For a limited time only, you have the opportunity to purchase and enjoy fresh, local potatoes which only had to travel 9 miles to the natural food store, Ozark Natural Foods, in Fayetteville Arkansas.  There were about  a half a bushel a piece of red and white potatoes.  And my goodness are they delicious!

Greetings Gardeners<

Just a reminder.

1. Garden Tours at our place are at 9,10,11,1 and 2 on June 20. Open to all. No charge. Tours begin on the hour.

22. Next Gardening Classes are August 8 and August 15.

See harmonygardens.blogspot.com for details or email.

Feel free to pass this on to others.

Regards, Calvin Bey

Here’s your chance to see the master’s work.  You should totally do it.

An email Paul received from Calvin Bey, local gardening hero.

When I teach Organic Gardening classes I talk about the abuse of our land with pesticide and chemical (high salt) fertilizers, and why our produce today has 20-70 percent fewer nutrients than it did 50 years ago. This is all documented. Unfortunately few Dr’s know anything about this or about nutrition. I thought this example of what happened to Angela, one of my recent students was interesting. Calvin Bey

Subject: Re: Tours and Classes

Calvin:

Something happened to me recently that I thought would interest you. My 2 year old son has what looked like eczema on his body for months. Then it got worse and looked like ringworm so we swabbed it with iodine. I broke down and took him to the doc. She said it was eczema and prescribed steroid creamwith lots of refills because he would probably need it for the rest of his life.

I was not willing to accept this and had my mom make an apt. with doctor that she sees in Pineville MO. Dr. Smith. He took a brief look at the rash and said it was a silica and iodine deficiency. That since WWII when farmers started using fake fertilizer everyone was silica deficient. He also said that the fluorine and chlorine in our water blocks iodine somehow and lots of people are deficient. We got some liquid silica that we apply to the rash and give him some to drink as well as some special iodine that he gets one drop of a day.

I swear that the rash is already better in one day. It just reminded me of what you talked about with the nutrients not being in vegetables any more.

By the way- my uncle has artichokes already. He lives on Wedington. You should stop by his place sometime and see them . I am sure he would love to show them to you. Paul Marinoni.

Happy gardening- Angela

Today, Thursday, some produce managers from our local food coop, Ozark Natural Foods came to the farm to take a peek at our practices.  Pauline and Jeff toured around with Paul as he shcmoozed and sashayed them amongst the goods.  I was happy to know that they were very impressed with what we were doing.  It looks like they are definitely interested in some of our potatoes and whatever else we might have extras in, sans tomatoes and peppers.  It’s great to have that option, I’m glad that they are promoting local produce.  To all of you other local Fayetteville farmers and beyond, consider giving Pauline or Jeff a call at the store and have them come out to sneak a peek at your “op”.

Yes, they even wore the “farm” hats.  When you come over to visit, you can wear one too.

We have a new friend here on the ole’ farm.  On several occasions he or she has visited and allowed me to get close enough to take these pictures.  

The kids have named this new pal “Hootie”.  Hootie is a barred owl, 21″ long.  He is perched on a log that is crossing the creek behind my house.  I was standing in the backyard when I took these pictures.  He was about 12 ft.-15 ft. away from me.  

The first time we met Hootie, my kids were “Hoo-hooing” their little hearts out right at him.  He was even closer that time, and he/she never moved.  I think it was amused by their attempts.

Pretty neat huh?  Owls during the day!  High-definition living!

There were four new rows added to the farm this year.  With pumpkin and watermelon dreams, you need a lot of space, so space is what we made.  Josh and I were the idea people in this endeavor and Paul was the action man, if it weren’t for him saying “Hey, the space doesn’t exist, if you want to do this, we’ll need more dirt”, then they still might be just dreams.  Paul and Josh got to work, ordered dirt, shoveled dirt, planted, mulched etc…  So we are on our way to pumpkin and watermelon bliss.  I have also started sneaking more pumpkin seeds here and there.  I have two sugar-pie plants in my backyard (pie pumpkins) and more in the old compost zone.  I have also sneaked a few extra of the Howden variety (carving pumpkins) around.  Again, we’ll see.  As far as watermelons go, we have Sugar-baby, Charleston Grey, and All sweet varieties.  

Install.

From this picture, I’m assuming there will be a few cantaloupe as well.

Watermelons are really something that Josh is passionate about.  His Grandfather was a watermelon farmer in east Arkansas, so needless to say, this is his baby.

Featured in high definition, surround sound.

New and improved chicken yard.  

Get your hands dirty.

Here’s a little update on the status of what’s growing in our patch.  We planted potatoes on March 22, we were told that if you plant by that date, that you will have full size potatoes by July 4th.  Paul just handed me some while I’m sitting here and I asked “Oh!  Did you just pick these”?  “No”, he said, “I just went out and bought them.”  They’re huge, and quite delicious looking.  Wow.  Our plants were affected by the Colorado potato beetle.  Their grubs chewed off the flowers and holes in most of the leaves, causing the plants to turn yellowish.  It’s nice to know that we have full size potatoes under there, and we can start to pull some out.  

Also ready, our onion patch.  I looks like something walked through it and bent down some of the tops, be it dog, deer or chickens.  They are starting to all turn yellow though and it is time too bend down the remaining tops and let them sit until the whole top turns brown.  From there we will put them in the garage for a week or longer (depending on the humidity) to cure and dry.  What we will replace the onions with, right now I’m not sure.  I would suspect some winter squash, or…  The potatoes will be replaced with a late variety of corn.

We are starting to get fruit on some of our tomato plants.  There are two different methods going on in the garden at the moment, the Calvin Bey method and the Chuck Bartok method, and I have to say, so far the Bey plants look much better.  Calvin Bey is a local recreational gardener, who is of a cult status in this area, he also happens to be a neighbor.  Chuck Bartok is a gentleman who commented on a post of mine last year about not making your fortune in tomatoes.  He was nice enough to send me a link to a group of Youtube videos he made about his tomato planting/pruning method.  I gave it a shot, watched the videos, though not spectacular (home-movie-ish), still an interesting method to which we have dedicated a whole row of Arkansas travelers.  The Bey method deals with caging the tomatoes, which gets expensive and very space consuming and shoring the plant up with bamboo steaks stuck through the cage.  The plants are much bushier and if I were Paul, I would go through and nip off all of the unnecessary limbs and suckers.  The Bartok method deals with a lot of pruning, because according to Chuck, he’s growing the tomato plants for fruit, not foliage.  I have to say that they are looking pretty weak at the moment.  We have had some hot weather here over the past few weeks and the sun is getting to them.  There are some flowers on one of the plants, we will see.  Please don’t let me down Chuck Bartok!  One factor that may play a role in wether or not this will work is our respective locals.  Me, Fayetteville Arkansas.  Mr. Chuck Bartok, off of Hwy.99 in California, up near the Chico area.  His area, hot and dry, sandy soil.  My area, hot and humid, clay soil.  Hmmmmmm.  Stay tuned and in the meantime plant a tomato pant in your backyard.

The “Bey” method.

The “Bartok” method.

Garden view from the roof.  Notice the new rows at the top left.

Potatoes.

Corn.

Newer corn.  Might I add here that we are planting blocks of corn in two week intervals.  This way, we will have corn harvested at different times, instead of all at once.  AHAAA!

Tomatoes on the vine.

The basil plant in my herb garden had about 5 leaves on it, or at least it did until I picked off two of them.  I washed them and chopped them up and threw them on the top of our dinner.  It was pathetic, it wasn’t much, but mmmmm mmmmmm, it made me hungry for the tastes of summer!

I could go on and on about eating local food, so here I go again.  This thursday coming up, we will have the produce buyer from our local food coop come out to take a gander at our farm to make sure it’s legit, so that we can sell some produce to them this summer.  Her name escapes me at the moment, but it doesn’t really matter, produce buying girl said that they currently only carry 8% local food at the coop.  8%!  I just can’t believe that.  There are so many farmers around here growing great produce.  She said that they want to beef it up to 25%, but it’s hard because so many farmers have their own little niches.  Things like this raise little hairs on the back of my neck and make me want to shake people on their shoulders.  What ever you can do, to support your local farmer, you should do it.  Every town has a farmer’s market.  Shop there.  Buy your produce there.  Talk to them about their farms, KNOW WHERE YOUR FOOD COMES FROM!  It’s so important, that I can’t even emphasize it enough.  

Do what you can to grow your own.  In some parts of the United States, it’s not too late to plant a tomato plant, or basil, or any of the summer vegetables for that matter.  Try to take care of yourself in that way.  So important.  Growing food is a skill that most Americans DON’T have, so don’t you think you should learn?  Turn off your T.V.’s right now.

It’s gross, if I choose to buy lettuce at the grocery store, it’s from California.  I live in Arkansas.  That’s 26 hours it has to travel by truck to my neck of the woods.  Fresh?  No.  It’s gross, if I choose to buy a tomato right now, it’s from Mexico.  Fresh?  No.  Taste?  Gross.  

Point?  Point?  Get to the point you say?  Do yourself a favor.  All of you NWA-ers (Northwest Arkansas for those of you not in the know), Buy fresh local produce, or grow your own, and taste the difference for yourself.