Open Farm day at Wild Things

I tried to capture the essence of the day in photos, but of course parts of it are blank 🙂

Started out finishing up four CSA boxes for pickup today and the lettuce is still doing great

 

Some of the varieties are starting to bolt and taste bitter, but there is a new bed of seeds germinating, a bed of transplants, and several flats of plants ready to transplant in a couple of weeks, so we should be good on lettuce for a while longer.  One of the advantages of living “in a holler” is that it’s cooler here so crops like lettuce, kale, and chard will continue to grow during the summer (most of the time).

Today was Open Farm day for the CSA members.  Several families were off on vacation and the threat for rain was REAL, like it thundered all around most of the time we were outside, but the rain held off.  One of the members and I set up a croquet court thinking maybe someone might play, but it was just too hot and humid to play.  BTW I found the croquet set at a yard sale for $3.00.  It was missing the red ball, which has been replaced, and today we discovered that one of the stakes and 2 wickets are missing–oh well, those are easily substituted.

Back to the farm…..we had good eats.  I love it when you say “pot luck” with no rules–well, the only rule I had was it had to be finger food and we cheated a little by scooping the beet and pea salad with chips, but all the food was great and the CSA members got to meet and visit with each other AND see where their food comes from.

We worked our way from the house, through the orchard, down to the high tunnel

 

where I explained how the peppers are doing really well and the tomatoes are doing really crappy–well, tomatoes are doing crappy everywhere from what I here.  The awesome organic salad tomatoes are starting to make a showing though…..

The chickens showed everyone how much they love their new “chunnel” for “chunnelling” back and forth between their portable yard and their happy hen empire

and one of the members was explaining about how large the rose hips are on the rosa rugosa shrubs in the new border along the walkway to the empire of the happy hens.. future plans are for an arbor to support the kiwi vines I purchased very very early in the spring.  I read somewhere that it is best to leave them in the pots the first year until they become established.  They were purchased from one of those catalogs where you can buy 10 plants and get 10 more for a penny or something like that.  Four female and one male plants made it to my place and are doing great in their gallon pots.  It will be in the area between the two beds in the photo below…..

 

I also explained to the group how I’m slowing killing all the lawn area in the yard by mulching with newspapers, cardboard, compost, putting the chickens in an area for a time, and using bagged leaves from the enormous leaf pile.  I have sprayed a few really weedy areas prior to mulching, but I’d rather experiment more with sheet mulching and leave the spray for the fence rows.

One thing that we did collectively do was everyone brought a coffee cup or plastic drink cup to use (well almost everyone) today and then leave at the farm.  I’m going to keep them in a “party box” to use instead of throwaway cups.  We’ll get to the plates next 🙂

All in all it was a great day.  As you can see, the dogs Hattie and Lucy are in most of the photos, and the newly rescued kitty cats “Smokey” and “Bandit” got their share of attention as well!

It’s fun to share this little corner of the world with folks that appreciate knowing where their food comes from!  And thanks, Kim for being the photographer 🙂

Kale Pesto

Years ago I remember finding a recipe for fresh pesto–using basil.  I made it and served it as a side dish for supper–the kids were small and both they and their father tasted it and said “YUK”.  How did I know it was supposed to be spread on bread or served with pasta?

Last week one of the farm members asked if there was kale in the box when she picked her share up.  I told her yes, and then asked if she didn’t want it.  (there’s lot of greens early in the year)…she said “oh yes, I do want it.  A friend was telling me about a kale pesto that she made”.

Kale pesto, hmmmmm.  I can’t stand the texture of cooked greens so any way to get them in a palatable condition, raw, is interesting to me.  Plus, all the vitamins and minerals stay intact when a veggie is raw.  I perused the myriad of recipe sites on the net and came up with one that I thought I could work with, as I never have all the ingredients in a recipe “on-the-fly”.  Here’s the link to the original recipe:

http://www.theroastedroot.net/kale-pesto/

First off I have one of those really small food processors so I had to really cram the leaves in there.  3 cups of kale were added instead of 5, and just about 1/2 cup basil leaves.  A generous handful of walnuts and 5 cloves of garlic were added to the mix.  Once all that started moving around in the processor, I drizzled in some unfiltered olive oil until it was the consistency to spread then added salt to taste.

The pesto was spread on cornbread fritters that accompanied a bowl of small red beans with sweet pepper relish on the side.

YUM!

Why George Washington cut down the cherry tree

A few days ago I was performing weed control behind the high tunnel (aka mowing with the tractor).  A creek runs along behind the high tunnel and while backing the mower out over the edge of the creek to reduce the area of snake habitat, I spied several cherry trees that had lots of bright red, voluptuous cherries on them…..

 

 

So tempting…..so, so, over the creek!

 

I did temporarily lose my sanity and turn the tractor around to see just how close the bucket would get to the tree, BUT I regained my sanity when I compared the cost of a broken bone or wrecked tractor to the cost of a container of fresh cherries in the store.  The birds are enjoying a cherry feast.

I believe George just cut the darned thing down and ate the cherries himself.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

The Winners of the Wild Things 2013 season veggie varieties

As each growing season is planned, along with the tried and true favorites, I always like to try some new things.   After pouring through the mountain of seed catalogs and following rabbit trails all over the Internet, the decisions have been made:  which new veggie varieties will make it to the ground this year?  (A few of) the winners are:

Jade Cross Brussels Sprouts….hold the applause…this is the first time I’ve tried Brussels Sprouts in YEARS.  This variety matures quicker so maybe I won’t have to torment over it in the garden for so long….

Russet Potatoes–going for some bakers here in addition to the Kennebec and Red Pontiac.

In the pepper category, Ancho San Martin, Georgia Flame, Cabernet, Purple Cayennes, and Lipstick peppers join the myriad of peppers already on the books.  Peppers seem to like the soil in one particular garden here on the farm, so I try to rotate them there every couple of years.

New salad tomatoes being grown this year include every kind of salad tomato you can imagine and a couple more.  I’ve really gotten into the salad tomato mix–it’s a real hit with the Wild Things followers and I LOVE to package them up–it’s like playing with M&M’s.   All the colorful and tasty salad tomatoes will be marvelous on top of the new lettuce varieties.  Names like Cherokee, Panisse, Skyphos, and Summertime will join the popular gourmet leaf lettuce mixes AND two iceburg-type lettuces will be trialed in the garden this year.

A horticultural bean (eaten shelled but not dried) called Tongue of Fire has arrived for planting and will be growing along with the usual Roma II, Blue Lake, and Jumbo beans.  A filet bean called “Masai” is scheduled to make an appearance at some point during the season as well.

Lots of heirloom tomatoes will be planted again as in years before, and a few new ones are going to be added; Nepal, Cherokee Purple, Holy Land–hopefully they will be worth saving seed from for future gardens– Hippie Zebra –that one sounds like a keeper to me 🙂

A couple new summer squash varieties, Magda and Safari, will be added, and oh, I almost forgot the coolest one of all…..Veronica Romanesco.  It’s classed with cauliflower but it looks like some kind of cool alien vegetable–

 

Well, that’s about all of the new crops I’m going to share…..I can’t tell you EVERYTHING…. if you’re within the reaches of Wild Things this coming season, you’ll just have to check it out for yourself.

WHAT are you putting in your MOUTH?!

OK, it’s that time of year, when a lot of us make new year’s resolutions and attempt to improve something about our lives.  The way I look at it is that we have “tomorrow” to improve, or “next week” to start something new–maybe “first of next month”–oh what the heck–new year’s—–“I’ll start taking control of what goes in my mouth”.

It’s a real comfort knowing where your food comes from.  I was with my best friend at the grocery store the other day and I couldn’t believe how stressful it was trying to decide which of the produce to encourage her to buy….the conventional spinach was–well, YUK!  not fresh…the organic wasn’t much better and I thanked my lucky stars that I don’t have to worry about where my produce comes from.  (If I had known she needed spinach I would have brought her some :))

Now’s the time to decide how you want to nourish your body this year–join a local CSA and know where your food comes from, go to the farmer’s market and get local produce (ask if it’s organic) or continue to paddle along with convenience foods whether frozen or canned.  It’s your choice.  Our bodies are using what we put in them to build new cells every day.  Junk in–junk out, as the old saying goes.

I went to an “open house” yesterday at the home of one of the farm members.  They had prepared salad using greens from the high tunnel and they were really excited to share that information with the guests at their party.  It was exciting to me to be eating veggies that were grown on my farm but prepared by someone else–I knew where those veggies came from.   I know everyone isn’t to that point in their consumption of food, but it’s a really good feeling, and if you can’t grow your own veggies, belonging to a CSA is a good foundation to taking control of your diet.

Why does everything like chicken?

Seems like a large part of a chicken-keeper’s life is spent protecting them from everything out there.  “Tastes like chicken” isn’t a cliche–it’s the truth!  Everything loves chicken.

Back in August, 58 day old chicks arrived at the farm.  25 Red Star, 25 Black Star, 5 Ameracaunas, 1 “Exotic breed” and 2 extras.  I know I’ve lost 3 of them to who-knows-what and  2 of them to predatory hawks.  I thought I had overhead predators foiled with fence wire and surveying flags every 4-6 feet over top of the pen but I’ve seen hawks circling the pen on numerous occasions.  I’ve tried to count the baby chickens–it’s really hard to cound 50+ chickens while they are milling about the pen.  The most I can count is 47 or so.  That means the hawks are winning.

So, I have to be smarter than the hawks.  I have a computer.  I found an article in an old Mother Earth News about someone who strung fishing line in a “cobweb” over the chicken coop.  A spool of 10 pound test, about 45 minutes and tripping over several curious chickens and Voila!  I hope the hawks can see fishing line.

Another recent note on the chicken predators–of the subterranean kind.  “Gopher” rats have invaded the Happy Hens complex and have undermined a lot of rock paving put in place around the coop.  Again, I inquired of the Internet how to deal with the problem and an “old time remedy” for dealing with these type of rats (without poison) is to use a mixture of cornmeal and plaster of paris.  I used 1/2 and 1/2 and poured the mix down into the holes that the rats had made.  It turns to “concrete” in their stomachs and kills them.

Religiously, every day for two weeks, I poured a handful of the cornmeal/plaster mixture into each hole the rats had made, and finally I smelled the stench of a dead rat–yay!  Since then I’ve smelled that smell a few times.  This is going to be an ongoing process as rats multiply continuously, AND a continuous process keeping an “eye on the sky”.  Then there are the raccoons, muskrats, weasels ……..

Spaetzle with basil pesto, swiss chard, and beets

I’ve been scheming to prepare beets for supper, and there’s an awful lot of beautiful basil coming in right now.  A quick look through the pantry and I found a partial container of spaetzle I had bought on a shopping trip with a friend who was reminiscing about how her Czech grandmother used to make spaeztle and green beans.

The beets are going to take longer to cook than the pesto or the spaetzle so I washed about five 1 to 1-1/2 inch beets and trimmed off the tops and the roots.  Put them in a microwave safe dish with a little water in the bottom for 5 minutes at a time until they are soft to touch–mine took about 9 minutes.  Take them out and let them cool a bit.  Meanwhile…..

Wash a small bunch of swiss chard and roughly chop.  Heat a small amount of olive oil in a skillet, throw in a tad of garlic then the chard.  Stir around until wilted down, add a little water and put a lid on until the chard is tender, about the time you’re ready to eat this meal.  While the chard is steaming,

Wash and put a couple of handfuls of basil into a food processor.  Pour in about a tablespoon of olive oil, about 1/4 cup pine nuts, a couple cloves of garlic, salt and pepper to taste.  Puree till smooth and set this aside.  You’ve got water boiling for the spaetzle and now it’s time to put the spaetzle in the water to cook.  While that’s happening, peel the beets, cut them in half, and wash your hands immediately so the red will come off.

When the spaetzle is done, drain it and toss with the pesto.  Put the sliced, warm beets on the plate and cover with feta cheese (a wonderful taste combo).   Plate up the chard and sprinkle with acid of your choice (vinegar, lemon juice, etc.)   The best part of this meal is that the feta cheese tastes wonderful when it migrates over to the basil spaetzle AND when it stays on the beets.

Enjoy a quick and nutritious meal with fresh veggies!

A new tomato?

If there were a contest for the ugliest tomato, I surely believe this one would be in contention:

See, I told you this has been a really weird growing season……..

Creamy Garden Vegetable Soup with Tomato Salad

So right about now the fridge is getting overrun with fresh veggies.  It’s hard to keep up with them this time of year.  We had much needed rain all day yesterday and other than having to pick squash and dig potatoes in the rain, it was rather enjoyable.

I decided to try out a creamy fresh vegetable soup.  It actually turned out to be very tasty and was relatively easy to prepare.  Here’s the recipe (it’s a loose one, okay?)

Peel and slice about 3 carrots

Peel and cut 3 or 4 potatoes into 1″ chunks

I used about 6″ of a Daikon radish, peeled and 1″ chunks

1 kohlrabi peeled and cut into about 1/2″ chunks

Roma green beans, stem end broken off, sliced lenthwise about 3 times then crosswise to make “French Style” beans

Cover all these with water and simmer slowly until tender.  You might need to drain a little liquid off at this point but save it in case you need to add some back.

Salt and pepper, parsley, and a can of cream of celery soup.  I let this cook a while then added garlic powder, a dash of cayenne pepper and a package of frozen corn from last year.  Then I added a handful of peas I had frozen earlier in the season.  I stirred the pot vigorously to kind of “puree” the potatoes a little to make the soup creamy.

At this point I would have added some cream to thicken the soup a little, (if I had any) but a big dollop of whipped cream cheese was the best I could do.  Stir the cream cheese or cream into the soup and let it thicken a little.

Yum!

For a side dish I prepared a tomato/rice salad.  There was a bowl of leftover wild rice in the fridge so I took about 1/2 cup of that, chopped one tomato, 1/2 of one of the long Diva cucumbers growing so prolifically right now, a generous sprinkling of fresh basil, some chopped onion, minced garlic, then drizzled with lemon juice and a little unfiltered olive oil, salt and pepper, and tossed well.

Yum!

The best part of both of these recipes are that they use fresh ingredients that are pouring in from the garden right now, and that’s why we garden (or belong to a CSA), right?

Bad bugs gone “good”?

We’ve always heard the expression good guys gone bad, but bad guys gone good?

In the hoophouse, tomatoes were planted in late winter.  During the summer they produced and produced bunches of tasty tomatoes.  In the process, the tomato hornworms found them, even inside the plastic surround of the hoophouse.

There are parasitic wasps that like to feed upon these giant green monsters that devour tomato plants, and I haven’t really experienced them in the hoophouse yet, so I sort of panicked when I saw so many hornworms on the tomato plants, but then I noticed that most of them were decked out with little white globules on them.  “Parasitic wasps”!  They did venture into the tunnel!  I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many hornworms on tomato plants, BUT I’ve never seen so many parasitic wasp eggs either.  The hornworms that had eggs on them got to stay on the plants (it was hard to do, but I left them).  These are the “Bad guys gone good”.  I’m hoping the parasitic wasps will find a place to winter over in the warmth of the high tunnel.  The hornworms that didn’t have any eggs on them?  Well, even the chickens won’t eat them, so they must be bad.

By the way, birds fly freely in and out of the high tunnel too.  I sure hope they are working on the grasshopper population in there!  It’s a lively place 🙂