I hope everyone is keeping warm and safe this Holiday season! I've not been posting lately but we have been busy. We went up to Grand Rapids, MI last week for the Great Lakes Fruit & Vegetable Expo. On Monday I went on a bus tour of 7 surrounding farms and farm markets while Greg stayed indoors and went to the North American Strawberry Growers meetings. I got to get out and tour farms and farm markets in a snow storm! There were four buses and two got stuck and one of those got stuck twice! But it was fun and always interesting to see how others set up their operations. The rest of the week we attended various workshops and meetings on everything from high tunnels, strawberries, green beans, carrots, soil health, pests in the greenhouse, farmers' market management and GAP certification! The trade show was like walking through a toy shop for produce farmers! Everything from processing machines, machines to plant, harvest, pick, package, and gadgets of every kind to make the farmers life easier. Packing, picking, storage and selling supplies, fertilizers, chemicals organic and non organic, potting supplies and seed companies galore...over 200 vendors in all!!!!!!

Greg is busy making himself a small sprayer to pull behind the new Yanmar tractor to use in the hoop houses and out in the fields. Today the 3 row seeder that Greg bought at the trade show last week arrived! It will be quicker to plant 3 rows at once instead of 1 and this new seeder should be more accurate in only planting one seed at a time instead of several, so less thinning!!

I bought myself a hand held tomato tier. You use it to tie up the tomato vines to the stakes or whatever type of cage or trellis you use. Hopefully it will work as slick as it looks like it should!

Well we survived the Thanksgiving Holiday and were truly blessed to be able to share it with all family members on both sides present and healthy! We had plenty of food to fill our bellies and everyone was blessed to have a job or be in school! So we have much to be thankful for, God is good!

We've been doing a few things to keep ourselves busy and out of trouble. We got our old hens rounded up and sold. We put the support posts up in our big hoop house. We put them up every winter to help support the arches against ice or snow load. We cleaned up some odd junk out of the old sow pasture next to the barn so Greg can plow that up and hopefully move the pumpkins and winter squash field there next year. Greg mowed off another area so he can hopefully get it also plowed and planted in a cover crop to get ready to use in another year for a new strawberry patch. We also got all the runners cut off the strawberry plants. We will be needing to get them covered in a couple of weeks and tucked in for the winter! So we keep plugging away!

Everyone keeps asking me what I'm doing with my spare time now that market is over with. Well for one market is not over with. We have one more Saturday and then they are having a trial winter market the first three Saturdays in December. So we will probably try to do those as we will have lots of eggs to sell, plus we can sell jams & jellies and dried tomatoes and apples. I won't bake for those markets as there will be baked goods people there and we're not sure how the customer response is going to be to this. So I've been busy making jam. I've made persimmon, blackberry, blackberry jalapeno and damson jam. I've packaged dried apples and tomatoes, but need to get more apples done.

Today we are catching and loading up all the 2 and 3 year old hens and hauling them to a small animal auction up at Kingsville which is about 2 hours away and is at 5:30 p.m. So I've been running around trying to find big boxes to use and last night we made wire tops for them. Today I have help coming and we will catch and box and load the truck. There's somewhere between 60-80, it's hard to count them between the guineas and ducks when they're all running around! Then Greg is coming home early and we will head off to the auction!

Since Thanksgiving is next week I thought I'd share with you a couple of recipes that I'm going to be making and taking to our families get together's.

HOLIDAY BROCCOLI SALAD
2 large bunches fresh broccoli (2 1/2-3 lbs.)
2 cups mayonnaise
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. fresh ground black pepper
2 (6oz.) pkgs. sweetened dried cranberries
1 (6oz.) pkg. dried apricots, diced
1 (8oz.) block extra sharp Cheddar cheese, shredded
2 (2.25oz.) pkgs. slivered almonds
1 small red onion, diced
Cut flowers from broccoli; chop & set aside, cut broccoli stalks into 1" pieces; pulse in food processor 6-8 times or until finely chopped.
Whisk together mayonnaise & next 4 ingredients in a large bowl. Add flowerets & chopped stalk, cranberries & remaining ingredients, tossing to coat. Chill. This makes 18-20 servings.

INDIAN PUDDING

When chilled this pudding firms to the consistency of polenta.

1/4 cup butter
4 cups fat-free milk
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup molasses
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp. salt
2 large egg yolks
cooking spray
9 Tbsps. frozen fat-free whipped topping, thawed

Preheat oven to 275 degrees

Melt butter in a large, heavy saucepan over medium-high heat; cook 2 minutes or until browned. Add milk to pan; bring to a boil. Gradually add cornmeal, stirring constantly with a whisk. Cook 5 minutes or until mixture thickens, stirring constantly. Combine sugar and the next 4 ingredients (through egg yolks), stirring well with a whisk. Gradually add half of hot milk mixture to sugar mixture, stirring constantly. Return milk mixture to pan; cook 2 minutes or until sugar dissolves.
Pour cornmeal mixture into a 9" square baking pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 275 degrees for 1 hour & 15 minutes or until pudding barely moves when pan is touched. Cool to room temperature on a wire rack. Cover & chill 2 hours. Cut into 9 squares. Serve with whipped topping. Yield 9 servings.

This Indian pudding recipe is not my original recipe, I lost it and can't seem to find it in my thousands of cut out magazine recipes and 300 cookbooks!!! But it is the closest to it I can find. If anyone out there has a better one I'd love to see it!

Well we worked hard this weekend! Sunday and Wednesday we finished pulling up plastic and drip tape on the pumpkin & squash field and the garden next to the house. Greg then spread manure and compost and disced it into the fields while I dug up and potted my Rosemary, Oregano, French Tarragon, Stevia and mint plants to take into the greenhouse for the winter. I had about 20 big pots in all. We plant these out in the gardens in raised beds with everything else so they are on drip tape and get watered and we have found them to do really well this way, but the problem is that they are not in permanent locations and some of them do not over winter so we have to dig them up each Fall. This way I also have them in January to take cuttings off of and root and get more going for Spring!

Wow! What a beautiful day! If you didn't know better you would have thought it was the first of October instead of November! It was sunny and in the mid 70's with a light breeze! Market was pretty good, sold quite a few apples, eggs, radishes, pepers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and baked goods. We have two more weeks left and it sure would be nice if the weather stayed this nice!
This afternoon after we got home we went out and pulled up plastic mulch and drip tape off of 9 of the raised beds. Now if only all the rest of the beds were done!
Yesterday we went over to Columbia for a little bit to the Small Farm Show and attended the Missouri Vegetable Growers Association meeting. It's always interesting to go to these shows and meet other farmers and hear what they are doing and to get inspired and learn new things! Everyone always wants to know what will we do in the Winter with no farming and marketing to do, well we go to conferences and meetings to try to get new ideas and net work with others who do the same things we do! The first conference on our list is the Great Lakes Fruit & Vegetable Expo in Grand Rapids, Michigan, then either the Great Plains Vegetable Growers Conference in St. Joseph, Missouri or there's also one in Springfield, Illinois at the same time, we don't know yet which one we want to go to. Then there's the Small Fruit and Vegetable Growers Conference that is usually held in Springfield, Missouri, but this year has been moved to the Lake of the Ozarks. Plus the Missouri Farmers' Market Association of which I am on the board, will have their annual meeting and conference, but that has not all been worked out yet as to time and location. And then there's always various workshops around the State that can be attended!

Market last Saturday was pretty good. We got rid of almost all of our pumpkins and a lot of our winter squash and sweet potatoes! I noticed that with the last couple of warmer sunny days our radishes have finally decided to grow and maybe we will have some mizuna next week!

We have got all the tomato stakes and twine pulled up and Greg mowed off all the beds. Next we will have to put the mulch lifter on the tractor and take up all the plastic mulch and drip tape. That is not a fun job.

Today I rendered about 20 lbs. of beef suet. I will use it later to make my lye soap. I didn't get any made last winter so would really like to get a batch made this winter. I also got our chest freezer in the house cleaned out, sorted and organized! That was badly needed as I could never find anything that I knew was in there!!!!

GREEN TOMATOES

I am always looking for green tomato recipes at the end of the season, because I can't bear to see them go to waste. I've made the usual relish and pickles, eaten them fried and even put them in stir fry dishes. Last year I found the best recipe yet, (I think), it's green tomato cake. It's just like a spice cake and very moist. I made a powdered sugar glaze frosting and dribbled it over the top after it was baked, it was sooooo good! Here's the recipe for those of you lucky enough to have access to green tomatoes.

GREEN TOMATO CAKE

2 1/4 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil or melted shortening (I used canola oil)
3 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
3 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 cup pecans or walnuts
1 cup raisins (I used cran-raisins, I like the tartness of them)
2 1/2 cups diced green tomatoes
coconut optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In mixing bowl, beat sugar, oil, eggs & vanilla until smooth & creamy. Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon & nutmeg; slowly beat into egg mixture. Blend well. Stir in nuts, raisins & tomatoes.
Pour into greased 9"x13" pan. Top with coconut if desired. (I just mixed into batter 1 cup). Bake for one hour or until wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean.

I also found this recipe in this months Southern Living Magazine that sounds very good, but I have not tried yet.

ARNOLD'S FRIED GREEN TOMATOES

2 cups all-purpose flour
3 whole green tomatoes
2 cups apple juice
5 eggs
1 dash Tabasco
2 cups cornmeal (seasoned with salt & pepper)
2 Tbsp. basil
Cut the tomatoes int 12-15 slices. Coat slices in flour. Dip in mixture of apple juice, egg whites & Tabasco. Dip into mixture of cornmeal & basil.
Fry in oil until brown

We've been making applesauce and digging sweet potatoes. Finally got all the sweet potatoes dug, but I think we'll have more applesauce to make! We are going to go Persimmon hunting this evening and see what they look like. I'm not sure there's very many this year like there was last year, we'll just have to see!