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Another week and another market. It's this time of year that the weekly harvesting, chores, and schedule begins to feel redundant. All around the trees, animals, and forest are beginning to change as fall approaches and the farm does too, but because humans (and farmers) can use technology to circumvent some of the natural cycles, we can stretch the bounty of summer, and with it the harvest, planting, and weeding that goes with it. But for now there is still lots of tomatoes and lettuce and all those flowers. Plus, there are just a few spots left in the Farm Tour & Field dinner this Saturday evening and it's you're chance to see the remaining summer abundance before the shift to dirt work and construction projects before the relative calm of winter!  A quick morning stretch is important before getting lots of work done!  The big heirloom tomatoes are here and the large Pink Love Apples are the biggest of all. There are also some Purple Russians, Black Vernissage, and German Lunchbox!  The bright flowers of summer are fading away into the deep, moody jewel tones of fall! The Garlic has finally arrived! LEFT: Moroccan Creole - This is an heirloom creole variety with plenty of heat and good keeping ability. This is the variety that came with the Moors to Spain and later migrated to the Americas with the Spanish conquistadors. It has beautiful deep purple cloves inside a tight wrapper. RIGHT: Chesnok Red - This is an heirloom purple stripe variety with a mild flavor and creamy texture. It features easy to peel, long clove that are a beautiful violet. One of the best baking garlics.  Hella, the garlic thieve, spent the afternoon helping me prep it for market and maybe trying to abscond with a few.  The shed gets some twinkly lights to add some sparkle! With just a few spots left in the first Farm Tour & Field Dinner this Saturday, August 29th at 5pm, there are still a few days left to reserve your spot! What's available this week?
Where to find it all?
I'll be at the Farmers Market at Libby, this Thursday from 3-7pm! I'll be at the Troy Farmers Market, this Friday from 330-630pm!
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Pulling up garlic. Harvesting seeds. Scything long grass for winter bedding. Just the usual farm chores as fall starts to push out the end of summer. Being outside most of my waking hours and relying on observations and learning of weather helps make you feel the subtle shifts in the angle of the sun, day length, and air quality/feeling/smell just a little more. And with a few back to back nights of hard frosts before the latest heat wave, it all lets me know that sweater weather is just around the corner. The next few weeks will be filled with seed saving and prepping for sale (it is more than just pull it off the plant and stick it in a bag), building and designing more wreaths, barrettes, and willow crowns(!) filled with dried flowers, and planning for 'construction season' on the farm (aka fall/winter) as it's the only season I have the time to repair and build old and new hen huts, organize tool storage, maintain all the equipment, and inventory anything that needs to be replaced. It's also the time I prefer to plan out the plantings for next year as the triumphs and failures of this year are still fresh in my mind and I don't have to worry about the winter days making me wistful for the green of spring and forget that some crops are beyond my reach in my cold, little valley (I'm looking at YOU corn!) So while I save seeds today, I can already imagine the plants they will become tomorrow!  If you need a change of view for an evening, sign up for the first Gracious Dragon Farm Tour & Dinner, Saturday August 29th at 5pm. Your first chance for a guided tour of the farm with a wonderful meal prepared by Gracious Table chock full of produce from just a few feet away. Keep an eye out for another email with full details and feel free to ask me about it at the markets!  The autumn colors are opening up with the Sunflowers and Black Eyed Susans! I can smell the pumpkin spice on the winds   The hens love harvest day, especially if it is a scorcher!, since they get to enjoy the head lettuce trimmings while still cool, crisps, and a little damp from the washing! Scratch. Scratch. Peck!  The friendly neighbors stop by each evening to say hi to the roaming hens ! The seeds are coming along nicely with the Bee's Friend, Calendula, and Bachelor Buttons being some of the fastest to reach the finish line. Now Instead of keeping up with harvesting a rush of blooms, I run around catching seeds before they fall and get lost in the ground!  The garlic has just been pulled and is almost dry! It probably won't make it to market this week but look for it after! What's available this week?
Where to find it all?
I'll be at the Farmers Market at Libby, this Thursday from 3-7pm! I'll be at the Troy Farmers Market, this Friday from 330-630pm! The impending crunch of fall is in the air with a hefty frost last week. Luckily all my observations over the past years let me know that it was likely and I actually closed all the low tunnels and draped the frost fabric over the squash as best as possible (the warm nights had made me a little complacent the last few weeks). Everything survived just fine and the lettuces especially appreciated the cool down. The field and plots are now teeming with jumping, flying, or crawling insects! Some do a little damage. Some eat others. And some get eaten by the hens or guineas. I wonder if the grasshoppers will eventually learn to stay inside the fences as the hens can't catch them in there. Until then the hens chase the grasshopper chaos with erratic movements in their attempts to catch the tasty morsels. There'll be some new veg (including tomatoes) available at market this week and the flowers keep blooming so I'll keep cutting and bouquet-making until the heavy frosts of fall shut the flowers down.  Some beneficial insects are cute (super cute in the case of Lady Bugs!) and some are less cute, but one side effect of growing many flowers is having many beneficial insects. And the presence of these polka-dotted bright beauties means their young, which kinda have polka dots too and look like a short, flat, hard shell 'caterpillar' eat the most aphids so keep an eye out for them and let them do the work for you! Also I can definitely see why it is considered good luck to have one land on you besides that it might mean they like you and wanna say hi but that they, and their young, are keeping you plants safe! Lucky you!  A new veggie this week is the Dragon Tongue beans! They are used like a green bean and have purple stripes, which fade if they are cooked.  The tomatoes are ripening fast enough to bring some to Libby and will be available online today! Each box can include: Napa Chardonnay, Napa Blush, Yellow Pear, Black Vernissage, Violet Jasper, Sunset Bumblebee, Atomic Grape and/or Purple Russian.   It's been hard, but I've been holding off from picking the Sweet Peas so they can set seeds! I'll have a seed mix available next spring before the markets start so you can get them in the ground as soon as possible. Don't worry, I'll let you know when they are finally available! Nature moves at it's own pace.   Enter Hella, the hella sassy cat. Especially when I interrupt her serious gopher hole watching and she retaliates by showing me just how much of a huntress she can be! (don't worry, no blood was drawn as she also knows whose hands feed her when she doesn't catch the gopher) What's available this week?
Where to find it all?
I'll be at the Farmers Market at Libby, this Thursday from 3-7pm! I'll be at the Troy Farmers Market, this Friday from 330-630pm! The squash is growing fast and the early flowers are working on their seeds! All thanks to those birds and bees that pollinate the flowers so we can have yummy fruit (like squash), pretty flowers, and the seeds that those flowers make so we can grow more plants! This fall and winter I'll be adding another project to my tasks. Seeds! Some of those flowers I grow that are so beloved by the bees and hummingbirds will be available next spring either as seeds for you to sprout from the beginning or as seedlings for you to pop in the soil and get a head start on enjoying the blooms in your own garden (and of course for the bees to enjoy them too!) It may seem strange to start planning for that project already, but this is when the seeds start. I mark certain flowers so I don't pick them and so I know for sure what they are. That way they can grow their seeds for me to collect them before they scatter to the ground or on the wind. I've also been busy harvesting flowers for drying so there will be a new batch of wreaths, barrettes, bouquets, and crowns featuring the dried flowers! I'll probably start having some of those available in September. Until then, the chores continue to keep everything, hopefully, running smoothly!  The green in the grass is still holding, but it begins to fade  The Barn Swallows are working on their second hatching of the season! They use the same 2 nests each year that are in the joists of the barn, just adding some fresh chicken feathers to make it fresh and cozy.  The lettuces have really grown fast in the heat but cool nights and a light watering every other day keeps them sweet and juicy!  Just a few of the dried flowers that are quickly taking over all ceiling space in the house. A nice things about old log cabins is that there are random nails everywhere, which makes it easier to find space for everything to hang!   One of the many bees that are enjoying the flowers that I can't keep up with  The guineas are on the hunt for bugz!  And Hella graciously shares her shade with the hens as they all get set free for their evening scratch abouts What's available this week?
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AuthorI'm Farmer Megan with a life full of cackles, clucks, quacks, weeds, crazy kitten, and one tiny, senior, blind dog. Archives
December 2020
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