With the planting of garlic today, the last farm task that must be accomplished in 2023 is done. We planted two rows this year, with German White, Redneck Wild, and Romanian Red. Over the years, these are the three that have made the biggest bulbs for us.
Spring so far
It’s been a blur of baseball, cyber school, farming, and other work. So it goes with spring.
It’s Silas’s first year playing ball. Grandpa Gary mowed a ball field at the farm. We’ve had a lot of fun helping Silas practice and watching him play. By extremely lucky circumstances, I get to watch my 7-year-old and my 74-year-old dad play ball.
The photo above is how every season begins — with Jason starting dozens of seed flats. If you follow along, you know Jason quit his full-time, off-farm job in December. He also started his own company — a grant-writing and project management firm. We were both surprised — OK, stunned — at how quickly this took off. Another one of life’s plot twists. It’s been great for our family, but it’s re-shaping our year. We’re also going through the formal process of officially making me an employee of the new business. We’re still figuring out what a “typical” week looks like during the growing season, and trying to rein in the number of hours worked.
So this winter and early spring, Jason ended up poking seeds in potting soil late into the night once more. We thought days like that were behind him, but we were wrong. We were mistaken to think this new life would neatly click into place, but we’re figuring it out.
This garlic was planted last autumn. We’ll harvest mid summer.
The night Silas scored his first run!
First market of the season. You’ll find us every Saturday at the Meadville Market House at 9 a.m. We’ve been loving our market Saturdays. For one thing, the Friday harvest is so much easier and more enjoyable with Jason and me working as a team. The Market House has been a bustling place Saturday mornings. Opening the doors and at times seeing people milling all around has been awesome.
Down to the last chive. Someone came along and bought it.
Notice the change in attire from Week 1 to Week 2.
The Big Tunnel after Jason straightened it out and I put straw down thick. Green onions, oregano, spinach, broccoli, and radishes were growing earlier this spring. The empty rows now have tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers.
Here we have garlic, kale, broccoli, and lettuce. You may notice the lack of landscape fabric. We learned last season that fabric is a no-go for anything in spring, and unwise year-round for any crop voles find delicious and we hold precious — like lettuce.
The onions are doing terrific. We put down thick straw and planted directly into it. We won’t worry about those anymore until late summer.
Above is a photo of the tomatoes and peppers we planted Memorial Day weekend.
Hope you’re enjoying spring. The CSA will likely start in the third week of June. We’ll send out plenty of notifications beforehand. We’ll probably open our online orders around that time, as well.
In the meantime, if you’re in the Meadville area, come see us on Saturday mornings.
~ Stella
Easy, lemony kale & northern bean soup - Save this one if you'll be a part of the farm in 2022!
This soup is so tasty, I could eat it every week … as a matter of fact, I have been eating it every week lately. It’s a meal that just makes you feel really good. The northern beans are filling, and the citrus makes it bright and refreshing. Our weather in NW Pa.’s been about as cheery as Mordor, so hot bowls of this lemony soup have really hit the spot. And it is easy to make.
Here’s my recipe for Lemony Kale & Northern Bean Soup. CSA friends: You might want to save this one for when your share starts in June. Your CSA will include a lot of kale, and this is a fantastic way to use it up quickly. You’ll also receive the fresh herbs listed in the recipe. (If you’d like to learn more about joining the CSA, click here.)
INGREDIENTS
Butter
1 large onion, chopped
Garlic, to taste (at least a few cloves), minced
3 cans of northern beans (also known as white beans) w/liquid
1 bunch of kale, chopped (remove the stems)
Fresh parsley, chopped
Fresh oregano, chopped
Fresh sage, chopped
3 cups of water
Juice from 1 lemon
Salt & pepper
Optional: Bouillon cubes or Better Than Bouillon, use according to package instructions. (You could season this soup entirely with salt and pepper, but I like to cheat a bit with a few teaspoons of Better Than Bouillon.)
DIRECTIONS
1.) Cook onion in butter until it starts to brown.
2.) Add garlic. Stir briefly, browning garlic slightly.
3.) Add 3 cans of northern beans, as well as the liquid from the beans.
4.) Add chopped kale and herbs.
5.) Add 3 cups of water and lemon juice.
6.) Season with salt and pepper, and bouillon. You may also want to melt in pats of butter for flavor.
Enjoy!
~ Stella
Hello from autumn!
The world takes on a metallic shine in November. There’s a fair amount of brown, yes, but as I write this, the sun is behind big clouds, and they’re ablaze silver-white by its power. The leaves that remain are gold and bronze, and the wind makes them wink like coins in the sunlight. In fields and along roads, many of the deceased wildflowers and grasses are flaxen. Have you ever noticed how dry cornstalks shimmer in autumn rays? No matter the daylight hour, the slant of the sun makes it feel like either mid morning or early evening. These are gilded days.
With a steep reduction in farm work, gorgeous weather, AND the addition of a four-legged family member (see photos below!), I’ve been lucky enough to take a few pleasant strolls this month. What a joy to walk under falling leaves! And have you ever attempted to catch a leaf as it falls? It’s physically impossible to try without smiling.
I have a memory from last October that still makes me smile. I was standing on a little hill beside the road, waiting for a truck full of compost to rumble up so I could point the driver toward the farm. It was one of those golden autumn afternoons, with blue skies and bright sun. Warm gusts swept leaves off the ground and scattered them all around. All the sudden, a surge of wind came up the road, a few hundred feet away. It lifted thousands of leaves from the packed dirt and rushed them up the hill. It was like a marathon, with the tiny dry runners turning end over end, racing my way. Are they really going to make it all the way up the hill? I wondered. Yes! It looked like they would! I watched with delight as they clattered up the hill, and raced right in front of me, tumbling another hundred feet before coming to rest or scattering into the ditch. I’d never seen anything quite like it. I’ve seen leaves tumble about, of course, but never in such a synchronized way. The Running of the Leaves. The Leaf Marathon. Those leaves will run for a long time in my memory.
In November, when most of the trees are bare, and the gusts tear through the woods, the last brown leaves are pulled stories high into the air. Our kitchen has a good view of the sky, and we can watch the leaves swirl like confetti, far into the distance.
On my walk the other day, such a gust carried leaves in a current above my head. They sailed parallel to the road, and it was like I was on the bottom of a river, watching swift-swimming fish above me.
November is holding on to the very last leaves now. Around the same time she lets them go, we’ll have to let all of our unfinished farm tasks go, too. I don’t mind watching the final leaves rock to the ground. I am ready to let go for the season, too.
~ Stella
Now, a few photos - and meet LUNA!!!
Here she is! We adopted her from Because You Care, in McKean, and she’s been such a gentle sweetheart. We hope her charm does not extend to the farm’s voles.
She LOVES to dig, which is great because we dig and we dig and we dig in this family.
It’s been awhile since we’ve had a doggie pal around, and I forgot how nice it can be.
Planting garlic was our main concern this month. When the weather was finally dry enough, Jason planted five rows (each 125 feet long) of garlic, and we worked together to cover them with compost and straw. The kinds are: German White, Deerfield, Early Portuguese, Redneck Wild, Godfather Italian, and Romanian Red. All of the seed garlic was grown by us last season. We saved the biggest heads for replanting, and we’ve been selling the smaller ones.
Garlic, all tucked in nice and cozy for winter.
And here are a few late pics from our Halloween fun.
We love our bunny, but sometimes he can be rather scary! (Seriously - he bites when he’s not in the mood to be handled, and he lunged at Luna the first time he met her! At all other times, he’s quite adorable.)
Me and our little Harry Potter fan. Trick-or-treat night is one of my favorite nights of the year. We sat out last year because of Covid concerns. We decided to partake this year with precautions. Harry masked, we hung back on the sidewalk. The evening was wonderful - warm with a breeze rattling the leaves. Spooky perfection!
First garlic harvest
Jason and Silas pulled the first garlic last weekend. It’s early for garlic around here. This Early Portuguese was in the Little Tunnel all winter. We’re saving these heads for seed garlic, which means we’ll break them open and plant the cloves.
A lot of the outdoor garlic has curly scapes. We’ll cut those soon for CSA members. Scapes, which are the start of a blossom on a garlic plant, have a delicious flavor. They must be cut to prevent the plant from focusing its energy on a flower, rather than a nice garlic head. This is our first truly serious dive into garlic growing.
~ Stella