Birch Bend Farm

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Comstock, WI
Birch Bend Farm

We bought some dirt. (Along with it came some water and plants.)
60 acres, family of five, enjoying new adventures in northwestern Wisconsin.

https://birchbend.farm/

04/12/2026

Spring….sprang…. Garlic!

03/19/2026

The box from Fedco Seeds showed up late last week which signals the beginning of grafting season. This year I decided to focus on 11 different varieties on a single rootstock to keep things simple. Between the scion wood I ordered, and some I collected at the farm, I’ll be grafting around 230 trees this year. I’ll try to get a blog post up on our website with more info sometime before month end but for now I’ll be busy with grafting at night and maple syrup on the weekends. A special thanks to Fedco for including some words of encouragement inside the box :)

03/15/2026

Maple syrup season in full swing means splitting season is also in full swing.

02/16/2026

Harvesting scion wood from the original apple trees at the farm. We don’t know the variety but the apples from the trees make great cider!

01/04/2026

Finally found time to finish bottling the rest of our cider from 2025. We’re bottle conditioning again this year but hoping to disgorge the bottles later in 2026. Still have a few blogs to write about this (on our farm website) and other things from 2025 that I’ll try to get caught up on soon!

11/28/2025

Snow on Thanksgiving :)

10/27/2025

Garlic! It’s hard to believe it’s that time of year again. We’re a week behind from planting last year, but the garlic is finally in the ground!

We had such great interest in our garlic bulbs from local buyers this year that we decided to save and plant even more for next year. In all, we planted 2401 cloves! (Varieties: Hard Neck- Chesnok Red, Deerfield Purple, Armenian and Soft Neck- Inchelium).

Next step will be mulching the rows with hay to help insulate and keep weeds down in the spring. Garlic cloves need to be planted in the fall, so they have time to establish their root system before winter. The winter cold is needed for proper bulb development.
🧄

09/20/2025

Prepping the space up on the hill near the woods for the future Sugar Shack.@

09/13/2025

Even when it’s storming, the sunsets at the farm don’t disappoint.

08/30/2025

Some of the yellow and purple onions and shallots curing.
A handful of them are a bit small due to where they were growing in the garden (not enough sunlight from being shaded out by asparagus ferns) so I’ll save them for onion sets to try replanting next year.

07/27/2025

Garlic is ready to harvest when the bottom 2-3 leaves of the plant have browned.

We’ve just spent the morning harvesting the rest of our garlic, tying them into bundles, and hanging to cure.

In this bunch we have Armenian, Chesnok Red, and Deerfield Purple, which are all hard-neck varieties (the kind that grow scapes).

We’ve staggered the bundles and have a handful of fans going for good airflow. Although they could officially be used right away for cooking, we are hanging them to cure (dry) for 3-4wks to help promote a longer storage life.

(Cured garlic can last 9+months… we still have some garlic hanging in our pantry, from last year, to be used for cooking).

Address

Comstock, WI

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