Black Dog Farms

For the last few years, we have traded services here on our little farm. We offer a place to live for a week or so accompanied by some really delicious meals (my wife used to be a pro chef). In return we expect our boarder to work 5 hours per day, M-F, doing such tasks as watering, weeding, feeding the animals, pruning, light construction, and the like.

I have found a few sites online that seem to be well suited for finding good workers. One of the things that we continually find is that both of these sites are full of earnest folks who are willing to work hard in exchange for a place to live and some good food. Most of the workers we have used were on some type of travel plan...e.g. visiting our local area on the way to somewhere else.

I can personally attest to the fact that having a worker, with whom I can trade services, is an excellent way to get some of the small things done around here that normally would fall either to me in my spare time, or just not get done properly at all. Letting someone live in our bunkhouse and feeding them 3 meals a day is a small price to pay. Just for the record we usually drive them around a few and give them a tour of the area.

For the first time, I have posted a bit here on LH's forum in order to see if we can utilize this site. I'll keep everyone up to date on what I find, but in the meantime, if you are interested in those other sites, please email me. I do not want to advertise for other sites here on LH.

Christmas is coming and more than likely, on some farms, the goose is getting fat. Good eating is right around the corner.Here in southern Idaho, the one thing that was missing up until last week was snow. Not to worry.

Within the last few days we have gone from wearing shorts to watching the white fluffy stuff fly. Most of our area ski resorts are reporting loads of light airy snow, the better to ski on, and my own backyard is covered in about an inch of it.

Just south of me, about a half hours drive, is a ranch that provides sleigh rides during the weekend right before Christmas every year. Hopefully this year will be no different and we can take our families out for a nice evening of stargazing , bonfires, and hot chocolate on the back side of the ranch.

A few days ago I received an email from Local Harvest asking me to take a survey. I am not usually much into surveys, but I really appreciate what LH does for me and all of us. They run a very nice operation and have helped me not only to get my little business running better, but also to help educate me in many ways. I will donate to them again this year.

Back to the survey. I decided to take the survey, which is from a group of researchers at Lehigh University. It asks some general type questions along with some fairly pointed questions. After taking it, I could see where they were going with the thing. Hopefully their research will help all of us run a tighter ship and provide more good food to more folks.

One of the questions really stuck out with me. Just for the record, I am not a farmer by trade. Building is what I do. Houses, barns, additions, garages, etc. A good trade my Dad would say. But when the market for residential building fell a few years ago, I needed some extra income. Not a lot, just a bit extra. I decided to sell what was in my garden. My first year I struggled. Everyone loved my food but marketing was a problem. I discovered the CSA concept. Things took off.

I only have a few acres and will never make a huge go of this thing, but I do pretty well. Back to the survey again. The question was "do you like your job?". Wow! This one hit home. I had never thought about it but I love growing food. My wife will attest to this. There are times when I could be out swinging a hammer, and making great money, that I prefer to stay in my garden, and pull weeds, or nurture my plants, or just stand around in awe. I simply love growing food.

No I do not like my job. I love it!

My wife and I have been working on some ideas to present our CSA as more of a social type organization than simply a farm.  Instead of just buying a weekly box of vegetables, what if our shareholders could break bread together?

From everything that I have read, both the southern and midwest states have a growing number of so called Secret Supper Clubs. The basic premise is that members buy a weekly or monthly ticket to an unknown dinner house. It could be a restaurant, or it could be the back of someones farm. The cool part of the thing is that the members have no idea, until the night of the festivities, where the dinner will be held or what will be served. At some clubs, entertainment is also provided.

While I am not sure about the secret location part, this idea could work very well with a CSA. Members could buy weekly or monthly tickets to a dinner that would be served at my farm. We would utilize mainly foods grown right here. Besides showcasing our excellent foods, it would be a wonderful way for our little group of shareholders to socialize.

 What do you think?

I have finally graduated to the intermediate level...maybe. After years of trudging along at the Beer 101 level, this week I may have moved onto the 102 class.

Back in college it always seemed like the lab part of the class was fun while the lecture end of things was fairly boring. At least for me. This beer making stuff is no different. I have read book after book, watched online tutorials, researched the heck out of every beer blog I can find; and found all of them rather dry and unexciting. But put the ingredients in my hand, equip me with the equipment needed to make good beer, and I am revved up. Now that is fun.

This week I made an Imperial Stout. In most of my beer books it is listed as requiring intermediate brewing skills. Only time will tell, as this one needs to ferment for quite a long time before bottling commences. At that time, I will check the final numbers and hopefully, look forward to taking a drink a bit later.

My final grade is still to be determined. Just like in college.

Just to set the record straight, I do not think that I have ever worn shorts on December 5th. Here in southern Idaho it seems to be around 20 degrees too warm. Add to that the fact that we are supposed to get around 9 inches of rain per year, and when I look outside right now, it will not stop raining. Snow, what snow?

My lawn is still green and my artichokes are too. Usually by now I have taken some dormant cutting off of my vines and trees in order to get a new crop for next year. This year I am truly not sure if my plants are dormant or not. It is hard to tell.

If we do not get winter soon, I may have to learn to say Kowabunga, and take surfing lessons.

Had our first winter squash last night. Around here we like to wait for some decent cold weather before we begin tapping into the winter storage. Our weather is still way too warm for this time of the year, but we take it as it comes. 

I cooked up a real nice marinara sauce using all home grown veggies. 2 sweet peppers, 2 bell peppers, and 2 hot peppers, sauteed with a small red onion and a shallot. I added one clove of garlic right before stirring in 2 diced up tomatoes. Simmered that for an hour, adding a bit of water and red wine to keep the moisture up. Threw in some organic italian seasoning and a dash of sugar, and oh boy!

Steamed a few spaghetti squash, scooped out the "pasta", and dinner was served.

For the final touch, I grated some home made mizithra cheese to the top.

Gotta love the winter squash.

Who knew? I sure had no clue. What started out as an experiment a few years back, has now converted me into a believer.

In 2009 I put a few Arugula seeds in the ground because my wife had seen a recipe calling for it. Neither one of us had ever really tasted it before. My sister told us that she found it nasty tasting, and that we should not bother.

The 2 plants that came up that year were one of the best things that we have ever grown. We put those darn leafs on and in every meal we made during the summer of '09. It is featured in loads of recipes both in books and online.

Since then we have not looked back. Not only do we consume a bunch of it, we also sell quite a bit to both consumers and professional chefs in our area. As far as garden space versus dollars goes, the stuff is hard to beat. In addition, it grows like a weed. I highly recommend it to all of you growers.

Ok, I will admit that I am not the worlds most experienced grower or farmer. I try really hard to learn everything that I can about something, and then I dive right on in. I am used to failing on my first try. On that note, here I go again.

Over the summer, whenever there was time, yours truly designed and built a small (very small) greenhouse. Having built and used greenhouses before, I know firsthand that there needs to be a minimum amount of floor space as well as total space, in addition to a certain amount of air exchange, in order for things to grow well. I threw most of those rules out the door in my little experiment.

You see, my wife wants some kind of citrus fruit for the winter months. We do not live in Florida, so the whole citrus thing presents a bit of a challenge. Of course we could go and purchase some at the local "old dry stale" produce section of the supermarket, but that would defeat the point. So, in the interest of happiness, and also as a fun learning experiment,  I am planning to put a dwarf citrus tree in my very small greenhouse.

If anyone has ideas or tips, please send them on over. From what I have read, a dwarf sour mandarin will possibly work. 

What kinds of chemicals do you like to eat? Herbicides? Pesticides? Yum.

What country do you prefer your food to come from?

When you buy a share of our farm box program, we can promise you there will be a few chemicals on your food. Sunlight, well water, and dirt. A bit of compost from the organically fed free range chickens. An insect or two. Possibly some dog hair. That is the entire list.

Live healthy. Live clean. Eat local foods grown by someone you know.

As 2012 comes to a quick close, I would like to report that all of our farm box owners had a wonderful year full of all kinds of good veggies. This year the list of what we harvested, and the amounts of what we harvested was off the scale. Our little farm just keeps on getting better. Thank you to everyone who participated. See you next spring!

Kevin

Get ready Twin Falls because here we go again. After a banner year last year, we are getting ready for an even better crop in 2012. 

Due to overwhelming demand for our product last year, we have decided to go to a full share only program. We will sell 15 full shares at a price of $500 for the entire season. Starting every week, just as soon as we start pulling fresh veggies out of the garden, our shareholders will receive a custom made farm box, chock full of good stuff. As an add-on, we also give you recipes tailored for that weeks bounty. 

Since 2005 we have personally delivered each and every farm box right to your door, and unless the price of gas goes too high, we fully intend to again this year. Also, we will take Visa and M/C this year, in addition to good old cash.

Call or email Kevin ASAP to get on the list for 2012.

     After an extremely busy summer, my family and I just wanted to take a few minutes and thank everyone who participated in this years CSA program. Although the month of May and even part of June looked pretty dismal due to the never ending rain, which we do not usually experience here in southern Idaho, the warm spring made its way here towards the end of June and then we went right into summer.

    Our small farm had a banner year which seemed to have made all of our shareholders very pleased. The amount of food that was being loaded into their boxes every week was by far the most we have ever seen. On top of that, we are still looking at about another solid month of late season crops. The rain over the last few days should not slow things down too much. 

      For next year, we are removing the half share as an option. Due to an overwhelming demand for full shares, and the amount of possible customers that I turned down this year, we are going to move forward with one simple "full share" plus a few fruit or egg options. We will still feature our late season shares and our winter greenhouse shares.

     If you want to get on what is now our waiting list, please email me and I will add your name for next year.

     Once again thanks to everyone who participated.

The big talk these days is when, not if, the price of gas will hit $5 per gallon. Take a quick look at the financial report this morning and you will see that the big 5 is probably not that far off.Yikes.

Next to the price of gas going up, the next biggest type of commodity that could cost all of us way too much money is food. And the price of food is going the same direction as the price of gas. Nowhere but up.

At the rate that both food and gas are increasing in value, or perceived value if you will, the 5 dollar gas may really get to us, but can you imagine if the price of corn hits...

One dollar per cob?

One dollar for a corn cob. How about a buck for a cucumber or a squash. I went to the store yesterday and found that at the current ask price, tomatoes are about 50 cents each. Apples are about the same.

One dollar corn will be here before we know it.

One acre will produce enough vegetables for about 30 shareholders. That is what I have found anyways. I devote one acre to only 15 shareholders merely because I try to under promise and over deliver, but I easily pull enough out of the ground to sell 30 shares. Next year I am going for the full 30 shares, and still plan on delivering heaping amounts to my shareholders.

If I sell a full 30 shares at my price of $350- $19.44 per week (seems to be about market rate here in my area, but low for some of you), my gross would come out to $10,500. Not bad for one acre. Increasing my acreage to 5 would yield $52,500.

I have read where some share type growers are actually producing enough for 40 shares per acre, and getting $600 per share. That is $24,000 per acre. Very nice results.

By adding a high tunnel a grower could manage to extend the share season by a month or so, depending on the area. In my case, if I can extend the share season from 18 weeks to 25, I can add $19.44 per week to the share cost, bringing the total to $486 per share. In this case, my gross would increase to $14,582 per acre for the season.

I am adding what I call "late season shares" to the mix this year. I am selling a share for $250- $31.25 per week for 8 weeks of August and September goodies. I am setting the price higher for a variety of reasons, and have already sold 3 of the 10 experimental shares. I will be using a 1/4 acre plot to start with and am quite sure that I can make this work. In this case, 10 shares at $250 will gross $2,500, which equates to $10,000 per acre.

Even at only 18 weeks, the regular shares plus the late season shares will gross  $13,000. By using the high tunnel and increasing the timeline for shares, my farm will gross $17,000. Not bad for 1.25 acres, 30 regular shares and 10 late season shares. 

Got any suggestions for me? I still consider myself a newbie after 5 years.