Papa's MiniFarm

Snapped these with my cell phone camera, so the quality is terrible, but you'll get the idea. I sure hope I'm still growing tomatoes that look this delicious at 79.

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

Not To Brag...

...but I just made the best dinner of life with stuff from the farm (all the salad greens and spinach!) and stuff from the farm box (parsley).















Spinach and Greens with Lemon Olive Oil Dressing
Parsley Gremolata
Shrimp with Garlic White Wine Sauce

My How You've Bolted

The spinach is officially done for the season. There's nothing t o be ashamed of--everyone's spinach bolts eventually. And the super-late frosts we had this year meant that there was only a short season of the cool weather growing season spinach needs. Here's what it looks like once it bolts to the sky:




















I pulled all of it except one lone spinach plant that hasn't bolted yet, and even though it's supposed to be bitter, I'm going to eat it anyway. I think it's a little bit like a parent who loves her kid even when the kid has the stomach flu. I'm in this farming gig for the long haul, so there are some Trials that I'll need to experience along the way. I'm thinking a good amount of lemon, garlic, and olive oil ought to make these trials easier to swallow.















In other news, I'm sure glad the farm is growing like crazy, but it's looking a bit crowded, no? Luckily, there's enough room for flowers on the watermelon and cucumbers!



























Farm Vitals
Yesterday's high: 83F
Yesterday's low: 64F
Warnings: Crowding alert
Mood of the farm: full of anti-garage thoughts and Feelings
Reason to consider a new career: oh the crowding!

Who's Got Feelings?

Today on the Farm, the cucumbers and watermelon plants were really showing off all their fancy feelers (in farmer-speak, these would be called tendrils, btw). Think their Feelings are nearly as fancy?





Oh yeah, and the Wando Peas are finally budding. What was taking so long, I do not know... Actually what might have been taking so long is all the energy they put into growing their billion tendrils. Talk about Feelings! The peas totally beat the pants off the cukes and watermelon in the Feelings Department.


Farm Vitals
Yesterday's high: 91F
Yesterday's low: 70F
Warnings: Thunder and lightning, very very frightening
Mood of the farm: Bursting with Feelings. And MiniVeggies (almost a dozen green beans now!)
Reason to consider a new career can be summed up in one word: anthropomorphizing

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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Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

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