Agrarian Harvest

Spring Greens

The salad greens are thriving in the cold frame. We are very excited to be eating salad on a regular basis again! (Pictured is a mix of spring mix lettuce, arugula, and spinach.)

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The curly kale overwintered in the field and is growing. I love putting this kale in our smoothies. The kids even drink the smoothies. These green smoothies are becoming our go-to afternoon snack once again. We absolutely love this time of year when everything is greening up and starting to grow! We’ve even been going out into the yard and harvesting dandelion leaves to eat and for tea. It is simply that time of year when all greens are appealing!

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We sell all greens individual, request a mix or buy a CSA share or half share and you won’t miss out on any of our produce.

Produce Produce CSA

April 7, 2016 0

It’s a Good Friday!

It’s a Good Friday! Our eggs are dyed and ready for Easter! If you haven’t got your eggs yet, it’s not too late. We still have eggs available. Look at the wonderful colors that brown eggs turn when dyed. Okay, so I have been told that my eggs are ugly. To defend myself, I’m just trying to keep a family tradition. I have a tradition on my side of the family to try to dye an egg black. So every year I use my patience and persistence, sitting at the table long after the kids have finished their eggs, trying to turn at least one egg black. Or as dark and ugly as I can get it. And it is so much fun for me! DSCN7294

This year the kids and Grandpa drew faces and names on some of the eggs, so they each have a special egg to hunt for on Easter. This might be the start of a new tradition.

It is a very happy Easter weekend at our farm. The eggs are colored, greens are ready, daffodils are blooming, the lawn and wheat field are green. It’s a weekend of miracles, faith, and happy times. We had arugula to eat and sell this past week and will have spinach and lettuce this week. It feels like Spring has truly sprung and it is time to be warm and full of smiles when I get to eat a homegrown green salad. And the time is here and now. Have a Good Friday and Happy Easter!

Check out our produce page for prices of greens and all of our other product pages!

Produce Eggs Produce CSA Chicken Pork Hand-Made Soaps

March 25, 2016 0

Greens, Eggs, & CSA

It is so fitting that we ate our first greens (arugula) out of the cold frame on St Patrick’s Day. I have been craving the fresh, wholesome greens grown in our soil and this was the perfect day for our first taste!

We will have arugula available starting March 23th and the spinach should be close behind. Check our produce page for pricing. Produce

The days are longer and I’m not thrilled about losing sleep, but the chickens are loving it. Our egg production has increased, so we have plenty of eggs available, just in time for Easter. Try dying brown eggs this Easter or do some baking or just eat them. Eggs

Spring is almost here and so is the start of our Spring CSA and full season CSA. They start the second week of May, buy your share soon. Produce CSA

Email, call or text us. How To Buy From Us

March 18, 2016 0

Spring Fever

The warm sunny weather this week has made us very eager for summer. Is this Spring fever or just plain craziness? We have spent our week planting more seeds. We have several flats planted in the cold frame, planning to put some in the house, and are even experimenting with direct seeding in the ground with cold weather plants. This beautiful weather at the beginning of March leaves me a little worried about what the weather will be like the end of March and April.

We had another litter of piglets born this week. That makes two litters so far this year. We have two more sows left farrow this Spring. The sow that farrowed this week had 10 live piglets and four born dead. That’s a large litter and they are all looking and doing good. Here is a picture of a few of the cuties. 20160305_082308 (1)

It looks like the weather this coming week is going to be cooler and rainy. That will leave us looking out the window yearning for warm weather again. And making more plans for what to plant, when to plant, how much to plant, and wondering how soon can we get our hands back out in the soil. Just like how we spent our January. Speaking of January, below is our blog post from January that I forgot to post. Sorry. I tend to get distracted with homeschool during the winter and that is what I focus on. Apparently, I wrote a post for January and then forgot to publish it. So here it is:

It is that time of year again. The time when the farmer gets restless and the itching to plant and grow things. Our highs were in the teens for over a week in January, so it’s hard to motivate yourself to spend the time outside to take care of the animals and no chance of getting anything to grow yet. That leaves the farmer with lots of time to plan. The farmer has been spending his days looking over seed lists, making plans and then spending time on the web reading and looking at pictures.

So, of course, more ideas will pop into his head and he can make longer lists of things to grow, do, and change this year. This can be a scary time for the farmer’s wife. The unknown and new ideas scare her and she realizes that the longer the list is, the more work is involved. It’s an amazing how we balance each other out. The farmer is the dreamer and idea person. The farmer’s wife keeps him in check, keeps things realistic and within reasonable means.

Speaking of new things for 2016, we are offering a produce CSA! We are very excited about expanding our CSA program. And now is the time to sign up for a share! Produce CSA

March 6, 2016 0

February Awakening

I like to do what I call human hibernating for the winter. I stay in the house, keep the fire stoked, homeschool, read several books, watch movies and go outside very little. The farmer on the other hand stays inside most the day too, but there are still chores to do and animals to care for.

. . . . Then in February, it feels like there is a great awakening among plants, animals and people. The weeds start to grow, the tulips and daffodils are peeking out of the ground, the fruit trees are pruned and developing buds; and we feel alive and full of energy again. It’s like the sun suddenly rose shining warmth and new hope for the first time in months.

Our seed orders start to arrive in February and the weather starts to break. A true change in weather takes place; the air is warmer and the precipitation changes from snow to rain, transforming into Spring. We started our February by working the ground in the cold frame getting it ready to plant. Then the exciting part, actually planting our first seeds of the year: arugula, spinach, lettuce, and onion. The arugula is up and the spinach should be soon behind it. Spinach has longer germination than arugula. The lettuce was planted a couple of weeks after the spinach and arugula so we are still waiting for it to come up too.

The first part of February also brought our first pig roast. We had a Super Bowl party/birthday party for the farmer and decided that was great time to e 20160206_181331 xperiment with roasting our first pig. Who doesn’t want to be invited to a party to eat an experiment?!!! Be aware before you read on, how we cooked this pig may sound or actually be a little redneck-ish, but, hey, that’s just how we are. We started it the night before in a pit we lined with rock. We started wood pellets and 10 pounds of charcoal briquets on fire and got it hot and cooked down. We torched the hair off the pig with a weed burner and wrapped the pig in woven wire and put it in the pit. Then cover the pig and pit with a piece of tin roofing. It cooked and smoked all night. We checked it periodically and rotated it a couple of times. We thought it was done at noon the next day, but we didn’t take it out of the pit until 3:30. The Farmer put the whole thing in a large cooler and brought it in the house. When we were ready to eat, we started cutting it up and taking chunks off. It was good, although, I like my meat well seasoned. So I can’t say it is my favorite way to eat pork. But it was a fun experience and very neat to have a whole roasted pig for all the guest to see before we ate.

The sight and sound of new life really is in the air of our farm now. Our chicks have arrived and the brooder is full. This causes great excitement and happiness on our farm. Spring, hope, growth, energy and life are in the air and happening at Agrarian Harvest! DSCN7272

February 25, 2016 0

2016 CSA

We are now accepting applications for our 2016 CSA season. It is cold out now, but it is our time to plan for the coming season and order our seed. We work hard all summer and now that it is cold we are spending time together with family, reading books, and planning for the coming year.

If you view the attached pdf document you can view our list of produce that we plan to grow. If you sign up early, we can add requested products to our seed order. Our application is also in the attached document and can be mailed in.

To see pricing and for details, you can view our CSA page, open the pdf below, call us, or email us at myfood@agrarianharvest.com

As a note, we have specific dates and times for pickup. They can be viewed on our CSA page and on the CSA application. If you and friends or coworkers sign up, it may be possible to add locations and times as long as they fit with our farming schedule.

AgrarianHarvestVegetableShareApplication

December 28, 2015 0

Thanksgiving Traditions

For Thanksgiving, we go to the parents’ houses for big family gatherings. And we always eat turkey, the bigger the better, that way there are lots of leftovers. Four years ago, we started our own little Thanksgiving tradition. We cook our own Thanksgiving feast at our house for our little family the night before Thanksgiving. That way we have our own Thanksgiving leftovers to eat the days after Thanksgiving.

I usually cook a chicken or two, once again the bigger the better, or a turkey. Whenever I buy a turkey, I always buy the biggest one I can find. We love poultry leftovers and you can make freezer meals of the leftover meat! This year I didn’t buy a turkey since we raised so many chickens this summer and still have lots in the freezers. So the plan is to cook a couple of chickens.

It is has been a desire for me to cook or roast a whole pig. I know people do it all the time, we have customer who come buy small pigs from us to roast whole. So I’ve had this strong desire to roast a pig ever since this Spring when we had piglets that kept getting out and rooting up my yard, flower beds and garden. When they would get out and make a mess or kill my plants, my first reaction was being mad. . . . . then I started looking at them a different way. . . . . . they were a feast on legs. They were the prime size to kill and roast whole. We have not done that yet, but I have tried to convince the other half to do it since it is too big of task for me to do on my own. I kept thinking that summer would be a great time to do it, but it was so very busy for us so we didn’t take the time to try something new. And those pigs have grown up and gone to the butcher, but we have another batch that are the perfect size to roast whole again. Now I’m thinking that Thanksgiving and Christmas is a good time to roast a whole pig for those large family feast! 20151125_102403

So if your family already has a tradition of roasting a pig for Thanksgiving or Christmas and you are looking for a pig, or if this is a new desire for you too and you need a pig, then give us a call (visit our Buy page or Contact Us page). We have pigs of all sizes and pork available by the cut.

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Feasting!!! We hope everyone has a Thanksgiving full of blessings and love!

November 25, 2015 0

Produce And New CSA Opportunity Available

Farmers’ Market may be over, but you can still get fresh, local, organic produce all winter long!

AGRARIAN HARVEST has produce, eggs, meat and other products available all year round. At the moment, we have organic eggs, winter squash, pumpkins, kale, swiss chard, garlic, broccoli, turnips, diakon radishes, cabbage, celery, pork, chicken, herbs, soap, laundry detergent, herbs and more. Visit our product pages to get a full list of products and availability. We will have whole, frozen chicken; pork by the cut; whole pigs and eggs all winter long. As for all the produce, it will be available until we sell out of the pumpkins, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, cabbage, turnips, diakon radishes, celery, beets and herbs. The broccoli, kale, swiss chard will be available until it freezes too hard for these plants. Some winters, like last year, we have kale all winter long. We start growing greens and radishes in our cold frame during the winter so they will be available in early, early spring. So whenever you are in need of fresh produce, check with us first.

Also, we will be offering CSA shares this coming year. There will be two different sizes of produce CSA and a meat CSA with multiple pick-up locations to pick from. If you are interested in buying a CSA and want to the guarantee that you will get a box of fresh, organic, wholesome produce every week, contact us to sign up. Watch for our CSA page later this month for details.

E-mail us at myfood@agrarianharvest.com or call/text us at (208) 308-5332. You can visit us at our farm in Buhl to get product any day of the week or we deliver to Twin Falls on Wednesdays.

November 10, 2015 0

Sweet Potato Project

Recently, we watched the movie Faith Like Potatoes and it made me think a lot about our sweet potato project. You can’t see what is growing beneath the ground, you just have to have faith. I try to look at the positive in all things, which I have a hard time doing. Sweet potatoes aren’t suppose do well or even grow at all in our area . . . . . they grow in warm climates and are of tropic origin, our climate is far from tropical . . . . . . so we set out to do the impossible once again, to grow sweet potatoes. We had to see for ourselves what would happen when we planted those unusual sweet potato slips. Honestly, we expected the project to be a failure. But, I guess, deep down we had to have a little faith and just not realize it or we wouldn’t of even bought the slips and planted them to begin with.

We expected a crop failure, but honestly it wasn’t that bad. Harvest is much different than regular potatoes, aka Irish potatoes that Idaho is famous for growing, which takes getting used to. Sweet potatoes are a root and not a tuber like Irish potatoes. The root is about 20 inches long with a swollen part in the middle that is the actual sweet potato. There were some that had two swollen parts or sweet potatoes on one root. The whole root thing makes them harder to dig and get out of the ground. You have to start digging 18 inches away from the plant, being careful not to poke or scratch the roots. They bruise easily.

We have learned they need lots of room to grow. The ones that were planted 24” apart as recommended had all small tubers, but the one that we planted 36” apart had larger tubers under them. And the vines spread and cover several rows and any plants that are growing near by. To make digging a little easier, we mowed the tops of the plants off before digging. And as with most task around here, we did it the hard way; we did all the digging by hand with a digging fork. Though we had a couple of nice sized potatoes per plant, there are a lot of small tubers. But, hey, they grew and we have sweet potatoes!

Sweet potatoes are not very sweet when they are first dug. They have to sit and cure at a warm temperature (80 degree F) for 10 days to get their sweetness and set their skin. After they have cured, they need to be stored in a cool, dry location that stays above 50 degrees, ideally between 55 – 60 degrees, and should never be refrigerated (until after they are cooked, of course).

After digging those large sweet potato roots that never should’ve grown in our soil, it makes a person think and believe. It was amazing to see those large tubers come out of our soil. This project has taught me to have faith no matter how impossible the task, project or plant may seem. Have faith no matter how impossible things may seem or how many times you are told it can’t be done.

November 2, 2015 1

Agrarian Harvest

Wholesome, Organic, Experience. Our small farm, food, and simple life.

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