Tag Archives: winter crops

One of the delights of spring is the sour surprise of Sorrel!

THIS WEEK’S SUBSCRIBER MENU:
• Rapini
• Kale Broccolini
• Green Garlic
• Miners’ Lettuce (use fresh, in place of lettuce)
• Sorrel
• Fresh Eggs

Click on the links above for information and recipes about these crops.

COMING SOON: Salad Greens, Japanese Turnips, Pea Shoots, Baby Leeks, Parsely, Chervil, and much more!

We are really excited about the upcoming week! Check out the weather forecast–sun, sun, and more dry weather. Perfect for planting out the hundreds of thousands of onion, kale, chard, broccoli, cabbage, and lettuce transplants. It’s going to be great, and exhausting, but it will mean lots to eat for lots of folks!

This week we are introducing Sorrel to our spring repertoire. It’s tangy and juicy, and sure to add some spunk to your dining pleasure this week. Check out the Sorrel page for hints.

Delicious Green Garlic and Rapini to put on my pizza!

We’re also serving up more Green Garlic and Rapini, and there are lots of recipes on their respective pages if you need them. We’re also picking the Broccolini from our overwintered Kale plants. These are like rapini, but they are sweet, with no bitterness. Our kids really prefer them to traditional rapini. Last week, we had pizza night, so I threw together a bunch of chopped green garlic, chopped Rapini and sprinkled them on top of a pizza crust doused with the good bottle of olive oil. I found a jar of Porcini salt, and sprinkled some of that on top and then added enough shredded mozzarella to hold it all together. It was delicious–salty, bitter, sweet, and garlicky. I highly recommend it, but the kids couldn’t stand it.

We picked up a little handful of ducklings at the feed store. I’ve been mulling over the idea of getting a slug patrol for the asparagus patch since last year, since the only real pest problem we’ve had with the asparagus are the tiny little slugs that like to nibble on the spears as they emerge from the winter soil. Slugs don’t go for much in the way of plants, but they LOVE slugs and snails.

We have hired a Special Patrol, to hunt slugs in our asparagus/rhubarb patch. That fuzzy cuteness belies the voracious hunter that he/she will become.

As we got them settled, I was filled with memories of my youth. (Fade in dream sequence here) I had some amazing pet experiences, but by far, my favorite was the day that a friend of my parents brought me a duckling. I was 11 or 12, and all of the other nest-mates had been killed by a dog or something, and this one was alone and needed a home. It was a Khaki Campbell, a good egg breed of duck, that looks somewhat like a Mallard when full-grown. I didn’t care–it was adorable, and it was MINE!

That little duck was pampered, and I am somewhat embarrassed to say that I slept with it. If you’ve been around birds much, you know they have no control of their…um…facilities. So, I slept with towels laid all over everything, and little ducky slept in my hair, on my pillow. This spoiled little duck bonded with me to the extent that she (I don’t actually know if it was a he or she, but I felt it was a she) followed me everywhere. She followed me to the dinner table and sat by me while I ate, but that was sad, so it didn’t take long for her to be in my lap while I ate. That required a towel as well, as she grabbed food off of my plate and plastered it all over my lap. Ducks are very messy eaters.

She followed me around outside, inside. I stopped to pick her up for stairs, of course. And boy, did she learn to come running when the bathtub faucet ran. I did draw the line at baths, because what is the first thing that ducks do when they get in water? Not something I wanted to bathe in. But she LOVED the bathtub, happy quacking, laughing, flapping ducky.

It was a remarkable Summer of Duck. I loved that little bird, but when I had to go to school in the fall, I couldn’t let her roam around the house all day, so she had to live with the chickens. One of the great betrayals of my youth was the look on her face when I put her in the chicken run and walked to the bus stop. I feel the daggers still, and that is when I learned the lesson of never having just one of anything that belonged in a group.

This time, we have four lovely little ducklings. They still bond with their primary caregiver, whether it be human, dog, or duck. It’s adorable and they are very fun, in their container on the front porch, where they are sure to get plenty of attention.

This was one of our dinners last week—rapini sautéed with garlic and scrambled eggs. Both in great abundance in March.

THIS WEEK’S SUBSCRIBER MENU:
• Rapini
• Spring Onions
• Green Garlic
• Miners’ Lettuce (use fresh, in place of lettuce)
• Fresh Eggs

Click on the links above for information and recipes about these crops.

COMING SOON: Kale, Pea Shoots, Green Garlic, Baby Leeks, Parsely, Chervil, and much more!

It may be April Fools’ Day, but our Spring Season starts this week! It’s supposed to have been the wettest March in history, and yet we’ve still been able to get several plantings done outside. I’ve been pushier than in the past—call it old age, or call it spring fever. But we’ve got our first planting of peas and favas in the ground at least a month earlier than last year, as well as a decent planting of greens. The greenhouses are all planted: carrots, turnips, salad mix, beet greens, spinach, and herbs. And we’ve got our transplant greenhouse full o’ flats. It’s a good feeling.

The first week of Spring is often a tricky one, because we have an abundance of a couple things and many other things are not quite ready. So we balance the need to harvest those first few crops with the justification to have everyone come all the way to the farm to pick up their allotment. The rapini needs to be harvested, the eggs need to be used because we are over-run with them at the moment. (12 dozen a day and no market have a way of making them pile up!) Sadly, other things that we had hoped would be ready are not quite yet—but they will be soon, and by the time the outdoor crops have finished, the indoor greens and roots will be ready. Fear not! You will be full of greens soon enough!

Just because we’ve been able to work up a bit of ground and plant doesn’t mean it’s not muddy around here. We may be tired of slogging around in rubber boots, but the animals are sick of being ankle deep in mud, but our pasture areas are still too short to let them out without destroying them, so it’s better to keep them in the “sacrifice” area. They will be so pleased to be free when the time comes! The chickens are the only critters we are able to move around, because it’s easier to put up a temporary fence, and they aren’t as hard on the ground—we can put them where old crops used to be for a quick fertility boost. This is even handier with mobile henhouses.

What do you do with a leaky trailer? You turn it into a hen house! Fixtures removed, cupboards converted to nest boxes, and plenty of roost space. Room for 160 hens, and it’s easy to move around the farm.

I was so excited to see that the Tatsoi survived the freezing weather, but disappointed that they are all bolting already. They know spring is on the way and they want to be FIRST to bloom. See the little flower bud in the center?

Winter has returned. It’s been below freezing for two days now, and we’re hauling water to the critters again. We’ve taken down bean poles from last year, the garlic is growing, and my winter food stores are waning. We’ve been ordering seeds, making plans, and getting things done when we can.

Because Spring will be inching closer more rapidly after this cold snap, this is a good time to toss out a reminder for our early payment deadline. February 15 is just 10 days from now, so if you want to save a bit, get your application form in ASAP. Paying in February helps us immensely because we are figuring out how to pay for everything that we will need for the next few months—labor, fertilizer, tractor parts, irrigation parts, row cover material, seed, and a new tomato greenhouse. Help us by signing up for our CSA in February!

Garlic loves freezing weather, but these little shoots are excited that spring is coming!

The first seed orders arrived, and I delivered the special things that need an extra-early start to our friend, Gina, at Auburn Mountainview High School. She runs the horticulture program there, and she utilizes their heated greenhouse to teach the kids in her classes vital skills in seed starting, plant growing, and marketing. And, her kids start a few things for us. Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplant, Artichokes, early Basil, Thyme, Parsley, and Snapdragons for the u-pick garden. See, we don’t have a heated greenhouse, and having Gina’s kids do these crops for us gives us a leg up of 4-6 weeks. And they come to the farm much healthier in April than they would be if we started them under grow lights.

Last year’s beans, ravaged by winter.

I was ready to start our early, hardier crops—kale, Swiss chard, broccoli, onions, cabbage, etc.—and I’m glad I didn’t yet, or we would have likely lost them this week in the deep chill this week. So, I’m glad the seeds are still sitting safely on the dining room table, and I will gladly start them next week. We will also be starting early carrots, turnips, and spinach for the Spring CSA—and we’re shooting for harvest in late April/early May.

Penny, Pete, and Cosmo.

This morning when I woke up, I looked out at the wintry white landscape, and thought to myself how glad I was that we have no baby animals right now. No fuzzy little chicks, huddling in a brooder and freezing, no baby pigs trying to keep warm and getting squished under their mom, and no cows calving in the middle of a frozen field. We do have a couple of new additions, however. Pete and Penny. They are just for companionship and entertainment, and they are very friendly, so be sure and say hi to them. They’re very sweet.

The hens are gearing up for spring, and we’re eating a dozen eggs a day and wondering how to keep up. If you want eggs, now is the time to load up. If you’ve got an egg punch card from last year, stop at the farm stand and pick some up from the fridge. If you don’t have a punch card, you can leave payment in the tin—Limited Time Winter Egg Special is $6 per dozen, or 2 dozen for $10.

Breaking ground in early spring (or winter) is a happy sight. The bright green overwintered weeds and cover crop lying next to dark brown, rich earth.

We had hoped that the sprouts would get a little bigger on the stalks, but we were late planting by a few weeks. Still, better than none at all.

THIS WEEK’S and NEXT WEEK’S SUBSCRIBER MENU:
• Potatoes—several choices, but they’re all tasty
• Lots of Candy Carrots
• “Purple Dragon” Carrots
• Rainbow Beets
• Winter Squash
• “Melissa” Savoy Cabbage
• Brussels Sprouts
• Collard Greens
• Fresh Thyme

Click on the links above for information and recipes about these crops.

We’re finished for this winter. You’ll get a voucher for the last winter week good towards a 2014 CSA share, or for purchasing our produce at farmers markets.

We made lanterns out of ice, lit with a candle, to celebrate our new farming year. Happy New Year!

We celebrated the Winter Solstice by playing with a globe and making ice lanterns. Then we had cocoa and lit the lanterns in the darkest part of night on December 21st. Farming New Year’s Eve. I woke up on the morning of the 22nd ready to start the new season, Mike decorated our booth at both farmers’ markets and we won the Solstice Decorating Contest on Sunday. What a great way to begin the new year!

We’ve decided to call the year finished now, with a double load of everything we have left in the field still worth picking. We have plenty of carrots, mostly, but the greens and beets were hit hard by freezing. Although there are lots of crops left alive in the field, most are not worth picking, aside from cabbage and Brussels sprouts, and cabbage. The potatoes and squashes are still saved from earlier harvest but are running out, so we’re distributing what are left of those as well. We believe we can serve you all better with a credit for the remaining one week, so that will come in an email next week.

You can eat the fluffy tops of the Brussels sprout stalk, too. Tasty and sweet, just like kale or collards.

As we usually do at the crux of a new season, we are full of ideas. New things to try, things to improve, hopes for the new year. At the top of my list this year is another big greenhouse, with doors for all the greenhouses instead of flapping plastic sheets. I know I want to improve the u-pick area for CSA members, and somehow we need to improve our pick-up area so it doesn’t get so crowded. I’m working on the new CSA flyers, so look for those in your mail and email, as well as your credit voucher for the missing winter week.

Now that the holidays are past, we are trying to find our homeschool rhythm again. It’s so hard to find that tempo after almost a month of going with the flow. It will come again, and so will the rhythm of farming. Refining the planting schedule, repairing machines that broke, trying new varieties. And then, the beginning of actual planting—only a few weeks away.

We hope you have a peaceful winter, and we hope to see you again in the spring and summer for another bountiful harvest. Thank you for being there with us through the last amazing year.

Greenhouses at six degrees. Brrrr. Below freezing for 10 days and this was the lowest point.

THIS WEEK’S and NEXT WEEK’S SUBSCRIBER MENU:
• “Red Maria” and “Norkotah Russet” Potatoes
• Lots of Candy Carrots
• “Purple Dragon” Carrots
• Rainbow Beets
• “Sweet Dumpling” and “Buttercup/Ambercup” Winter Squash
• Shallots
• “San Michele” Italian Savoy Cabbage
• Brussels Sprout tops (use like kale)
• Fresh Thyme

Click on the links above for information and recipes about these crops.

COMING SOON: Brussels Sprouts, lots of Carrots, Beets, and Potatoes

Ironically, all of the greens survived the deep freeze, but all of the large outer leaves that we were harvesting are cooked. Cells ruptured by microscopic ice crystals, limp and soggy. Eventually, the growing point in the center of the plant will produce new, healthy leaves, but sadly, that will be weeks or even months from now.

We are so relieved that the temperature has warmed up and the ground is finally thawed. We are also relieved to find that the carrots and beets have survived, thanks to their natural anti-freeze—sugar! The greens actually all survived, but the large, outer leaves are damaged and not harvestable. They will recover, in time, but probably not until closer to spring. The cabbages and Brussels sprouts are all fine, and so we are going through them this week. We are still hopeful about putting together some kind of stir-fry mix in two weeks when we return after the holidays, but time will tell.

Cabbage and Brussels Sprouts are cousins, and they look almost the same from the top view (aside from the difference in color). Cabbage head on the left, Brussels Sprout top on the right.

They look different on the bottom-side—Brussels Sprouts on the left, with tiny sprouts in the leave junctures (where they meet the stem) and Cabbage on the right, working on getting a head in life.

The brassica family is an interesting one, and a large one full of mutants-turned-new varieties. Brussels sprouts are basically just cabbages that stretched out in height and instead of growing a single, large head, started producing tiny heads in its leaf joints. No genetic modification, only selective breeding and natural mutation in the field. We hope to be harvesting ours for you after the holidays.

Because we are lacking leafy things, we have loaded you up with root crops—lots of carrots, (beets), and potatoes. And a few squashes. We’ve been saving the last of the shallots for this week, and we threw in some Thyme to go with all the spuds.

This is the last harvest before the new year, and we want to wish you the happiest of holidays and good health. Thank you for your ongoing support of our farm and our family. We wouldn’t be here without you.

And now, a little insight into what I consider to be the true New Year:

The New Year is upon us at last. I’m not talking about January 1, the modern new year. I mean the original new year—the new year of ancient times and farmers. The Winter Solstice. This day of the solar year with the longest night, and the shortest daylength has historically been very significant with all cultures in the northern hemisphere, especially farming cultures. All living things (aside from modern man with artificial light) base their life processes on the amount of natural light in each given day. For example: Chickens have a 21-hour egg-laying cycle. They create a new egg every 21 hours, and as long as the egg is completed during daylight hours, the hen will expel the egg. If the egg is formed in hours of darkness, she keeps it safe inside her until daylight returns. (During the summer when our days are about 19 hours long, a hen will lay an egg nearly every day, but in the winter when our days are only 8 hours long, that same hen will lay an egg only every three or four days. Commercial hens are kept with lights on 24 hours a day, to maximize production. Daylength also triggers the heat cycles of mammals, especially grazers like goats & cows. Their biological clocks time things just right, so that babies are born when mom’s food is abundant.

As far as plants are concerned, temperature is less of an issue than daylength. Plants are only able to perform photosynthesis with light. Since photosynthesis is what gives plants energy for growth, most plants stop growing when the daylength gets down to about 10 or so hours. Active plant growth doesn’t start up again until thelengthening days of spring arrive. Then, the plants wake from their winter dormancy and sprout new leaves to soak up all that sunlight and the chickens start pumping out eggs like crazy. In farming terms, the solstice is a much more meaningful day than January 1, Julius Caesar’s new year. But he wasn’t a farmer, he was a politician. The day after the solstice, we can look forward to more eggs, more greens, and it means that soon we won’t have to do our chores in the dark. It’s time to order seeds for next year, and in a few weeks it will be time to start transplants. Spring is just around the corner! If you haven’t seen them yet, be sure and drive by the Carpinito fields on West Valley Highway. There are Trumpeter Swans. Quite a few big, white goose-looking birds and a few greyish juveniles. There have also been some in his field at 277th St. and Central Ave. It pains me to think of all the chemicals they’re ingesting when they clean up the old corn and pumpkin patches, but hopefully it’s not doing them too much harm as they won’t be here very long before they move on.

The day after the solstice, we can look forward to more eggs, more greens, and it means that soon we won’t have to do our chores in the dark. It’s time to order seeds for next year, and in a few weeks it will be time to start transplants.

Spring is just around the corner!