Sweet Local Farm

Back in September, I planted about 10 heads of garlic. They started growing a few weeks after that and were one of the first signs of green in the garden this spring. The garlic scapes arrived about a month ago and were delicious in salads and stir fries. I wasn’t quite sure when it would be time to harvest the garlic, but I read that it can be pulled when the bottom leaves have gone brown, but there are still about 5 green leaves left on each plant.

The garlic looked ready to be picked so we got to work with trowels and gently dug up each bulb.

Luke loves garlic!

Each clove of garlic planted last fall grew into a head.

We ended up pulling about a hundred heads. The best will be saved for next year’s planting.

Hardneck garlic is more cold tolerant and better suited to growing in our climate. The heads tend to be smaller than the average garlic you find in the supermarket.

We brushed off the dirt, trimmed the roots, and braided the garlic into bunches.

We laid the garlic braids on a drying rack on our covered front porch to cure and dry out.

Growing garlic ended up being very easy and low maintenance and we will surely grow it every year!

I haven’t tried this recipe, but hot damn it looks good! Check it out:

Pea Pickles! Sweet, Crunchy, Pickled Sugar Snaps

The black raspberries are ripening all over our farm these days. This morning I got up early and picked all the ripe black berries. I wasn’t sure if I’d have enough to make jam but there were more than enough with plenty left over to ripen in the next few days. I found this recipe on marthastewart.com.

It looked easy enough so I got to work boiling away my jars and mixing up the berries and sugar. I always put less sugar than recipes call for just because I don’t like thinking about how much sugar there is in the jam when I’m eating it.

I used a food mill to strain out the seeds.

Two and a quarter pounds of berries:

Sterilizing the jars:

Jam bubbling away:

Sterilizing the filled jars:

The jam came out delicious!

In recent years we’ve seen increased momentum behind the local food movement, which naturally leads to more support and awareness for the local Farmers Market. With their rise in popularity, Farmers Markets are taking to the web to gain more traction with their ever growing customer base.

We’ve scoured Facebook for the most popular and supported Farmers Market pages, focusing on why people ‘like’ them so much.

To read more, visit this article on Antler’s Blog

Our poor hens are the victims of brutality by their rooster flockmates. The roosters tread on the chicken’s backs which causes their feathers to fall out exposing raw skin. It looks painful and sore. We considered removing the roosters from the same enclosure as the hens, but the roosters provide protection against predators such as hawks.

When researching the problem, I came across a product called the Hensaver. It is a canvas saddle that protects the hens from the talons of the roosters and allows their feathers to regrow. I started out by buying one to see if it would fit properly and work with our hens. I have to admit, it wasn’t easy to put on the hen. We even had help from our friend Matt who held the chicken as Luke and I debated about how to put it on her. It has been on for about a week now and although she freaked out and walked backwards for a day, it seems to be working. I ordered a few more today in some different sizes and colors.

Crazy K Farm, the makers of Hensaver, also rescue farm and domestic animals and let them live out their lives in peace, so I’m happy to support them!

Here is a video about the farm:

A few weeks ago I bought a short leader hose to connect the faucet to the hose reel. After removing the packaging and installing it, I was shocked to read a small warning label on the back of the cardboard that said the hose contains lead and wasn’t safe for drinking. I started to wonder if all the money and time I spend to garden organically was in vain because I’ve been poisoning my garden with lead…

Read more about lead in garden hoses here.

The greenhouse got some major TLC today. It was thoroughly weeded, weed wacked, and vented. Right now it is planted with 10 different varieties of tomatoes, jalapeno and habanero peppers. Everything seems to be flourishing in the heat, but as the season progresses, the heat will be too much for the plants. So, we rolled up the plastic walls to let in the breeze and let out the heat. The plants are already flowering so we hope to be eating our homegrown tomatoes soon!

Luke ties the tomatoes to string supports with strips of t-shirt material.

Luke has been busy building support structures for the garden. He recently built a towering cherry tomato trellis and a cucumber trellis. Cherry tomatoes benefit from being trellised because they are usually determinate which means they grow like a vine and cannot support themselves.

The trellis is constructed of tree trunks that we took down last fall and dried out, pieces of recycled fence, and string.

The cherry tomato plants are still small. We will start training them up the string as they grow taller.

Cucumbers also benefit from being trellised. They keep the vines and fruit off the ground which protects them from moisture and bugs. We built this trellis out of scrap wood from our pergola project and a length of wire fence.

The cucumbers are planted under the base of the trellis so they will naturally grow up through the fence.

I found two baby robins that fell from their nest. One was injured and couldn’t move well. I was worried that if I left them in the field the neighborhood cats, or hawks, or foxes would get them. I made the decision to put them in a box lined with hay and bring them up to the house. One passed the first night, but I’m happy to report that the other is eating well and appears to be growing. Baby robins eat every half hour during daylight. I feed him worms, fruit, and egg yolk. Luke and I took him on a field trip to the garden to scratch in the dirt and learn to look for worms. We hope he observes other robins and learns how to find food for himself.

Last Spring, Karen and I were listening to WFCR on a drive to Boston. Naturalist, Laurie Sanders, was doing a segment on the spittlebug for her program, Field Notes. I was very familiar with the spittlebug. The short story… I had studied them in my fourth grade science class after coming across these spit collections on plants while out in the field. Karen was unfamiliar, so it kind of became this funny thing between us about the mystery of the mythical spittlebug. We even made up a little theme song about it.

While watering the garden earlier this week, I glanced over at one of our wild areas and was psyched to see these little spit collections created by you know who.

I quickly ran inside and pulled Karen out to see them. I swear, this was almost as if I were showing her bigfoot tracks.

Why do they make these frothy spit collections?

The spittlebug, aka: ‘the Froghopper’ does this for 2 main reasons:

1) The froth hides the nymph from the view of predators and parasites,
and 2) it insulates them against heat and cold by providing thermal and moisture control.

Spittlebugs can also jump over 70cm vertically. Beat that Fleas! For a nice time-elapsed view of just how they make their froth, check out this video: