It's that time of year again: our garlic is now available in our online shop! https://underthetreeithaca.com/collections/farm For the first time ever, we are offering Primo's garlic for sale. Primo Calabrese was Crystal's grandfather, and he grew his garlic for decades. We don't exactly know the variety, so we just call it, "Primo's Garlic". It's delicious and stores really well. It tends to be smaller, on average, than our German White Garlic, and has more cloves. The plants are much shorter than the German White plants, and have broad, succulent leaves. They emerge from the soil about a week later in the spring, and we harvest the heads about a week after our German White. Here is a link to purchase 1...
Under the Tree Farm’s Garlic Growing Tips Plant your garlic in fall, just like a tulip or daffodil bulb! In the Finger Lakes Region of NY (we’re in Zone 5b), we plant our garlic the second week of October. Garlic loves fertile soil and sun! Plant it in the most productive spot in your garden and you will be rewarded with a bountiful harvest. If you have access to compost or composted cow/horse manure, amend your soil before planting. Break up your garlic heads into individual cloves for planting. Each fall-planted garlic clove will grow into an entire head of garlic! We plant our garlic cloves 10 inches apart with rows spaced 1 foot apart. Each clove is planted about 3...
We, along with many other farmers in New York State, lost our entire apple crop this spring due to a freeze event after the apples had set fruit. It was the biggest crop loss in every farmer's memory. Since then, we have thought of a creative way to share our farm offerings with our community in a year without much fruit: tintype photographs of our farm! Shop farm tintypes Crystal learned tintype, or ferrotype, photography this summer from John Coffer in Dundee, NY, and has set off on her own making photographs.She has been enthusiastically making tintype photographs around our farm. We are excited to now offer her original farm tintypes on our online shop!When you purchase a farm tintype, you are supporting...
Our 2023 garlic crop is our biggest and best ever! We started harvesting it the week of July 17, and hope to finish this week or next. We grow 2 varieties: German White (also called "Music" or "German Extra Hardy"), and Crystal's Italian Grandfather, Primo's, garlic. We aren't sure of Primo's variety, so we just call it, "Primo's Garlic". Every year, Primo's garlic emerges from the soil later in the spring and scapes later than our German White. This year, we're trying something a little different with Primo's Garlic. We are letting it grow for another week or two before harvesting to allow the heads to size up a bit more. The leaves have just started dying down and turning yellow;...
I hate to be the barer of bad news, but we have lost our entire apple crop for 2023 due to the May 17 deep freeze. Growers to the north of us between Seneca and Cayuga lake fared better, but everyone in our area suffered major damages to their fruit crops this year. About a week after the deep freeze damaged our apple crop, the baby apples swiftly began to abort and fall off the trees. This photo is of hundreds of aborted baby apples that were killed by the freeze. The good news is, if we can keep the birds and other critters out, we are expecting a partial blueberry crop this year. Our blueberry bushes were also hit hard by...
