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Agrarian Harvest

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

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Harmful or Helpful?

At planting time last year, we were amazed at all the earthworms and had to do a little research on them. We still a lot of earthworms; large, medium, and many babies. This Spring we have been seeing Armadillidida or commonly known as roly polys or pill bugs everywhere on our farm and lots of them. These “bugs” (they really aren’t bugs; keep reading and I’ll go further in-depth on that) have always been fun to find for the kids. They love seeing roly polys roll up when touched, which is a defense mechanism, then wait for them to unroll so they can touch them again and sometimes roll them around the palm of their hand.

 

We are seeing a whole lot more roly polys than we have in the past. So, of course, this lead to a little research project. Part because we love learning and part because we were wondering if they were beneficial or are they going to be pest. We were quite happy to learn that they are beneficial and help with the decomposing process. They eat decaying plant and animal material. We provided the organic matter and now they have moved in to help with the breaking down of the organic matter, to increase our soil fertility. Hurrah! We read that they could feed on seedlings and plant roots, but tend to eat decaying material when it is available. We have a lot of decaying plant material available and have not had any problems with them feeding on plant roots or seedlings. There are thousands in the cold frame where we have greens growing and started all of our seedlings. They haven’t kill any seedlings.

 

It was also quite interesting to learn that they are actually not a bug, they are a land crustacean and are related to shrimp. They like dark moist places and have gill-like structures used to breath, but can’t live underwater. They don’t urinate, but instead release an ammonia gas through their exoskeleton. And they shed their exoskeleton as they grow. The back half sheds first, then the front half. The females carry their eggs and newly hatched babies in a special pouch before they start crawling out to walk on their own. Huh. . . . the things we learn through hand-on activities and work with curious minds questioning everything! This little organic piece of Earth we live on just amazes us! 

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The Anticipated Season is Upon Us

It feels like all we do this time of year is plant, plant, plant . . . . .  and there is still more to plant. We are nowhere near done planting. This week has thrown other events into our schedule and has interrupted our planting rhythm. We are entering into our market season. So our weekly schedule and rhythm will be changing from a spring planting routine to our summer plant, weed, harvest, market routine. It may sound like a lot and, honestly, some days it feels like a lot. And then other days there is not enough to do, but that has not been the case this week. 

 

It has been a very busy week or at least it feels busy compared to our spring planting routine. We had our organic inspection, which started a day before it was scheduled and lasted into the next day. That was a ridiculously long and drawn out process for the small acres and production that we do. In the middle of our inspection, we had our broiler chicks and ducklings arrive a day early. And now we are getting ready for the first Twin Falls Farmers’ market on Saturday, and then there is more planting. Please nobody call and tell us the market is going to be on Friday instead of Saturday. Everything has been happening a day early this week and it feels a bit like a nightmare. As long as today is actually Friday and not Saturday, then we are pretty excited about this first farmers’ market. We planned better this year and have more produce ready for the market. We will have a lot of kale, lettuce, spinach, arugula, along with rhubarb, green garlic, green onions, radishes, herbs, eggs, salad dressings,  handmade soap, and laundry detergent.

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In the previous paragraph, I mentioned ducklings. Yes, we now have ducklings! Ducks are our experiment for this year. We are going to try to raise khaki cambell ducks, they are suppose to be good layers. We are all very happy and excited, especially me. Beside the fact that they are the cutest little poultry critters ever! They don’t scratch like chickens (yes!!!) and are excellent foragers. I think the ducks are going to go over very well with the family and become a permanent part of our farm. I will keep you updated on the ducks throughout the summer.  I’m confident this duck project will be much more successful than our garlic and sweet potato projects were last year.  

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Farmers’ Market Selling & Spunk

Last week I posted that we were enjoying our Indian summer, well, after posting I did some research and figured out that we actually are not having an Indian summer. An Indian summer is unseasonably warm weather in the fall after a good hard frost. Since we have not had a frost or even a cold spell yet, we are not experiencing an Indian summer. We are a just fortunate to still have warm weather, no frost, and produce still growing and producing.

Thanks to this wonderful weather we still have lots of produce and are still able to participate in our local farmers’ market. This is good in some ways and bad in others. We are happy to still be providing our local community with organic, fresh produce and happy to be eating it ourselves. But we are getting tired and worn out; slowing down just like the produce. We have lost our enthusiasm and spunk for all the harvesting and preparing for the market, but we are still at it.

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Most people don’t realize how much work it takes to sell at a farmers market, unless you have actually participated in one. And how much determination it takes to keep at it the whole season, May through October. It takes most, if not all day, the day before market to harvest, package and prepare all supplies and products. We are usually up into the wee hours of the night getting ready; especially in the middle of the summer when there is a lot to harvest and get ready. Some weeks we don’t make it to bed until 2 am and then we’re up at 5 am to finish the last minute harvesting and load all that produce. This takes some critical thinking. We load all our boxes/crates/coolers of produce/product, tables, canopy, signs and the family into an excursion. There have been several weeks I don’t know how we have gotten everything in the excursion. When we unload at market, we look like a little car of clowns. You know the cartoon image of clowns that just keep piling out of a little tiny car. Well, that’s us at farmers’ market, people, boxes, coolers just keep coming out of the excursion. We get looks of how did you get all of that in there? We have hopes of having a trailer to haul it all in next year.

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Once everything is unloaded, then there is the set up. We set up the canopy and tables. Next come the organizing of several boxes/crates; making the display cute and inviting. There is the rush of getting all this done before the early bird shoppers arrive and before the vendor meeting starts. Then market starts. If we are lucky it is busy and the time goes by fast. But on some days it is slow and time drags by. It may be a very cool day and we bounce around trying to keep warm, it may be a very hot and there is not enough shade for the produce and people or our worst market day was cold and pouring rain. Whatever the day holds, we stand there and sell for four hours of market.

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At the end of market, it is time to take it all down. We like to stay open until all the customers have left the market. Then we start to load all the produce/product that we have left. Lastly, we fold up the tables and canopy. There are usually empty boxes that we break down, so the loading to come home is easier, but can still be tricky to get it all to fit back in the excursion.  We drive home and it is time to unload again. This is probably the hardest part because we are all tired and hungry. Once unloaded, we head for the house and collapse in the living room for a family movie and time to rest.

For most of September and October, I haven’t had the energy to keep up with all my domestic duties and go to market on Saturdays. So I have bowed out of the farmers’ market routine. I’m thankful for the Other Half taking on the Saturday market work and sells on his own. I ran out of spunk several weeks ago for the pre-dawn loading, chilly morning air while setting up for market and the energy to do rest of the market. Instead, I have  put my energy into canning, drying and preserving produce for winter. Another wonderful aspect of farm life; being able to eat your own produce all winter long!

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Miracles and Good News

We have been enjoying the warm Indian summer days of October. And are thankful for them since we were unable to get the sweet potatoes dug this week. So you have stay in suspense until next week to learn how the harvest of the sweet potatoes goes. Instead of dealing with sweet potatoes, we had ourselves a pipe trailer accident to deal with. We were moving gated pipe from our Jerome property to our farm in Buhl. When we were a few miles from home the tongue of the loaded pipe trailer broke. The tongue of the trailer remained hitched to the vehicle. The trailer veered to the left on its own and went crashing through a fence on the opposite side of the road stopping in a ditch missing a tree by mere millimeters. Although it was scary to see and feel in the moment, we were quite blessed. It was actually sickening to feel the trailer violently pulling from side to side behind us. Then seconds later to see the loaded pipe trailer (in the mirror) fly to the left behind us with a grinding of metal on pavement . . . .  metal clashing against metal . . . . and lots of dust flying. As the passenger, I had been reading a book about seeing miracles in everyday life, activities and circumstances. It sure didn’t feel like I had just lived through a miracle, it shook me up a bit to see our trailer driving off by itself. But it truly was a miracle. There wasn’t a car coming in the opposite directions, it barely missed a tree when it went through the fence, missed hitting the power pole, it went to the left and not the right where it would of hit a house, nobody was hurt, there was no damage to our vehicle, there was only the broken tongue and flat tire on the trailer, very few pieces of pipe were damaged, the owner of the property was understanding and didn’t want the fence repaired. Aaahh, I can sign a breath of relief. It took awhile and few trips to load the pipe to another trailer, haul it home, fix the pipe trailer and get it home. What we thought was a simple task turned into a time consuming project, but it is done now. 

It has also been a week full of canning. I finished canning plums and went onto apples. We have several apple trees, but they are small and not producing many apples yet. The kids eat all the apples off our trees as soon as they ripen. So this year, we were fortunate enough to get boxes of apples from a neighbor. The house has kept that sweet smell from canning the plums, but we now has a bit of cinnamon spice aroma mixed in. We have been canning cinnamon apples, applesauce, juicing apples and drying them along with baking apple crisp.

More good news; we got our pork back from the butcher. So we now have pork available by the cut: sausage, tenderloin, boneless loin, spare ribs, babyback ribs, pork chops, ham hocks, shoulder roast.

We are looking forward to the coming week and more miracles. Hoping to get a field of winter wheat planted and sweet potatoes dug.

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Being A Farmers Wife

Being a farmer’s wife means sacrificing a lot, working really hard, growing lots of food, preserving lots of food, cooking wholesome home grown food and being stuck on the farm all summer. You feel like you are doing good, rewarding  even though some people don’t appreciate it and complain about the price. In my opinion, then move on and go buy your food at the grocery store where you can get it cheaper and eat chemical ridden and engineered food. On other days, I feel trapped by what feels like a money sucking farm. We can’t go very far away during the spring, summer or fall because everyday there is irrigating, feeding animals, planting, harvesting or all five at once. It truly feels like a trap by late summer!

It means cooking a meal for a whole crew of helpers for harvest, going out to help with harvest, serving the food, clean up, then going back out to harvest rest the day. It means a full day of canning and preserving fruits and vegetables, then cooking a meal for your hungry family when you are exhausted wanting to simply sit down and put your feet up. It means sweeping your house three times a day because there this so much dirt and mud for the whole family to get into and no one will obey the rule of leaving shoes outside. It means maintaining a yard and garden on your own and then helping with the farm work. It also means the farmer’s wife will be sitting on the porch or deck by herself with no one to spend that special time with or to enjoy the view of some of your hard work with because when the farmer sits down he falls asleep. So he keeps going until well after dark and then collapses into bed. It means not having someone to talk to when you need to talk because the farmer is in the field, on the phone or sleeping. It means not spending a much time together even though you are on the same farm. There is no quitting time or weekend days off on a farm! For this farmer’s wife, it means working my tail off all summer with no vacation and then homeschooling for nine months before we start the whole vicious cycle over again. That means no real easy going down time for me, which leads to burnout and a grumpy wife some days.

Being a farmer’s wife means working twice as hard as the farmer himself because she has all the inside duties and is also the one and only farm hand. I don’t think the farmer even realizes how hard the farm wife works even though he has been told several times. We farm wives or at least this one would like to be appreciated more than just hearing, “I appreciate what you do.” This farm wife wants to be a princess for awhile! Some days I would feel like a princess to have something as simple as a clothes dryer to use instead of having to line dry all the clothes. This farm wife wants to be the one being taken care of instead of doing the taking care of! Especially since it’s my birthday!
Note to Readers: I love my farm life and my husband, but farm work can be hard on a person. Especially when your birthday turns into just another long, hard day of work on the farm.

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Garlic Harvest, Part 2

Three weeks after our first garlic harvest, it is absolute crunch time to get the remaining quarter or so acres of garlic out of the ground. This time there were not near as many caring, hardworking souls willing to volunteer their time to work their behinds off to help us harvest garlic. I can’t say as I blame them either, if I had a choice or someone to go do something with I would have willing to do anything too as long as it didn’t involve garlic.

Any guesses how we got the garlic out of the ground; the easy way (mechanically) or the hard way (by hand)? The other half refused to try using the tractor and renovator or cultivator to get it out of the ground. So, of course, that left us with the hard way, the way we do most things and learn on this farm . . . .  hand pulling all that garlic one plant at a time. Part of the ground was so hard and crusty the garlic would break off or just stay stuck in the cement like ground. We got out the hose and started running water on the garlic in front of us as we hand pulled it. That made it a bit of a mess to trudge up the rows and irritated the arms a bit to have the wet weeds rubbing against our arms and legs.

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After garlic harvest, part 1, the other half went out with the hedge trimmers cutting off all the garlic scapes. Trying at the last minute trying get a little bit bigger heads. It has been three weeks since our first harvest so the garlic is dried down completely, with sharp jagged tops, now that they have been cut, that snag and scratch the crap out of my arms. I know I could avoid that if I would wear long sleeves, but when it is 100 degrees outside there is no way I will wear anything more than a tank top and shorts. Since I had shorts on the weeds and garlic also scratched and injured my legs. Even with wearing gloves I still ended up with four blisters on my fingers. On the plus side, I discovered that my homemade coffee soap works very good at scrubbing the rough skin off and deodorizing. It gets rid of the garlic smell with one shower.

After two full, long days of hand pulling garlic in 100 degree weather, I have blistered hurting fingers, a tired back, scratched up arms and legs and a body that is just plain exhausted and sore.I am so sick of garlic and all the work and heartache that garlic has cost our family.  I will not plant another clove of garlic to sell unless the price significantly increases. If the other half decides to plant more garlic, he is on his own. I’m done planting, growing, and harvesting garlic to sell. There is just too much labor involved and there is no way to make money growing garlic without doing it mechanically. Whoever else in world does grow garlic doing the work by hand, my hat is off to you. I’ll leave garlic production to farmers with more money to hire the work done or have a way to do part of it with tractor and machinery.

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And now it’s time to handle everyone of those individual heads of garlic again . . . . .   to cut the head head off and bag the garlic.

Needless to say next time I need to buy garlic, I will be more than willing pay an absorbent price for it. I now know the work, sweat, and unpleasantness that goes into planting, growing, harvesting, cutting, and bagging of garlic. It is worth way more than what is sold for, that’s for sure. All organic produce that is grown and harvested by hand is worth more than what is charged for it. Maybe I’ll go into that next week.

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Earthworm Test

I have been very observant of earthworms this year or at least in the spring and early summer when there is lots of planting to do. I have read about how beneficial they are to the soil so now when I put my trowel in the ground or move a clump of earth or pile of wood chips, I like to see and count all the earthworms. They are the earth’s natural rototillers.  The thought of all those worms under my feet doing their work just amazes me. They naturally till the land, compost, aerate and increase water infiltration.

And I have had the chance to put my trowel in the ground several times this year. We seem to have an issue with keeping the chickens contained in their pasture so they are spending a lot of time in my yard and garden rearranging and killing flowers. I have had to replant flowers so many times this year and I don’t think they are going to survive. So now I’m going with the idea of planting roses instead of small annuals. The fact that all the chickens won’t stay in their pasture has made me realize I should give up trying to grow small, delicate flowers. I’ll should get my enjoyment from chasing chickens and counting worms instead of enjoying the view of colorful flowers. By planting roses, I can now chase chickens, count worms and smell the roses!

When I see all those worms, it feels like I’m passing a very large good stewardship test, like a final exam in college. In early summer, it makes me proud and happy to have gotten all those slivers while pulling weeds out of the wood chips in the garden for going no-till. I’m doing a good thing for the soil, the earthworm population and this earth; even if it is just in my little patch of earth. I’m helping the earth little bits at a time if I can keep the chickens out my little patch of earth so they aren’t eating my proud little test or harming my visually appealing flowers.

Now that the weeds are out growing my energy level and ability to pull them, I don’t feel near as good about myself or my ability to take care of this little patch of earth. I feel that I’m failing this test, part because I can’t keep all the weeds pulled or at bay. But then I think about all those worms at work under my feet. That brings a smile to my face and reminds that worm are doing good even if I don’t feel that I am. It still doesn’t give me any more energy, but does make me feel better! I can pass this test even if I don’t get an A+++, which this overachiever would prefer but will settle for a lesser test score.

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Garlic Harvest

Garlic harvest is underway! And as with most things on this farm, we learn from experience. Our whole garlic growing season has been a learning by doing experience and now the harvest is too.

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We have learned that you definitely want to get all those scapes cut off (it will produce bigger garlic heads) or at least the major of them. It is nice to leave a few in the field to watch and monitor the curling and uncurling. After the scapes curls twice, it then uncurls and points straight up again. Some say that is when you want to harvest and in our area that usually happens around the 4th of July. Others say wait until the bottom two leaves dry out. So we enjoyed watching all our scapes curl and uncurl and then we couldn’t get a crew together to help get the garlic out of the ground until the bottom two or three leaves were dry.

We started harvesting by pulling it out of the ground by hand. Then decided that was going too slow and there had to be a better way. So out comes the tractor and hay crowner. That worked good for the first couple of rows where the ground was still moist, as long as we went slow and kept it deep. But then the ground was too hard and dry in spots and we couldn’t get the crowner deep enough. We were cutting lots of garlic and cutting into the other half’s patience and temper. So back to hand pulling the garlic we went! It actually went pretty quick with the help of lots of hands of friends and family! We are so appreciative to have so many loving, helpful, kind-hearted, hard working people around us!

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We are only about half way done with the harvest. I’m positive getting rest of garlic out of the ground will be another fun learning experience. There is already talk of using a cultivator or renovator, which will still result in hand picking it off the ground, bundling and hauling it to the shed to dry . . . . . . . if one of those methods of getting it out of the ground works. We are learning that growing garlic requires lots of time, labor and a strong back. Every step of the process of growing garlic requires handling it by hand or hoeing it by hand.

Once the garlic dries, we cut the head off and bag it. Then it’s ready to go. And hopefully, we will forget how much work, frustration, and back pain is involved in growing garlic for rest of the summer so we will be willing to plant more of it again this fall and start the whole garlic growing cycle over again.

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Seasons of Farming: Our Organic Farm Roller Coaster of Hopes, Dreams, Hard Work and Ambition

I don’t know if anyone else or other farmers are like this, but here is the small, organic farm roller coaster we ride. This is the ride or the seasons of hopes, dreams, hard work, and ambition this farm family endures.

In winter, we look out the window yearning to get outside and grow something. We read lots of inspiring books and blogs. At this point of the year, we seriously feel we can farm by hand at least 100 acres, no problem. Keeping it weed free with beautiful, neat rows with a very, large variety of vegetables growing perfectly, with perhaps even plants that aren’t normally grown in our area. Then starts the arrival of all those forbidden catalogs, making the yearning get worst. So we give in and start ordering seeds. Not just seeds we need and know will grow, but seeds of all those plants that are suppose to be able to grow in our zone although no one has ever grown or seen them here before. The sinful pictures in the catalog are so beautiful we just can’t resist because we are going to grow a new fruit or veggie and have something really unique this year. These catalogs cause you to spend hundreds of dollars you most likely shouldn’t have spent, like what a fieldman does to a conventional farmer. Conventional farmers have a fieldman to convince them to spend extra money on fertilizer and chemicals they don’t necessarily need and we organic farmers have seed catalogs. We don’t need verbal convincing, we look pictures and we are sold. I compare the seed catalogs to what I believe the Sears & Roebuck catalog used to be to past generations.

In the spring, we set out with our high ambition level, hopes, dreams, several boxes of seeds (some that never should of been ordered, that darn seed catalog is just too tempting), rolls of plastic, gloves, hoes and shovels to farm this land (except with just 20 acres, not the 100 we dreamed about in the winter). There are lots of hand drawn plans and computer spreadsheets that we end up not following or even look at after the first couple of days planting. To start, we plant thousands upon thousands of seeds in the cold frames and house. We work the land up using a disc and rototiller not shovels (hoping to achieve the goal of going no-till some day) and start planting outside. The arrival of irrigation water is an exciting day. That is like the starting bell going off signalling the official growing (farming) season is underway.

In the beginning of summer, we are still planting, weeding, watering, harvesting early season produce, marketing and working like crazy with no rest. We are going strong and not tiring yet, loving this lifestyle we chose. By mid-summer, we are exhausted, the weeds out grow our ability to pull them, everything needs harvested and water at the same time. There are not enough hours in the day or energy left in our bodies to function properly. By late summer, we are looking forward to winter and that early frost, not really wanting the frost for income purposes but our weak and weary bodies could use a nice, long break.

With Fall comes the cool down and a little renewed energy for us so we manage to function until that frost does hit. And with the prediction of frost, there is a long day of scrambling to get all the produce covered to extend the growing season just a little longer. Now wait, weren’t we asking for the frost not that long ago. I don’t know if this a normal human reaction or just crazy, torture we do to ourselves. Of course, plants can only hang on for so long and then they are done for the year too. So there is the last harvest, field cleanup and the storing and marketing of all the winter squash, pumpkins, onions, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, rutabagas, and sweet potatoes (new crop experiment for this year, one of those seed catalog temptations). Then starts that long awaited rest for us. Which is great for about a month, then we get our energy back. We start to go stir crazy with the cold weather and being contained to the house most the day. And the cycle starts all over again with winter.

As the old sayings go, “you learn from your mistakes” and “history repeats itself.” This little piece of farming history we are making keeps repeating itself every year. So I guess we aren’t making a mistake by living this lifestyle because we keep doing it again and again. It may be with different plants, seed catalogs, hopes, dreams, ambitions and temptations but the farming seasons will repeat every year.

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