Category Archives: dirt

Jul30

It was so DRY!!! How dry was IT?

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My goodness gracious.  It has been so hot and DRY lately, things are dying all around us.  Lawns are brown, trees are loosing their leaves, the people are wilting themselves.  Team WWOOF is so bored, I can tell.  They spend a lot of time, all day usually, watering.  You see with the CSA, we can’t let things die on us.  Our customers are depending on a crop.  Let me rephrase that.  We could totally let it ALL die and the customer would have to understand, because they signed a piece of paper, and something like drought is part of the liability.  But we’re too nice, and since we have a lot of help and it’s too hot to do much else, we put a hose in their hand.  It’s funny, because as I type this out, it is currently raining.  The rain, which has only been going on for about 20 minutes or so has prompted me to write about the dryness, because I’ve been needing to.  One of our CSA members asked me the other day how things were growing.  I let him know how tough it’s been and how some things are just wilting away.  He totally understood if the bags were empty for the next few weeks.  He shared the story of his garden with me.  He said he and his wife had been gone for three weeks.  Even though they had someone watering it for them, they returned and their garden was dust.  This “heat wave” that the weather man has talked about has lasted for two months now.  It’s more like a heat tsunami!  This wave won’t leave.  I guess my message to you dear reader is respect the fact that there is produce at your grocery store, and there are many, MANY factors that go into its survival.  Uh oh, the rain knew I was talking about it, it just stopped : (

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Jul27

Give a look-see

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I read this article in the New York Times today.  It’s worth spending the two or three minutes reading.

Jul20

Things I Love, Things I Loathe

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I am quite satisfied with these flowers, these are a cactus variety of zinnia from Baker Creek Seed Co.  The package said “Giant”.  Not quite so sure about that, but the color is really nice.  We’ll put this into the “Love” category.

This too can be put into the “Love” category.  This, another cactus variety of zinnia, called “Bright Jewel Cactus”, seeds from Baker Creek Seed Co.  I’m in love with the color.  Anything orange attracts my eye, but when it’s a beautiful flower, even more so.  With this pack of seeds you get a few colors.  I’ve noticed a few white, a few yellow, some orange and pinks.  I’m satisfied with this mix of seed.  A beautiful mix of color.

This is the pink that comes mixed with the “Bright Jewel” packet.  It’s pretty, more of a salmon pink.

The award for “I love you, I love you, I love you!” goes to the “Righteous Red” zinnia from Seeds of Change.  These seeds had an excellent germination rate and produce hearty, vigorous plants.  The color was very chromatic, no complaints.  Absolutely stunning flowers.

I am also in love with my Celosia, seeds from Seeds of Change.  The germination rate was good and the plants are healthy.

Dum dun dun dun DUM!!!!  It’s that time to talk about the things that make me shudder and ultimately mean a swing and a miss on my part.  These pictures are of a zinnia variety called “Envy”, which is funny, because there is nothing to envy here.  I was so excited to buy these seeds, more than any of my others.  I bought them from Baker Creek Seed Co.  Zinnias should be direct seeded, but can be started in your green house, or indoors.  The risk of starting them early is to not let them get root bound, because they can suffer a transplant shock, which can send double blooms, (refer back to the picture of the Righteous Reds), to turn into singles, which you will see:

Hideous!  This is what the seed company advertised.  In fact, that’s even a terrible picture.  The picture in their catalogue was a lime green like this.  Not what I have here.

The single blooms are not pretty and they fall apart AND they look ugly a whole lot faster than they should.

I only have one plant that produces double blooms, but the color is far from what was advertised.  Let this serve as a warning to stay away from this variety of zinnia.  Notice the brown petals, this flower just bloomed!  Shouldn’t be brown.  Yuck “Envy” zinnia, just yuck.

Jul9

Things I Love, Things I Loathe

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Bunnys, or deer nibbling off the top of my beans, grrrrrr.

If you want to grow ANY kind of squash in Northwest Arkansas, you have to fight the good fight with these guys, squash bugs.  Organically, there aren’t too many options for you…just don’t grow it.  I’m fighting for these babies here, I’m determined to keep them alive some how.  I don’t have many plants in the ground, so I’m scraping the eggs off of the leaves just to see if my plants can have a fighting chance.

The eggs and a newly hatched baby.

Another squash plant culprit, the stem borer.  Little white moths lay their eggs at the base of the plant and the baby bores into the stem and eats the inside of it, killing your plant.  This day I took a knife and split it open and yanked the grub out.  Fingers crossed the plants still make it.  I’m determined to get a crop.

Calendula and dill.  In case you were wondering, this is a picture of something I love.

Cosmos.  These are called seashell.  The produce this beautiful tubular petal.  I ordered the seeds on a whim, and am very pleased with them.

My sunflowers are my pride and joy!  I LOVE them as if they were my own children.

Except when the deer nibble off the tops!!!!  If anyone has any advice on dear deer solutions, I’m all ears!

 

Jul9

Filler and Good Times

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Filler and Good Times

We have lost Annie, but gained Jake and Patrick, brothers from Springfield Missouri.   The brothers have been here a week now and are enjoying their time here on the farm.  They have a fun story, sorry guys but I’m going to tell it.  They both worked for Expedia, the travel web site.  They worked in the call center to help you book your trip.  Well, they both got fired on the same day and decided it was time to move on.  They said that their higher-ups did them a favor because they saw how unhappy they were.  So they started to travel themselves , instead of helping all of you book your vacations.  They also drastically changed their lifestyle choices, including their diets.  Jake was over 400 lbs.  Through good old eating right and exercise, he was able to drop over 160 lbs!  Talk about a monkey off your back!  I’m so inspired by their enthusiasm and will power and in turn they are inspired by ours.

Annie D’s last breakfast with the team.  We miss you already, happy trails.

(L-R) Jake, Patrick, since nicknamed the “Missouri Angels”.

The greatest job on the farm.

Picking tomatoes.

Oliver likes to hang out while people are working.  He makes sure this ship sails smoothly.

I’m glad he does, because we can get cute pictures of him doing super-cute things.

Paul put him to work picking green beans.

Jake displaying his tomato harvest.

We are currently selling produce through numerous avenues.  A few local grocery stores are the proud recipients of Ozark Alternatives potatoes, as well as a few local restaurants and of course the Fayetteville Farmer’s Market.  The tomatoes seen here were sold through our CSA, Northwest Arkansas Local Harvest.  We also have sold some through the Farmer’s Market.

Jul2

More Potatoes!

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We have an endless supply of potatoes in the ground her at Ozark Alternatives, and they’re for SALE (*wink*).  Marine, Annie, David and I were digging potatoes, until Annie and David broke for dinner duty.  We took a little breather when David brought out some wine, we were pretty much done for after that.

Jul1

How I spent my 30th birthday

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We started off by playing hookey from the Sunday farmer’s market, shhh.  It was very nice to not have to get up early and schlep everything in the truck and schlep it all back, but it did feel like I was skipping school and quite possibly was going to receive a call from the principal.  Paul did the honorable thing of making breakfast for all of the WWOOF’ers and the family, and we went to work on the farm (not me).  We shared lunch as well, and McKenna surprised me with a cake and candles, then she took off for Arizona.  THANK YOU MCKENNA!  And everyone else for keeping the secret cake in the fridge a secret.  After lunch Paul took the kids and I out to the “country” to visit Mark Cain who owns Dripping Springs Farm.  Talk about one of the kingpin growers in this area!  We had been invited out on several occasions, but those of you who glance in this blogs direction or share the same profession know that the farm never sleeps.  But it was a special occasion, so we went.  I wore my bathing suit, because I had heard of this epic swimming hole and I was ready to wash the 20’s out of my hair!  This farm is off the beaten path, traveling for mile on nothing but dirt roads, did I mention epic?  Mark was very nice, taking time to show us around and talk about all of his goings on, we’re such big farm nerds!  I feel like I didn’t take enough pictures, but I have some to share, I hope Mark doesn’t mind.

Isaac was asking if he could have a pepper.

Mark picked Isaac a ripe one, purple mmmmm.  I’m glad he did, because Isaac might have ripped half of the plant off.

Inside one of his hoop houses.

This is the outside of the structure.

A view from the inside corner.

 

Another hoop full of snapdragons!

Isaac kept thinking this whole process boring, and kept trying to drag me to the creek.  I wanted to go badly too, but I also wanted to finish the rest of the tour.  Don’t you realize where we are Isaac?  This is Dripping Springs!!!

Onions drying upstairs in his barn.

Garlic curing downstairs in the barn.

 

There are no pictures of the creek.  It didn’t occur to me to bring the camera, but for good reason.  The creek/swimming hole was magic, heaven on earth, see to BELIEVE!  So, you’ll just have to volunteer some time to gain access…and it’s totally worth it!

Jul1

Slow Foods Potluck

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The Ozark Slow Foods movement held a potluck here, as part of their effort to support local foods and local farmers.  Paul and our neighbor Pauline, the produce manager at Ozark Natural Foods, were interviewed before the event by Kyle Kellams, for Ozarks at Large, promoting the event.  Please click on the link if you wish to hear the interview.  It’s funny in the write-up how they butchered Paul’s last name, Chapracki.  It was a nice turn out, where good food was shared, which had to have one local ingredient present.  So, needless to say, there were a lot of potato dishes.  The event also gave us time to promote our CSA to a new crowd of people who were ripe to listen.  Most of the people who came, came because they heard the story on the radio and were intrigued.  Thank you to all of you who attended.

Jul1

Hanging Garlic

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After we pulled the garlic out of the ground, the next step was to bunch it together and hang it to let it cure.  Once garlic is pulled, it is not dry like the kind you buy from the grocery store, it’s moist, still usable, but for any kind of storing purposes you must cure it.  In order to cure garlic, you need to hang it in a shady spot, where it won’t be rained on and that gets plenty of air flow.  Proper cure time is two to three weeks.  We had a couple of places to consider, one being a tool storage area in the goat barn, the other being under the front porch of the office.  We chose to hang it under the porch because it would get more airflow.  Mckenna, Marine, Annie and David were the WWOOF team dedicated to getting this task done.

 

Garlic all tied together on the ground, and the team trying to figure out the logistics of it all.

 

 

 

This task looks easy, but it was definitely a learning curve.  Last summer, I hung the garlic by myself up in the attic of my house, near the opening with fresh air hitting it.  It worked, but I think it was too hot up there for it.  Garlic has to be kept somewhat cool…as cool as it can get in the summer heat.

Since these pictures were taken a few days ago, Mckenna has left the farm.  She was needed in Arizona a few days ahead of schedule then she had planned for, so like the wind poof.  It wasn’t a sad goodbye, they can be sometimes, but we seem to have a pretty good “swing back through rate”.  So, like others before, McKenna will be coming back through at the end of July.  She plans on taking David and Marine to her native Kentucky, Louisville, to visit and see the sights.  She’s even going to bring them back that crazy girl…but I’m glad somebody is, they have a two month commitment here.

Shiori and Keyohei have also taken leave of us after six weeks of service.  However, as old friends leave, new friends arrive, to swing a mattock in the heat of the day, all with smiles on their faces.

Jun29

How we spent our father’s day

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Father’s Day, does it always fall on a Sunday?  Sundays are our Farmer’s Market day, so we watched all of the daddy’s with their children, young and old.  Channel 5 news was there, a local news outlet here in Northwest Arkansas and they interviewed Paul, Oliver and Isaac about Father’s Day and what they were going to do for their Dad.  I have a link posted.  We were the first to this market with tomatoes.  Lest you forget we sell at the Botanical Gardens of the Ozarks, every Sunday, from 9am-2pm.  Also, I take that back about the first with tomatoes, that accomplishment was shared that day.  Another vendor had tomatoes also, they weren’t quite ready, but it’s important to be first.  The people are tomato hungry right now and I don’t blame them.

Paul and Isaac at the farmer’s market on Father’s Day.

 

Later in the day we sat and prepared garlic to cure.  Here is Shiori doing an amazing job.