Updates from

Pleasant Valley Farm

MID WINTER, 2010 VOLUME 2, ISSUE 9

Hello Friends!
The first week of December brought lots of snow to the farm, and it looks like Our Farm stand
winter has settled in. Although we’re closed for the season, there is still lots of work to will reopen
be done here! We were closed in December, but we were also busy filling all of our Saturday, May 28,
freezer pork orders. We’re now done butchering until May, which is a welcome break. 2011.
As the grass is done growing for the year and snow blankets the pastures and fields,
the animals have been brought into the barn for the winter. While we let them out for ♦ Visit with us, see Emily
a period of time each day for exercise, the horses and cows have gotten used to the
speak and stock up on
cold weather routine. They are fed a diet of quality organic hay through the cold
months. This hay was made right here on the farm during the summer using our some of your favorite
horses and haymaking equipment. (For more details on how we do this, complete canned products at Farm
with pictures, check out the Hay Making page on our website, found under the Why to Table in March!
Work Horses? link.) Making hay here at the farm gives us control over the quality of
the feed our animals receive, as well as keeping our costs much lower over purchased ♦ Live chicks will again be
feeds.
available Spring 2011
In addition to caring for the animals, we’ll have some extra time to work on the build-
ings and indoor projects. It’s also time to start planning for the garden for the upcom-
ing season, which you can read all about on page 2. Emily continues to stay busy with
her LocalHarvest blog and some new additions to the website. She’s also begun pre-
paring for an upcoming speaking event (see below)! We’ll also soon be preparing for
babies, as we begin hatching chicks and seeing new lambs arrive in March.
Wishing you and your family a healthy and happy New Year!

-Emily

See Emily at Farm to Table Expo 2011! Pleasant Valley Farm

Dan & Emily Stevenson

The 5th annual Farm tables from presentation is titled
to Table Expo will local farms, “Heritage Livestock 4792 Sage Road
again be held at the wineries, restau- Breeds: What They Are, Tionesta, PA 16353
David L. Lawrence rants and other Why They Matter, and
Convention Center groups who (814)755-3911
How to Find Them.”
in Pittsburgh. It will support local You will also be able to [email protected]
be taking place Fri- food. There will visit with her in the exhibit
day, March 25 & Saturday also be a wide variety of hall. www.pleasantvalleyfarm.weebly.com
March 26 from 9-5 each speakers and demonstra-
tions. Watch our website and
day. There will also be a
Facebook page, as we will
tasting event for local We are very excited to post more details as they
foods Friday evening. announce that Emily will become available. We
The conference features be one of the featured hope some of you will
an exhibit hall filled with speakers at the event! Her stop and see Emily there!
 PLEASANT VALLEY FARM Page 2

Garden Planning
Although it seems like we tures and descriptions in the is important, especially since
just finished picking the last of catalogs, we would never be we never use chemical fungi-
the winter squash from the able to narrow it down since it cides or other harmful sprays.
garden, it’s already time to look makes each one sound so Each year we try to expand our
ahead to our 2011 garden! good! One important factor is heirloom offerings. When we
While we do save our own by keeping good records and do, we’ll plant a proven variety
seed from some crops, we knowing which varieties have or two along with a new or
purchase lots more each done well on our farm in the heirloom type of the same
spring. past. We have many tried and vegetable. If the new one does
The seed catalogs have already true varieties that have grown well, we’ll add it to the list for
started to arrive in the mailbox, well for us over the years. We future growing seasons. We
and soon we’ll get serious also need to take into consid- are constantly experimenting
about comparing prices and eration the growing needs of with which heirlooms will give
looking at all the newly avail- the variety, as some do well in us the best results and flavors
able varieties. Deciding which the zone we live in and others at our location. Also, some-
Deciding which crops and what varieties to need different climate condi- times a favorite variety is sim-
plant is a task we take our time tions than we have here. Also, ply no longer available for one
crops and what with, since it will affect our different varieties take differ- reason or another, and you
entire season! We try to order ent amounts of time to pro- need to choose another variety
varieties to duce fruit. By planting both
from just a few companies you hope will have similar per-
who we’ve found to be reliable early and late types of a par- formance. We’ll let you know
plant is a task
producers of quality seed, but ticular veggie, like corn, we’ll which heirloom varieties will
we take our time we do get dozens of catalogs, be able to offer it for a longer be included in the 2011 garden
and it’s always interesting to period of the season. in a future edition of this
with, since it will flip through them all to see Another factor that can be newsletter.
what catches our eye. The important is a particular vari- We do also try to take into
affect our
selections are impressive and ety’s natural resistance to spe- consideration what our cus-
entire season! can be a bit overwhelming at cific diseases (especially if we tomers are asking for. If you
times; one catalog we use spe- had issues with that disease in were looking for a particular
cializes in sweet corn and fea- the prior growing season). For vegetable or variety but didn’t
tures over seventy different instance, since late blight has see it for sale last year, feel free
varieties of that crop alone! affected so many local tomato to let us know!
How do we choose what to crops the past 2 years, planting
plant? If we went by the pic- varieties with natural resistance

Don’t forget to keep up with the farm all winter long by liking us
on Facebook or reading up on our LocalHarvest blog!