Updates from (and about) the Farm

Well folks, there's been some news. Aside from the fact that the farm is growing (like) weeds faster than anyone can imagine, it turns out the Farm is actually for sale. More specifically, the consumers' house is for sale, and along with it, the farmland. The blog may focus more on my plans to release small rodents into the consumers' house and undo the work of Jim the Critter-Gitter, just at the moment they try to show the house... Okay, seriously. I'll still update the blog until the farm is sold, and I'm still going to do some planting. But the big stuff (tomatoes especially) will find other homes. As you can imagine, I have many Feelings about this situation, but mostly I'm excited for the consumers to get central heat so I can visit them in the winter.

And without further ado, because I have got to get some work done today, here's a whole host of updated photos, including (!!) the salad stuff for my dinner tonight. Last year at this time, we hadn't even had the idea for the Farm yet, and this year dinner is already grown. Amazing.

Peas

Dinner

Broccoli

Chard

The Oak Leaf Head Lettuce, and a few carrots I thought hadn't germinated. Really? I couldn't get those things to grow last year no matter what I tried, and now, NOW, they want to grow in the lettuce. Nice.

Spinach

Strawberry with first blush

More berries

Green beans in one row and a row of surprise seeds for H.


And now for the awesome green onion flowers...

2008 Review | Green Beans

Dates and times
Officially, these are Contender bush snap garden beans, and they were planted like practically everything else on May 24th. The first bean was picked on July 11th, one week before they were scheduled to produce, based on the seed packet.


Keep or Lose?
These plants were pretty small, and I think that's mostly because they needed better soil. Planted in an area of the Farm that had more mulch and old tree stump than soil, it's kind of amazing that they grew as well as they did. That being said, the approximately 8 plants were far too few for 3 eaters who love to eat green beans. I'm going to keep these, same variety and all

,,,Changes for 2009
Way more plants. Possibly 25 might do it, but H really loves green beans, so maybe not... And of course, lots and lots of compost.

Running planting list for 2009
Wando peas
Provider green beans

Somehow I Thought Peas Only Grew Frozen or Canned

I've been avoiding the urge to post pictures of every last harvest because really, who wants to see a million colanders of lettuce? But since this is a Harvest involving the very first cuke and the very first Wando peas, I couldn't hold back. Farmer confession: not only have I never grown my own peas, I have never ever eaten a fresh, never-frozen pea in my Whole Entire Life.

I've read a lot about growing Wando peas the last few weeks, and I can tell you one thing. The fact that I even have a few to eat is one gigantic miracle. Peas like to be planted when it's cold, they can withstand frost (not only threat of but actual), and their growth slows to a crawl in the July heat. So here we are on July 21st, a full two weeks before these peas are even supposed to be ready, temps in the 80s and occasional 90s, and lo and behold, the peas are delicious, if few in number!





Farm Vitals
Yesterday's high: 85F
Yesterday's low: 63F
Warnings: Hungry Farmer On the Loose (no really, that's an official weather system warning)
Mood of the farm: growing, quickly and surely
Reason to consider a new career: None, at the moment. Suburban Gardener dropped by the Farm this weekend, and she has pronounced it Officially Not Wrecked. At least for now.

Green Thumb Sunday: Get Your Zucchini Recipes Ready Edition

Green Thumb Sunday: Get Your Zucchini Recipes Ready Edition

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Harvest Day 7/16

After a full morning of farm work, today was a Harvest Day. There were so many green beans the plants were starting to fall over. Between the Farm Harvest and the Farm box, my whole dinner was covered!




On the menu: salad greens (my farm) and spinach (my farm) with lemon-olive oil-garlic dressing, sun gold tomatoes (farm box), shaved raw beets (farm box), green beans (my farm), cucumbers (farm box), and baby shallots (farm box).

I'll get y'all an update of the Farm soon (some of the tomatoes are up to my shoulder!?).

Farm Vitals
Yesterday's high: 92F
Yesterday's low: 69F
Warnings: thunderstorms. maybe.
Mood of the farm: trying to perk up

Full Circle

I think it's only fitting that on the day my grandfather, the person who taught me everything I know about farming, died, a storm of serious proportions hit the farm. And after carefully following his many directions over the last two months that resulted from phone calls that usually went something like this: "Papa, I'm going to have a farm! What do I do?" or "So Papa, I heard people sometimes make rows on their farms. What's the deal with that?" the farm survived last night's storm like a champ. Which seems ironic, but fitting all at the same time.

Just like a real farmer, the man really knew how to rock a straw hat after a hard day of fishing for sunnies with dough.














And he had a great little hop at the end of his bowling stride. Strike every time, practically.



















So in his honor, I give you a few bits of good news from the farm, because that's the kind of thing he would appreciate.

The first Wando pea pod:























One of the mini Romaine heads:


















The Great State of the Green Beans:























The first delicious green bean:


















And a MiniCuke after a hard rain for good measure:


















Farm Vitals
Yesterday's high: 81F
Yesterday's low: 61F
Warnings: Severe storm alert
Mood of the farm: Appreciating its good start in life

Correction #487

Although I haven’t documented the other 486 errors, I feel confident that any middle school biology teacher would be able to find every one. However, I managed to find error 487 myself, and I’d like to correct it. Remember, way back when (aka 3 days ago), when I was cheering on the bees because the tomato and green bean plants had been pollinated? Yeah. Turns out, bees weren’t involved, or they might have been, but they weren’t necessary.

Here’s the deal. Some plants have male and female flowers, like squash and cucumbers, but some plants, such as tomato and bean plants, have complete flowers. The squash and cucumber variety need a pollinator, usually a bee, to transport the pollen from the male flower to the pistil of the female flower, and only female flowers result in fruit. However, plants with complete flowers have the male and female parts in the same flower, so they all make fruit once pollinated. All they need to produce fruit is a good shake from the wind usually, or from an insect nosing around the flower looking for nectar. With all the wind we’ve been having lately, it’s no wonder there are a zillion MiniTomatoes and MiniBeans on the farm…

As you can imagine, I was doing a fair amount of Farmer Worrying about this pollination situation, especially due to the rise of Colony Collapse Disorder as Dr. J so timely mentioned. If you’re not familiar with that crisis, I’ll refer you this official summary of the issue from the USDA for technical information. The short version, however, is the following: bee hives with CCD are full of juvenile honey bees and queens, but no adults. As anyone who has spent ten minutes with an adolescent knows, thousands of adolescents without adults in charge does not lead to much work getting done/honey being produced. Also, and most worrying, no one knows where the adult bees went (though worry not--your cell phone isn't to blame). Maybe their internal GPS systems got out of sync and they can't find the hive, or maybe they died somewhere. But the bottom line is that we're about to see a shortage of pollinators, and that is not good for vegetable growers. Now that I know about the complete flower situation, I’ll stop worrying about the tomatoes and beans, but I still might need to get out the q-tip and hand-pollinate the cucumbers and squash.

Farm Vitals
Yesterday's high: 82F
Yesterday's low: 64F
Warnings: farmer with a Q-tip alert
Mood of the farm: there's a lot of elbowing going on...
Reason to consider a new career: this Farmer may not be smarter than a 5th grader

It's A Green Thumb Weekend

Hey--did you know yesterday was Saturday? Apparently I didn't either, because I posted the Green Thumb Sunday then. So now you're all getting the best bonus of life. A second GTS, but this time with pictures of the first MiniVeggies of the Farm(!!). Try to contain yourselves. No really. It's exciting.



Green Thumb Sunday: Mini Vegetable Edition

Two MiniGreenBeans:


Two MiniTomatoes:

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Farm Vitals
Yesterday's high: 88F
Yesterday's low: 64F
Warnings: Thirst Alert
Mood of the farm: flowery
Reason to consider a new career: not a one

Happenings on the Farm

1.) Maisy has been digging every chance she gets when I am working on the farm and too busy to notice her antics for the last several weeks. Regardless of the yelling H, N, or I do, one particular spot, near the very edge of a piece of concrete Rosa uses as a way to keep her delicate toes dry while walking to the pit, has been the focus of her attention. This dog really only digs when she has a reason, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what it was. Until today, when I was repeatedly trying to convince my camera to focus on the Very First Green Bean of the Farm (to no avail), and Maisy finally reached Shanghai (not to be confused with Shanghai Mark, fyi Anonymous K).

Maisy digging for buried treasure:
Maisy reveals treasure, unburied:

2.) T minus 4 days until the stitches come out (just in case you were counting!). But I'm managing to take adequate care of the farm, even with an Even Cowgirls Get the Blues toe. Here, pictured between the Romaine, which decided growing might be cool after all, and the green beans, which, well, see below so I don't wreck the surprise.


3.) The Very First Green Bean of the Farm has begun! And only two days after the flowers opened. Go bees, go! Go bees, go! Sadly, my low-tech camera could not focus on this MiniBean for the life of itself. So this fuzzy picture will have to do until the bean grows big enough for my camera to think it's worthwhile... [Click for directions on where to look]


Farm Vitals
Yesterday's high: 82F
Yesterday's low: 52F
Warnings: None
Mood of the farm: Desperately seeking rain
Reason to consider a new career: None, though I am single handedly supporting the cayenne pepper industry

Flowers on the Farm. And Bees, Too.

[You know you're becoming a farmer when you start every blog post with the word "Well" that sounds like you just leaned back in your chair on the porch, stretched your arms out, cracked your knuckles, then rested your hands behind your head, and settled in for a good tale. Oh, did I mention you'd also look like a 40 year old man in overalls, chewing on a bit of straw? Farming is a life-changer...]

Well, life on the farm has had its ups and downs lately, due primarily to wildlife. Though I'm happy to say for the moment that the cayenne pepper seems to be working. On the rabbits, and also on the yellow-striped cucumber beetles. With a respite from so much nibbling, the lettuce is growing back, and nearly everything has flowers or blooms. The tomato plants (which ended up totaling 9 (9!!)) each have more than a dozen flowers on them now, so I think we're going to be swimming in tomatoes. Maybe I'll start my own farmers(s') market stand if times get desperate.

After following some of the farm blogs of the internets, I was beginning to fear there would be many flowers and nothing to pollinate them since the only things flying around my farm were mosquitoes. Luckily, and as usual, my idea of timing was a little earlier than mother nature's. When the blossoms swelled until they were about to burst, but just before they opened, the pollinators heard/sniffed the bat signal. Several kinds of bees and many wasps have been checking out the garden, which is good news for plants, farmers, and consumers (I know it takes a shift to think of wasps as good news--see what I mean about the changes involved with being a farmer??), but terrible news for Rosa, who I saw this morning getting her epi-pen refilled at the pharmacy.

I have big plans for a portion of the farm that needs the revise-and-resubmit treatment, but this post is long already... More tomorrow.

Here are the beans for a bit of color to your morning.























Farm Vitals
Yesterday's high: 76F
Yesterday's low: 51F
Warnings: Fireworks alert
Mood of the farm: buzzing with patriotism
Reason to consider a new career: bee fears and other various ridiculousnesses

Green Thumb Sunday: Everything's About to Bloom Edition

Green Thumb Sunday











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Farm Vitals
Yesterday's high: 72F
Yesterday's low: 58F
Warnings: Great Day for Growing Alert
Mood of the farm: still flamboyant, in honor of the festivities
Reason to consider a new career: near heart attack following tomato transplanting. But fear not--all looks well!

My How You've Grown

Friends, Farmers, Pioneers, and Countrymen!

I returned to the farm last night after a six day hiatus, and I cannot even begin to describe the changes. If I'm not careful, I'm afraid this post could stretch on for days and days. So to get everyone up to speed, I thought a newspaper headline approach might be best...

Farmer Gower's Tomatoes Demonstrate Resilience in Non-Human Species
(page A-1, above the fold)
Just a week ago, these were the cold, stunted tomato plants I almost pulled out. Now they're out of hibernation and growing with gusto. As much as it pains me to say it because she does not need one additional ounce of encouragement, Suburban Farmer was *cough*right*cough*. Farming takes patience, and this farmer needs to find some stat.

Intensive Cultivation Method Proves Once Again Farmer Has a Lot to Learn
(page A-1, below the fold)

Folks, I've already admitted my less-than-accurate impression of the probability of planted seeds growing. I get it. They grow. All of them. But now I am left with this mess, which I really have no idea how to thin. I'm going to give it a shot this weekend, and will of course keep you posted. The good news, I guess, is that the carrots have now sprouted too along with the spinach.

Beans and Peas as High as a MiniChuck's Eye, and It Looks Like They're Climbing Clear Up to the Sky
(page A-2)


Rabbits Weep at Edge of Fence Keeping Them From Lettuce Bounty
(page A-4)
I think the first salad leaves will be ready to pick in a week or two. At least the chilly spring weather was good for one crop. The Romaine will take a little longer, but not much.

Strawberries, Watermelon, Zucchini, and Onions Keep on Keepin' On
(page A-10)

Weeds Threaten to Overtake Farm, Require Immediate Attention
(page B-1, above the fold, city section)
For instance, have a look around this bunch of carrot seedlings. I know what I'll be doing this weekend.


Neighbors Report Disturbance at 419; Farmer Found Shouting, Dancing a Jig in Joy, Surveying Her Bounty
(page C-18, Police Blotter)
The farm in the first rays of morning sun, after reuniting with its Farmer and a good soak from the hose (side note: Farmer can't believe there are places where you still have to water after her excursion to the rest of the midwest). Cages placed on tomatoes that are staying for the whole summer. Tomatoes without cages better shape up or risk replacement, though the jury is still out. Herb Report and Volunteer Update later this week.

Farm Vitals
Yesterday's high: 78F
Yesterday's low: 53F
Warnings: none
Mood of the farm: joyful at the return of the farmer (if I may be so modest)
Reason to consider a new career: the spinach and carrot fiasco is a little humbling...