Seeds!

The seeds have arrived. It was a nice relaxing afternoon as I weeded the high tunnel. To my surprise the seeds arrived today! I limed the beds to reduce the ph levels and I was on my way. Today I planted the squash, zucchini, pole beans and bush beans. Tonight when it cools I will plant the pumpkins. All of these seeds are overdue for planting since our shipment was late, so hopefully if the weather cooperates, they will harvest! The pumpkins will definately be post halloween so we will miss out on that sell at market.

I finished canning the figs! I hope I never talk about figs again while I am here. The fig chutney did not turn out to my liking. For some reason the vinegar taste did not boil off or mix in and I feel that taste overpowers the rest. The fig preserves on the other hand are superb. I'm not really sure that I cooked them right. I don't think I got the jelling point correct. So I will have to reference mom on that one since she is the jelly expert. Picture is cannning mid-process. It is 98 outside and 93 in my apt with the A/C and two fans on. Ahhh!

I picked a humungo, if that is a word, cucumber today and filled it with a recipe from Mollie Katzen. Contents: feta, garlic, parsley, walnuts, milk
We are headed over to the Walker farm today to pick corn!!!

Can you do the can can?

Canning supplies... Check
Victim.... figs

Gosh, I have spent the past hour looking for the perfect fig chutney recipe to make with these figs and have heeded advice for mom and can't seem to find one to use. So, I think I am goin gto do two batches. Though this is more tedious and time consuming, I have nothing but time here and two different flavors for two different occasions. I borrow all of Cindy's canning supplies and know that I will heat myself out of this little house I am in, but it is worth it for the fig! Hopefully this will only beginning of my canning and I hope to go mad with it while I am here to preserve as much unused food as possible. Then I will be able to share all of the goods with all of you!

Cindy also asked me today to develop some recipes and ideas for the fall market as to what we can make and sell with our growth. We are meeting on Monday to share plans. I am excited to get my hands dirty and start cooking!

I just made a gluten free pizza crust and am relaxing for a bit while the dough rises. I'm going to uses some of last season's canned pesto from our basil and pecans as the base of the pizza and then veg from our local farms. Can't wait!

Love to you all!

A hard days work.

Today we finished our double dig. 16 trenches later, we are all exhausted and ready to never dig for the rest of the season, or at least the rest of the day!

After we were done I slept the rest of the afternoon, my limbs had gone to jello and my brain to mush. I don't think it could have been accomplished if Brandon's muscle wasn't here.

My seeds were supposed to arrive today, but I will still have to anxiously await for they haven't come yet. I expect to go to a neighbors organic farm tomorrow and pick some corn. How nice to would be to have to fresh corn for some new dishes.
I've been sticking to eat what is available here and am starting to get bored of the same varieties of food. My $20 budget went over my first week by only $2, I have Woodchuck to thank for that, and went over by $10 this week with Brandon here. I'm still going to try to stick to it!

Fresh Figs!

It has already been so encouraging having Brandon here! He is good motivation to keep me plugging away at the double digging. We finished about 2/3 of the plot today and hopefully finish it up tomorrow. We were extremely exahusted on this 95 degree day after we were done and have settled in the A/C for a bit.
We all headed over to a neighbors house and demolished some fig picking. I'm not sure if one fig was left after our five person pick. They are so ripe they fall right off the tree. With one bite you taste the sweetest of liquid run through your mouth. We collected about five bags and I hope to make some fig chutney to eat for breakfast. Food doesn't get much better than this!
A little treat. Cindy will finish bottlingn up her Muscadine (grapes) wine tonight and I hope to have some for dinner, as they have invited us over. It will be no French wine but I'm sure to enjoy the local flavor.

Brandon's Here!

The boy is here! I picked him up from Augusta airport and now we are on our way. Here's a picture of his first pick, some cucumbers that we ate for din. We're planning on some fireworks and listening to some vinyls on the back porch. Happy Fourth!

Hello Kev!

All dug up!

Today was extremely busy in and out of the field! This morning we aimed to get as much hard labor done before the heat! Humidity brings bugs here and boy were there gnats. After coming inside I could still hear the ringing in my ears from the constant 5 hour hum of them they so nicely gave me this morning. Tyler and I built trenches this morning. We are starting to prepare the plot for my outside vegetables by a method called double digging, not to be confused with double dipping. So this method seems quite simple but unfortunately the ground is rock solid that it takes much longer and we are doing everything by man power and no machines. More man power = bigger muscles, beware! First thing we did was lay out our plot which is 70 x 9. A decent size, actually a bit larger than I was originally hoping. I am still a bit overwhelmed by this plot and the hightunnel. Fortunately, the growing season of what will be planted on each piece of land is differing so my focus can really remain on one at a time besides typical maintenance. So the method of double digging is to dig one foot deep and 23 inches wide and put that topsoil (actually sand) to the side since it shouldn't be mixed with the lower dirt (actually sand/clay). Then with the lower dirt we use a specific type of fork to loosen the next foot of sand/clay that we have. After it is loose we put a four inch layer of mulch and then put the topsoil back on. Then repeat for what seemed the rest of my life! We only completed three since the process took so long! The purpose of this was to add rich nutrients back to the soil. Now since you are so bored from the double dig a picture may suffice.

After the my siesta I went into the heat to use the measuring wheel to measure the existing veg in the hightunnel. I had to map out where to plant the new seed for the hightunnel and outside plot, which I should call the orchard plot. I also had to write out a growing chart and schedule as to when each veg is grown and how long it takes to mature to keep on top of it! Here are my schedules, hard to see but definately my lifelines! The top is a map of the hightunnel and the highlighted portion is existing veg. The middle is the orchard plot mapped out and the bottom is my veg with their varieties, growing dates, etc.

I was a bit distracted during my work as Lincoln was starring at me through the window. I went out to give him a treat and he disregarded after one bite and just sneezed on me. That stink! So I gave the treats to Jackson instead and now Lincoln is mad at me.





Gettin' Fresh

Tonight we had a potluck! Once a month all of the coastal organic farmers in the area come together and have a pot luck full of luscious food harvested from their own fields. Fresh food tastes better! My tastes buds were dancing tonight as they were tickled with the likes of figs, cucumbers, rabbit, beef, eggs, leeks and watermelon. Every dish was even better than the previous and I just fancied this function for the fact that all of the dishes were extremely creative and inventive. Having people share a passion for good food with real ingredients, as I do, was breath taking. I was really able to network with many farmers here and have set dates to visit all of the farms to experience what it is like to work and be there. To my surprise there was a small handful of people my age there since the average age of the farmers were all in the sixties. I really enjoyed showing and touring our farm and letting people see the hard work that I have put in. I was able to meet with the owner of walker farm where I heeded much advice as how to turn my sand ground into something productive for my vegetables. An update on my hightunnel growing, I have picked out all of my varieties of veg and am ordering tomorrow! Jerry came back and taught another mini course on pruning, which took place during a lightening storm. I seemed to be the only person to be nervous about getting struck since we were standing with iron poles and metal beams. I quickly wimped out and sought shelter in the main house. Here’s Jerry, in his element,  pruning a peach tree and a blackberry bush.

In all, this was a wonderful event that fed me a bunch of energy for this upcoming week! Here’s a picture of Larry and Cindy the farmers at my farm and Tyler and I, the apprentices.