Wild Things Farm

Last Saturday was Open Farm for new members of Wild Things' CSA.  Many of the new members, as well as returning members, enjoyed the sunshine and wandering around the farm.  Oliver the cat got in on the action....

Whitt the horse enjoyed a facial massage as well!

 The weather cooperated beautifully and everyone got to see the farm and meet their farmer.

Several members brought gifts........

And others preferred to check out the farm equipment

All in all it was a wonderful day of meeting, greeting, and fellowship at Wild Things.

Lots of farmers will be saying this over the next few weeks "Look at the cute little chicks"!  And are they cute....little balls of fluff that make lots of noise.

I've been waking up in the middle of the night worried about them being too hot or too cold, so I've been treking the 75 or so steps in the dark to the shop to check on them.  So far, so good, but they are so dependent on someone for EVERYTHING! 

Looks like a schmorgasbord (sp?) with all the different colors, and there are 4 different varieties, all brown eggers except for 5 Amerecaunas (sp?) (blue/green eggs). 

Gee, I needed a spell checker for this blog!  Back to the garden with me now.  All this beautiful weather is killing my back :)

Spring is really springing in full swing this year.  It seems like everything is blooming at once, although I know it's not.  I took a break from the rigors of springtime gardening to "smell the flowers" and I took my camera.  This is part of what I saw on the farm.....

The really cool bluff behind the house is alive with flowers....

As I was walking along the pathway along the backyard, I noticed a Trout Lily in bloom.  They are so cute....

The woods are literally carpeted with these tiny ephemerals (they come up, bloom, and go away before the leaves get on the trees).  Another beautiful ephemeral is the Virginia Bluebell. 

The native plant nursery I owned for several years was about 15 miles from the farm where I am now.  I had a Bluebell plant that I nurtured for several years, so when I left that place I naturally wanted to take a few of my favorite plants, so the Virginia Bluebell was on the list.  I carefully dug up the roots and replanted them in the woods behind where the house was to be built.  Needless to say, I was totally in shock when the next spring revealed the entire hillside behind the house cloaked in Virginia Bluebells!  I still know where the one I transplanted is though.....

There are also Redbuds in bloom, Columbine, Toothwort, Hepatica.... and on and on.  I love spring!

Did you ever stop to think about how much of our food never touches a human hand?  To me, that's scary.  I have three beautiful Red Star chickens and each day they lay three beautiful brown eggs.  I enjoy those eggs, as do my closest friends.  My best friend said she had to buy eggs from the store last week and her husband made the comment to her one day that "those weren't Terry's eggs" and she asked how he could tell.  He said that they didn't have the flavor, the texture, or the color of the farm fresh eggs from my chickens.  That was a compliment!

While working in the garden today and moving the chickens around, it dawned on me that so much of our food is never touched by humans.  I have "gardening" friends that load seed into a machine, plant it in the soil, spray the veggies with a sprayer on a tractor, then use a "picker" to harvest the vegetables.  The only time the vegetable is touched seems like when it hits the kitchen sink to be washed and prepared.  That's sad.

I know there are a lot of people to feed in the world, and everyone can't belong to a CSA or even know where their food comes from, but being in the business really opens you up to just how much junk there is out there that can be done to our food that no one really realizes. 

It's so easy to get caught up in the "spray" for everything that I think today's farmers have just gotten lazy.  Sure, it takes more time and energy to spread manure over a bed rather than sprinkle some fertilizer on, but the manure is feeding the soil and not just the plant. 

It might take a little more time to soak a bag of manure in water to form "manure tea" to water with, but the solution has a lot more microorganisms in it than a solution of chemical fertilizer. 

As far as insect control, building and hanging birdhouses, attracting birds to the garden areas, taking care of toads, bats, and dragonflies might seem frivolous to some, but those are all important aspects of gardening with nature.  Sure, a sprinkle with poison would get rid of the bugs quicker, but what about the critters that eat those bugs?  We don't want rid of them too. 

Every time I see a toad in the garden, a dragonfly cruising overhead, the bluebirds in all the boxes I've built them, the salamanders, snakes, bats, and wood ducks who all call this place home, how can I poison anything?  It's all connected.  Too many gardeners are worried about the perfect plant.  A few bug holes don't hurt anything....hand picking works well, but healthy soil and healthy plants work best.  I think keeping poison out of the food chain is a great start to a happy ending!  It's still a lot of hard work, though :)

I've always loved Easter eggs.  I loved changing an ordinary object into one of colorful beauty.  I loved coloring eggs when I was little and trying my best to imagine what I was writing on the eggs with the wax crayon that came in those egg coloring kits.  It was also difficult to keep those transfers still enough to keep them from being blurry; but it didn't matter--by the time we got through hiding the eggs for a week (imagine that much time out of a fridge now!) you couldn't tell what it was anyway. 

My best friend Kim and I colored eggs.  She thought I was a lunatic because neither one of us has had kids at home for several years, but it was fun!  I was always curious how brown eggs would look when colored so we did a "scientifical" experiment.  Here are the results:

The eggs on the left side of the towel were white eggs (notice the blowout) and the ones on the right were the brown eggs.  Overall, I would vote for the brown eggs.

I called my Mom and Dad a while ago and asked the proverbial question "Whatchya doin?"  They were COLORING EGGS!  75+ years old and they've colored eggs every year--gotta love it :)

The best part of the whole thing is that at my age I don't have to beg an adult to hide my eggs for me; I can hide them myself!

With today being April Fool's Day I kept trying to come up with some kind of April Fool's joke, but was just too busy with springtime chores!  This weather has been so awesome for getting crops going that it's hard to stop.  I did play an April Fool's joke on myself, though.

Each fall I have to remove the irrigation pump from the pond to keep it from freezing, drain the lines, yadda, yadda, and each spring I reverse the cycle.  Today was the day.  Everything was going just great.  Got the pump reinstalled on the end of the little floating dock that it is attached to, got the wiring redone, plumbing reconnected, and even had to install a new breaker in the electrical panel.  Everything was working just great, but there was a small drip coming from the pipe that connected from the pump to the pressure tank that needed tightening up. 

Channel locks in hand, I proceeded to turn the fitting--ever so slowly and carefully, mind you, but evidently the clamp on the black pipe coming in wasn't real happy, so it let go and I got to see just how much water can be pushed from a well pump with nothing attached to it!  I was drenched from head to toe in seconds!  It sort of felt good though, once I caught my breath.  Then I had to run to the breaker box in soaking wet overalls to shut the pump off.

Clamp tightened, overalls eventually dried out, sprinklers ran for a little while, I think I survived April Fool's Day just fine!

This poster has been a source of inspiration to me for the 25+ years that I've carried it around.  For most of its life it hung on the back of my office door so when I had to "shut the door" whether it be to concentrate on something or coach an employee, I would always see this and remember to try really hard to excel in whatever I was doing.

One of the springtime projects on the farm is to build a combination chicken/garden house for the 20 chicks arriving in April, and I think that will be a fitting new home for my beloved poster.

I was introduced to spaghetti squash about 20 years ago.  A friend of mine gave me one, told me how to cook it, shred it out, and gave suggestions on how to serve it.  I looked at that squash for about 6 weeks or maybe even 2 months, and sorry to say, I chickened out and it ended up going to waste. 

I've been growing spaghetti squash on the farm since the first gardening season here, and I love it.  I've introduced many people to this veggie, did everything I could to FORCE them to cook it, and most folks like it, but I think some people expect it to taste just like spaghetti and they are dissappointed---sorry, nothing tastes like freshly cooked pasta :)

I tricked my kids and their father into eating it one night.  I prepared the usual marinara sauce for one of my favorite dishes, spaghetti of course, and didn't tell them the noodles were spaghetti squash.  Everyone asked why the noodles were crunchy and I told them it was a vegetable.  They thought it was cool. 

The biggest drawback I've found with spaghetti squash is that they are so darn big that I almost hate to cut one just for one or two people.  This year I found seeds for small spaghetti squash--that's what the members are getting this year.  They are supposed to be the perfect size for a meal. 

Spaghetti squash is low in calories; a 1 cup serving has just over 40 calories.  It's also got other vitamins and nutrients in it such as 3% of the MDR (minimum daily requirement) of Vitamin A, 9% of Vitamin C, 1% Vitamin E, 2% Vitamin K, 4% Thiamin, 2% Riboflavin, 6% Niacin, 8% Vitamin B6, 3% Folate, and a few other things that don't really have a minimum daily requirement.  So, in addition to being easy to cook and fun to eat, it's good for you, too.

To prepare spaghetti squash, I just wash it off under tap water, poke holes all over it with a really sharp knife; make sure to get through the skin and about 1/2" deep into the squash---they make a real mess when they blow up in the microwave (trust me, I know).  Nuke it on high for 5-8 minutes, depending on the size of it.  You can periodically check it by gently squeezing; when it starts getting soft you can take it out.  Let it cool for a few minutes then cut it open longways.  Scoop out the seeds with a spoon then take a fork and start scraping out the fleshy part.  It will start making strands.  Get all the strands out then you're ready for a recipe.

Spaghetti Squash can be served as the noodles in spaghetti, served with an alfredo sauce, tossed with butter and garlic then sprinkled with parmesan cheese, and I like to make egg rolls with them.  Just substitute cooked spaghetti squash for the cabbage, bean sprouts, or whatever kind of "green" you use in your egg roll recipe--it's really tasty!

Spaghetti Squash is considered a "winter" squash, so it will be a while before any fresh ones are picked on the farm, but I'll be ready, parmesan in hand!

Things are rocking right along on the farm, ahead of schedule according to my notes!  No time to celebrate though, Mother (Nature, that is) could change everything in a second!  It takes a lot of courage and discipline to be a farmer for a living.  I think diversification is the key to success though. 

Today is REALLY WINDY!  I mean, like really windy.....I have "fixed" the so-called "floating" row covers twice already, and they keep floating....

The covers aren't really for anything more than heating up the space around the seeds to speed things up a little.  In these beds are planted peas, carrots, beets, spinach, lettuce, swiss chard, kale, arugula, and radishes.  Some of them are germinating; others are still asleep.  The pile of garbage bags in the picture is not garbage, it's leaves for mulching!  These black bags have found their way all over the farm, both placed on purpose, and collected from fence wire, tree trunks, in the pond.  I'm learning how to control them better though.  A local community brought a portion of their leaves to the farm to both save them time and help me out--win-win!

In the greenhouse there are flats of broccoli, cabbage, various lettuces, swiss chard, more arugula, kohlrabi, chinese cabbage, chives, onions, about 15 varieties of tomatoes, about 8 varieties of peppers.  Speaking of peppers, I just got seeds for a variety of sweet pepper called "Sweet Diablo".  It is a longhorn-type pepper that gets up to 10" long and 2" wide and turns red when fully mature.  They are supposed to be great for stuffing.  I'm excited about these....also the "Fooled You" jalapeno pepper that's not hot.  This year I was fortunate enough to get seeds for 11 different heirloom tomatoes that I'm anxious to share with the members. 

A new garden was plowed recently and tilled yesterday.  When you're growing veggies on a schedule you have to push the limits sometimes.  Parts of the garden were a little wet (clayey streaks in the soil) but most of it tilled up very nicely.  Now to spread manure and till again.  This will be the home for most of the tomato plants. 

The corn/potato/sweet potato/winter squash field was plowed yesterday.  This field is on a gentle southward slope so it dries quicker than the other gardens on the farm.  This field can rest for a few weeks before time to "dig in" there.

When do CSA farmers plant?  Well, I would say every day--it takes every day planting to have a continuous harvest all season.  This time of year I watch the propagation mats with an eagle eye---every time a flat germinates it goes off into the greenhouse and another flat of "I need heat to germinate" seeds goes on.

Today is also rainy.  I made a batch of peppermint/oatmeal soap, tie-dyed a few shirts, fed all the critters, potted up two flats of tomatoes and sowed more lettuce, herbs, and a few flower seeds in the greenhouse.  Gotta keep "rockin on" no matter the weather!

Farmers select various varieties of crops for different reasons.  Some varieties are disease resistant, some taste better, some varieties are selected for their growth habits (for example bush beans vs. pole beans), hand-me-down seeds (aka heirlooms) and some are just more fun to look at. 

In conversations with folks about vegetables and gardening, the question always comes up:  "What kind of so-and-so do you grow?"   I like to learn about what works for other farmers, so in turn, I will share what works here at the farm as far as varieties go.  Some of the reasons certain varieties are selected can't be easily explained (pretty picture, nice description in the catalog, someone recommended it, I was hungry when I was looking at the seed catalog.....), but I grow them again because they worked.   

We'll try to take this in alphabetical order to keep it organized just a little bit, and every single crop that's grown on the farm isn't covered, either.

• Artichoke, Imperial Star--This is an experiment this year, so I can't really comment on how tasty they are, how they grow, or pest resistance.  I'm growing this variety because the seed catalog said it could be grown from seed in one season in this area (Cumberland Plateau, Tennessee).  We'll see.
• Basil, Lemon, and Large Leaf Sweet--I grow these two because I bought a seed mix for the last two years and it seemed like most of the seeds were those teeny tiny little leaves that didn't look like basil, and a big bunch of the plants were licorice basil too, which not many people like.  The lemon basil and sweet basil seemed to be the most popular, so that's what I'm sticking with.
• Green Beans---Ah, green beans; a favorite of southern gardeners.  I grow several varieties of these.  I grow Case Knife beans which is an heirloom, about 10" long and 1/2-3/4" wide (about the size of a table knife).  This is the only pole bean grown on the farm simply due to the amount of labor it takes to erect the structures for them to climb on---these are worth the effort though.  Roma II are grown because they are tasty and stringless (wide flat bean) and this year Top Crop, Burpee Stringless Bush, and Peanut Garden Beans are being grown because of their growth habit (bush), stringless, and I've read that they are tasty--we'll see.
• Broccoli--Southern Comet is the choice here because it tolerates heat without bolting too quickly.  I don't care how careful one is to plant broccoli early so it will mature "before the heat of the summer" or late so it will "be kissed by the first frosts" it's going to be exposed to SUMMER around here.  This variety is recommended for southern gardeners and I believe it would have worked out well last year if it hadn't been so wet; there were a few heads that matured despite being grown in a rice patty situation.
• Cabbage--The cabbage choice at Wild Things is "Cabbage Babies".  Many members didn't know what to do with an entire head of cabbage since not many folks make kraut any more, so after researching, I found Cabbage Babies.  It's a wonderful variety of savoy, green, and purple cabbage all in one packet.  Each head is a little bigger than a softball, and just enough for a meal.
• Carrots--Little Finger are the faves because they mature quicker, they are sweet as candy, and don't get woody.
• Cucumbers--There's a variety called "Diva" that has all female flowers and doesn't require a male for pollination.  The cukes don't have prickly spines on them and they are very crispy.  Bush type cukes are great too, and Bush Crop and Spacemaster Bush taste well and don't sprawl everywhere, but a vine-type called Straight 8 is grown just because it's a reliable producer of tasty cucumbers.
• Eggplant---Black Beauty is a reliable producer, Ichiban has non-bitter oriental-type fruits, and Cloud Nine looks cool (well, it does). Last year a variety called "Hansel" was grown and it produced like crazy, but required staking.
• Lettuce---My absolute fave is the Lettuce Mix from Pinetree Seeds.  It has the most beautiful mix of lettuces I've seen, it's not bothered by insects, and is a reliable producer if you're careful how you harvest it to not damage the plant. The seed doesn't keep well from season-to-season though, so don't order more than you'll use in one season.  Bibb Summer head lettuce is also planted for the members who like a "loose leaf" head lettuce.
• I grow several onions, but one I've fallen in love with is a scallion-type onion, called Purplette.  I like it because it's pretty in salads and it's a great tasting green onion.
• Parsley--The flat Italian type is the only kind to grow for cooking.  The pretty, fluffy, curled parsley that sits on a plate is only good for that; sitting on a plate and looking pretty.
• Pepper---Oh man, I'm growing 15 varieties of peppers this year (so far).  I LOVE peppers---they can make a dish go from mmmmm, to AHHHHHHH or oooooooh real quick!  Most of the members don't like hot peppers but I do.  I grow a few jalapenos, cayennes, anchos, poblanos and hot bananas for my kitchen and the members who like them, but there are so many great sweet peppers out nowadays that I had to try several of them; Big Bertha, Gourmet Sweet, Chinese Giant, Planet Hybrid, Sheepnose Pimento, Banana Bill, Aruba Cubanelle, and I can't tell you one thing about them yet-----later!
• Radishes---French Breakfast because they are pretty and tasty too, and Cherry Belle cause they are the "proverbial" radish and they perform well.
• Spinach ---Bloomsdale Longstanding, which is not really spinach at all, but spinach bolts really quickly around here, and this is a universally grown substitute that a lot of people don't know really isn't spinach, so shhhhhh, don't say anything!
• Squash---Summer varieties include Yellow Crookneck (taste), Celestial Scallop (pretty, and tastes good too), Black Beauty Zucchini (taste, good performer) and Spaghetti Squash because it tastes really good, is unusual, and is a reliable performer; winter varieties include Butternut (good performer, taste), Ebony Acorn is reliable and tastes good, and some new varieties this year are being tried because of the awesome job the writers did in the seed catalogs.  These include Bush Delicata and Cream of the Crop Winter Hybrid.
• Tomatoes could take up an entire web page as far as I'm concerned, but I grow Better Boy because they taste and look good, Mr. Stripey for the taste, and Cherokee Purple (heirloom) for the taste.  I also like Roma for paste tomatoes, and Early Girl because, well, they're early!  This year I'm growing seedlings of 11 varieties of heirloom tomatoes for a friend of mine and he said I could have some of the plants---the names of them aren't anything you'll see in a catalog but I can't wait to try them!   Lemon Boy is on the list this year too just because the yellow tomatoes have less acid and some folks can't tolerate the acid found in red tomatoes.
• Purple Top Turnips are what you grow around here if you grow turnips.  They are reliable and they taste yummy raw or fried (I can't stand them boiled, sorry!)
• Watermelon--These fruits aren't very reliable here on the mountain, but I grow Sugar Baby because they are small, mature quicker, and they are sweet just like their name says.

Well, that's about it for the variety column.  We'll do a review of them at the end of the season.  Happy planting, everyone!

Okay, so I went out to the greenhouse yesterday morning to check on all the "babies" and noticed a few nibbles on the Chinese cabbage plants with a telltale "slimy trail" in the flat, so here I went on slug patrol.

Every pot, bucket, board, bag of soil, flat, etc. was picked up and moved outside the greenhouse.  I did find the most slugs on the outside of a clay flower pot that was nested inside another clay flower pot, shoved up under the bench.  There were about 20 on that pot!

A stray board was a hidey-hole for a couple of slugs, and under a bucket was what a few more thought was a safe place. 

When I moved a bale of peat moss aside to check under there, I saw something I'd never seen before.......

Anybody know what it is (it's between 2-1/2 to 3 inches long)?  I gently tucked it back into the gravel just where I found it rather than serving it the same fate as the slugs----my killer chickens!  They LOVED the slugs.....

I did go back into the greenhouse with a shaker of diatomaceous earth and sprinkled it all over the plants and the ground---looks like a snowstorm in there now, but at least it will take care of the slugs.

Remember when we were kids how disgusting broccoli was?  The only broccoli I remember being offered was the frozen stuff which I suppose remotely resembled broccoli.  The ONLY thing that made it palatable was the melted Velveeta on top.  I don't even remember anyone growing broccoli when I was a kid, come to think of it.

Broccoli is a member of the brassica family, along with cabbage, kohlrabi, brussels sprouts, and cauliflower, to name a few.  Broccoli is a little tricky to grow, I must say.  It needs to be timed so it matures in cool weather, meaning spring or fall.  I've had more success with it in the fall (except last year, the broccoli didn't learn how to swim so it drowned a slow, terrible, slimy death (oops, sorry--I keep obsessing about all the rain last year)....back to the present.  The best broccoli I ever grew was in the spring, in a brand new garden bed that only gets about 6 hours of sun a day (the farm is at the foot of a mountain).  The plants were huge and the heads were awesome as well.

Broccoli is prone to those cabbage moth worms, but to take care of them, I spray Bt on the plants every few days and that usually takes care of the problem.  I've tried floating row covers, but somehow those moths always manage to get in there and lay their eggs so not only do I not know the moths are flying about right away, I'm usually greeted by a crowd of worms upon removing the cover from the crop.  Also, I think the row cover tends to make the plants too warm, making them tend to bolt quicker.  This year I've purchased diatomaceous earth which is supposed to kill these cabbage worms by slicing their skin and causing them to deydrate---I can't wait to see that!  (we gardeners get sadistic sometimes, you know.....)

Broccoli is one of the most nutritious veggies we can eat.  Broccoli is high in vitamins C, K, and A, as well as fiber.  It also contains several anti-cancer compounds, and a half-cup provides 52 mg of Vitamin C.  The benefits of broccoli are greatly reduced if the vegetable is boiled more than ten minutes, so a slight nuke in the microwave or just eating it raw would be better than cooking it very much.  Studies have also shown that eating A LOT of broccoli slows down agressive prostate cancer (I'm not sure how much A LOT is) and broccoli is good for your heart.

Broccoli is great raw in a salad, or on a crudite plate with cauliflower (one of its cousins), carrots, celery, and kohlrabi----oh yes, and a big bowl of ranch dressing right in the middle for dipping!  It's also great in stir fries or lightly steamed with butter and salt, or cheese sauce. 

Recipes.....ah, recipes.  This broccoli salad is totally EXCEPTIONAL!  It simply won't last in the fridge (with me around, anyway).   It's from my favorite recipe site, Allrecipes.com, and here's the link to Bodacious Broccoli Salad.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!   I used a colby/cheddar mixed cheese because that's what I had in the fridge.  http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Bodacious-Broccoli-Salad/Detail.aspx

Anyone who has ever started seedlings in the house or in a greenhouse has looked in on their seedlings at one time or another and found them laying face down on the soil.  The stem is wilted at the soil line.  This condition is called "damping off" and is caused by a fungus.

Several years ago I learned a trick to thwart the damping off fungus:  After you get your seeds sown in the flat (of new potting mix), sprinkle a thin layer of milled peat moss over the entire surface of the flat.  Also, water them from the bottom by soaking the flat in a larger container of water, rather than sprinkling from the top. 

I keep an oscillating fan in the greenhouse also, which keeps air circulating when it gets really humid and "stuffy" in there.

Knock on wood, no one's been laying face down in the dirt since I've done this.  With all the seed starting going on right now, I thought someone might benefit from this trick!

Happy seeding from Wild Things :)

"Why do you never see a rabbit wearing glasses?"  I would say because they would fall off when he jumps, but supposedly the correct answer is because he eats carrots. 

Carrots are one of the crops grown at Wild Things Farm.  Little Finger is a member favorite, probably because they are harvested at a small size and they are really crunchy and sweet.  Carrots are not hard to grow (they weren't crazy about the super wet season we had last year though) and at the farm, carrots are one of the crops already in the ground. 

A quick glance at the nutritional analysis of this veggie shows that carrots are highly nutritious.  This table is on the website www.carrotmuseum.com in UK.  There is a load of other information on carrots on that website that is definitely worth checking out if you're interested in learning more.  I thought this chart was worth sharing:  (all these values are for 1 raw carrot, 7-1/2" long"

                                                    % Recommended daily
Nutrient                 Unit      amt        men       women

As you can see, carrots are chocked full of stuff we should be getting into our bodies every day.  They are readily available year round, even for "locavores". 

It's never happened to me before, but if you eat too many carrots you'll turn yellow---honest, check it out.  It's called carotene.  That's also what our bodies turn into Vitamin A which is what helps keep our eyes healthy.  I wish someone would develop a carrot for vision for folks who need longer arms to read......

One of my favorite way to prepare carrots is a carrot salad my mom used to make called Copper Carrots.  I found the recipe on Recipezaar.com and here's the link:  http://www.recipezaar.com/Marinated-Carrots-83798

We have germination!  It's been 8 days since the artichoke seeds hit the dirt and yesterday there were slight hints of green and today, voila!  We have fresh-born artichokes--well, that may be stretching it a little far. 

I'm currently reading "The Four-Season Harvest" by Eliot Coleman and he has artichokes in his appendix with instructions included.  His comments were that we needed to fool the artichokes into believing that they've been in the garden for 2 seasons since they are biennial, so the first 6-8 weeks they need to be kept warm (their first summer) and then a cool spell, then real summer.  I have ideas on how that can happen, now if I can get Mother to cooperate.......