Week of February 22 2010 : Twa-taw

(Here is a photo of Nathaniel on the twa taw which translates to "tractor". He celebrated his 15 month birthday by going solo. Butt on the seat. Hands on the steering wheel. The kid is certainly talented. Click on the photo for a high-res close up. Check out the INTENSITY!!!).

I still remember when my dad taught me how to drive our tractor. And I remember when he taught me how to push the lawn mower and how to drive a truck. Every lesson started with a safety lesson.

And I used this photo opp to give Nathaniel his first equipment safety lesson. I plan to repeat the lesson often. I already anticipate the rolling eyes and the shrugging shoulders. But those reactions only mean that I am getting through. Probably the most useful info blurb relates to patience.

Nearly all accidents can be traced to impatience. Whenever you feel impatient, stop immediately. Make time to reassess what is important to you. Accomplishing the task at hand may be important. But your personal safety is even more important.

My grandmother also shared her wisdom on the matter: It is better to get there late than not at all.

This time of year, patience really applies to growing too. It is easy to get caught up in the excitement and get seeds started too early. Bigger seedlings really dont mean earlier crops.

Blueberries

I admittedly know very little about how to grow stuff. Ask Mike. I'm lucky if my annual flowers make it to August. I have always loved plants--inside ones and outside ones. Especially, my family's gardens.

Especially my great-grandfather's. He lived and gardened until he was 95 and I was 15. He lived in a suburb of Cleveland and had an acre of land, max. But he made the most of it. His house was up on a ridge and I remember climbing rickety stairs down the ivy covered hill to get to the shangri-la he maintained below. The first stop were the fruit trees: applies, plums and pears. I particularly remember how delicious the plums always were.

After the fruit trees were the berry bushes. He has lots of raspberries and blueberries. I particularly remember the blueberries. Yum. In fact, the blueberries ripening were always the draw down to great-grandpa's garden. Their lifespan is so short and the birds are so primed to steal them that we had to strike while the iron was hot! So, we'd load up the car with as many friends as we could muster to share the bounty and head on down to pile nature's most delicious blue candies in our baskets. Then we'd go home and bake blueberry pancakes and blueberry muffins and blueberry pie.

And then just out beyond the shade of the fruit trees, edged by the berry bushes was the vegetable patch. Garlic, chamomile, corn, beets, onions, carrots, tomatoes and peppers. Great-grandpa was from Slovenia and new all the old-country tricks for keeping the goodies all year. His house always smelled like the dried garlic and he always had something good cooking on the stove.

No, I could't keep a plant alive if my life depended on it, but all my life I've appreciated the fruits of others' labor.

Week of February 15 2010 : Farm in a Box

(Here is a photo of all the seeds that will become this summer's market vegetables. There are forty three seed packets and bags in the box. That is a 747 jet in the background just to give you some perspective on size. Thankfully I made no attempt to track how much time I spent researching and deciding which 43 varieties to purchase).

Laura posted a photo of her Vegetable Jambalaya, which featured vegetables from last summer's market garden. This time last year, those tasty vegetables where nothing more than seed packets waiting in my grow room. During the course of the growing season, I will share with you how we transform these seed packets into vegetable jambalaya.

The big bag in the middle may be my favorite seed: New Zealand White Clover.

White clover is a versatile cover crop. I grow it primarily between the cash crop rows. The clover can be frost seeded very early in the season; thus it has a chance to germinate first and establish a canopy to smoother weeds.

During the season, the clover stabilizes soil temperature and moisture. White clover, like sweet clover, does not flower until its second year, so neither attracts beneficial insects such as bees during the first year. But it offers protection for other beneficial insects that happen to be there. The clover also reduces splashing during rain storms. This means cleaner vegetables and more importantly suppresses the spread of disease.

At the end of the season, the clover is incorporated into the soil. This adds nitrogen and plenty of organic matter to the soil. I always inoculate the seed to ensure nitrogen fixation. The clover dies easily without herbicides the first year; after clover survives a winter then it becomes very persistent and can survive plowing.

This year, I am considering underseeding my broccoli and cabbage with clover. How exciting is clover !!!

Yes I know clover is not very tasty, even the cloverphile woodchucks prefer the vegetables over clover. I will be sure to share the rest of the seeds in the 'farm in a box' with you too.

Vegetable Jambalaya Stew

Mike is always touting my cooking skills. I guess it's time I prove it :) I like to make up recipes with whatever I have available. In the summer, this means playing Iron Chef with whatever Mike brings me from the garden. In the winter it means clearing out the freezer and the cans in the pantry. The winter is a particularly good time to make use of the crock pot!

Today I had some chicken andouille sausage so I figured I'd make up something cajun-inspired.

We'll call this concoction Vegetable Jambalaya Stew

Ingredients

- 4 stalks of celery chopped

- 4 carrots chopped

- 1 large red onion chopped

- 2 large cloves garlic minced

- 2 russet potatoes chopped

- 2 sweet potatoes chopped

- 1 cup frozen green beans (from last summer's garden)

- 1\2 cup frozen green bell peppers chopped (from last summer's garden)

- 2 pints of canned tomatoes (from last summer's garden)

- 12 oz of chicken andouille sausage sliced thin

- cajun seasoning to taste (I like Tony Chachere's)

- oregano to taste

- black pepper to taste

(I did not use salt because it is in the Tony Chachere's)

- 1 cup brown rice

- 1 cup dried black-eyed peas

- 2 cups vegetable stock

- 1 cup chicken stock

- 1 cup water (more as needed)

Put all ingredients in the crock pot and cook on high for 6 hours (I like the high setting to make sure the beans are soft by dinner time). Check every hour or so to see if you need to add more water. I usually end up adding a couple of cups to my concoctions over the cooking period. Serve with corn bread. Freeze all the left overs for later!

I used what I had available, but you could use any number of other ingredients in place of the ones I listed or in addition to them. I really love brussel sprouts with cajun seasoning, but I didn's have any. I think cauliflower would also be good. Of course you can also omit anything too--use all white or sweet potatoes, for instance. Also, any kinds of beans could be used--including canned beans--or you could omit them. Finally, you could add or replace the sausage with boneless skinless chicken thighs or shrimp (although wait until the last 1\2 hour of cooking to add the shrimp so it doesn't become rubbery).

Week of January 25 2010 : Varieties

(This is not an actual photo, it is an artist's rendering of Corn Kitty. This blog is supposed to be about farming but recently animals in the orchard are making the headlines. Despite the eastern timber wolf, despite the prolonged frigid temperatures and deep snow, Corn Kitty survived and is back on patrol.)

I am finally done with all of my seed purchases. High Mowing Organic Seeds is my favorite store to buy seeds. They obviously get the whole organic-sustainable thing, they offer a reasonable variety of seeds, and customer service (if necessary) is excellent. I buy as many seeds as I can from HMS.

This year I consulted the 2010 Ohio Vegetable Production Guide for variety recommendations. Some vegetables such as peppers sometimes struggled under the valley conditions. The guide compiles research and trail plot results across Ohio. There are a lot of other good data in this guide too, for example, do you know how to calibrate a thermometer? Read page 25, Frost Control.

This year I decided to diversify some seed purchases. I am on a quest to grow perfect orange and yellow bell peppers. In particular, all yellow hybrids I have ever grown were disappointments. The plants set few fruits and those that survived to maturity were thin walled and lost crispiness. Enter OVPG which recommends the Lafayette hybrid. Let's hope this is the hybrid that delivers the thick walled crunchy 4 lobed fruits!

Week of January 18, 2010 : Eight

(Here is another file photo, this time of a male Eastern Bluebird. Bluebirds are well established in the area and have made year round use of our nesting boxes. On cold winter nights, the boxes double as roosting boxes. During the recent warm spell, eight birds were perched on the fence wires, waiting to devour any insects that decided to enjoy the warm weather).

In addition to the bluebirds, we also have bald eagles in the area. The first nest appeared 4 summers ago, a quarter mile north of our field. Last summer another nest appeared, a quarter mile south of our field. Bald eagles dont exactly cozy in nest boxes so monitoring can be difficult. We are not expert birders nor do we have any binoculars so we have not been able to take full advantage of these opportunities.

But whenever we notice an eagle flying over the orchard, we always stop whatever we are doing and watch the bird until she disappears in the distance. Nathaniel can identify an eagle too. He undoubtedly knows geese and he has developed a distinct shriek when he sees geese. But when he sees an eagle he simply points. Last week we were sled riding and he observed the eagle first and pointed it out to me!

On very rare occasions, adult eagles will teach the juveniles hunting tactics in the orchard.

Now I want to push my luck and put up an owl box. Although I see them for sale, I dont know anybody who actually has an owl box and certainly not ever heard a success story.

Week of January 11, 2010 : Mulch.

(Here is a file photo of neatly formed raised beds protected by plastic mulch. Weed free without herbicides. That is what we all want, right? I usually laugh when I read extension articles about giant hogweed. Here I have giant purslane, giant velvet leaf, ... )

Another purchase arrived at the front door: black plastic mulch.

Deciding to switch to plasticulture was a difficult decision for me to make.

Sweet Peat is great. It does everything it is intended to do: prevents weeds, adds organic matter and so on. When I had a personal sized garden, this was the perfect mulch. I exchanged $35 for 1 cubic yard of mulch; considering the quality and results, I was satisfied with my purchase.

Unfortunately this solution does not scale to market sized fields. Consider a 50' dual row of peppers: 18" between rows and 24" between each plants allows ~50 plants per row. 1.2 cubic yards is needed to properly mulch one row (50' x 2.5' x 3"); thus the cost is $40.51 per row. As I learned, any attempt to skimp on coverage just shortens the time to weed domination.

By comparison, plastic mulch costs $1.61 per row.

Over the years, I have tried various methods and combinations of methods of weed control such as newspaper mulch, hoeing and critical weed free period. Last year my minimized Sweet Peat and newspaper combination failed; a little too much wind and soon the mulch was a little too gone ... weed domination.

This year, feeling significant pressure to reduce my labor, I reconsidered plasticulture. I already demonstrated how plasticulture is a 96% cost savings. Last year I averaged 4 hours per week (for 8 weeks until the wind storm) on weed management and still lost battle. I can easily discover 96% labor savings too.

Wait, there is more. There is a chance the plastic mulch will work.

So why was the decision to switch to plasticulture difficult? After all, plastic mulch is accepted by organic certifying agencies (provided the mulch is lifted at the end of the season).

Is plasticulture sustainable agriculture?