A Certified Naturally Grown Farm - Saint Marys, Pennsylvania
For the Love of Farming – Before One Season Ends, the Next One Has Already Begun
Farming could be considered a variation of insanity if you truly do exactly the same thing year after year, however IMHO, a good Farmer…while toiling away in the fields year after year is the same…the tools, techniques, and tact must adapt for it to…
A Family Hop Farm’s Love of Stringing The Hopyard
For hop Farmers in the Mid Atlantic, the middle of May means it’s time to string and train the hops! That’s where we found ourselves recently @HoffAppFarm. While exhausting, stringing the hopyard is something this family hop Farm loves. We’re up in the “siege…
Hop Farm | version 2.0
“Forward, always forward, everywhere forward“ Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B.Founder & Archabbot, Saint Vincent Archabbey | Latrobe, Pennsylvania1809 – 1887 It’s that time of year – harvest is behind us, hops are put to bed for the Winter, and there’s no work left to do in…
Snap, Crackle, POP!
The evening of Thursday, 21 July, Northcentral Pennsylvania was visited by a pretty intense storm cell. High winds, humid air, rain, thunder, and lighting…a classic thunderboomer. As is normal during the week, I was at our place in Montoursville. When Jenn woke me up…
“A Little Off The Top…Er, Bottom…Please!”
Returning to the Farm after a week away, I just never know quite what to expect. Weeds out of control? Something break? Japanese beetles show up weeks early? “Expect the worst, it can only get better” is pretty much the motto we follow. I…
Sub-Soiling Between Two Posts…Deep Thoughts
The time had come to begin preparing the large hopyard for round 2 of its existence, this time with better-prepared soils and hills. We (I) took out the remaining two hills in 2022 after we’d given up on the three initial hills about four…
Nose To The Grindstone
There is a saying that runs through my mind often. It was uttered by Sr. Evangelist, O.S.B., who has long since passed. But back in the days of my youth when I was an altar boy, she was part of the Sacristan tag team…
2021 Season – “It’s Done”
Apologies upfront. I’d stepped away from the weekly blog in late Spring as we began in earnest on our Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) solar pump/irrigation grant project. Although we’d been awarded the grant back in 2019, with the pandemic running its course through…
“Sincerely Yours, the Breakfast Club”
If you’ve followed along with the blog posts from this season, you may note a trend. I’ve been pulling images, storylines, or quotes from popular media – television shows, movies, both present-day and ones from my younger years. I’ve then been tying them or…
