Erskine's Grain & Garden

Cutting back, chopping down, cleaning up, admiring sweet green clover cover crops, optimistically seeding winter rye, saving seeds. Some days are meant for doing the work. #dothework #thisisvt #thisisvermont

Plant Garlic! There’s still time before the ground gets too cold (70 degrees tomorrow and Wednesday?!) We currently have a sweet soft neck variety from Forest Hawk Farm in Springfield that stores really well, and you can braid it! #garlic #growyourownfood #farmlife #thisisvt #vtfarm

Peaveys, cant hooks, hookeroons, pulp hooks, draw shaves, axes and mauls… I tell you it was fun placing this restock order from Peavey Manufacturing Company (Maine) and Council Tool (North Carolina). Beautiful logging and striking tools, all made in the USA. #logging #peaveymfg #counciltools #madeintheusa #lumberjack

New blade, who dis? Felco 4s got a tune up today. Love good tools with replaceable parts! #felco #gardenlife

We were trimming up our hard neck garlic (we save and plant our own seed garlic) last night and noticed the percentage of bulbs with 4 cloves (vs 5 & 6) cloves was way high). Usually it’s split more evenly. We counted: 80 x 4-clove, 4 x 3-clove, 4 x 6-clove, 9 x 5-clove. What are you tracking for flora or fauna genetics these days?#garlic #growyourownfood #garden #harvesttime #chestervt

Swarm, anyone? About 30’ up in the oak tree, the bees in our observation hive at the store ran out of room and swarmed on Tuesday. They’ve been up there since then. Any ideas why they’re hanging out there and haven’t moved on yet? The hive body we put out and treated with lemongrass oil to entice them back held zero interest for their scouts. #honeybees #vermontbeekeepersassociation #vermontbeekeeping #pollinator #feedstorelife #ilovebees #chestervt Vermont Beekeepers Association

What do you find when you pop the top off the solar fencer with the dead battery? Today, luckily, it was only ants. Usually it’s something with a stinger 👎. Battery changed, now back to the satisfying tick tick tick of a full charge on the anti-bear fence! #electricfence #parmak #farmchores #ants

We overseeded with red clover a few years ago in our little orchard. Those little legumes sure are showing off this morning! 🌱☘️🌱#redclover #legume #nitrogenfixer #thisisvt #backyardfarm

Chick days rolling on… with Guinea Fowl keets! These birds have quite the varied resume with reputations as fabulous tick eaters for the homestead, too-loud screamers, adorable dinosaurs, delicious dark meat when dressed for table, and/or all of the above. We can personally vouch for the adorableness of their babies, aka ‘keets’! Come check them out!#guineafowl #freerange #tickcontrol #chickdays

What a week! (What a month, really.) Spring has sprung in Vermont, and we are here for it! Day old chicks, all the seed potatoes (did you peep those flashy pink and purple Purple Vikings?!), onion sets, onion plants, horseradish, asparagus, rhubarb and strawberry plants/crowns/roots you could want are in. And we set up our observation beehive… the new colony is busy busy getting established and pollinating the Depot. #spring #thisisvt #growyourownfood #chestervt #feedstore

More Spring happening in the store! Seed potatoes, onion sets and NEW this year, onion seedlings have arrived. We are set up so you can pick your order yourself, or tell us what you want and we’ll bag it up for you. [Still to come: shallot sets, sweet potato slips, horseradish, rhubarb, bareroot strawberrries, asparagus]#growyourownfood #ilovemygarden #chestervermont