Lavender Harvest

The first lavender harvest of the year and the best one to date. Looking forward to tins of lavender sugar and possibly some lavender syrup.

Spring Doin's

You know, if I could bear to blog without including pictures, I might be more timely in my updates. I often think... "oh, I should blog about that" and then never get around to taking a picture of whatever the subject might be, and thus it never makes it to the blog and I go weeks without updating. (nice excuse, huh?)

Here's what we've been up to recently:

I wish there was some way to include scents on the computer. Because right now the farm smells like this...(seriously, the fragrance wafting on the wind is simply amazing!)

It has been a busy couple of weeks since my last post. We recently returned from our encore performance of "Potatopalooza" in the gardens. I was starting to think we might never get through them all. We planted about 1,000 row feet of seed potatoes, all by hand. I know other farms do more, and more power to them! This is enough for me.

The big high tunnel is coming along and should be in good shape for the opening farmers market on May 1. This tunnel contains chard, choi, salad greens, radishes, spinach and arugula.
Just a week ago I was in a mild panic thinking that the crops wouldn't be ready in time. But as usual, I was just being angst-y. Today I harvested these, and in two weeks they will be perfect on the market table.
We've also been laying out and prepping beds for planting. Just yesterday, the first seeds went into the fields. We are by no means ahead of schedule, but as of yesterday, we are caught up and on schedule.

Other recent things worth mentioning:

• The Fruit Tree Grafting class at Seed Savers was marvelous! We'll see how well we put the new knowledge to work.
• We are getting more than 10 dozen eggs a day. There is a limit to how many eggs two people can eat.
• The Blue and Luci show continues to be good entertainment. They are quite the pair, I wish I had video to share as photos don't due them justice. Luckily the "interest in the chickens" seems to have waned, hopefully permanently.
• We've have some wonderful folks come out and volunteer their time to do a "working visit" to the farm. Big thanks to Maggie, Terri, Linda, Dawn, Michelle and Danelle for their time and willingness to "work and learn".

I'm sure there is more to share, but I'm tapped out for now. Will write another update soon and hopefully it will include stories of morels we've found (not yet, though).

Peach Perfume

Recently, the still-warm evening breeze has carried a distinctive perfume, the heady aroma of ripening peaches. It was an amazing scent to be sure and the sign of things to come.

Yesterday afternoon the time arrived, peach harvesting time. The tree, a native Iowa white peach, is still relatively young, around 15 years old, so it wasn't a huge harvest, but around 120 pounds. So now, resting in large black crates, are somewhat small, white peaches aging to their final ripeness. Sometime this week I will skin, slice and freeze these peaches to be made throughout the upcoming season in to our Ginger Peach Jam or Peach Butter. They aren't great fresh eating peaches, but in preserves they are perfect.

Its a good thing that we added a second big freezer this year, because next to the peach crates are a tall stack of pear crates, awaiting a similar fate. Its going to be a busy week!

A branch of nearly-ripe Iowa white peaches

Today's Harvest

The harvest from our high tunnels today:
Eggplant (final harvest): Calliope & Orient Express
Sweet Peppers: Ace (red), Golden Marconi (long yellow), Islander (purple) & Sunray (yellow)
Heirloom Tomatoes: Big Zebra, Dr. Wychee, Mule Team, Paul Robeson, Redfield Beauty

A whole month??

Today I checked in and realized it had been a full month since I last posted a blog entry, yikes! So we haven't been the most scintillating read recently, but it wasn't for lack of material, or even desire...simply a lack of time. Things have been a bit crazy here in the past month. All my seasonal help has gone back to school, so its pretty much me and the veggies out there, staring each other down...and in all honesty, the produce is winning!

This has been one crazy growing season...first too wet, then too cool, then hot for a week and back to cool. I actually had to install a bunch irrigation lines this past week, because there isn't enough soil moisture to germinate the fall crops. Most of the earlier crops are finishing up for the season, all except the beans. We are still picking beans from our first sowing...there were never beautiful plants, stunted from the lack of warmth, but they have just produced like crazy...thank you beans!

The high tunnels have been worth their weight in gold this season. They were the only places that got enough heat and water at all the right times (thanks to irrigation) so the crops in there have really been outstanding. We have just started turning the first of those crops over to cold weather crops. One bed of eggplant was evaculated after they failed to thrive under the onslaught of a flea beetle invasion and last week the cucumber trellis finally failed under the hundreds of pounds of insanely productive vines. Winter carrots have already germinated in the former eggplant location and winter peas and cabbage are going into the cuke beds later this week.

The quick score sheet for the season would read:
Winning Teams:
high tunnel peppers, cukes, zucchini, heirloom tomatoes, chard & basil
bush and pole beans

Losing Teams:
garlic
field cabbages
beets

I promise to post some high tunnel and harvest pics later this week, and will try to be better at my weekly postings. Its at least a little easier now that its too dark to work outside after 8pm!

Today's Harvest 07/26/09

The high tunnels continue to perform admirably this season. The above photo is just today's harvest from the two tunnels. The harvest includes:
Cucumbers (2 varieties) : 45 lbs
Peppers (3 varieties) : 4.5 lbs
Tomatoes: (6 varieties) : 20 lbs
Zucchini (2 varieties) : 27 lbs

Saucing and Synching

Its been an interesting week on the farm. We are getting ready for the downtown DM Harvest Market, so there has been much jam-making, produce harvesting and root-crop cleaning.

On top of all that it has gotten COLD! So cold that the outdoor cooler where the apples are stored is at risk of freezing, so that means its applesauce making time. So far we've put up approximately 30 quarts of applesauce for our own consumption and for making into apple butter to sell. I love applesauce made from Jonathan apples, its wonderfully tasty and a beautiful color to boot!

How did I ever make applesauce before the Squeezo!?!

I also had another recording session for the storytelling program at the radio station on Thursday. This was a particularly fun one as we started learning to engineer our own program. Its been a long time since I ran a sound board, but with this technology, the computer does a lot of the fiddly work for you. So really it is more learning the software, than learning about the equipment. Big thanks to Ron Sorenson for nursing this program along until we can manage it on our own.

Recording studio at KFMG