Ton Tongue Toffee

Sometimes I wonder what sort of title for a blog post would get your collective attention.  I suspect, if you are a Harry Potter fan, you'll probably be curious about this one and be correspondingly disappointed when I don't end up using that link more than I just did.  If you like alliteration, you may have a chance to be somewhat satisfied since I do see some sequences that might seem alliterative. 

Chumley, on his way to being loaded for a CSA distribution

But, the thing that is on my mind is this - I had a couple of discussions toward the end of the season that showed me that many people have a difficult time appreciating the scale of what it is we do.  One person almost always picked up their share towards the end of the distribution period.  He had never seen us arrive with a full truck that needed to be unloaded.

Even the picture above doesn't help too much if you don't actually load or unload the truck.  But, it is not unusual for us to have 24 to 30 trays with produce and another 10 to 12 coolers.  If you assume that you can carry two trays or two coolers per trip, that's 17 to 21 trips to unload the vehicle, not including tables and other items needed for a distribution.  Perhaps that makes it a bit more real to you?

Mr Aubergine found this interesting.

Mr Aubergine (at right) took a ride in the truck this year and found a nice home.  These CSA members were kind enough to give him some eyes to see and they made sure to take a picture of his "good" side.  He looks like a very inquisitive eggplant, so we thought we'd actually answer a few more questions in his honor.  Some of these questions were fielded by the curious at our CSA distributions and others have been posed during various presentations or conversations in recent weeks.

Question 1: How Much Produce Did You Harvest in 2015?
We actually fielded this one twice in recent conversations.  Our organic certifier asked us this question in both a general and a specific way AND another person asked me during a recent presentation.  Of course, I answered the question in different ways because the purpose of the question in each case called for different levels of detail.

Short Answer #1:
What made me think of Ton Tongue Toffee?  Well, I found it amusing to convert all of our weighed crops to tons.  Thus far, we have harvested over 9.3 tons of produce from the farm.  Some crops are not weighed for various reasons, so it would be reasonable to estimate those and land between 9.5 and 10 tons for the year.  Not bad for about five acres of veggies.

Not as Short Answer #1:
For many of our crops, we are interested in the weight, but we are much more interested in a count.  Why?  Well, if you knew you needed to give 104 different subscribers three cucumbers this week, you probably would be more interested to know that you can harvest at least 312 quality cucumbers.  The weight, in this case, is inconsequential.  On the other hand, weight helps us to compare different types of a vegetable.  After all, how can you say German Pink tomatoes are carrying their end of the deal with 197 fruit versus Jaune Flamme with 1020 fruit?  Part of the equation is number of plants.  But, if you look at the total weight of each: German Pink: 159.8 lbs  Jaune Flamme: 144.2 lbs.  You might conclude that they were roughly equivalent - after all, Jaune Flamme comes in smaller packages.

As a result, you might find that I will focus on different numbers for different crops and maybe even different numbers for different varieties in a crop.  For example, we harvested over 3300 snack tomatoes this year and about 3100 larger tomatoes.  The snack tomatoes weighed in around 550 lbs versus over 1600 lbs for the larger tomatoes.  That accounts for one ton of our produce this season.  You're welcome.

Question 2: How Consistent is Your Production?
This one is a great question and worthy, perhaps, of its own post someday.  But, since we are doing a harvest/numbers type of post, we'll do a little with it here.

Short Answer #2:
In this case, it makes sense for us to measure consistency in terms of the value of produce given to our CSA farm share members during the regular and extended seasons.  Happily, since 2011, we have been very consistent with respect to the value in excess of the cost provided to our members. I have not re worked numbers for the years prior to 2011.

Not So Short Answer #2
Our farm is both amazingly consistent and alarmingly inconsistent, which is a wonderful non-answer.  If you look at our overall performance and avoid getting too fine with each crop we grow, you will find that the diversity on our farm provides us with the ability to do reasonably well each year.  But, if you isolate a specific crop, it can be tempting to conclude that we're not all that good at what we do.

First, we need to make it clear that pure production numbers do not take into account decisions regarding how much of each thing we decide to grow each year.  However, if I start on those numbers, it will take me away from the point I want to make.

And, what is that point?

Diversity in crop production helps to balance peaks and valleys in individual crop yields.

If you look at the chart, it shows fruit counts for eight different crops since 2006 on our farm.  And, if I were to pick production numbers I would like to have on our farm, my first pick would be to take the record production year for each crop and ask for that, of course.  But, that is not realistic.  Instead, I will take numbers such as those we had in 2014 and 2015 every year.  Each crop had reasonable numbers, even if few records were threatened.  But, there is a sense of security in knowing that when a crop crashes (Bell Peppers in 2010) another one tends to have a banner year (Cucumbers in 2010).

The other measure I have used to determine how consistent our farm is has to do with our ability to be resilient with each crop we grow.  Overall, we are finding that our high production numbers and our low production numbers tend to appear less like an outlier than they used to.   So, my point here is that:

Production consistency is a function of continued improvements in how the farm goes about growing.

If you look at the bar chart showing our production of green beans since 2009, you will see a very disappointing year in 2010 and we had similar weather issues in 2013 for this crop.  But, the dip in production was not nearly so severe in 2013.  We can trace this improvement to a number of changes on our farm, which gives us confidence that, barring an unforeseen catastrophe of terrible proportions, we can manage to produce at a reasonable level even in a tough season.

Our record production year is 2012, but the numbers for 2009, 2011, 2014 and 2015 are all close enough to that year's production numbers that it no longer seems like an outlier to expect to get within range of that record on any given season.

And, my final point?  Commitment to a crop is a variable that makes a difference.

Neither Tammy nor I were big fans of cabbage, so our motivation for growing cabbage was admittedly low.  But, we had some CSA members that were asking, so we started looking at growing them.  The blue represents European style cabbage and the red Asian cabbage (aka Napa or Chinese or Korean).

We started trialing cabbage varieties in 2010 and felt ready to increase the production to meet the demand of our CSA in 2012, while we trialed the Napa varieties.  We personally liked the Napa varieties better and switched roles in 2013.  In the end, we realized that we probably didn't have the demand or interest to push either one of these too hard and we have settled to a fairly consistent and equivalent level between the two types.  In other words, the only reason for inconsistent yield levels was our own varying commitment to each of these crop types.  Once our commitment levels stabilized, so did the production.

Realm of Peace and Content

I realize that our farm probably doesn't qualify as a 'garden' anymore and is more appropriately called a 'farm.'  Even so, I will proudly wear the name of 'farmer' or 'gardener' if others feel it is appropriate.  The responsibility of actively caring for the land and the things that grow and live on it (and in it) is difficult, rewarding, tiring, fulfilling, frustrating, interesting, relentless,  and, above all, diverse.

If I were asked to differentiate between farmer and gardener, I might be tempted to point to the words with some negative connotation (difficult, tiring, frustrating, relentless) simply because the act of growing for others on a larger scale than a 'garden' entails a certain undertone of worry/concern/stress that pervades every moment on the farm.  The key descriptor for me is 'relentless.'  Once you start down the path of growing on a diverse farm like ours, you don't have the option of delaying things until you feel like doing it.  Don't take this wrong.  There are always choices to be made and there is always some level of flexibility.  In fact, it is valid to make the choice to NOT do something as long as you know that the consequence is the potential loss of a crop (for example).

I've been a fan of Tolkien Lord of the Rings for a very long time and I have read the books more times than I can remember.  The wonderful thing about the books is that I can re-read them and find something new that speaks to me in a way it hasn't before.  Perhaps that says more about me than it does about Tolkien, but that isn't what matters here.

"Your land must be a realm of peace and content, and there must gardners be in high honour."

 J.R.R. Tolkien in The Two Towers

And, this is where I want to make sure I never completely shed the name "gardener."  What are some of the things that drew us to this vocation in the first place?  Do we not still enjoy hearing the birds sing and feeling the breeze on our faces while we do some task in the fields that requires the use of our bodies and hands?  Have we stopped taking moments to view a flower or two and acknowledge the bees, butterflies and hummingbirds that move among them?  Isn't there still a sense of satisfaction when you harvest some beautiful heads of cauliflower or you smell the basil as you walk next to it?

Yes.  There is still a sense of peace and contentment on the farm.  It's there for the taking.  You just need to allow yourself to recognize and accept it.

"The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm;

 his own hands to use..."  

J.R.R. Tolkien about Samwise Gamgee in Return of the King

There is a sense of place and belonging that comes with the farm (or garden).  Perhaps this is not true for everyone since I am aware of many people who have declared to me and others that gardening is something they NEVER want to do.  But, for someone like me, the garden helps me to find my place again.  It may not be the small garden alluded to for Mr. Gamgee, but it is always a good reminder that there is reward in working with what you have in the best ways you know how.  It is also a good thing to reflect on what we do on our farm frequently so we can see the positive things that happen and accept what we have as what is good enough for us.  Of course, this does not mean that we won't look at opportunities and assess them as we always have.  But, there is a difference between looking carefully at opportunity versus belittling that which is in front of you because you think you want something else.

Pardon me, but I need to go out and survey my realm of peace and content now.

A Little of This and a Little of That

There are a number of things going on at the farm right now, so a farm report type of post seems most relevant.  But, the hard part about this is that it can be hard to figure out what things are the 'biggest' things going on at the farm.  So, I'll just start typing until I stop and we'll call that good.

Organic Certification

Every year we apply for certification we are required to have a visit from an organic inspector.  Inspectors try to avoid holding inspections for any given farm at the same time each year so the operation can be viewed at different phases of production over time.  This year, the inspection was not held until late in the season.

Our inspector arrived on Monday morning this past week (October 12) and we started with a farm tour and followed up with the review of our records and paperwork.  Once we completed the process, our inspector let us know that we had passed the inspection with no problems.  This, in itself, is actually not a surprise since we take the certification process seriously and we work hard to clear the bar by more than just a little bit for certification.  We have held organic certification every year since 2007 and we intend to continue to the best of our abilities.

If you want to learn more about organic certification we have a three part set of blog posts.  The third post is linked here and links to the other two are at the top of that blog post.

High Tunnel Escapades

As the weather gets colder, there is a list of things that we need to do that involve our high tunnel buildings.  Among those things is the work to move the older of the two buildings to the western position so it covers our late Fall/Winter crops.  We accomplished that move today (Saturday) with minimal problems (thanks for the help Mom & Dad Zenk!) and now we can move to the next steps.  We are hopeful that we can get new plastic on this building before it gets too cold, but we are limited in our choices by the wind speed.

Meanwhile, we have a few additional bits of work to do on the new high tunnel to prepare it for Winter.  It's not that any of these projects are all that huge by themselves, but they do add up.

Sun Puddles Are Back in Vogue

You left this here for us, right?

First Frost as a Freeze
At least the first REALLY cold night landed on a Friday.  For us, that's a good thing.  If it is on a CSA day (Tue or Thu) we can't easily respond to the situation.  We did, actually, have very light patchy frost on Thursday night.  But, since it is mid-October, there wasn't much we were worried about.  But, with temps forecast down to 26 for Friday night, we had to work hard all day Friday pulling in things that wouldn't handle the cold.

In fact, not only did we need to pick things that were outside, we realized that tender things inside our high tunnels needed to be picked as well.  Then, we realized that all of the winter squash sitting on carts outside would need to come too.  Let's just say that Friday was a very long day working in a chilly Northwest wind.

In the end, the temps at the farm made it to 22 degrees Fahrenheit and it was down to the freezing mark by 10 pm.  Eight or nine hours of freeze can wreak some havoc, so it's a good thing we did what we did.  On the flip side, all of our buildings are pretty disorganized with all of the produce, etc in the way.

Flock Reductions
'Tis the season for many trips to the park with our birds.  Thus far, we have taken broiler chicken batch #2 to the park and the first set of ducks have also gone in.  This week, we take the turkeys in and we take broiler batch #3 in the first week of November.  The second set of ducks and the baking chickens go in sometime after that.  We're always a bit surprised at how tired we both get after a batch is taken in for processing and we complete all of the 'etceteras' that follow.  But, if you consider that we have to handle each bird twice while they live (catching and putting into cages and then out of cages to the processor's cages) and then at least twice more after processing (more if they are not picked up unfrozen) you can start to get an idea of some of the reasons why.

It helps when we consider the eventual reduction in daily labor and responsibilities on the farm as the flocks are reduced.  At our peak, we had six active flocks that needed to be dealt with at least twice a day.  We're down to five now (and one of those is much smaller and easier to deal with).

Upcoming Events
There are a couple of events coming up that we thought we should share:

Cedar Falls Fall Food Festival at the Cedar Falls Community Center from 7:00pm until 8:30pm.  We will be there representing our farm and promoting our csa and poultry.  This event is Tuesday, October 20, which means we'll be zipping down there after our final CSA delivery in Waverly.  Drop in and say hi while we're there.

Iowa Organic Conference is Monday, November 23 in Iowa City.  Rob will be attending and will be participating as a discussion area 'expert' on organic vegetable production.  We will also be holding our Annual Meeting for the Iowa Organic Association for which Rob is a board member.

The season for Rob speaking in classes has begun, with one visit to Maria Perez's class at UNI October 27 and a couple for Tammy's class on Excel in November.

The Midwest CSA Conference in Eau Claire, Wisconsin will occur on December 3 and 4.  Rob has agreed to be part of a panel for the "What's in Your Box" session.

The Practical Farmers of Iowa Cooperators Meeting for research follows on December 10th and 11th.

Fall Shares, 2016 Shares and Poultry Availability
And then there is this.

We are now in the process of taking reservations for 2016 shares.  At the same time, we are taking sign ups for our Fall extended season shares for this year.  And, of course, we are trying to sell our processed ducks, turkeys and chickens.  If you have questions about any of these, please contact us.  A future blog post will feature details about each of these.

Brain Storm (Part IV)

As each Summer goes by, I get a number of problems and possible solutions that run through my head as I work outside.  And, it can get pretty exhausting having all of that running going on in my head while I'm trying to harvest tomatoes.  The good news is that I often will take a rainy weekend day in August or September and try to get some of that stuff out of my head and onto paper.  Since a certain person from Blue Gate Farm has asked twice what came of the brainstorming effort, I thought I'd share some of them in a series of blog posts.


Right Sizing our Cucumber Crop

In our previous brain storm post, we mentioned the idea of 'right sizing' crops on our farm so that each crop works within the framework of our resources.  Towards the end of that post, we alluded to the fact that there are some crops we have had success with for some time that are actually no longer the source of farm pride they once were.  This doesn't mean we didn't do reasonably well with them.  But, it does mean the crop is not performing up to standards we feel should be met.

A&C Pickling Cucumbers

This might seem a bit odd to hear since we actually had *more* cucumbers than we needed at one point in time this Summer and we were able to send a batch to Blue Gate Farm (something we were very glad to do).  In fact, it seems silly to complain about this crop when we know others in the state had great difficulty this year.  But, that's the thing - I'm not really complaining, I'm just trying to continue to get better at all that we do.  And, our standards - which have always been high - are only going to go up as we get better at what we do.  So, given a reasonably close to normal weather year next year, we hope to improve on this crop.

So, why am I focusing on working with a crop where we literally harvested a TON of produce (2039 pounds)?

Lower Production Numbers

2015          2898 fruit
2014          2142 fruit
2013          5884 fruit
2012          5928 fruit

The field plan has been largely the same for the years shown here with some changes in varieties grown and little tweaks here and there.  But, we've planted two successions and the same number of row feet, give or take a few here or there.  Even if we take out cucumbers from the high tunnel in 2013, it doesn't change the trend.

Last year, the issue had to do with the entire first succession failing due to cold and wet soil.  So, the second succession pretty much carried the load.  This year, conditions were pretty good, if cool.  Sadly, vines died quickly and fruit went to seed quicker than usual, which also promotes vine death if you don't get the mature fruit off the vine.

Succession I in early July

Questions (and answers) to ask about this:

• Do we really need higher production numbers? (no, but 3500-4000 would be about right)
• Are we certain 2014 and 2015 were the aberration? (yes, we can point to causes or circumstances that led to different production numbers)
• Were there human factors that played a part in the reduction (yes, we'll get to those later).
• With the number of row feet dedicated to this crop, what is the estimated peak production? (over 7000 - see 2010 with 7318)
• Does this include culls? Note: culls are fruit that are picked off the vine, but are not marketable. (no, these are marketable fruit, culls go to birds and aren't counted)

Shorter Harvest Peak Window
The production period this year was much shorter than usual.  Our last pick was August 25 - and that wasn't part of our peak production pick.  In a typical year, we will get smaller numbers of cucumbers for three or four weeks, followed by a six week peak harvest.  Then, a 'cool down period' of harvests for another two to four weeks follows.  It is common to harvest at least some cucumbers from the second week of July to mid-September.

Succession I in late July

This year, we had four peak weeks with four "small numbers" weeks prior to the peak.  A single week of small numbers followed the peak and we were done by the time August was in the books.

Is the Peak Window Long or Tall?
The whole point of growing successions of a crop is to spread production out over time.  If a single succession of a given crop will give peak harvest numbers for four weeks, then you would ideally plant two successions that do not overlap their respective peak harvest windows.  This results in a long peak window.  If two much of the windows overlap, then you have a tall peak window.

Since we do not sell cucumbers in bulk numbers to a processor or some other entity, it makes no sense to target a tall/short window.  Instead, we want to have cucumbers available over an extended period of time.

Why does this make sense?

1. Our customers typically do not want too many cucumbers at one time, but they like long term availability.  Even if they 'grow tired' of them, they don't mind an absence of a week or two followed by a reappearance in the share.
2. The amount of labor hours we can expend for harvest simply doesn't allow us to efficiently harvest the shorter peak window. We just can't keep up.  The longer window means fewer per harvest, which fits our labor allocations better.
3. Storage limitations on our farm means we have less flexibility in dealing with the shorter peak with the higher harvest number per pick.
4. If you can't keep up with the harvest, vines will die and the season will end sooner.

Small Cucumber Production Was Low in 2015
When you look at the way we grow cucumbers, you cannot miss the fact that we grow six varieties.  Three of these varieties (Boothby's Blonde, True Lemon and Parade) are smaller cucumbers that often produce very large numbers of fruit.  This season, 2000 of our fruit came from the larger varieties (AC Pickling, Marketmore 76 and Green Finger).  In fact, most of those came from a record season for AC Pickling and a close to record season from Marketmore 76.  So, it wasn't an awful season at all, it just had certain characteristics that we should look at if we want to learn.

Boothby's Blonde

First, it seemed as if Boothby's Blonde, typically reliable and a former number 1 Veg Variety of the Year at GFF, just didn't want to start bearing fruit.  Once they started, despite some vigorous vining, their fruit matured quickly, without necessarily putting on size.  This is exhibited by the white/yellow fruit turning to a deeper yellow and orange color.  The taste rapidly turns bitter as they mature the seeds and we just feed those to the birds.  The vines started die back earlier and frankly, the time required to pull off the over-ripe fruit and the relatively low harvest numbers discouraged us from spending additional time on them.  Could they have rebounded later?  Of course they could have.  But, were they worth additional effort on our part to try and get that rebound?  Apparently not.  Our last picking of any consequence for this variety was at the end of July, only a week and a half after the first decent sized harvest.  Even during 2014's weaker harvest, we had five weeks of decent numbers from this variety.

This brings me to a few conclusions:

1. Smaller cucumbers react more to cooler than normal Summer months (July/August) and may also have been impacted by the high number of foggy nights and mornings during that period.
2. If we do very little to change how we do things, we would likely get back to our previous numbers as long as we get out there and pick.
3. We need to address the volume of production so we can keep up with the harvest and extend the harvest window.

So, What Are We Going to Do About it?

Fine Tune Succession Planting
I have the Winter months to think on it further, but at first glance it seems we need to re-address our succession planting for this crop.  Of course, when you have difficult Springs (such as 2014), you put things in when you are able.  The result of that might be that you compress your plantings, and thus your overall peak harvest window.  I will consider three successions of fewer plants/row feet each.  At the very least, we'll add another week between the two successions we usually plant.  We also expect to have a very early cucumber succession in one of the high tunnels.

Green Finger

Consider Reducing the Overall Number of Row Feet
With other crops seeing more and more success on the farm, perhaps it isn't so important that we grow as many cucumbers as we do.  It is also possible that fewer row feet will make harvest of this crop easier, which could actually result in similar harvests with a different work load.

Consider Going Vertical
Vine crops give you the option of trellising ,something we stopped doing with cucumbers when we realized we would grow more than three or four hills total.  At issue here is the difficulty we have with allocating labor to trellising.  It can be hard enough for us to get tomatoes caged, peas trellised and pole beans trellised.  Add the trellising we do in the high tunnels and suddenly it doesn't seem like this is the best solution - especially if we can't keep up with the trellising we already do.

Get the Darned Walk-In Cooler Running for 2016
This item shows up in a number of our brainstorms.  If we have a place to store crops for later use, then we will have encouragement to harvest on more days of the week other than those that surround a CSA distribution.  This is, of course, an over-simplification of the issue, but it suffices for here.

If We Aren't Going to Reduce Production - Get a Contract to Sell Excess

Historically, we can show ourselves that we are pretty good at producing cucumbers and usually have more than our CSA customers want or need.  An alternative to reducing the number of plants/row feet is to see if we can't secure a contract to sell some of these cucumbers.  There's nothing like making a promise to have something to encourage you to go out there and harvest more regularly.  If we combined this with the walk-in cooler, that could be a winning combination.

Consider Trying More Living Mulch
We have been exploring living mulch options in the cucumbers to keep other weeds down and help us deal with harvest during wet days.  A living mulch, in this case, would be a cover crop (such as clover) that you would plant between cucumber rows.  As the cucumbers vine, they would crawl on the cover crop.  The trick is finding a cover crop that stays low and does not infringe on the cash crop (the cucumbers) by taking water and nutrients from them.

Change Our Goals from Production Numbers to Production Weeks at a Minimum Number
It is simple to set a goal such as this: 4000 fruit for 2016 from our cucumber patch.  But, after thinking about it in more detail, it is clear that the goal for a farm such as ours could be having a certain number of cucumbers every week for as long a period of time as we can effectively manage without expending too many resources to do so.

It Won't Take All That Much
These ideas are not entirely new things for us.  But, as we learn and the farm changes, it makes sense to re-evaluate and reconsider things that either were rejected once before, or simply were not given as much priority.  And, we have to admit that, once a season starts, some of these great ideas are going to fall apart because we can't give them the time or the circumstances of the weather (or other factors) prevent us from doing things the way we have planned them.  But, with this crop, we can say that we shouldn't need to do too much to improve - both because we have a decent framework in place and because some of the solutions are not a huge change from past production years.

Culinary Corner: Salt Primer

This installment of Culinary Corner, written by Elizabeth Hinds, focuses on a non-vegetable item.  But, we have found that a judicious amount of salt for certain produce for a given preparation method can alter the overall taste significantly.   Tammy and I greatly reduced our salt intake many years ago in response to some health issues and, in our personal opinion, salt is often over-used or over-applied.  We have found that reduced use of salt overall has increased the positive impact a little salt can have.  We are known to periodically put a little finishing salt on steamed vegetables as an extra taste treat.  Enjoy Elizabeth's insights!

The most important lesson I learned at culinary school was not to skimp on the salt. I’ve been exposed to a number of fun salts in restaurant kitchens, but there are a small group of favorites I always keep on hand at home.

Kosher Salt
The name of this salt is somewhat misleading. Technically, all salt is considered kosher because all salts are just minerals. Where kosher salt gets its name is from the process of koshering meat. To prepare kosher meat, the surface is salted to draw out the extra blood. Coarse salt simply rolls off the surface, and fine grain table salt will stick, but the granules are so dense that by the time the meat is coated, it’s oversalted and actually begins to cure the meat. Kosher salt’s light and flaky texture allows it to stick to the surface of the meat, but is light enough to draw out the blood without making the meat tough. The same light flakiness that makes it perfect for koshering meat is also my favorite characteristic for cooking. The same volume of kosher salt has less sodium than standard table salt, and it dissolves much faster. What this means for the cook is that you can add kosher salt to whatever you’re cooking and immediately taste the difference. Coarser salts take longer to dissolve, and it’s easier to over-season if you don’t wait long enough between adding the salt and tasting. I’m somewhat impatient, so kosher is my favorite for cooking.
Favorite Brand: Diamond Kosher salt at Hyvee. 

Table Salt
Most table salts contain the very important element: Iodide. Iodide is essential for thyroid health, and this is one of my favorite salts for making pasta and soups. In large amounts of water, the salt dissolves quickly enough that it’s harder to overseason, and if you do, the stuff you add to the liquid does a pretty good job absorbing the extra salt and balances things out.
Favorite Brand: Store brand works great, just make sure to grab something with iodide in it! 

Sea Salts
These are the fun exotic salts you often find in sampler packs in a variety of colors. The Himalayian pink salts, the black Hawaiian volcano salts, and the red clay salts are prime examples of mineral-rich, natural salts. Each of these varieties has their own distinct flavors and aromas and are best used as finishing salts. To find your favorites, I would recommend the bread and butter test: Lightly salting a slice of buttered bread allows you to taste the differences between the varieties without other flavors getting in the way (make sure you’re using unsalted butter!). Favorite Brand: There are too many to pick one! The best place to find these is actually in the kitchen section of TJ Maxx and Marshalls. They’re easier to find, and usually much cheaper than specialty grocery stores.

Large Finishing Salts
Maldon salt is perhaps one of the most famous of this variety. Like kosher salt, it’s light and flaky, but the flakes are much larger and add a bit of crunch to the final dish. These are not salts you cook with. Their higher price tag requires more judicious use, but is well worth it. In addition to the flavor boost you get from adding other salts, finishing salts have large enough flakes that they also add a bit of crunch to whatever you’re putting it on. My favorite ways to use finishing salts is in salads, on freshly grilled meat, or to sprinkle it over the surface of dinner rolls just before they go in the oven.
Favorite Brand: Maldon- I haven’t found this one in stores yet, but you can easily find it on Amazon.com

Brain Storm (Part III)

As each Summer goes by, I get a number of problems and possible solutions that run through my head as I work outside.  And, it can get pretty exhausting having all of that running going on in my head while I'm trying to harvest tomatoes.  The good news is that I often will take a rainy weekend day in August or September and try to get some of that stuff out of my head and onto paper.  Since a certain person from Blue Gate Farm has asked twice what came of the brainstorming effort, I thought I'd share some of them in a series of blog posts.

When Things Aren't Going Well - Simplify

Eden's Gem

I can be pretty stubborn about how we grow things at the farm.  In many ways, that stubborn streak serves us well.  But, with every thing, there must be balance.  And, we have learned to balance our need to show that a crop or a technique or some other thing that we want to figure out with the reality that we can't figure it all out at one time!

We have improved melon production substantially over the past four years in large part because we simplified what we were trying to do.  We cut down the number of varieties we were growing, reduced the complexity of our companion crops and analyzed all of our past trials to come up with one approach that we would try to work from as a base.  In other words, we feel we've built up a foundation of data and ideas through the experimentation and we can now start with a set of 'best practices' in hopes of implementing some of the things we WANT to do in ways that are efficient and practical.

Happily, with the melons, the combination of our experimentation followed by simplification has resulted in a plan that really works with the ideals we strongly believe in:

• diversity is important
• pollinators are key farm workers
• spray isn't necessary
• taste and texture are prime quality components
• open pollinated varieties can be sufficiently productive
• a field we want to be in is a successful field
• good growing plans provide their own insurance

In 2015, we grew six varieties of melon and one variety of watermelon in our Southwest plot.  I suppose this doesn't sound like it is simplified to many who would read this - but I haven't filled you in on all of it yet!  We planted companion flowers in rows between varieties.  These flowers were zinnia, borage, bee's friend and calendula and they served as attractors for beneficial insects/pollinators.  The taller/tougher flowers (borage and zinnia) were put between the melons that tended to vine aggressively in order to 'wall them' into their area.  We also planted wide rows of buckwheat and sunn hemp.

The field was weeded/cultivated three times and we will 'weed' it a fourth time as we clean up this Fall since some tall weeds always manage to get through it all at the end of the season.  Production levels for Oka, Pride of Wisconsin and Eden's Gem were quite good.  Hearts of Gold was also fine, but we missed our timing on a pick and didn't catch many of them before they broke open.  Boule d'Or showed some promise in a short row trial.  Ha'Ogen, of all the melons, did poorly.  But, we love its taste so much, we are willing to continue to figure out its needs.

So, how is this simple?

1. Believe it or not, we reduced the number of melon varieties we were growing.
2. With only the short row trial exception, the space between two flower rows was one variety
3. There was no living mulch attempt this year. Instead, we reduced production space and planted wide strips of cover crop in areas we felt soil conditions needed improvement.
4. We treated all crops (melons, flowers or cover crop) as a main crop and equally worthy of being planted on time and irrigated on time.  In other words, we didn't just say "Oh, it's just flowers, I guess we won't do them this time."
5. We seeded flowers and cover crops heavily to help them out-compete weeds

Probably the biggest part of this was the decision to not even try to make every square foot of this plot productive for melons.  We planted the fewest row feet of melons we ever had and had record production numbers this year.  It is so easy to look at prior year production numbers and extrapolate them to greater heights if you just add another hundred feet of production.  The truth of the matter is that each farm has a 'right size' for each crop and the best way to simplify is to recognize and implement a plan that fits that right size.

Sunn hemp (buckwheat far left)

Finding the right size can become difficult when the variables change, which happens every season on our farm.  The good news is that most variables will not change that right size terribly much.  But, major changes, such as a new 96 foot by 30' high tunnel, or a new tractor with implements can certainly help to increase that area.  And yet, I am telling you that we had record production by reducing the growing space even after adding a new tractor and high tunnel over the past three years.

Does this mean I don't think our practices are scalable (able to be used in larger operations)?  No, I strongly believe that they can be. But for our farm, the balance of our resources with all of our other crops seems to be dictating right now that this is the right size.

So, the next steps are pretty simple.  We must answer a couple of questions.  How can we tweak what we did this year so we can avoid losing half our Eden's Gem plants and most of the Ha'Ogen and how can we manage harvest so we don't lose perfectly good fruit because we missed a harvest time?

In Need of Simplification
We have some crops that are currently in need of simplification (so to speak) beginning next season.  Many of these are crops we have had success with for many years, but we feel they are no longer performing as they once did.  What we need to remember is that the right size and right practices will also change for things that we grew well prior to some major variables on the farm changing on us.  It would be silly of us to expect that we wouldn't also have to adjust how we grow these things too.

And, as with anything that you've done for a while, there is some house cleaning to be done.  Why, for example, do we grow Cocazelle and Costata Romanesco zucchini?   It started as a trial five years ago.  I suspect we should be able to make a decision by now, don't you think?  And, do we really need to grow six 180' rows of cucumbers?  We are certainly able to do it, but we have trouble keeping up with the picking given our current situation.  Or, is it worth it if only to have lots of cucumbers to feed our birds later in the season?

Oh - and if you're worried that things at our farm will ever get too simple you only need to remember one thing.
It's us.