Tag Archives: organic gardening

Jul30

The day the fennel and my glasses died

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The day the fennel and my glasses died

Once the tomato tasting and the farmer’s market was a distant memory, meaning later that afternoon I took a look at my “Bronze Leaf” fennel plants and noticed that they were nothing but stems.  The culprit(s) were little caterpillars who eventually turn into the blue swallow-tail butterfly.  At the time there was only one of these critters on the plant, but there must have been more that escaped my radar.  These types of caterpillars attack dill, fennel and parsley.  When you touch them these orange feelers pop out of their head.  It must be their defense.  That and a sour stink that they produce.  It doesn’t wash off easily, so if you see these beings and you don’t want them to destroy your plant(s), I suggest wearing gloves to remove them and fling across the yard.

The culprit…atleast the one who I caught.  These jerks stripped this plant clean.

This is me touching it to get it to show its defenses.  Also, I should note that my glasses fell off my head here and landed near my feet.  I decided to leave them there since I was going to take more pictures and they weren’t hurting anyone there on the ground.  Make a mental note Amanda, I thought to myself, your glasses are right there.  Don’t step on them.  Check.

Here is this creature showing its orange defenses, before I flung it far, far away.  CRACK!  What!  Oh NOOOOOOO!  I just stepped on my glasses and broke them.  Now I dislike that critter even more, and my fingers stink from touching it.  So consider this a loss on all fronts.  My fennel is toast, my glasses are toast AND my fingers stink.  Serendipity.

Jul30

Taste this!

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Taste this!

These are Paul’s shots form when he snuck into the tomato tasting event.  He wanted a behind the scenes look at people trying our tomatoes.

A delicious tomato any way you slice it.  All day at the farmer’s market people asked, “How do you know it’s ripe?”  Because if you notice, there’s a lot of green on it.

These are one of my favorites.  TASTY!  They’re all tasty, but this Peron variety is really sweet.

This is the variety that a total stranger came up to me at our table and told me they were delicious.  That felt nice to get some props from the event.

Another shot of the Chocolate Stripe.

Thanks to all of those who came out to support the Ozarks Slow Food movement and the local farmers who produced all of the lovely tomatoes present.

Jul30

Sell Outs!

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Sell Outs!

Here are the pictures of the table from the day we sold out of our wares at the farmer’s market.  It was very hot this day and also the tomato tasting event held at the Botanical Gardens, by the Ozarks Slow Foods movement.  Remember they bought several varieties of our tomatoes for the event.

 

The sign that mentions “Certified Naturally Grow” caught one woman’s eye who had a few bags full of produce.  She came over and asked a few questions about what it meant.  She said to me “Thanks for the information, I think I just bought produce littered with chemicals!”  I didn’t want to tell her she was right, but we are “certified” to tell you that we DON’T!

Blackberries, Okra, Chocolate Stripes, Peron’s and beautiful flowers.

That’s pretty much all she wrote.  Everything flew off the table and it was a great feeling, I’m not going to lie.

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 : (

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.

Jul24

Come one come all!

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Up at 5:30 am this morning.  It never gets any easier, I don’t care what anyone else says.  Today is Sunday, so that means it’s time once again to load up the truck and head down to the farmer’s market.  The Slow Foods Movement is holding a tomato tasting contest and are buying five different varieties of tomatoes from us for the contest.  I’m not sure how it’s judged or awarded, or if there are awards.  I just finished picking okra.  Since we were not here for 24 hours, the okra was long and not edible.  I think I might have picked enough the right size for us to eat for dinner.  I invite all of you locals to come down to the Botanical Gardens of the Ozarks today for the contest.  Should be lots of yummy local tomatoes for your tasting pleasure.

Jul22

Swing and a miss

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I just pulled out my onion crop, late.  I kept thinking they would do more, they might have one last fight in them.  Sadly, I was mistaken.  They were a fright.  They were such a fright in fact that I won’t even post a picture, some no bigger than the day I planted them in the ground.  What in the heck happened?!  I’m so confused.  Last year I had an epic crop, with little to no attention paid to them by me, or anybody else.  I know you all remember the pictures.  You’ve all been fastidious readers of this blog, keeping up on every detail.  No?  You dont’ recall off the top of your head?  Hmm, let’s see.  Here and here.  Yeah, this crop looks nothing like that.  See how those onion tops are HUGE.  Well, these didn’t even reach a third of that height.  Ughhh.  I’m simply disgusted.  Has anyone out there had a similar experience they would like to share with the rest of the class?  Please leave a comment.  And to the rest of you….well, try growing some onions so you have something to share too.

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

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.