Clover Nook Farm

Hey, we're here with Lars from Clover Nook Farm and Bethany and you're about two weeks from your corn. Yep. What variety is this? So this is an early variety. I actually forget the name of it. It's an early variety, it takes 65 days to grow. That's why it's a lot shorter than your typical sweet corn variety and it's kind of a backbreaker to pick but it's really your only option for early corn because it's able to germinate in colder soils and it does well in colder spring weather. So this is the first planting that should be ready about two weeks. Right before the heat wave it actually didn't even have tassels and it was about a foot and a half shorter but corn loves the hot h This corn actually originates from Central America where it's hot and how do you plant this so that we can have it as long as possible? So we do, it's called successional planting. So every 16 rows is planted about a week to 10 days apart depending on how fast they germinate is when we plant next. So we do about 16 rows at a time in this field and then it goes for, this is about 7 acres this field. This is all yellow and white sweet corn so it goes all the way down to the bottom of this field now. So each planting is at a different stage and then we plant our white corn as far as we can. That way this doesn't accidentally pollinate it otherwise you'd end up with yellow kernels on your white sweet corn. And how long will you actually have the corn if all the weather cooperates properly? The latest we've had it is October 23rd. Usually that's the latest we've had it, I'd say it's typical years we're lucky to have it the second week of October. And next year you're hoping to do a couple new things, can you talk about those? Yeah so since we got hit with the tornado this year, kind of all my projects got put on the back burner but I'm going to be trying to put in kiwi berries which are kind of a neat niche fruit crop. They're basically That's the way farming is. We're on disaster relief for the most part. I was able to expand our lamb operation though, that was one of the projects that is finally underway but we're getting there. And are you guys almost We're getting there. The barn that came down, we've been doing the cleanup ourselves just because we want to pick through it and get all the tools out and anything else that's useful and save the old beams since they're worth money and we want to use them for some things as well. And I mean we've been picking trees out of fields since first cut of hay was late because of that. We couldn't start cutting because all the trees and branches in the fields. Cow fence is kind of a mess but it's holding them. It's kind of patchy you might say. I know that a farmer's life is just non-stop work year round. And congratulations on being named farmer of the year for Connecticut. And that's the higher the year and the tornado is the low. We got to focus on the high and this is a great farm. We're in Bethany. And what days are your farm store open? So we're open seven days a week. Monday to Friday we're open 10 to 6 p. m. Weekend is 9 to 6 p. m. Thanks so much Lars. Yeah, thank you.