Hamlet. Most of what’s produced is sold as CSA ’shares’ to it’s membership; whatever surplus exists is donated to local food banks…”  read entire article here.

Lots of people ask us what we do with our spare time in the winter…well to be honest, we spend a lot of that time farming, or thinking about farming! We spend the month of December coordinating our seed order–its so dreamy in the cold winter months to peruse the brightly colored seed catalogues and search for new varieties that may do well on our sandy Long Island soil. We send the order in by the end of December to be sure we get everything we need, the seed companies run out of popular varieties quickly!

In January and most of February, we are at the computer planning how the season will go–the summer is so busy, we try to do all our thinking in the winter! We’ll plan when everything will be seeded in the greenhouse, when it will be transplanted to the field, and where all the crops will go! We practice strict rotations, and rotate crop families so they aren’t planted in the same ground for 3 years. Once all that’s done, we make our weekly work schedules, so we know when to chisel plow, fertilize, and till the fields so they are all ready when they need to be! This is also when we start planning our cover crops, which means we’re also already starting to think about 2011!

This year we also re-built our seed greenhouse, trading in the 6mil plastic cover for more durable and warmer polycarbonate panels–it was a bit more expensive, but we won’t need to replastic our little greenhouse ever again! The first seeds will be planted mid-February, and then we’ll be off!

There are still shares available, so be sure to download an application and send in your deposit today!