Archive for the ‘Crops – All’ Category

August 16, 2006 – Favorites Around the World

GJ is hosting a high school exchange student in Ames and brought her out to the farm. She is from Nigeria and wanted to eat a couple of things from our garden that we seldom, if ever eat – okra and amaranth. She wasn’t as excited about the rest of the crops in the garden as these two items.

This is the first year for okra in our garden. We have very little, but it seems to go at market. We cooked some up last week with egg and cornmeal to so-so reviews.

The amaranth variety is used as an ornamental variety here, but we’ve known that it is an important crop across the world.

August 12, 2006 – At the Market

Linda had a late morning wedding (one of her ag students) in Tama, so it was up the Martin, Emma and I to man the market booth (Claire went with Linda).

It was a pretty good market day as those things go. Emma alone sold $30 worth of dog treats and cookies.

We did have an abundance of plums this week and had made a bunch of plum jam and bought more than a few home unsold, which we are now canning in earnest.

I told Martin he would get a quarter for each jar of jam he sold. We had some samples on bread and his job was to ask people if they’d like to try a sample. He was very hesitant to start. But even I was a bit taken aback when he asked a young woman if she wanted to try a sample. She did and responded politely that it was good. Then, out of nowhere, he says – “Well, if you like it, then you should buy a jar.” She did.

August 7, 2006 – Grazing Example

Although it might not be as noticeable in this late evening, low-light photograph, this shows how rotationally grazed pastures can hold up better in a drought.

In the center there is a long rectangle fenced off from the rest of the pasture where we have planted trees. The grass outside of the fenced off area is continuously grazed. Inside the fence simulates rotational grazing (periodic mowing). The grass is much happier (and greener) since it has a chance to recover between grazing episodes.

If a tuft of grass is eaten once, it grows back – if it is eaten a second time, before it has had a chance to recover and grow, its roots can’t keep up and it gives up. The lush grass in the middle shows the power of periodic, instead of rotationally grazing. The net effect is the same amount of pasture can maintain more grazing animals and be healthier.

August 4, 2006 – Getting Ready for Market

Tomorrow will be our first visit to the Grinnell Farmer’s Market this season. We don’t have a whole lot because of the drought – not many tomatoes, between raspberry varieties – but some flowers and odds and ends.

Here’s Linda getting some bouquets ready in the barn.

August 1, 2006 – Flower Bouquets

I thought I’d share a picture of one of the bouquets Linda makes. We sell them at farmer’s market and to some people at school and in town.

The flower composition varies by the week, but they are always nice!

One of the ideas we had last winter when we were researching a farm store was an e-mail ordering service for mid-week to help keep produce moving between markets. We started with two families and it is working great for us – send them an e-mail as to what’s available and they e-mail back what they’d like. Both the delivery and school bouquets are great since we only harvest what we know we can sell mid-week.

This week’s idea…well, more about that tomorrow.

July 31, 2006 – Peppers

The peppers are starting to come on strong. Here’s an assortment from the garden.

The dark purple peppers (Purple Beauty) are the size of normal grocery store bell peppers and the big green one is called “Napolean Sweet Pepper” – just for fun here’s a description of it from the 1923 L.L. Olds Seed Company Catalog: “Plants about 2 feet tall. Possibly the most productive of all the large peppers, bears consistently until frost. Mild as an apple. Fruit about 8″ long and 4 ½” in circumference, standing upright until they get so heavy they sometimes droop. Remarkably early for a large fruited pepper. Might be classed as an extra early.” Good flavor when green, sweeter when red.

July 24, 2006 – News from the Farm

Among other things, today was onion and potato harvest day.

We pulled all the onions. It wasn’t the best year for onions, as they weren’t all very big – the white variety did best this year.

We pulled about 1/4 of the potatoes and Martin was excited to haul a load from the garden to the drying spot with his tractor wagon. The red potatoes dried down first. Like the garlic, we seeded buckwheat where the onions used to be.

I also spent some part of the day hauling scaffolding – three sections from Morning Sun Farm and two sections rented from a scaffolding company in Des Moines.

I’m always scheming what to build next – the latest idea is an outdoor brick or adobe oven to cook breads and dry fruits and veggies and cook an occasional pizza. I’m about to start the research process and my number on question is can the clay-based horno type ovens last in this alternating humid/cold climate? Keep ya posted.

July 21, 2006 – Garlic Drying

Here’s an update on the garlic – it was pulled a few days ago, and here is drying on old refrigerator racks in the hayloft of the barn – as warm and dry place as we can find these days.

Garlic is a great crop for us – it’s planted in the fall gets pulled in mid-July, and stores well and people like it.

July 17, 2006 – Harvest Day

It’s amazing what grows in a week or so. Today was a big harvest day despite the sweltering heat. How hot was it you ask? When I got out of the car, my glasses fogged up at the blast of warm humid air.

But there were things to do – pulling some more of the garlic was high on the list.

We did this first thing in the morning, but it was still hot.

Martin with the day’s digging. The girls were sent out in the afternoon to pick beans. They came back with a 5 gallon bucket and a grocery bag full!

I think the looks on their faces portray the joy of picking beans! We also had a bunch of raspberries to pick, and a big secondary blush of broccoli.

In the evening, since it was so hot and the supers were near full, Joanne extracted honey.

A frame dripping with honey.

Turning the extractor and draining the honey.

Finally, the raw honey in a 5 gallon bucket. All in all, a good day at the farm!

July 7, 2006 – Little bit of Oat Hay

Today, the oat buffers along our farm were baled. Since all my wagons were occupied and there were only 13 or so bales, we just used the truck to pick them up.
There was a short waterway that we couldn’t get to using the tractor and baler, so we snuck the truck in and picked up the loose straw hay (still has the oats attached)

We’re looking forward to using this as bedding in the chicken coop in the winter as it will give the hens something good to scratch in the winter.
It was good work (it didn’t take long) and there’s something about making hay that is rewarding, no matter how little.

July 5, 2006 – Working with the Cub

Today’s entry doubles as this week’s Photo Friday Contest entry. This week’s theme is “Summer.”

I had just a little bit of raking to do today on the buffer strip in the neighbor’s field. I borrowed the neighbor’s rake and hitched up the Farmall Cub to rake the oat straw.

Nothing says summer like making hay on a hot day.

July 2, 2006 – The Three Sisters

Even though Linda and I don’t have three sisters between us, we planted them this spring. The three sisters are corn, squash, and pole beans. We planted the corn first, waited a few weeks, and followed it up with the beans and squash.

Here are the anthers from the “Mandan Bride” variety of corn we planted.

Here’s another expression of the Mandan Bride corn.

Finally, here they are all together. The beans are starting to climb and the squash are just getting started. The idea is the squash smother the weeds, and the beans fix nitrogen for the corn and the corn offers the beans a place to climb.

June 26, 2006 – Flowerama

It’s time to let some of the flowers in bloom at High Hopes speak for me today.

June 25, 2006 – Jammin’

Today was a jammin’ day. We made a bunch o’ jam yesterday and today.

We made strawberry, strawberry-rhubarb, and cherry. All day the rain danced around us – there was enough to make puddles in Melbourne (3 miles away) it rained in Marshalltown for a few hours (12 miles away) and we didn’t get any until a small cloud gave a brief shower and we got 1/10 of an inch! At least enough to settle the dust for a day or so. It also added 100 gallons to the storage tank that runs off the barn.