The Nitty Gritty Dirt

Even if we did not already have our Midsummer Abundance Festival scheduled on the calendar for Sunday, August 6, we would know that we are in the midst of the abundant season.   There are so many different veggies ready each day, it is hard to choose which ones to prepare for our midday farm “Thanksgiving Every Day” meal.   And with each of our farm interns and Gigi and Robin taking turns cooking amazing meals, we really enjoy the plentitude of the farm at this time of year.

With cooler nights over this last week, we have somewhat recovered from the heat and humidity of the days.  And yet, most days, by 10:30 in the morning we are all pared down to essential only clothing and sweating profusely.  As we finished prepping our packing hoophouse this evening, the humidity feels like it is nearly 100%.   The cool dip in the Sunrise River we took this afternoon has been nearly cancelled out by this humid evening.  We need another dip, but with zucchini bread to bake, salad for tomorrow to make, the blog to write, and planning for a very early morning harvest, it isn’t going to happen.

On Monday, we pulled up all the bolted Bok Choi, filled a big pickup load and tossed the whole mess into the pig pen.  Piggy Bok Choi heaven – rolling in it, mixing it with mud, eating tasty bites.   The early peas stakes were pulled from the field, twines for trellising cut down and all the peas plowed under.  Then the field was disked and dragged and sown to a cover crop mixture of rye, oats, field peas, buckwheat and clover – just in time for the heavy rains on Tuesday night.

With August just around the corner, we took a look at our farm calendar and realized that Emily will be heading back to college in just a few short weeks.  Susie is planning a week to the east coast for a couple of exciting (farm-related) job interviews,  Liz is thinking about working the Mn. State Fair for her other job and Holly will be back from Germany and still with us til the beginning of September.  Even though we are really barely into the middle of our share season, August pushes us to think about what is next for each of us. 

This week again, we harvested raspberries at Stark Wines as our part in our cooperation with them.  Hot, humid, deer flies, but gorgeous, delicious raspberries and the promise of lots of Stark Raspberry Wine.

The tomato plants are setting a lot of fruit, the sweet corn silk is turning brown on the Sugar Buns early corn  - the sign of corn that is filling in the ears and the corn plants themselves seems to be growing a couple of inches a day.  The cantaloupes and watermelons are peeking out among the patchwork of vines almost completely covering the ground in their patch of the field, all indicators of how much more abundance there is to come. 

Just this week we dried off (quit milking) two of the goats – Mezzo and Nimbus.  We are making less cheese now but still making some cream for butter and maybe even some ice cream from the gallon a day of milk that we are still getting from Stormy. 

The last of the lambs are going to market on Monday.  And with August here, it is time to take the rams away from the ewes so that we don’t accidentally have baby lambs being born a month before we want them.   Just this morning, Liz, Susie and Emily finished making a huge pig pen – opening the pigs up to a jungle of weeds and volunteer squash vines.  They almost don’t know what to do with themselves in such space.

Remember – our MIDSUMMER FARM FESTIVAL – THE SUMMER ABUNDANCE FESTIVAL – is Sunday, August 7th from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm.   We will be cooking an amazing assortment of fresh farm veggies into stir fry to order, tapping our farm home brew (Belgian Tripel, Hefewiesen, and Robin’s Irritated) as well as pouring a few bottles of home vinted wine.   We are also pretty sure there will be a performance of our Tuesday Night Jam Band as well as drumming and other music.  Plan now to come see the farm – all the animals, the fields of plenty, see the farmers and interns who grow your food and see each other.

Until next week…  

What's In Your Share

Basil – Genovese and Ararat

Beans - Derby

Beets    - Merlin

Broccoli – Packman

Chinese Cabbage – The Blues

Cilantro – Santo

Garlic

Kohlrabi – Winner, Kolibri

Onion – Sierra Blanca

Potatoes – Norland

Radish – Summer Cross Daikon

Summer Squash – Cash Flow, Lita, President, Spineless Beauty, 

   Slick Pick, Horn of Plenty, Sunburst, Cavelli

Swiss Chard – Fordhook Giant

The Nitty Gritty Dirt



Your Share this Week

Beans – Jade

Broccoli – Blue Wind, Packman

Potatoes – Norland

Onions – Sierra Blanca

Snap Peas – Cascadia

Kohlrabi – Winner, Kolibri

Radish – Rover

Beets – Red Ace

Chinese Cabbage – The Blues

Green Cabbage – Primax

Summer Squash – Cash Flow, Cavelli, Slick Pick,

                             Spineless Beauty,  Sunburst, President

Cilantro – Santo

Basil – Genovese

What else is there to say?   It is soooooooooooo hot.  It is hot everywhere, but at the farm in the heat, the veggies keep growing, the weeds keep growing, the critters still need to be fed and watered and milked and it is sooooooo hot.    Once again this week, we’ve been splitting up our day, working in the morning as much as we can, then taking off the afternoon and working again in the evening.  Most afternoons, we head down to the Sunrise River for a swim and to sit in the rapids getting a water massage.  It is still hot, but a little more bearable. 

Last Thursday after most of us returned to the farm from delivering your veggies, we first watched the first half of the Harry Potter movie (from netflix) to prep ourselves and then we all went to the air conditioned comfort of the North Branch movie theater and saw the midnight movie.  The movie theater has been one of the top choices for afternoon places for our interns to go to get cool after sweaty mornings and sweaty evenings. 

The weather, like any year is a challenge for the growing of veggies.  The cabbages that were looking so promising, have nearly all gotten some sun scald.  This happens when it rains, the sun shines and the weather is hot.  It makes the tops of the cabbages look like they have been poached, and then as the cabbage continues to grow, the inside of the cabbage has layers of dried – or sometimes not so dried – brown leaves.   We are sending you cabbages this week knowing that many of them will have these layers of scalded leaves in them.  The best way to use them is to cut the cabbage in half, take out the bad parts and use the rest.  We’ve been enjoying a variety of slaws all week using all of the cabbage family- Chinese cabbage, green cabbage, kohlrabi, broccoli, turnips and radishes.   

All of the rest of the bok choi has begun bolting.   This cool season crop thinks it is too hot and has decided to make a jump start on blooming and producing seed.   So no more bok choy – I  know, I know, some of you are saying YIPPEE!!   

Many of the earliest of the peppers are also showing some sun scald.  Hopefully the weather is going to modify and the later peppers, eggplants and tomatoes will look good.  The cantaloupe and watermelon plants look great with a lot of little melons peeking out of the vines.  And the potatoes – well the potatoes look great and are producing like crazy!

One day old chick, the bird, not Liz

On Monday morning, sweating all the while, we made new enlarged pens for the adult sheep, the turkeys, and the teenage male chickens we call the Barracanas because they are a cross between Aracana and Barred Rock parents.  Everyone seems quite happy in their new bigger pens and it is easier for us to keep enough water available for them.   The Bourbon Red turkeys seem very happy in their forest of huge lambs quarters (a weed) as it gives them shade and food all at the same time.




Good thing we're farmers and not jugglers.  But these were the perfect size to
give potato juggling a try. 

 

Liz in front of her Yurt.
Small but homey

Emily and her Quonset

Susie's camper..luxury?

                                                                                             

Holly's not home today.











Robin and Emily playing zucchini baseball.....The ball is a potato, the bat is a zucchini. 
Don't worry.  After the game, we put these two veggies in the pig pen, not in a share.

 

Nitty Gritty Dirt

It’s been another great week at Nitty Gritty Dirt Farm.  With cooler temperatures this week, it has been a joy to be farmers – even when the work is weeding, weeding, weeding!   With last week’s heat, all those heat loving crops like tomatoes, melons and peppers and squash have taken a leap in growth and production.  The zucchini that weren’t quite ready for harvest last week have exploded in size.  There are a few caveman size clubs among the harvest as well as a few curved ones that could double for phones as Birgit demonstrated from the field.  This would be a good week to mix up a few loaves of Zucchini bread. 

Our laying hens and pigs have been delighting in the loads of weeds being dumped in their pens for them to scratch and dig through and eat and eventually compost.  Those baby pigs we started with just a few weeks ago are getting bigger and bigger – definitely  over 100 pounds each.  Just a reminder – we do still have a few pork shares available.  And the baby broiler chicks that arrived last week are already growing feathers and turning from cute fuzzy chicks into something that looks like they will be dinner someday.  It is always amazing how fast everything from cabbage to chicks grows at the farm.  Reminder – we also have broiler chicken shares available.   

We attempt to keep weed growth in check here at the farm in a variety of ways – using hay mulch between rows, planting in plastic mulch, hoeing, tilling, hand-weeding – and mowing.  This week, we’ve been catching up with the explosion in weed growth by mowing and mowing and mowing between veggie rows.  It is hard work but extremely gratifying to see the rows of healthy tomatoes, basil and cabbage set off against the neatly mowed rows between them.  We have also been doing some roto-tilling between rows of corn and beans.  This is our least favorite technique as it pulverizes the soil and causes the organic matter to break down faster, but this year with all the rain and heat, we’ve resorted to tilling just to keep up.   It is back-breaking jarring work, but the corn and beans look relieved to have the weed pressure removed. 



Harvesting New Potatoes





One for shares, one for lunch, one for shares, one for lunch...



As I write, I’m looking out the front door of our house.  The old rows of lettuce and greens are no more, most of their field area tilled.   I’m imagining what that section of the field will look like in just a few weeks after we finish tilling, composting and replanting it to a variety of flowers – marigolds, cleome, celosia, asters, Echinacea…..   The evolution of the farm is amazing and wonderful………

Until next week……….

What's In Your Share This Week

Snap Peas - Cascadia

Cilantro - Santo

Zucchini - Cash Flow, Slick Pick, Lita,

Cavelli, Sunburst, President

Radish - Rover

Bok Choi - Joi Choi

Onions - Walla Walla

Kohlrabi - Winner, Kolibri

Potatoes - Red Norland

Basil - Thai



Nitty Gritty Dirt

July 7, 2011

It’s been a really hot week – this Independence Day week.  With daily temperatures in the upper 80’s and 90’s and plenty of rain, most of the veggie crops are growing like crazy – and so are the weeds.  We’ve been doing a lot of weeding over the last few days.  It’s a lot of fussy, picky weeding of crops like carrots, dill, turnips and cilantro as well as weeding around every tomato, pepper and eggplant.  This kind of weeding requires a lot of perseverance and good manual dexterity.  It is also a pretty good job for really hot days as you get to move a little slower that with some other jobs.  

We also took out the Husquavarna roto-tiller and Gigi has been tilling between the corn and bean rows with the tiller.  With so much rain, we simply cannot stay ahead of the weeds and while tilling is one of our least favorite options for tillage, it does allow us to get those weeds chewed up and reincorporated into the soil.  It is exciting to actually see the rows of corn and beans emerge from the lush forest of lambs quarters and pig weed.

Keeping fresh water in front of all our farm critters is a bit of a challenge in this heat.  We have a five time a day routine of checking and filling water tubs for the goats and sheep, pigs and horses, chickens and turkeys.  The pigs love turning their water trough over and making a mud slough in which they lounge away these hot afternoons. 

50 new baby broiler chicks arrived at the Harris post office on Tuesday.  As one person ran into town to pick them up, the rest of us got their new home ready – light, baby chick feeders, shavings on the floor and quart jar waterers filled with water mixed with a nutrient solution.  All the interns who were not here yet when we hatched so many Barred Rock x Aracana chicks around Easter time, got to pick up the adorable yellow chicks and one at a time, dip their beaks in water and place them in their new home.  It is hard to believe that in 8 weeks time, these tiny chicks will have grown into delicious meat.

This week veggie shares will be delivered in individual boxes.  In the interest of saving the wear and tear on the boxes, we ask you to continue bringing your own bags or containers to take your veggies home. 

The greens in your share this week will be a little more feisty in flavor that earlier in the season.  We encourage you to lightly cook them rather than using them raw.  Chop coarsely and braise in a tiny bit of water, then add just a bit of olive oil and some balsamic vinegar and cook them until the liquid disappears.  Yum!   We also think the Sugar Ann sugar snap peas will taste better this week lightly cooked in a stir fry rather than eating raw. 

Until next week………….

What’s In your Share

Radish Red Rover

Lettuce             Freckles, Cimarron, Salad Bowl

Greens             Arugula, Mizuna, Green Wave mustard, Red Wave mustard

Peas                 Sugar Ann

Turnip              Hakurei

Kohlrabi           Winner

Bok Choi         Joi Choi

Onions             Walla Walla