Strawberries, Spring Crops, and Life in the High Tunnel

Today is looking like a beautiful ‘warm’ January day, and I am thinking about strawberries.  Can’t wait.  Perhaps I’ll get a few out of the freezer and make us something yummy for lunch.

Last week, I headed out to the high tunnels to check on the progress of a few new crops, because I was concerned their immature leaves were too young to survive the frigid temperatures we were experiencing.  The quiet air was punctuated by the crunch of the frozen ground under my feet and I hunched my ears into my shoulders as I tried to escape the blustery cold January air.  This was going to be a quick outing!  Besides, I had coffee waiting for me back at the house.  I pulled back the plastic end-wall on the high tunnel and ducked inside.  The warmth inside the tunnel told a wonderfully different story:  the air was fragrant with the rich smell of soil and damp mulch, and I found myself pulling off my hat and gloves.  As I peeked under the frost blanket protecting the seedlings I had to laugh at my worries.  They had grown.  Their cotyledon leaves were now accompanied by a tiny new set of mature leaves.  Row after row, the arugula, lettuce, spinach, kale, turnips, chard, carrots, bok choy, radishes, garlic, and broccoli raab were all stretching for the sunlight and seemed unfazed by the frigid weather outside.  Unbelievably, there were even baby grasshoppers that must have just hatched a day or two ago, right in the middle of those cold temperatures outside.  Fortunately, I also saw several hungry spiders scurrying around in the warm space between the soil and the blanket, so I don’t expect to see those ravenous green hoppers on my next visit.

I closed that tunnel tight again as I left, and checked out the next one.  When I pulled back the frost blanket on the strawberries I had transplanted in December (one of those October projects that I finally got around to), I was met with a fun surprise- and a light snack.  Strawberries in January!  When  I transplanted the runners from my outside beds into the tunnel, I pinched off all the flowers that were forming, so the plants would put energy into roots and leaves, but I must have missed a few.  In fact, as I looked down the row, I saw new buds and blooms throughout the entire crop.  I made a mental note to pinch those off- the plants really do need to concentrate on getting rooted in nicely before March.

These crazy strawberries have been fruiting since mid fall.   I took this picture November 1, 2012, and we ate fresh strawberry shortcake with our Thanksgiving meal.  I think the drought and heat stress they endured this year has mixed them up a bit.  We didn’t pick a lot, but probably between 20 and 30 pounds after market season.  As long as they figure out their schedule by May and June, I will enjoy the occasional strawberry snack.  I put my hat and gloves back on, closed up the tunnel, and headed back to the house; the sun was starting to dip in the sky and the falling temperature in the high tunnel was reminding me of my cup of coffee back at the house.

Slowly Getting Started

Hello and Happy New Year!  Okay, I’m a little slow.  But! I am so excited about the new farming year.  I mean, I pretty much have to be after last year’s brutal season, right?!  I feel a little bit like a hibernating bear, although we really have been hard at work.  Really!  I’ve ordered seeds, I’ve started filling out our application for organic certification.  Loads of meetings, lots of reading, constant tweaking of what the next year will look like, new recipes tried, high tunnels are planted (I picked and ate two strawberries last week- honest!)  Whew!  I think I need to go lie down!  Ack- can’t do that- I’ve already packed on my total allotment of “winter-farmer pounds”  Must.Get.Moving.Must.Excercise.  Ummmm…Maybe tomorrow. 

So I’m working on the new CSA Contracts- a bunch of you are demanding I get them done.  Something about wanting to secure your membership spot for this year.  Crazy Foodies.  I love you all.  Okay.  I’ll get going… 

 

 

Produce, weeds and water

Put the Brookside Farmers Market on your To-Do List.  Saturdays, 8am-1pm at the corner of 63rd and Wornall. 

I know it’s hot, but I had the most pleasant day at the farm yesterday- optimism abounds!  Summer crops are coming along great, and a few vegetables are really starting to wake up.  Cucumbers are multiplying, tomatoes are ripening, squash is squashing.  We’ve been pulling onions of all sizes, garlic is curing, kale is putting on new leaves overnight, and grean beans are just about ready to pick.  I plan to pick more blackberries this week, but that tends to be an evening project- as the sun is going down, and the temperatures start to dip, I love to be at the farm.  I’ve been babying the broccoli, so it should hang in there with some delicious side-shoots.  Thank you Brookside for purchasing our flowers- we’ve sold out of bouquets 3 weeks in a row.  We’ll see what is out there for this week’s color display- definitely more sunflowers and a few zinnias.  We’ll bring more of those new potatoes on Saturday- just perfect for grilling.  We’ll have several ‘small quantity’ items as some crops finish up and others begin.  Come early and beat the heat.  See you Saturday. 

We’ve also been pulling weeds and planting new crops.  Planting new crops??!!  Really?  Yep.  We plant every week of the season, in order to have a steady stream of produce.  In the last week, I’ve planted another couple hundred tomato plants (they will hopefully flourish for fall tomatoes, when our earlier plantings are tired), 200′ of sweet potatoes, 400′ of regular potatoes, 3 kinds of beans, herbs, extra eggplant and husk tomatoes.  Still on the list for this week:  more herbs, flowers, fall broccoli and cauliflower, more sweet potatoes, and hopefully some fall onion sets. 

It seems odd- but I actually hate pulling weeds out of some of these rows in order to plant.  As I’m prepping beds for planting, the rows with weed cover have soil moisture and the rows we’ve tilled are bone-dry.  Bare soil requires so much more water then rows with cover.  Doesn’t make for a pretty farm- but makes for a PRODUCTIVE farm.  Kind of counter-intuitive, don’t you think?  As we allow more and more of our weeds to linger, we notice we have more produce and less need to water.   Now granted, baby transplants and seedlings need open space- and that’s why we pull weeds.  But once they are established, we let the weeds go, and, because we have worked so hard on our soil fertility, the veggies can compete nicely for nutrition, and the weeds are actually beneficial.  I have to keep reminding myself of that, as I look out at our farm, but we are pulling more produce than ever out of the same space.  One step better, would be to replace those weeds with a seeding of ‘green manure’- plants sown intentionally to improve the soil, but for now, we can afford weeds!

As another example, our strawberry beds are so high with weeds, you could bale it.  We are starting to weed them, so the small runners have a place to put down roots.  As I clear each row, I notice the exposed plants get so much drier and need a lot more water then the rows with cover.  Once we get everything exposed, and the runners go nuts, we will have to mulch to replace the benefit the weeds were giving!  Go figure. 

Speaking of water- our pond is miraculous indeed!  Or more accurately, perhaps I should say, God continues to provide.  Our little pond continues to have enough water to keep our plants going.  We seem to get a good rain just about when my water-stress meter goes off. I have a good discussion with God about the state of the pond, He laughs at me, and says, “Ye of little faith”, and then he brings a good rain.  We are investigating the possibility of digging a well- but that requires deep pockets, which we don’t seem to have.  But for now, the little pond with the deep hole is doing a great job of keeping up. 

Hey everyone- thanks for reading and have a great day!  -Ami

It’s Grilling Time!

I’m sorry I don’t have pictures to offer… but time seems to get away from me for photographing… you’ll have to use your imagination…

BUT!  You must grill some spring veggies!  We tend to think of summer produce for grilling- peppers, squash, eggplant, etc, but we have created a gourmet grilling blend of spring crops that is delightful.  If you are a member of our CSA program, this week you will receive a sampling of the blend.  If not, then head on down to Brookside Farmer’s Market this Saturday to pick some up for your Memorial Weekend Grill.

The blend includes;  onions, potatoes, beets, peas, turnips, radishes, garlic, and carrots.  We prepared this mix for our Mother’s Day feast to rave reviews.  Just wash, dice, steam to soften, season, and grill.  We used an Italian dressing to season, and then yesterday I repeated it as a ‘roast’ in the oven with a honey-mustard vinaigrette.  You could very simply use a little olive oil and sea salt also.

You may be saying, “What?  You can grill all those veggies?  Are you kidding?  Radishes?”  Yep.  Someone let us in on the ‘secret’ of cooking radishes last year, when we had a particularly huge bumper crop all at once, and we love them!  My Dad is not so crazy about cooked radishes- he would prefer them raw, so you’ll have to try it once and decide for yourself.  I’ve added the m to crockpot roasts, saute’s, and aluminum foil pocket meals.  They totally lose their heat once cooked, but retain their radishy flavor.  Try it!

Keeping Price in Perspective

Now that the Brookside Farmer’s Market has started, I’ve been thinking about how we price things and how to justify what we charge. It’s a slippery slope. As farmers who receive NO subsidies from the government, we have to charge our customers the REAL price of growing a particular crop, while buffering that cost with what folks will actually pay. It’s an interesting topic, and one that is pretty difficult to analyze, at least for me. This year, I am keeping more records than ever. I’ve always tracked dates: when to order seed by (so seeds aren’t sold out), when to plant in the greenhouse, when to transplant, when to plant in the field, when to direct seed into the soil, etc. This year, I’m trying to track volume picked, and how much is purchased, donated, and composted. Not an easy task. But, necessary, in order to determine which crops are profitable, which crops are sought after, and which crops need to be eliminated for next year. There’s no need to grow 475 different varieties (LOTS OF WORK) if 325 or even 200 would be just as successful. Do we really need 100 varieties of tomatoes in order for our tomatoes to look wonderful? Actually, less would probably be best- concentrate on the best of each color, cooking, and flavor classification, and ditch the rest. Streamline. But I digress. Let’s get back to the pricing issue.

We charge what we need to stay afloat. We’ve had the oh-so-humorous experience at the farmer’s market where a couple will walk up, see $4/pound on potatoes, and say something like, ‘Geez, I should be a farmer- I’d be rich’. How do we respond to that? Usually we laugh- or try to hide the laugh, and explain that our farm has yet to have a profitable year.  Or explain the whole government subsidy dilemma. Or that stores like Wal-Mart often offer produce as a complete loss, because those cheap prices drive the sales on laundry soap, diapers, or vacuum cleaners. Check out the graph below.

(Thx: Fast Food News)

Interesting, isn’t it? Those things we need to eat in order to be healthy, productive members of society aren’t supported. Those things that we should avoid (sugar), get more than 10% of the funds.  I would also love to see a graph showing government dollars going towards conventional food vs. organic food, but that’s for another day.

When I ordered seed this winter, prices were up. Seeds that cost $3 last year cost $4 or more. Seeds that cost $28/pound were more like $35/pound or more. Fertilizer has also gone up. Fuel surcharges are now on most everything we need shipped in. But even with that, we are trying to hold prices steady. We charged $4 for kale, chard, and arugula the last 2 years, and $5 a bag for lettuce and spinach. This year, we are trying to do the same. Others have gone up $.75 a bag, because of the increases in expenses.

Strawberry season? I saw them at the grocery store for $1.98 a quart. Conventional and sprayed, but cheap! Ours? $5 a pint, and we sell out. I know, ouch. But, we’ve been hand working those strawberries all winter. We doubled the size of the patch by transplanting the runners. We mulched them with hay to winterize them. We fed them. Three times. I’ve weeded them. Shannen has weeded them. Shannen has weeded them again. I pick daily, so they are picked right, and don’t have to ripen with chemicals applied.  We applied peat moss, because they love it. And we hope to keep this patch healthy and productive for the next 30 years. Did you know conventional, thousand acre strawberry farms tear out their strawberry plants every year, pick up and throw away last year’s plastic, put down more plastic, sterilize the soil, and replant with a machine while also spraying with a fungicide and pesticide? And then spray them all season long, whether there are any problems or not? And then sell them to grocery stores, who then turn around and sell them for the same price or less, because they are such a ‘happy fruit’ that when a shopper picks them up, because “they’re so cheap!” -they then purchase even more (but look how much we saved on the strawberries, honey!). Strawberries have a prominent spot on the dirty dozen list- if you eat nothing else organic- eat organic strawberries.

Well, obviously this is a tender subject to me. And we are trying to hold prices down as much as we can. But, by golly, I would love to make minimum wage this year! And THAT is my goal. As always, thanks for listening!  And yes!  We’re picking strawberries!

Free Vitamin D! All you can use!

Well, as my Dad says, nothing in life is free.  And I think he’s probably right.  It was a catchy title, and I had to run with it.  We’d love to see a few volunteers around the farm- learn a little farming, get a little dirt under your nails, soak up some sun, listen to the birds chirp, pull a weed- or a thousand… any takers?  I can give you a sitting job, a squatting task, and walking errand, a data entry position, a veggie washing degree, or even a lesson in the fine art of flower picking.  You could be a seed poker, a weed puller, a transplant planter, a hay mulcher, or a radish plucker.

Speaking of radishes, I pulled 800 yesterday.  That should be enough.  They’re really good right now- crisp, flavorful, but not hot, and the perfect size.

All CSA’s kick in this week- and Saturday is Brookside Market, so of course something has to happen put a wrinkle in the schedule.  The water line broke.  Jim started digging, and the kids were so excited that we would have a ‘fountain’ in the backyard, but no fountain- just bubbling mud.  Tomorrow he will rent a backhoe gizmo (that’s a technical term) to dig up the backyard.  We suspect the huge-a-mongous elm with the gigantic root system that is shading the backyard may be the culprit, and therefore may lose a few of its roots.  The horticulturist in me crindges, but there may be no other option.  We shall see.  When I worked in Virginia, I knew of a historically-significant magnolia tree that was in the way of the electric company.  The tree had its own caretaker.  He hand dug a path under the roots of the tree, laying wet burlap on the roots to protect it, and immediately covering it all back up when they were done.  The tree died 7 years later, which is about the time it takes for root trauma to have an effect on large trees.  My huge elm may not even care- elms are just that cantankerous and stubborn.

Speaking of cantankerous… well that’s another subject, for another day.  Market members- see you Saturday- CSA members- see you Wed/Thur/Sat.  If you are viewing this page and pondering joining our great veggie adventure- I wouldn’t wait toooooo much longer….

 

Still a few CSA Openings… BUT Filling up Fast…

Just a quick blog today… planted 600 head of lettuce yesterday AFTER the rain passed through- one little poke into the soggy soil and then the next… and then the next… thank goodness for raised beds and pathways with mulch.  Also planted broccoli and cabbage outside, finally. Maybe today I’ll take a break from office stuff to go plant a few thousand more…

LOTS of interest about the farm at the Expo in Shawnee last weekend.  Oh-my-goodnes-couldn’t-keep-up-with-the-questions-kind-of-crowd!  Sold out of asparagus in the first hour, went home with extra bags of spinach to munch on this week… yum yum.  We gained new CSA members also!  Great day. 

Is anyone available to help us set up at the Expo this Saturday at Penn Valley?  Anyone coming to the event?  We need a few people to help carry in plants and veggies- apparently, all the vendors have to use a 4×6 elevator, or the stairs to get in.  Yikes!  Setup is 8:30-9:30. 

Have a great day- Ami