I read this article in the New York Times today. It’s worth spending the two or three minutes reading.
Jul27
Category Archives: rows
Jul20
Things I Love, Things I Loathe
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.
Jul19
Basil, what to do when you have too much
We had scatter-seeded basil in the hoop house back in April. Now, there is so much, that it needed its own space. So team WWOOF transplanted some in this August-like heat.
Watering in the basil before removing it.
Missouri angels pulling up the basil babies.
David and Marine transplanting the basil to its new home.
Pat transplanting.
El Fin.
Jul9
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!
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.
Jun29
An exciting day of harvest
On this day, the team harvested potatoes. Shiori invited two of her friends from Fayetteville to come over and help, their names were L.J. and Hirona. We also received McKenna, she came to us from Louisville Kentucky on her way west. I can’t forget our newest recruits, David and Marine, coming all the way from Toulouse, France.
The team found snake eggs
Digging up more eggs.
After I told the boys that they had found snake eggs.
Everybody is interested now.
Roy giving everyone a lesson about snake eggs.
Hirona.
L.J.
McKenna.
David and Marine.
Jun29
How we spent our father’s day
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.
Jun23
For Mr. Dale
I was really pleased to know that a neighbor of a friend of mine reads my blog. When I saw him recently the first thing to come out of his mouth was how I had a “buy local” sticker on my foreign automobile. The second thing was “You need to update your blog, and with close-ups of all of your hot volunteers!” I’ll try my best Dale, and for the record I think he meant hot, as in it’s hot outside and therefore they are hot…it’s just a guess. Like I had said before, on day one of the CSA we received Nora and Will from Brooklyn. Shiori and Keyohei were here as well. A few days after Will and Nora’s arrival, Hayley also arrived from Albuquerque.
Kyohei and Nora in the hoop harvesting potatoes.
Part of the “Take” before being washed.
Everybody, this is Will. He’s planting cucumber seeds.
Rose kicking butt as always.
A picture courtesy of Isaac.
sweatshirts? Yes, remember I’m behind in posting all of these lovely pictures. Nora ate as many peas as she picked, if not more. You would too, they were AWESOME!
Crew cleaning onions while Oliver just watches.
Kyohei and Isaac cleaning radishes.
You want to know what I love about Jonathan? He’s a thumbs-upper. Those are my kinds of people.
Hayley keeping it real…and forgive me girl if I misspelled your name.
These were some great people and great volunteers. Thank you Will and Nora for bringing Brooklyn to the farm, and to any future Brooklynites who are interested, BRING IT!
Apr30
SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY!!!
Tomorrow we start the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks Farmer’s Market, weather permitting. There is a high chance of rain, but not until 1pm or so…so “they” say. All day today we have been doing chores getting ready for market. I haven’t gone to this farmer’s market before, even as a patron, so I’m not sure what to expect. I’m full of all sorts of apprehension, trying to drown it with a doughnut and blogging.
Onions and Leeks
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Wish us luck.
Apr30
Flood, Flooding, Floodish
Last week a series of thunderstorms rolled through these parts of Arkansas and beyond. Tornadoes touched down further south across several states, the hardest hit being Mississippi and Alabama. Up here, it rained 10″ in 24 hours. The next day more rain fell, causing flash floods in NWA. On the farm, the rain washed down our footpath to our house, which is its natural draining pattern, and washed over my bed which was planted with carrots. It washed over it so much, that eventually cut channels through the bed, washing the soil into the onion bed. We tried to alleviate some of the damage by putting straw bales into the path of the water, but when thousands of gallons are running off of a large roof over a matter of hours, you just can’t compete. We tried, but it did no good. It was interesting talking to some of the farmer’s at the Fayetteville Farmer’s Market today, listening to their stories of what the rain washed away. One farmer said it washed his topsoil away. Another mentioned, how his topsoil didn’t leave his property, but that it had washed to the bottom of the hill. That’s something to think about, right. Your dirt. And how important it is. Treat it well.
Paul and I were standing at the windows watching the lightning
Lightning just struck and lit up the sky. You can kind of see how hard it's raining, or maybe it's just blurry
A result of the rain, 2"+ of water inside
This is the rain, day 1
The rain creating a little creek
Flooding the onions
Here is a link to the American Red Cross, to see ways you can help those who were affected by the tornadoes in the south this week.
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