LilyPalooza 2017

Every year we tend to share posts that feature our day lilies as they enter peak bloom at the farm.  We thought we'd start formally calling it "LilyPalooza" in hopes that Rob will take the time to share pictures with you each year.

And hey!  If you want to see them in person, let us know.  We'll trade you a little bit of weeding time for a LilyPalooza tour of your very own!  Or maybe you can help us with the dishes...  Or you could try not wince too visibly when Rob throws a pun or two your way.

 Daylilies can be difficult for me to photograph sometimes because I admit to being an impatient "photographer."  After all, I am usually needing to do my job as farmer and taking a moment to take pictures of pretty flowers can usually only be an actual moment...

 Sometimes, the picture gets a little washed out looking when the flower is in full sun.  To my eye, many of those featuring yellows really show off during bright daylight.  Add a little red and perhaps some angle to sunlight and you get the picture above.

 At times, you get a little bit of a sparkle in the picture.  Yes, it is true, some of these daylilies show off because they KNOW they look good.

 As an opportunist when it comes to taking pictures, I'm willing to take what is given to me.  Some different shadows?  Ok.  Why not?  If they don't work, they don't work, that's fine.  But, I can still recall how nice it was to take a picture or two at 6:30am so I could get some different shadows on the flowers.

 At times, the colors are absolutely stunning.  I can only hope the camera will catch a bit of the color that is there.  The two surrounding this text are pretty good representations of what I was seeing during my LilyPalooza tour this year.

 If you look carefully, you might notice that daylilies are not all shaped the same.  Some have drastically different sized petals, some are rounder in the overall shape.  Some.... look a little spidery.

 And others just can't wait to open all of their blossoms at once.

 But most are happy with a couple at a time, extending their bloom over a period of many days.

 Some of the flowers are bold - saying "Look!  I have something to share with you."

 And others might rather stay in the corner and mind their own business.

 Perhaps they'll take a look at the aster plant nearby.

 Some of our daylilies are old standbys that we have had for nearly as long as we've been married.  Hyperion is not as flashy as many of them, but it is reliable.  And it makes both of us smile.

 And, Hyperion plays nicely with others.

 Every once in a while, we get a surprise.  We don't recall this one blooming before.  It has small flowers with a frilly texture.  It's actually quite nice, but you have to really stop and look at it to really appreciate it.

 Speaking of texture - even some of the bigger daylilies play that game.

 I suppose we should get around to figuring out what we have and trying to come up with a nice representative planting.  It sounds like a fun project.  But, who will weed it?  We have to ask these questions.

 Because it would be a shame if the flowers were covered up.

 The more I look at them, the more I realize that each one can make me feel differently.  Have a little fun and try something different says one daylily.

 Relax and have some lemonade says Prairie Blue Eyes. 

 And then there's Rocket City.  Not too hard to guess what it might say.

 A flower like the one below almost seems like it is wearing the flowers version of a tuxedo.  Bond, James Bond, it says.

 And this one is just "wedding day" pretty. 

 Then, there is the pinkish flower that just won't let me get it's color right when I take its picture.  Hopefully, I can take another crack at it.

 On the other hand, this one is really that red.

 And these are a coral color both of us love to look at.  It shows off most in the evening, but it just doesn't want it's photo taken then - they just never turn out the way I see them.

 And, if there was a clown of the flower world, it might look like this.

 Daylilies even look good if you don't get all of the weeds out of the way.  You just have to pull them to the side a bit.

 And, the biggest flower we have (for daylilies) is Big Bird.  The flower is a good deal bigger than my hand.

 Thank you for joining us for LilyPalooza 2017.

It's still going on at the farm and we hope to enjoy it as much as we possibly can!

Enough to Make You Cry

I don't check social media all that much.  My interactions there tend to be farm focused because, to me, it's a tool that I can't ignore if we want our farm to continue.  As is the case with every communication tool that has increased the ease with which we can share varying media, the content quality can be suspect.  And, the immediacy or the 'call and response' cycle encourages us to skip the process of critical thinking.

It's so easy to share things that upset us.  It's so easy to share inane things that don't matter all that much.  It's so easy to get overwhelmed by all of the unhappy things out there.

It's enough to make you cry.


Until you remind yourself that there is a strength in knowledge.  If you are careful about what you share and you think hard about what goes out there, perhaps you can help inform people about things that they should know about.

For example:
Dicamba Sales Suspended in Arkansas and Missouri

Dicamba is a 'reformulation' of 2-4D, which was known to drift and cause problems before it was banned from use. Supposedly, the producer of the chemical addressed this problem and got approval for the sale of the dicamba ready soybeans and use of the product. Since that time, it has become apparent that they did NOT handle the drifting issue. In fact, there are problems with storing the stuff as well. Dicamba damage to plants can take on many forms but it is not easy to verify, and it is nearly impossible to track from whence it came. All I can say is this chemical is dangerous.

Note at the end of the article the mention of enhanced penalties. Iowa's penalties top out at about 6% of Missouri's new penalties.

Why do I bring this to your attention?  Well, if we want to do something about it, people need to be made aware of the issue.  Please, consider contacting legislators and voicing your concern.  While a suspension of sales in Arkansas and Missouri is something, it will not stick if people celebrate and assume it will go away.  It won't without some effort.

And, while we are worried about herbicides like Dicamba, there are also pesticides like the neonicoianoids that have been linked to pollinator decline.  

We started asking nurseries if their stock was treated with neonicotinoids prior to purchase.  Why? Because we took the time to learn about an issue and how we might be perpetuating a problem.

Then there is this:
Farmworkers in California sickened by Spray Drift

While it is true that there are more field workers in California than most states, you should take note that there has been more field activity in Iowa fields than there has been in recent years.  We've seen some farmers going back to hiring crews to "walk beans" and go "rock picking" than in prior years.  Some of this might be a response to lower corn and soybean prices (among other factors), but the point is - there are more workers outside doing a job during the growing season.

Then there are people such as myself and Tammy and our crew Caleb, Emma and Jocelyn.  We're out there nearly every day.  Just because we are doing a job that many people don't WANT to do, it doesn't make it ok that we have to inhale chemicals someone else is spraying for crops that are NOT on our farm.  Heck, it wouldn't be ok if we wanted to spray some of our crops and our workers had to inhale it (or be covered in it).  For that matter, if I sprayed a field with my workers in it, I would expect to be in trouble.  Why is it we accept that a neighboring farmer can spray and miss their field and not be in trouble for harming workers on another farm?  Why is it ok to drift on people who just live in the country or at the edge of a small town in Iowa?

Again, this is worth our time because it isn't ok.  We need to say this clearly and we need to be persistent.  We can take action to make things better - which is why I put it in front of you.

And then:
Iowa is Losing Trees and It Is Hurting Water Quality

I have watched unhappily while people in our area of Bremer county have ripped up trees, brushy areas and lightly wooded areas so they can till a few more acres of land.  After all, if you have access to the land, you MUST make it work.  Right?  Right?!?

The problem here is that we have a terribly narrow and short-sighted view of what making land 'work' for us might be.  Uncle Brownie used to find tree seedlings in his field that he would move to the fence line.  He understood the value of trees in the farmscape and he promoted their presence on the land he stewarded during his lifetime.

Now, it seems like some farmers are even jealous and upset that there are ditches next to our roads.  How many times have you seen fields where the old fence posts are ripped out and the field is worked up and over the crown that leads to the ditch?

It is no longer about making the land work for you so you can make a living and it is more about milking every little ounce out of the land NOW so YOU can USE it NOW.  Who cares about anything (or anyone) else?

But wait, there is more:
Farmers Commit Suicide at a High Rate, Even after 80's Farm Crisis

No, this is not a cry for help.  But, I feel it is a part of the puzzle.

Simply put, farming can be a stressful vocation.  I could write an entire post about this alone (and then some).  But, I feel part of the issue is that we have built a system that rewards competition and monocropping and large scale agriculture.  Anyone who fails to go that way adds extra stresses that may be the straw that 'breaks the camel's back.'  Or, even if you try to play the game, it's not so hard to end up playing for the losing team (so to speak).

Farmers under high stress are less likely to want to think about things like how what they do impacts water quality, or their neighbor's crops or the meadowlark population.  When you are hurting, your world gets smaller.

The problem, perhaps is just that - we've all made our own personal worlds so small we can't see when we harm others:
Meteorologist Shows Poor Air Quality in Central Iowa After Fireworks Frenzy

I am glad we have personal freedoms in our country.  I am not necessarily a big fireworks fan, but I guess I can understand why some people were very excited about the removal of the firework sales ban in Iowa this year.

My biggest reason for not liking this decision was the fact that I could see how our tendency as humans to not consider others could cause some very real problems.

What about veterans who cringe and have flashbacks (or worse) every time a firework goes off?  It's one thing to have fireworks on the fourth of July.  They have a chance to find a safe place and try to muffle the sound.  But, when it is ANY citizen shooting a firework off at ANY time at nearly ANY place?  What are they supposed to do, find a deep cave and stay there for a month?  How is that right?

I thought of several other issues and I was still surprised (though I shouldn't have been) by the air quality issue.  As an asthmatic, if the air quality in our area had reached those levels, I would have had a pretty bad time of it.

And now, you know why I am sharing all of these links and stories - along with the issues.  Sure, they may make you sad
or angry
maybe even feel helpless.

But, I submit that the solution is within reach.  When you consider how your actions and choices just might negatively impact others, you can improve things.  When you see problems like these and draw attention to them, you can encourage action and thought that might widen someone's personal worldview.  And, when you make it known that you are dissatisfied with how things are in a reasonable way that considers how others feel - maybe something positive can happen.

If you don't take care of the problem, it only gets bigger.

Positive change sure won't happen otherwise.

Brassicae and Allia Together Again

We try to do a fair amount with intercropping on our farm and we're always tweaking how we attempt to make it happen.  This year, we stuck with the general principles of the last few years when it came to the brassicae (broccoli, cauliflower, etc) and the allia (onions, garlic, etc).  Instead, we went with a couple of tweaks.

Even in a decent year, it often seems like we ride the edge of disaster.  Case in point:

Ok - that's a day away from "uh oh."

Some people would say that we had already reached the "uh oh" stage, but I think the picture actually overstates the case this time around.  The weeds were not all that dense, but they certainly had some real bulk to them.  An earlier run with the Williams Toolbar with the flextines made onion weeding do-able rather than a nightmare.  Simply put, the picture you see above is what happens when the next field on the cultivation list isn't taken care of before a series of rains that make the field too wet to work.  It really did not look all that bad prior to the rains - honest!

Some between row cultivation and some in row weeding and it looks better.

Tammy and I spent a good portion of our July 4th celebrating our ability to eradicate weeds.  If you look at the picture above, you'll notice all of the rows at the left are pretty clean and the rows directly in front of us are well on the way.  The sunny, warmer weather made it easy to just let the weeds dry out in place.  Let's just say they didn't appreciate having their roots exposed.

Ah, finished!

The crew rejoined us on the 5th and we got the in row work done on some onions and broccoli.  What you don't see clearly here is the intercropping of marigolds in row with the broccoli.  We've tried some herbs in the past with some success, but we're both enjoying the marigolds more.

A rewarding end of the day sight for me was this picture as I brought in tools.  This blog post was written on July 8 (even though it will not appear until July 17).  It's only three days later and the field exhibits significant growth for all of the crops. 

Broccoli and onions were actually part of our SARE funded study from a few years ago along with our bean/potato research.  If you are interested, you could view this:

A quick summary could be this: we found planting onions and brassicae in the same bed to be an issue for the onions.  Since that time, we've found that adjacent bends help with cabbage looper and cabbage worm.  We are now tinkering with three versus four rows of onions per bed and with the frequency of the in-row companion (marigold, for example) with the brassicae.  In the next few weeks, we will undersew some cover crops in select rows and see what that does for us.

And now, you know more about some of our crops than you ever wanted to!

Rats in Your Room

Our story begins with a batch of turklets in their room.  They had nice clean straw and lots of area to run around.  They jumped and hopped when a moth made the bad decision to fly through.  We saw the moth for a while and then it wasn't there.  We're not sure if the moth managed to leave, land somewhere safe or if it met a "Beak of Doom."

The turklets were healthy.  They were curious about everything.  They ate well.  They stayed hydrated and got plenty of exercise.  Until, one morning.

Tammy found some dead turklets.

We'd seen this before and figured rats had decided to expand their diet from stealing feed from the turklets to the turklets themselves.  Not good.

So, we moved the turklets from their room to the brooder room, which is more secure.  There are fewer entry points and we got the birds away from where the rats had established that turklets were edible.

Unfortunately for the turklets, they now had noisy and stinky neighbors - the "nuggets" (aka broiler chickens).  Fortunately for the turklets, the nuggets were due to go out to pasture the next day.    The farmers moved a fan into the room and added some extra venting to regulate the temperature and everyone did fine the next night.

Caught in the Act!

We set out to rid ourselves of the rats in the turkey room and ended up catching one in a rather non-conventional way.  Apparently, the one picture above was used to going THROUGH the chicken wire about half-way up the turkey room wall.  Also apparently, adding turkey to the diet went straight to the rat's hips.

Tammy went to check the room the morning after we moved the turklets and found this rat stuck and unable to get out of its predicament.  Queen Boss Tammy's wrath resulted in the smiting of said rat and it is no more.

If you are a farmer with animals, you have to know there will be rats.  If you have livestock, you have to accept you will lose some of them.  It doesn't make you happy, but there you are.  But, it is even rarer to be given a gem like this after what could be termed a 'bad situation.'

The turklets are currently 'safe' and healthy.  The nuggets are moved and out on pasture.  And, the rat gave us an opportunity to laugh and have a little fun - at its expense.  We put out some Facebook posts asking people to give us song titles that would fit the picture above.  Here are our favorites that were submitted or mentioned:

Honorable Mention: Journey "Who's Crying Now?"

Number 10: Tonio K "You Don't Belong Here"

Number 9: Vigilantes of Love "It Could Be Alot Worse"

Number 8: Queen "Great King Rat"

Number 7: Giant "No Way Out"

 
Number 6:  White Stripes "I Smell A Rat"

Number 5: Creed "One Last Breath"

perhaps six feet under isn't down far enough?

Number 4: Kerosene Halo "Bad Sense of Direction"

Number 3: Nitty Gritty Dirt Band "Stuck in the Middle"

Quite literally - at that.

Number 2: Kerry Livgren "Hindsight"

Ahhhh!  A title that works on SO many levels.  You just have to like it.

Number 1: NRBQ "Rats in My Room"

There was just no question about this one.


And a bonus: Princess Bride and the ROUS

If you didn't believe in them before - you have to now!

Gardening in Eden

The most difficult things about blogging and farming at the same time:
1. Finding time to blog while the season is really going.  Solution: write a bunch of blog posts at a time when weather is bad, etc)
2. Dealing with posts that wait two or more weeks to show up with pictures that no longer represent how things look on the farm.
3. Failing to remember all of the great ideas you had when you were out weeding/picking something.  Ok, I have not good solution for that one.
4. Looking and seeing you have NO MORE posts in the pipeline and you'd better do something about.
and finally
5. Wanting to produce quality posts and realizing you only have time for a rough approximation of that.

Which brings me to this post's topic. 

Our older high tunnel building that we have named "Eden."

Eden has shown up in many prior posts and you're just going to either have to take my word for it OR you can go look for those posts.  That's a sacrifice I make to get posts out during this time of year, I tend not to create back links all that often.

Ever since it's construction in 2010, we have enjoyed the opportunities Eden has provided for us to extend the season in the Fall and Winter as well as some in the Spring.  But, July may be my favorite time in Eden. 

Here's why:

Tomatoes, lettuce, golden beets, carrots, peppers and beans.

It looks wonderful in there!  The most amazing thing is how quickly things changed.  I downloaded this picture a couple days after I took it and recognized how much bigger all of the plants were than the picture showed.  And, the other side of the tunnel looked like this:

Cucumbers, melons, lettuce, bunching onions, peppers, chard and beans.

We pack a fair amount in there and we try to maintain diversity as much as we are able.  We wanted to get some sweet alysum in there, but found out we didn't order the seeds.  So, we have a few plants we'll pop in there.  Otherwise, there is some thyme along the north edge.

Uh oh!  Weeds in Eden!  Better get on that.

High tunnels have the positive/negative result that you can work even on rainy days.   The next rainy day will find us out there weeding.  Or maybe a late evening/early morning if rain doesn't come soon enough.

Black Krim tomatoes... on the way.

We managed to get the early heirlooms into Eden at about the time we wanted.  Here we are in early July with tomatoes looking like they might ripen fairly soon.  The numbers are not huge early on, but they'll likely get there.  Plants are healthy and we've trellised up to the top of the stakes already.  Guess we've got to extend the trellis.

Darned ants!

Something we haven't experienced much before is the negative impact of an ant hill next to tomato plants.  These two were badly stunted when an ant hill rapidly developed at their base.  For the most part, we like ants.  Just not this particular hill.

Just to show you all I can turn the camera sideways.

The bunching onions were an experiment this year.  We have grown White Wing bulbing onions in here in the past and they have done well.  But, we wanted to see if we could direct seed some bunching onions with good results.  They look fine, but we're not sold at this point.  This was especially true when weather did not cooperate for us to get the field onions in when we wanted.  Such is the life of farmers.

Thanks for reading our blog, come back soon!

Wheelhoeroebics

It must have rained here for a while

Prior to the rains that started in late June, we were feeling pretty good about how our fields looked with respect to weed control.  We weren't as happy about the growth of our crops, but rain can help with that.  But, since weeds are also plants, they liked the rain as well.  So, our peppers, beans and eggplant between our tomatoes in the East field weren't looking as photogenic as we would normally like last Wednesday.

It's amazing what you can do with a wheel hoe.

 We do have some tractor cultivating tools that we use on the farm.  Sometimes, they are the best tool for the job.  And, at other times, the trusty wheel hoe is our choice.  Personally, I like the viewpoint I get as I walk the rows while I run a wheel hoe.  Yes, yes... I know.  I walk back and forth many times in order to get these results.  I get that some find that to be inefficient.  But, I also get exercise AND a detailed appreciation for my crop status without performing a field walk.  I put the two things together this way. 

Oh, now that's looking very nice.

Will I need to cultivate this field again?  Of course I will.  But, we should be past the bulk of the grass germination stage, which is our worst enemy in this field right now.  The wheel hoe is a shallow cultivator, so we aren't bringing up a bunch of the seedbank that can be found deeper in the soil and I make sure to overlap my passes so I can be sure to turn roots up to the sun for all of the small and newly germinating weeds. 

I like to get the blade moving fast enough so soil comes up over the blade in a bit of a cascade.  This won't work so well if the soil has a crust on it or if the weeds are too big - and that's why you have more than one kind of tool.

I mentioned the exercise component earlier.   We're actually beginning to wonder if we should teach a 'wheelhoeroebics' class at our farm.  Anyone up for it?  We have other fields to wheel hoe.

See?!

Sometimes It Works Out Better

Early July is typically our target for mulching and caging our field tomatoes.  Some years it works out beautifully and others.... not so much. 

Our field tomatoes usually don't go in until the end of May, but have been known to wait until early June if the weather is difficult.  We even had one season where we couldn't plant any in our fields until June 20 (yes, the farmers were a bit stressed that season).  This year, we had a few plant dates with our earliest going into our Southwest field because it drains better than all of the others.

southwest field, tomatoes on the right

We prefer to give our tomatoes a few weeks to grow in the field before putting the straw down.  There are a number of reasons why that might be a good decision and some reasons why it might not be.  First, tomatoes don't like soil splash on the leaves, so you might think it would be wise to mulch earlier than later.  But, if the plants are very small, mulching can be very difficult.  And, we're not going to mulch in stages - that's just too labor intensive.

Tomatoes like warmth and we like the heat gain we get with bare soil earlier in the season.  Once we get to July, that heat gain isn't so important and the soil splash protection is. 

Rows cultivated, area around the plants weeded and the plants are pruned - now for straw mulch!

We prune our tomatoes right before applying the mulch.  This does make mulching easier since we get rid of all of the low branches and suckers and it also removes leaves that may have been in contact with the soil.  We pull these branches out of the area to avoid any spread of pathogen that might be possible.

Ah.. A farmer selfie after tomatoes in the east are mulched.

Typically caging or trellising is our last step.  Growers have preferences of all sorts for trellising (from letting plants sprawl to caging to Florida stake and weave).  We participated in a study several years ago researching trellising techniques and the determining factor tended to be the farmers' experience (or lack thereof) with the method.

We've been investing in collapsible square cages over the last few years and find that they match our labor requirements and farm tendencies better than other methods.  We use the stake and weave method in the high tunnels and we have another trellis method for one smaller field variety.  We have been moving away from the round cages we created from woven wire fencing and only have 50 or so that use those cages now.

2016 was not so friendly for our tomato mulching/caging efforts

 As of July 7, we completed all of our tomato mulching and caging for our field tomatoes.  Last year, our tomato field looked like the picture above on July 16.  You might notice cages at the left and right, but some missing in other rows.  You'll notice many weeds and no mulch.  Of course, some of the issue was the weather but the reasons are almost always more complex than just a bad stretch of weather. 

2016 post weeding session

Part of the difference in 2017 is a change in the distribution of the plants.  We split fields rather than having them all in one field this year.  We incorporated peppers, beans and eggplant with our east field.  The Southwest field tomatoes are sharing with short season crops (like lettuce, pok choi, etc).  We also shifted a few more of our tomatoes into the high tunnels now that we have Valhalla (our newer high tunnel) fully integrated into our growing system. 

We also simplified our life by removing the plant sales component (except for direct pre-orders) and reducing the number of varieties to about 20 as opposed to the 30+ in prior years.  We made a few changes in our bed-prep procedures that seemed to speed things up AND we had two returning workers this year.

Oh, and yes, the weather was friendlier this time.

Music to Wheel Hoe By

One of the things that keeps me going when I have just "a few thousand more row feet" to wheel hoe is some good music.

Don't know what a wheel hoe is?

Hey!  There's one leaning on the cart!

It's a walk-behind cultivator where you are the engine.  Sometimes, when the soil is right and the weeds are small, you can cover a good deal of ground in a hurry.  Other times, when the weeds are bigger - it can be a bit of a struggle.

Like the taller weeds in the potatoes this year

Running a wheel hoe is "serious business" folks.  You have to have your game on to be successful.  So, I find some good upbeat music to get me going.  Maybe a little TobyMac and "This is Not a Test"

And you've got to wheel hoe like you mean it.  Getting a couple of songs with a good beat always seems to help keep you going.  In fact, I've been thinking about starting a class of wheel hoeroebics.   Who's with me on that one?  Well, maybe you'll be motivated by Switchfoot's "Say It Like You Mean It."

Once you get to the end of a row, whether it is 50 feet, 200 feet or 800 feet, you have to have some more bouncy music so you can turn around and go after it again!  Maybe "Spin You Around" by the Choir will help with that?

Then, once you have completed your task, you can celebrate a little.  Maybe you'll feel like you're "On Top Of the World" (Imagine Dragons).

So, why did I make this particular post?  Someone asked me how it was I could wheel hoe for as long as I do.  The key is the music.  Some good, upbeat music goes a long ways towards encouraging me to run just one more row.  And, then, just another row.

I suppose another key is that my body type is probably one of the better ones for plowing along with a wheel hoe.  But, I'd rather just say it's the music. 

And now you know.

Up Close and Personal

It is ridiculously easy for us to forget to stop and appreciate the flowers that we encourage on our farm.  Or, it is ridiculously easy to look at the flowers and be depressed because they are in a flower bed that has not been tended.  But, their presence on the farm is supposed to remind us of all of the good things in life.

We try to get a different perspective by getting up close and personal with some of these flowers every so often.  I suppose some of it is to just try my hand at taking some different photos (thank goodness for digital cameras - you can shoot a bunch of pictures and toss nearly all of them with minimal cost).  But, the other reason is to force myself to fully appreciate what I am seeing and to bring my own focus on the flower WITHOUT allowing the weeds or jobs on the farm to take away from my enjoyment.

Chive flowers are always a good target - plus, you can gnaw on a stem if you want.

Sometimes, the picture I take captures what I am seeing as I look at them without a lens.  Other times, I am surprised by what happens.  Case in point:

Johnson's Blue Geranium

The perennial geranium loves our farm and we now have many clusters of this flower - it just likes our place.  Each mound has many flowers, so it is really a different perspective to get a close up of only one or two flowers.  I particularly enjoy the veining on the flower petals.

Daffodils and Pasque Flower

 An earlier Spring picture turned out reasonably well, I guess.  It really wasn't quite what I was seeing either.  In fact, I am pretty sure that I was NOT sure what I was trying to frame when I took this photo.  I am sure it won't win any awards - but I feel like I can touch the flowers here.  I find that rewarding because I will sometimes take a moment and touch the flowers I am viewing just to force myself to focus and appreciate.

Fernleaf peony

And the last installment for the blog post is a fernleaf peony.  Getting a good picture of this flower is nearly impossible, in my opinion.  Part of the reason for it is that they don't really hold up as well as other flowers to close inspection.  The structure of the flower is often loose and it always seems like they are on the back end of their peak bloom.  But, we still appreciate them and grow them.  And, I decided this Spring that they are texture treat for the eyes.

I hope you enjoyed the flower break!

July Newsletter

While it is not exactly a July thing since we took our first batch of broiler chickens to "The Park" in late June, our efforts to sell said birds actually land in July more than June - so it remains appropriate!  This batch of birds resided in the pasture just Southeast of the old barn.  There is/was lots of clover there and they really showed a good tendency to spread out in their area to forage - which makes us very happy.  The birds were very strong and landed in the 4.5 - 6 pound range after processing.  They are now at "Freezer Camp" and awaiting invitations to family dinners in the area!  Interested?  Contact us!

July Calendar of Events

• July 4 - 5: No deliveries
  July 6: Delivery 8 Cedar Falls (Trad, WE, AltEven)
• Week of July 10 - Chicken Share Deliveries Begin
  July 11: Delivery 9 Waverly (Trad, WE, AltOdd)
  July 13: Delivery 9 Cedar Falls (Trad, WE, AltOdd)
  July 16: Gang of Four+ at Wabi Sabi Farm
  July 18: Delivery 10 Waverly (Trad, WE, AltEven)
  July 20: Delivery 10 Cedar Falls (Trad, WE, AltEven)
  July 25: Delivery 11 Waverly (Trad, WE, AltOdd)
  July 27: Delivery 11 Cedar Falls (Trad, WE, AltOdd)

Perspective:
The two of us have had the opportunity to experience different careers and the life that comes with them.  At one point in time, we both were involved in academia.  At another, each of us worked in our fields of training (Social Work for Tammy, Computer Science for Rob).  We were not strangers to hard work and long hours prior to the beginnings of the Genuine Faux Farm.  This isn't really about hard work or being busy either.  It's about accomplishment and the opportunity to reflect once a major task is complete.

 

There was a time that we would have felt that moving a 30' x 96' building from one location to another would be a major accomplishment worthy of a celebratory meal and some down time later in the day.  Well, ok, there was also a time when planting a 30' x 30' garden was a reason for the same reaction as well.  In fact, we did have lunch with our helpers after the building was successfully in place.  Then, we went out and worked some more on other tasks.  We did not spend a great deal of time basking in the glow of the accomplishment, because we had other good sized accomplishments that were due to be reached before the day was up.

In some ways, our growing season is a bit like a musical performance.  There are passages that are more difficult and require significant effort by the players than others.  The performers can't stop and admire what they have wrought (or stop and cringe if they make mistakes).  They must continue until the piece is over.  The time for reflection and basking in the glow of work well done happens when the musical piece concludes.

CSA Signup 2017
We will continue to add people to our CSA as people request and we will prorate the amount necessary for the shares.

Song of the Month
The sun comes up early enough that Tammy and I usually don't have too much trouble waking up initially.  But, there is awake and there is "awake."  This a song we've been enjoying as a morning wake up song lately.  It helps when we're having a bout of the "I don't want to's."

Recipe of the Month

Chicken Bruschetta
From WebMD's Recipe Finder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
1/4 teaspoon black pepper, divided
4 (4-ounce) pieces of chicken, skin off
Cooking spray
1 tablespoon olive oil
8-ounces sliced mushrooms
1 small zucchini, quartered lengthwise and sliced (about 5 ounces)
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup chopped tomato
1/2 cup chopped red onion
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
4 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup (1 ounce) grated fresh Parmesan cheese

Preheat broiler. Combine garlic powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper in a small bowl; sprinkle chicken with garlic powder mixture. Place the chicken on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray, and broil for 6 minutes on each side or until chicken is done. Remove the chicken from pan, and keep warm.
Heat olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1/4 teaspoon salt, mushrooms, zucchini, and minced garlic; saute 2 minutes. Add 1/8 teaspoon black pepper, tomato, onion, basil, and vinegar; saute 3 minutes. Serve the vegetable mixture over chicken; sprinkle with cheese. Yield: 4 servings

Field Report
We have gotten our fair share of rain (and then some) over the past couple of weeks.  Yes, things were starting to get on the drier side, so we were happy to be getting some rain.  But, you know we're teetering on "too much" when we start to see the weeds in the field getting away from us even though we had done a very good job of getting those same fields cleaned up prior to the rains.

The rain has prevented us from putting our next batch of lettuce and short season crops into the ground.  Otherwise, we have planted the majority of our crops.  We still need to put in succession III of cucumber, summer squash and zucchini and they are due to go in fairly soon (mid July).  Rather than overdo the report and tell you about all of our crops, we'll focus on a few:

Tomatoes: The tomatoes in Eden have tomatoes set on them.  Most of the plants look healthy and we think we'll get a few tomatoes by the end of July (which is good for our farm as our tomato harvests tend to be strong from mid-August to October).  The tomatoes in Valhalla are just in since they focus on providing us late tomatoes.  Last year our Valhalla tomatoes produced into mid-November.  The field tomatoes are ready to be mulched and caged, which is right on schedule.

Carrots: The carrots in Eden are a bit sparser than they have been, but we were hoping to go for a bit more size this time around.  Last year we seeded too heavily and didn't find time to thin.  The result was a good number of smaller carrots.  They tasted fine, of course, but a bunch of little carrots are a good deal harder for us to clean than fewer, larger carrots.  We suspect the final volume will be about the same when all is said and done.  Believe it or not, the field carrots also look pretty good.  Per the norm, they are a couple weeks behind the high tunnel carrots in development.  A quick weeding would be good for them, but they are general in decent shape.

Napa Cabbage: There is a batch of napa cabbage in the southwest field that is starting to look like Napa cabbage should look like.  Heads are not yet forming, but the outer leaves are getting larger and the plants look reasonably healthy.  Our guess is mid to late July for these.  The next batch is in trays and need to go into the ground.

Picture of the Month

Anything that shows dead weeds and healthy plants works for us right now!

Farm News Shorts

• Rob has been asked to present at a conference in Canada this year.  He's never been in Canada, so we're both looking forward to it.  Perhaps we'll tell everyone more about it at a later time.
• Herbicide spray drift has become a bigger issue the past couple years than it ever was before.  The dicamba product is subject to volatilizing and drifting after application, with the potential to travel miles before resettling.  Many people, including our own operation, are reporting spotting on plants that is almost certainly from some sort of herbicide.  The problem was serious before and apparently things are going to get worse before they get better.  Please consider learning more about the problem so you can be a part of the solution.
• Farmer selfies.  This is about as close to a real selfie you'll get either of us to do.

Time to Have Pun
President Teddy Roosevelt decided to go on a big game hunt in the jungles of Africa. While deep in the middle of the jungle, he came across a beautiful lake. He immediately pulled out his fishing pole and started to fish in the lake. A short time later, he caught a huge carp and reeled it in and laid the carp down on the ground to remove the hook. As soon as the hook was removed, the carp leaped in air and knocked TR's wallet out of his jacket. The carp then grabbed the wallet in its mouth, jumped into the lake and began swimming away. TR immediately jumped into the lake and began swimming after the carp to retrieve his wallet. Just as TR was about to catch the carp, the carp handed TR's wallet off to a second carp. TR swam furiously after the second carp and was closing in fast on the second carp when the second carp handed the wallet off to a third carp, who quickly swam away from the exhausted TR. This is the first known example of carp to carp walleting.