Thursday 30 April 2009

Wow all this rain!! Our yard is beginning to look like a jungle! The frogs sure are happy, and the chicken can't wait to get outside every morning and find all those poor worms in the mud puddles!!!! Yesterday I spent some more time out in the hoop house weeding. My poor flower beds need weeding, but they always come in last place on the chore list of things to get done! Greg sprayed the orchard Tuesday night, and fertilized in the hoop houses last night. I fertilized in the green houses yesterday, also.

Today is baking day for the farmers' market in Columbia. Bake, bake, wash, wash, wrap, wrap, label, label, fun, fun...!!!

Wednesday 29 April 2009

FIRST BOXES OF PRODUCED DELIEVERED

Well yesterday was the long awaited day for our CSA folks! They got their first delivery of produce for the season. We were still signing people up at the last minute, and had to go out and pick some more to fill boxes! We are up to 29 members, of which 7 are full shares and 22 are half shares. The full share members got a blueberry aronia jam, little bag of herbs, bag of mixed lettuce, bag of rainbow swiss chard, 2 bunches of onions, bunch of radishes and a dozen eggs. Half share members got a bag of mixed lettuce, 1 bunch of onions, bunch of radishes, little bag of herbs and a half dozen eggs. Hopefully everyone will enjoy and be excited to start eating fresh produce after their long winter of store bought produce!

Sunday 26 April 2009

EGGS, EGGS, EGGS...

Here is another recipe for egg salad sandwiches from taste of home simple & delicious March/April issue. page 28.
6 hard cooked eggs
1 cup (4 oz.) shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup chopped green pepper
1/2 cup sweet pickles, chopped
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 Tbsp. horseradish sauce
1 Tbsp. sweet pickle juice
1/4 tsp. salt
12 slices white bread
lettuce leaves & tomato slices, optional
In a small bowl, combine the first eight ingredients. On six slices of bread, layer 1/2 cup egg salad, lettuce & tomato slices if desired. Top with remaining bread slices.

FIRST CSA DELIVERY TUESDAY APRIL 28TH

Well it's almost here! The delivery of your first box of produce that some of you subscribed to back in February! There will be a bag of mixed greens, great for salads, sandwiches, or even stir frying! It will have some black seeded simpson, amish deer tongue, winter density, arugala, mizuna, tot soi, and what ever else we can find that is ready to start picking!

Also there will be a bunch of radishes. These will be mixed varieties of helios (yellow), purple plum, cherry belle, french breakfast & white globe. According to "Country Living" Magazine April 2009 issue, radishes are rich in folic acid & potassium, they also pack fiber, magnesium & vitamin C. Add radishes to simple salads, saute in a pan with butter and a sprinkle of sugar, or eat them out of hand for a healthy, nonfat snack!

Also here's a recipe for Egg-Salad Sandwich from the same April issue of Country Living Magazine pg. 159
Makes 1 sandwich. Working time 10 min. Total time 25 min.
2 eggs
2 Tbsp. mayonnaise
3/4 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp. minced garlic
Kosher salt to taste
Freshly ground pepper to taste
1/4 cup watercress
2 slices La Brea Bakery Whole Wheat & Honey Loaf (available at most grocery stores), or crusty whole wheat loaf
1 tsp. snipped chives
1 small French breakfast radish, thinly sliced
Place eggs in a medium saucepan with water to cover. Bring to a rolling boil over high heat, cover & simmer 5 minutes, remove from heat, & let eggs sit in pot with water for 5 minutes. Cool eggs in a large bowl of ice water for a minute or so. Peel shells, & tear eggs into large pieces. In a bowl, gently mix together eggs, mayonnaise, olive oil, garlic, salt, & pepper. Place watercress on on slice of whole wheat bread, layer with egg salad, & top with chives & radishes. Cover with a second slice of bread & serve.
Nutrition per sandwich - protein: 18.5 g; fat: 23.3g; carbohydrate: 27.8g; fiber: 4g; sodium: 1,108mg; cholesterol: 428mg; calories: 420.


There will also be green bunching onions and eggs.
It won't be a lot and the boxes will look kind of empty, but just picture those boxes getting fuller as the season progresses and more greens, broccoli, cauliflower, peas and oh yes strawberries start coming on!

Thursday 23 April 2009

Tuesday night we finished working on straightening up the apple trees. There's still a little bit that needs to be done, but the worst ones are done for now.

Yesterday sure was nice! I worked at weeding in one of the hoop houses for about 4 hours! Still have a ways to go in there. Greg worked on tilling in the little garden out front, but the PTO on his little tractor is not working right. So he took the brush mower off the gravely and put the plow attachment on it to use it instead, and the spent the rest of the night trying to figure out what was wrong with his tractor! That's really aggravating as he bought the tiller this winter and it was working so well and on the little tractor it made getting around a lot easier and the ground was working up so well! Now he'll have to do it with the gravely which is a walk behind operation and is a lot slower and harder on the body!

Today I'm baking for the Columbia Farmers' Market. I will do banana, zucchini, applesauce & maybe persimmon bread, rosemary flat bread and cookies at least. May have to do more as there won't be as much produce to take this time since we will be saving it for delivery to our CSA customers on Tuesday!!!!!

I also have a conference call at 2:00 p.m. that I hope I don't forget about! I'm on the Missouri Farmers' Market Association board and we conduct most of our meetings via conference calls as everyone is scattered around the state!

Tuesday 21 April 2009

BEES, BEES, BZZZ, BZZZZ.....





I got our bees put in their new hives finally!!!! Now hopefully they're as excited as we are for them to get to work and start drawing out comb and laying eggs and getting established so they can get out there and pollinate all of our crops we are some day going to get planted!!!! I just have to remember to keep putting sugar water out for them to help get them going strong. Some peaches, strawberries and apples are blooming so there's work to be done! We worked some last night at staking and straightening up some of the apple trees, hopefully we can finish that tonight.
Hey, check out the Missouri Farmers' Market blogspot! It has a video of the Columbia Farmers' Market on it. We are briefly shown towards the end of the video. Greg has a green down like coat on and I am briefly shown putting out a bag of greens and am in a brown coat and brown head band! This was the first Sat. in April and it was cold and windy!

I saw the first of the Barn Swallows yesterday! That's a sure sign that summer is on it's way!

Monday 20 April 2009

We went to Columbia Farmers' Market Sat. morning in the drizzling rain, fun, fun!! But we didn't do too bad. Next week we won't have much to take, as we will be saving most of it to start delivery of CSA shares the following Tuesday!!! Yeah! That is the plan as of now. Remember the first of the season the boxes may be a little slim, but as the season progresses it will get fuller! We will have mixed salad greens, onions & hopefully radishes, cut herbs for produce, eggs and some sort of bread?! I will contact everyone by email next week with the definite plans.

Sunday I went and picked up my 2 packages of bees I had ordered, but was to rainy and cool to put them out. Thought I would do it today, but it clouded up & drizzled a little bit this morning, and this afternoon the sun came out, but so did the wind. So I'm still waiting to get them in their hives. Hopefully the wind will die down late this afternoon and I can get them out otherwise will have to see what tomorrow's like!

Sunday we planted cauliflower and broccoli out in the rain. At least it won't need to be watered in, and it likes the cool weather!

I planted some more eggplant, pepper, basil, cilantro & fennel seeds in the greenhouse today, and put more straw in chicken nests.

Thursday 16 April 2009

WE'RE STILL HERE!


Sorry it's been a week since last posting. We've been busy covering and uncovering things! But hopefully the last of the cold spells are over with! One can hope can't they? I thought I'd post a few pictures of what we did. Maybe we didn't need to do as much as we did, and maybe it helped, who knows, but I don't think we had any major damage. Not all the peach trees were in bloom yet, and the apples have yet to bloom, so there should be some fruit, we'll just have to wait and see how much! As you can see in the back ground of the picture the row cover we tried to put over a few of the peach trees tore in two and blew off! These things in the foreground are some of our blueberries. That is one of our dogs, Shadow. If you ever come out to the farm, he's the one who'll jump the fence to greet you! He loves to jump and bark, but wouldn't hurt a flea!

Last Friday, Greg got some more greens, radishes, etc. planted outside at the end of one of the potato beds we didn't get filled up. The last two nights we've been transplanting tomato plants out in the big hoop house. Think we'll get those finished up tonight. If it would dry up we could get more done, but sounds like more rain in the forecast for Friday night and Saturday morning!

It's always fun to go to market in the rain! We've been going to the Columbia market on Saturday mornings. We still don't have much produce, but we have jams & jellies, dried tomatoes, dried apples, honey ointment, eggs, and baked goods. I'm really desperate to get rid of eggs!!!!! We are getting 12 dozen a day, so have to go to market to try to get rid of them, and bake with them, but not making much of a dent!

Wednesday 8 April 2009

Well Monday night our thermometer said 27 degrees! So not sure how everything is going to fare. I don't think we lost all the peaches, just have to wait and see. Our row cover we tried to put over a few trees blew off, was just too windy, actually it tore in two! Anyway yesterday and today we are working at taking all the row cover off of everything! Got the strawberries uncovered, they should be fine. Uncovered all the onions and leeks yesterday. Today I'm working on uncovering all the blueberries, again they look like they should be O.K. they are just barely beginning to bud, but we just wanted to be careful, and so we covered everything we could! It is a job to unpin all the row cover and then roll it all back up, and cart it back to the barn! Greg tore down the sprinkler system he had rigged up over the strawberries, and decided that they would work on the potato field instead of laying drip tape, so we'll have to get that set up later.

Monday 6 April 2009

WE MADE THE LOCAL NEWS

Well yesterday as we were busy trying to get ready for the freezing forecast for the next couple nights, KOMU 8 news called and wanted to know what if anything we were doing to prepare for the freeze. So Greg told them what we were working on and they wanted to come out and see!

I don't know if any of these things will work, but at least we tried! Luckily last night didn't get quite as cold as they predicted, but it's tonight that is supposed to be the coldest. Again hopefully that won't quite make it either!

Friday 3 April 2009

BIG FREEZE ON IT'S WAY!!!!

Well if the forecast they are predicting comes true for Sunday, Monday & Tuesday night (lows in the mid 20's) we will loose the peaches, strawberries, possible blueberries & apples. We are trying to figure out ways to save some of the crops. We plan to set up sprinkler system to run on the strawberries. And we are looking at the possibility of throwing some old row cover up and over some of the peach trees. There is no way we can do near all of them, but if we could get a few and it would be enough to protect them...
This is one of the many risks and joys of farming, trying to out wit mother nature, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't!

Thursday 2 April 2009

It's that time of year, too many things to do and not enough hours! Monday & Tues. I worked on cleaning up bee hives and frames, then rewiring them and putting wax foundation in. I did enough for 3 hives. There are 2 hive body boxes per hive with 10 frames in each box, so that was a total of 60 frames to do! So now I need to cart them out and get them set up and ready for the bees! I have 2 packages of bees coming April 18th. Then a neighbor has a bee tree he would like me to get! Yesterday Greg took off early and we got all the potatoes planted, glad that is over!