With some snow flying around yesterday, Alice and I marked out fields for plowing, and were able to see which sections are still quite wet. Also, fall planted crops: winter wheat and rye are just beginning to put on a bit of growth and "green-up". We scattered red clover seed under some winter wheat on our seed-development field; it fell into the cracks in the soil from recent thawing and refreezing. There it will be ready to grow when consistent warm temperatures take hold, and after the grain is harvested we will have a lush carpet of green leaves suitable for grazing, and crimson blossoms for medicinal teas.

We are eagerly waiting for barley seed from Andrea and Christian of Valley Malt: a new WMass business. Besides growing for the grain CSA we will market the 2-row barley to local Massachusetts breweries, who are putting money up front for buying the seed, to be malted in Hadley. If we let them know in advance, we can most likely get CSA member's barley malted for home brewing.

Since planting season is 3 weeks away, this Saturday will be the last time we are at Amherst farmer's market (to sell anyway) until late July. We will have whole wheat flour and un-milled berries.

More soon...

New website is up.

Hello - Adam here. We put up a basic website yesterday at: http://www.whiteoakgrains.info/, (Alice did most of the work).

Thanks to NOFA for advertising for us this week in the Organic Food Guide!

Also... I was surfing Google earlier today and found a Boston Localvore post talking about our farm, White Oak Farm, with a link to the PVHG grain CSA, which is a big mistake. We helped get their "CSA" off the ground a couple of years ago, but had a difference of idealogy which did not allow us to continue working with them. We grow all of the crops for our grain share, with a high standard of organic methods. We try to keep the price reasonable because we believe local-organic food needs to be a real food alternative, not a fad, trend, or niche. Thanks.