Update on the farm market

We went to the farm market today to pay our last respects. 

While we were there I talked to the young lady checking us out at the register.  I asked if there had been any developments since Wednesday's meeting.  She wasn't completely up to speed on everything that's going on, but she seemed to think that although they're closing today, there's a chance they may be saved somehow. 

I don't know what's going to happen.  I guess it'll come out through emails and/or Facebook.

Can we save our local farm market?

As I mentioned last week, our local food market (note: different than a grocery store) is closing down in a few days.  Apparently, there had been an outpouring of concern, sadness, and frustration at the news from a number of people in the community besides us.

There was a gathering there Wednesday evening for a brainstorming session to try to figure out a path forward such that we could continue to have healthy largely-organic food in our area.

There were approximately 60 people there including the mayor of the town and county congresspeople there.  We learned that there were two primary reasons it's closing down.

• The owner is burnt out from trying to keep both the farm in the lower part of the county and the market in the northern part both up, running, stocked and staffed.
• By insisting on paying good wages (read: a good bit over minimum), insisting on only stocking largely-organic food from the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and having reasonably high energy costs (no LED lights) the margin of profit has always been slim.  With sales being less this year than last, he was not digging out from his loans.

The owner wants to help continue to make good food available in the northern part of the county even if he's not running his business here any more.  To that end, he's willing to donate all the fixtures, cash registers, refrigerators and freezers to a successor.  Apparently, he's had some conversations with the landlord who is willing to "work with us" to try to maintain a presence there in that storefront.

After a lot of conversation, it sounds like there's a movement to investigate the feasibility of converting the business into a CO-OP.  Based on some inputs from some seemingly-knowledgeable people in the meeting, converting that store into a non-profit provides a number of advantages that the current owner's for-profit business cannot take advantage of.

It'll be interesting to see how things progress going forward.  At least this gives us some hope.

Additional crops for this year - the seed orders are in!

After doing my research for the last few weeks, I just placed my seed orders for this year with Southern Exposure and Baker Creek.

Garden Crops - Southern Exposure - $58.40

• Beans - Dean's Purple Pole Beans
• Beans - Scarlet Runner
• Kale - Lacinato
• Spinach - Long Standing Bloomsdale
• Heat tolerant greens - Jewels of Opar
• Okra - Fife Creek Cow Horn
• Onions - Yellow Potato
• Peanuts - Carwile's Virginia
• Bell Peppers - Napoleon Sweet
• Winter Radish - Black Spanish Round
• Tomato - Old Virginia
• Tomato - San Marzano
• Corn - Black Mexican

Orchard - Baker Creek - $46.50

• Dwarf Everbearing Mulberry
• Hardy Kiwi

The orders totaled about what they have been the last couple of times (about $100), but this total is as high as they are because I ordered a few things that are pricey, but that I shouldn't have to order again.  The Yellow Potato Onions are multipliers (similar my Egyptian Walking Onions) so, in theory, that should keep us in onions for the future.  The Kiwi vines and Mulberry bushes will go in the orchard to produce for the future, as well.  I hope to be able to finally do more seed saving on vegetables besides beans this year.

In addition to what I ordered, I have some leftover seeds from last year's plantings that I intend to put to use again.

• Radish - French Breakfast
• Radish - Cherry Belle
• Carrots - Little Finger
• Carrots - Cosmic Purple
• Carrots - Scarlet Nantes
• Cucumbers - Edmonson
• Tomatillo - Tomate Verde
• Musk Melon - Anne Arundel
• Tomato - Black Vernissage
• Artichoke - Green Globe (from seed)
• Pumpkin  Winter Luxury Pie
• Zucchini - Costata Romanesca
• Brussels Sprouts - Catskill (Long Island Improved)
• Flowers - Marigold (Spanish Brocade)
• Flowers - Carnation (Chabaud Picotee Fantasy)
• Flowers - Chamomile (German)
• Flowers - Sweet William
• Herbs - Hyssop
• Herbs - Basil (Bollo Napoletano)
• Herbs - Calendula (Resina) 

Lastly, I'd like to grow Ginger and Turmeric.  We use a fair amount of Ginger and are starting to use more Turmeric for the passive health benefits (rather than flavor).  I have yet to find a source for those roots.  I need to research whether I can simply buy the roots from the grocery store (similar to what I've done with Garlic) and get them to grow on their own.

Transplanting Bay Laurel Cuttings

While visiting my in-laws this past weekend, I noticed that my wife's aunt and uncle have a nice potted Bay Laurel tree in their dining room standing approximately 4' tall and 2' wide in a 5 gallon pot.  Although I understand it had recently been on death's doorstep from someone over-watering it, it appeared to be bouncing back nicely.

I complimented them on the tree and they asked if I wanted some cuttings.  Given we had a baby Bay Laurel that died this past year, I eagerly accepted.

Yesterday afternoon, I retrieved the two cuttings from the wet paper towels they had been wrapped in.  I wet both stems then dipped them in rooting compound per the instruction.  After tapping off the excess, I put them both in a pot of potting soil and watered the soil a bit.  Because I think our water softener is killing the plants, I obtained the water from one of the dehumidifiers in the basement.

Hopefully, the transplants take.  I would have felt a lot more comfortable if I'd had 3-4 cuttings, but at least 2 is better than none.

I did some reading this morning and saw that Bay Laurels can live outside to hardiness Zone 7 or 8 depending on where the information comes from.  If I have success in getting these cuttings to take root, I'd like to try getting other cuttings to grow and try growing the tree outdoors.  I'm not going to try that with either of these, though.

More Bluebird house info

I talked to my mother-in-law after doing my previous post about setting up Bluebird houses on our property.

It turns out that my in-laws have a few Bluebird houses on their property, as well.  In talking to her, she confirmed that having the houses about 6' up with the holes facing east/southeast is necessary for protection from wind.  She also mentioned that she wraps them in electrical tape when she cleans them out because in her first year of having them up, a predator (racoon, probably) pried up the front flap and got at the eggs.

Seeing my in-laws' Bluebird houses where they are gives me hope that I don't absolutely have to have them set up in a complete clearing.  Although their property doesn't have a lot of undergrowth, it's also not fully cleared, either.  I think I have more options for where I can place bluebird houses than I initially thought.

Setting up Bluebird houses

When we were looking for our house, Wifey and I envisioned getting property that had a lot of wildlife on it.  Although we have a little over 3 acres, other than stuff living on the ground there doesn't seem to be an abundance of flying critters.  That's something I want to remedy.

A few years ago someone gave us a Bluebird house to mount.  We never did so I've been researching what's involved.

From what I'm reading, it needs to be mounted on a metal pole 5' - 15' above the ground in an open area.  It's recommended to not mount it on a tree so as to not attract predators or competing bird species. 

It's recommended to mount the opening toward the short ground cover so the bird can look for food from inside.  Its also a good idea to have a small shrub or two within 100' so baby birds have somewhere to fly and hide when they first leave the nest.  Having it face generally east is a good idea to help protect the opening from harsh winds.  In our new neighborhood, we have most of our storms either come up the East Coast from the south or from the west.  I'll probably face the bird house toward the east.

The North American Bluebird Society recommends mounting the bluebird house prior to when bluebirds are looking for new homes.  Since they are looking for a home when the weather turns warm in the end of March it's recommended to mount the house in February.

I've read that if you want multiple houses, you want them 125+ yards apart.

I guess I have some thinking to do as far as where I can put the bird house. 

Aronia developments

I’ve heard back from the PhD Botanist and traded a few emails back and forth.

Apparently, Aronia (aka Black Chokeberry) is a relative of apples and pears.  Since those are intolerant of juglone, his supposition was that Aronia would be as well.

In some good news, he offered me a few Aronia plants in March to see if they can/will survive in my orchard before I invest in others.  I will tag up with him then.

The loss of a good market

I learned yesterday that the market I'd hoped/planned on using to sell excess produce will be closing down at the end of December. 

I knew it was a possibility a few weeks ago when we popped in one evening and I talked to the manager there.  I'd wanted to talk to her to learn more about what produce they do and don't have need of for sale.  She confided in me that there was a chance that they would be closing down.  They'd been open for just under 3 years and although business had been good for the first year, sales this past year were half of the previous.

Apparently, the owner had borrowed heavily to buy a farm for the market as well as to rent out the market up in our northern part of the county.

She (the manager) told me that if I wanted to drive to the southern part of the county (35 min one way) that they were certainly willing to sell my produce, but that since it's a bit of a hike, she would understand if I didn't want to.

After looking at the maps, it looks like the drive south would add only another 15 min to the drive.  It's less convenient to do it, but hardly back-breaking.

Regardless of the sales potential, it'll be a loss to not have that store available nearby.  It was always a nice market to go to for locally grown and locally made food products and was colorfully-decorated and a pleasant space to frequent.

Keeping harvested broccoli

Last Friday I wrote that Wifey had done a winter harvest of carrots, broccoli, kale, spinach, and a few peanuts.

Until yesterday, we'd eaten everything she had harvested with the broccoli being the exception.  Given we weren't sure how long it would be before we ate the broccoli, we had wanted to stretch it as long as possible.  Wifey had read that one way to keep broccoli is to trim the base of the stalk then put the stem in a vessel of water to help keep it from rotting.

Having done that, we finally had the broccoli with dinner last night.  It was still in fantastic shape almost a week later and everyone except The Bear (who refuses to eat anything green besides guacamole) liked it.

Happy Solstice!

I realize the Winter Solstice isn’t really a holiday commonly celebrated by many people, but I think it’s notable because it’s the shortest day of the year.

For me, that’s great news.  Days will start getting longer.  We are going to start heading toward warmer weather and the growing seasons that come with that weather.

Adding to the orchard

Although there are a lot of options for permanent plantings of fruit, some are things I don’t see us eating very much of.

Things I definitely want to do:

• Plant some more raspberries in the row. 
• I think two more purple raspberries and a few (< 4) more red raspberries.
• Plant two more blueberry bushes.
• Plant two Asian persimmon trees.
• We like the consistency of the Asian persimmons.  We don't like that you need the American variety to be mushy before they're considered edible.  I don't see us ever needing more than 2 trees of this.

Things under consideration:

• Plant 2 mulberry bushes.
• They're tolerant of Black Walnut (juglone).
• They can get rather tall so they need to be "topped" to maintain the desirable height.
• Since they send suckers, there's no need to plant more than a minimum.
• The fruit helps strengthen eyesight, is loaded in resveratol (excellent vs cancer), good as  brain tonic, has protein, and is generally good for your immune system and digestion.
• Plant 4 Aronia (aka Black Chokeberry) bushes.
• They are a natural understory planting and work well at the edge of the woodland.
• Debatable whether they can be planted near to black walnut -- I have sent an email to a botanist PhD about that.
• Fruit are high in antioxidants as well as vitamins (especially C) and minerals.
• Plant 2-4 Elderberries.
• They're tolerant of Black Walnut (juglone).
• Fragrant, edible flowers along with the fruit.
• Berries contain Vitamin A and B and more vitamin C than oranges, also loaded with antioxidants.  They also have been used to treat respiratory problems as well as cold and flu.
• Need to be two+ varieties to ensure pollination, fruit development.
• Plant kiwi vines.
• Unknown whether they can grow near Black Walnut.
• Commercial growers use two ~6' tall T-shaped structures 15'-25' apart with cables stretched between them.
• You need male and female vines to pollinate.  A single male plant can pollinate up to 6 female plants.  Baker Creek sells packs of 2 female and 1 male plants.  I'd buy two of these sets and plant them on opposing ends of the structure with the idea of growing them toward one another.

Increasing food prices?

I goofed up my packed lunch today.  I mistakenly thought that a container of leftover Bolognese sauce was chili.  Oops.

On a hunt for something reasonably healthy and inexpensive, I went to a local Subway to grab a sandwich.  A flyer they had on display caught my eye, though.

I'm somewhat skeptical that the prices of tomatoes tripled overnight.  Yes, there have been snowstorms in the midwest already, but I have a hard time believing that tomato prices were teetering on the brink of a price hike but the last snow in Detroit made somebody say,"That's it!  We've had it!  Stop the presses!  We're tripling tomato prices, dad gum it!"

All that being said, if tomato prices really are considerably higher than they were 8 months ago, that's pretty notable.

And it makes me even more determined to get more into seed saving in the future.  If I can keep doing that, I'll be even more independent of external pricing.  Should I be able to grow in excess of what the family needs, then maybe we can take advantage of that.

Updating orchard fruit locations

I've beginning doing some planning for what else we can plant in the orchard.  That made me realize it's been a bit since I've updated the fruit layout.

The last time I updated the fruit layout was October 2, 2016 for the apple trees.  A lot has changed over there since then, namely 6 blueberry bushes, 4 purple raspberry canes, and 6 red raspberry canes.

Below is what we have now.

As with before, the red circles represent the black walnut trees (juglone = bad for some plants) and yellow show the apple trees.  The new additions are for blue are the blueberry bushes, purple are for the purple raspberries, and pink are the red raspberries.

A winter harvest

Today while The Bear was taking his nap, Wifey and The Boy went into the garden to retrieve some kale and spinach.  Our high temps are starting to reliably stay down in the 30s and since I never got around to setting up a cold frame (again....), we were afraid of losing our greens.

What they retrieved was much more than just kale and spinach.

From upper right (clockwise): broccoli, sweet potatoes, peanuts, Scarlet Nantes carrots, Cosmic Purple carrots

Perhaps it was because we've had a few frosts, but both varieties of carrots were amazingly sweet in flavor.  Even Wifey who isn't much of a carrot fan enjoyed snacking on them and asked if we could grow them again.  "They were so much fun to harvest!"

After cleaning the peanuts, Wifey and I roasted them in the oven at 350 degrees with a dusting of salt on them.  We left them overnight on the baking sheet and will try them out. 

In addition to what's in the picture, they also harvested a considerable amount of kale and spinach.  After we cleaned everything and ran it all through the salad spinner to remove excess water, we have two gallon bags each of kale and spinach.  Some will be eaten fresh, some will go in smoothies, and some will likely be frozen.  From what I'm told, there is still some smaller kale and spinach left in the garden.

2017 - Looking back, part 3

This continues the series looking back at our crop-list for 2017.  The first post is found here and the second is here.

Food Production
Unfortunately, we didn't weigh and catalog everything we harvested; there were times when Wifey would harvest something and not get a picture or times we'd get something for a recipe (or fresh eating) and not get a picture.  For example, there have been a number of salads and smoothies made using the spinach, kale, and/or lettuce with no accounting of how much was used.  Looking back, we regret not cataloging what we grew.  It's really nice to have an idea of how much money we saved (or not) vs buying at a market.

We'll have to resume that in the future.


Food Preservation
Tomatoes
Wifey canned 52 quarts of tomatoes as well as 7 quarts and 2 pints of marinara sauce.  There is also a 1/2 gallon of frozen cherry tomatoes.  Lastly, we have 2 quart bags of frozen marinara sauce.

Beans
We have 1 gallon bag as well as 10 quart bags of frozen green beans.  All have been trimmed and blanched to make for easy cooking when we need them.

Nuts
We have a gallon bag of float-tested hickory nuts (in shell) as well as 2 quart bags of shelled hickory nuts.  All the hickory nuts are in one freezer or another.

Apples
Although we didn't harvest any of our own, we made a couple of trips in the fall to Larriland Farm and picked apples there.  We dehydrated two gallon bags of sliced apples for snacking and addition to oatmeal.  The apples also provided for a lot of our breakfasts and lunches over the last two months.  Hopefully, I'll be able to do similar posts referencing our own apples instead.

We received a pretty blanket...

....of snow.

Although it wasn't anywhere as much as predicted, it's enough to put a hush over our area.  I've always found that acoustic dampening during snowfall and shortly afterward to be peaceful.  I hope to expand that feeling to the kids for them to enjoy and appreciate for years to come.

This snow will only last for a few days as the temps are supposed to back up into the upper 40's in the few days but I'll sure enjoy it while we have it.

2017 - Looking back, part 2

This continues the series looking back at our crop-list for 2017.  The first post is found here.

The Weather
This year the weather was interesting.  Not the norm.  I'll quote the intro page of the Southern Exposure Seed Catalog.

It's been another interesting weather year - in Virginia, we had a mild summer, with only a few hot spells.  Then August here was downright cold, staying in the 70s and 80s, and that slowed down our heat-loving crops[.]  Warm early fall weather helped us get some harvests off these crops, but still had is longing for a more "normal" summer next year!

Although we are in Maryland instead of Virginia, we had similar weather with similar results.

Crop List
Peanuts
We purchased a peanut starter for The Boy's part of the garden from a local food market that trends heavily toward organics.  It grew and looked great, but we didn't harvest it until it was too late.  All the peanuts rotted in the ground.  I think it'd be worth trying to grow another in the future.

Corn
We grew a variety of open pollinated sweet corn called Aunt Mary's.  We've never grown corn before.  Although the corn got nice and tall and had a number of well-formed ears, they tasted very starchy.  It never got sweet.

Lettuce, Spinach, and Kale
We grew Black-Seeded Simpson Lettuce, Long Standing Bloomsdale Spinach, Lacinato (Dinosaur) Kale, and Red Malabar Salad Greens (summer spinach).  I would grow all but the Red Malabar again; the leaves tasted like dirt.  I only ate it raw, but really didn't care for it in the least.  Didn't bother trying to cook it.  It's a shame.  I liked the idea of a heat-tolerant spinach variety.  That said, it was pretty.  I liked the purple vines it grew on.

Carrots
We grew Scarlet Nantes and Cosmic Purple carrots.  The Nantes were tasty and grew well in our soil.  Due to my goof in planting -- accidentally mulched over them preventing them from doing anything -- we didn't get any of the Cosmic variety.  I'll try both again.

Sweet Potatoes
Holy cow, did we ever get sweet potatoes.  We had never grown them before and had no idea what to expect.  We weren't sure when to harvest them due to there being varying info available on the internet and in my gardening books.  As a result, we have some huge ones as well as some smaller ones and they are everywhere in the garden.  It would have been even worse if we hadn't cut them way back a few times.

Wifey is convinced we will find them in the asparagus bed and far garden path for years to come.  I have a hard time disagreeing with her.

Others
I'd intended to grow some other things -- brussels sprouts, cantaloupe, zucchini -- but because almost all of our starters died (I think from the water softener), we had to go with what we could get from the food market that we trusted.  Most places we could get plant starters beyond there sell GMO stuff.  Won't do that.

Front Bed
We converted the front planter bed from overgrown juniper bushes and scrubby ornamental pines to a permaculture bed.  We planted a dwarf Kieffer pear tree, four artichoke starters, and a number of herbs.  I'm happy to report that the pear tree did well and produced over a dozen large, tasty pears in its first year.  The artichokes survived and have been mulched to try to help them survive the winter.  Most of the herbs we planted survived with a few perishing.  In the spring, I'll be evaluating what did and didn't make it through the winter and plant more to supplement.

The Kieffer pear sent out a shoot (a sucker, I guess) from the base.  I've removed it, got some fledgling roots to come from it, and planted it in a pot (currently in the garage to overwinter) and am hoping I can get it to survive another year with the idea of planting it elsewhere in the yard in the future.

Others
Nut Trees
We discovered that we have 3-4 pig nut hickory trees in the side yard going to the orchard.  We have harvested, float tested, dried, shelled and consumed the nuts and have been pleasantly surprised by the maple flavor they have.

Peach Tree
Wifey did some reading and found that by thinning the extensive peach growth on the dwarf tree we have in the front year, you will end up encouraging the peaches that are left to grow to an edible size.  Although there appeared to be some merit to that theory, she didn't discover that nugget until later in the summer so the results are still somewhat inconclusive.  We're looking forward to thinning things out considerably earlier this year.

Citrus Plants
Wifey and the kids got me two tiny citrus plants last winter.  Neither survived.  I can't help but wonder if they succumbed to the same water-related issues as my seed starters.  I'd like to try one more plant in the future to see if my theory that watering with the condensed water from the dehumidifier fixes that problem.

Oh, yeahhhhhh....

Wifey's a funny bird.

Upon checking the mail, she said, "After we get the kids inside and showered, I think you're going to need a few moments to yourself."

I was bewildered until I saw what she was holding.

Welcome back, family.

We spent the weekend out of state with the inlaws.  Upon getting back and unpacking the car, we did some yard work.  Among other winterizing tasks, Wifey and I finished putting the deer netting around the apple trees.  That's a load off my mind!

For our hard work, God rewarded us with a beautiful sunset that my picture can't possibly do justice.

Figuring out why our indoor plants die

I've been thinking.  Last year almost all of my plant starters died.  I never had that problem in the townhouse.  We also had two fledgling geraniums, a baby bay laurel, and two citrus plants die.

We don't overwater, occasionally fertilize with organic fertilizer, don't put the plants in direct sunlight (that don't want it), and maintain proper temperatures for them.

I don't know why I think so, but I think it's our water that's causing the problems.  We have hard water at our house which has caused problems with mineral buildup in some of the water lines.  To address this, we had a salt water softener installed.  I've assumed that the tech who did the work calibrated the unit to provide the proper amount of salinity to the water, but I'm not so sure.

To test it going forward, I'm going to solely water our plants with water obtained from the dehumidifiers in the basement.

I'm also going to do some digging into how to control the softener control system.

Oh, it's so on!

While at work yesterday afternoon, I got a text message from Wifey.  It contained a picture and a funny and cheeky message.

She's a funny one, that bride of mine.

It's too early to plant any seeds (unless it's for spring planting), but it's still interesting and a little exciting to get my seed catalogs.  I can't blame her for being bemused with the "kid in the candy shop" mentality I exhibit both as I start perusing the options and once I get close to deciding on what to get and plant.

I generally don't start the seeds until right around the beginning of January.  Regardless, I'll likely be ordering seeds within the next few weeks.