Seasons Greetings

Now, more than any other time of the year, is the season of giving and receiving.

We love to share and receive knowledge, about everything, and mostly about growing, preparing and all things veggies. We have big goals for the farm this year, we may achieve them, we may not, but we have decided to think big and move forward, whatever our speed. We welcome all of your ideas, thoughts, concerns; anything you want to share is most welcomed, it’s how we grow and expand as well.

For now, we would like to give you some cool tips, share some interesting web sites, plus provide some last minute gift ideas for you and those on your list that enjoy creating, gardening, and food.

Last minute gifts:

We have copies of the All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew on SALE for $15; normally $20. This book is easy to read, has lots of photos that show you how you can have a successful garden and grow your own food.

One of our subscribers, Elida, makes olive oil. This years oil is exceptional according to the miller. It is peppery – a more traditional Tuscan type of oil. It got rave revues from some of their first tasters – the chef’s at Chez Panisse. The price is $18.00 per bottle (limited quantities). If you are interested, please contact Elida at olive.farm@live.com.

Mother Earth News is a great publication and for $10 a year, it’s a bargain. PLUS, you can get on their website and access tons of articles and how-to’s. Check them out. Right now they are offering a Wiser Living Guide; complete 2009 set of 4; Guide to Growing Your Own Food, Guide to Country Skills, Guide to Living on Less and Loving It, and Guide to Home Energy Savings. Offer expires Dec. 31, 2009.

Tips:

And speaking of olive oil and Mother Earth News; check out how to make an olive oil lamp. This would have been super helpful during the storms a couple of weeks ago, when many of us in the hills did not have electricity.

Ok, so here’s the best tip of the year. Unbelievable? Read on. If you have ever hard-boiled fresh eggs, you know what a pain it is to peel them. This process seems long and I had my doubts, I’ve tried everything and resigned myself to buying an extra dozen and keeping them in the fridge for 2 weeks before I boiled them. (Eggs have a shelf live of 30-60 days and are about 7 days old to 14 days old when they arrive at the supermarket.) This method works, give it a try. It just may be the answer to the bad peeled hard-boiled egg. Let me know what you think. Hint: Next time I will cook them for longer than 10 minutes, they were good, but the yolk could have been cooked a little more for us. Plus, I had large, fresh eggs. Maybe 10 minutes is good for medium sized eggs.

Thanks to Seppo Ed Farrey’s comments in his book “3 Bowls Vegetarian Recipes from an American Zen Buddhist Monastery Cookbook.”

Place enough water in a saucepan so the eggs will have 1 inch of water above them. Bring the water to a boil without the eggs. Use a spoon to gently lower the eggs into the boiling water. Cook for 10 minutes.

Immediately remove the eggs (save the water!) and place them in a bowl of very cold water, under a running faucet for 2 minutes.

Gently lower the eggs back into the boiling water for 10 seconds.

Return the eggs to the cold bath for 2 minutes and gently crack them. Peel the eggs.

The first cold water bath makes the whites shrink from the shells while the second boiling water bath expands the shell. The expanding shell pulls away from the egg.

Websites:

Mother Earth News – the original guide to living wisely.

Organic Consumers Association – an online and grassroots non-profit 501(c)3 public interest organization campaigning for health, justice, and sustainability.

Dr Earth - Yes, they sell everything organic; soil, fertilizers; and we do purchase their Organic 5™ Tomato, Vegetable & Herb Fertilizer 5-7-3 and the Fish Bone Meal – 3 – 18 – 0; but the site has a wealth of information and articles. Be sure to sign up for their FREE Gardening Guide magazine, lots of info.

Kidsorganics.org – Natural alternatives to pesticides, toxins and cleaners. Many homemade recipes too.

Terra Firma Farm – CSA with a good page on how to store produce. “Tomatoes: should never be stored in the fridge, unless you plan to make sauce with them. It will make them mealy. Keep your ‘maiders in a cool, well-ventilated spot and eat them as they ripen.”

Harvest Eating – Seasonal cooking made easy; recipes and videos created by Chef Keith Snow. The approach is simple: buy foods that are fresh and in-season; then prepare them using whole, natural ingredients produced by farmers not chemists.

Simply Recipes – Food and cooking with hundreds of recipes.

A Veggie Venture – award-winning home of 675+ vegetable recipes, all organized to find just what you’re looking for.

Have a wonderful holiday season full of joy, love and of course great food!

If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make the change
Man in the Mirror, sung by Michael Jackson
Written by Glen Ballard and Siedah Garrett

 

Brandywine Tomato

Pure goodness

Yippee! The tomatoes are here. Actually, we were able to give tomatoes 2 weeks earlier than we have in the past. The plants are tall and producing well. Mel’s Mix, SFG? Looks to be working pretty good. Our peppers have never been bigger and many of the tomatoes are over a pound each. Needless to say, we’re pretty happy with the results. Everything isn’t a bed of roses though, we still have to get the watering down. Some beds get too much and some not enough. It really depends on the plants needs, and if we would think ahead, we could probably plan and plant for that, but we don’t so we end up hand watering a little. Which is really Ok, because it gives us the opportunity to listen and look at the plants; see how they are doing. If everything was automated, we probably wouldn’t spend the time that we should. Plus, it’s so nice to be in amongst the plants. It’s kinda like a jungle now and I love it when the garden grows tall and wide and I have to duck and step over everything. It makes it a little harder for picking, but it’s an accomplishment.

 

Sharing #3 – Julie & Edna

Number 3 in our SFG garden sharing: Julie and Edna’s garden. They helped make soil at our volunteer day, and gained confidence and know-how on how to mix Mel’s Mix. They went right home, made the soil, filled the beds and planted. Now they are enjoying the bounty. Callie-dog likes it too.

 

Colorful Salad Bliss

Who could resist this beautiful salad with it's rainbow of colors?

 

Sharing SFG #2 – Bonnie

Our second in a series on sharing friend’s Square Foot Garden’s is my friend Bonnie. She lives in a town house, and doesn’t have much room, but she managed to create a “stand-up” garden on her patio.

Bonnie's SFG Garden

These boxes are each 2 foot by 5 foot. I took pics of them when they were just planted, and Bonnie says the plants have taken off and the garden is much bigger. I’ll have to get follow up pics soon, so you can see how well things are growing.

This is one advantage I like about SFG, you can build any size you like and anywhere, as long as you have 6-7 hours of sunlight. Last year Bonnie was involved with a community garden and grew veggies successfully. This year she decided to try SFG because she wanted the convenience of having a garden outside her door and one that was easier to manage. (Garden tip: If your garden is close by the house, you are more likely to tend it.)

Hats off to Bonnie, and all the rest of you for trying your hand at successful gardening this year.

If you have pics of your SFG, please send them to zoeyfarms@yahoo.com. We love to see what everyone else is doing in their gardens.

 

Grandmother’s Radish Leaf Soup

Tonight I made Grandmother’s Radish Leaf Soup. We have an overabundance of radish leaves, so I found some recipes to use them. Did you know radish leaves contain almost six times the vitamin C content of their root and are also a good source of calcium? I used red potatoes instead of russets, which I think made the soup creamier. I didn’t have milk either, but my substitute of soy milk seemed to work well. I made the “flower” garnish with the radish and the swirl is olive oil. This is sort of a healthier potato soup.

One of our subscribers made this soup today and even her picky eaters enjoyed it. Try it, it’s good.

Grandma's Radish Leaf Soup

 

Shares available

We had sold out of our first phase of shares, and now we are opening up our second phase. Email us at zoeyfarms@yahoo.com if you are interested. We will send out our 2009 Q&As in PDF format so you can become familiar with how we operate.

 

I admit it….

I am suppose to be doing my school work, but am easily distracted by all the gardening and recipe websites. I enjoy my school work, web design and programming, but tonight I am just not into it.

It might be because today was our second day for customers to pickup their veggies (and I am drinking coffee at 12:30am) and I’m still excited by the day. It’s always fun for us to hang out in the garden and chat with our new farm family. We enjoy picking the veggies, spreading and arranging the veggies on the tables, farmer’s market style, and greeting everyone who comes for a visit. It’s just fun and we really enjoy the day and the people.

Most of the veggies we have now are greens – good for salads. We eat most of our salads at this time of year. We picked lettuce, arugula, radish greens, basil, chard, cilantro and onions – all great for a big salad, which is what we had for dinner tonight. Healthy and yummy!

Ok, school work isn’t getting done, and I’ve got to get back to it. More later.

 

Sharing #1 – Tish & Ty

I probably mentioned in our weekly farm newsletter how we assisted in some way or another, in helping our friends set up their own Square Foot Garden (SFG). I have asked them to send pics so we can share what others are doing in their backyards.

Our first submission is from Tish and Ty’s garden. They did a beautiful job and I am anxious to see how their garden grows. (This was taken a few weeks ago.)

If you have a SFG to share, OR if you’d like to be included in our FREE farm newsletter, please send an email to:

zoeyfarms@yahoo.com

We’d love to see how your garden grows!

Tish & Ty's SFG

 

Busy Busy

Yes, we’ve been busy. Busy getting the beds finished, busy planting, busy weeding, busy selling shares….but it’s worth it. The garden is beautiful. Sure, we have more work to do, but it’s really shaping up. It’s nice to see the progress and to know that with all the work we’ve been doing, we only have to do it once…meaning building the beds.

Eric is working on the irrigation, making it permanent and I’ve been planting whatever looks interesting. Right now we have beets, carrots, basil, cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, radish, green beans, cilantro, peppers, arugula, lettuce, tomatillos, chard and peas.

Our opening day was yesterday and we offered: lettuce, arugula, basil, herbs, chard and potatoes. More veggies will be available soon….just waiting for the plants to produce.

The carrots, onions, beets and garlic are taking a much longer time to bulb out, something we haven’t figured out why yet. Could be the wacky weather; hot, cold, hot and cold. The tomato plants have green tomatoes on the vines and that’s exciting; the peas just started to bloom; the Cozmic Purple carrots are growing larger; baby peppers are on some plants; corn, which is an experiment for us this year, is growing tall; Garden of Eden green beans are flourishing; so all seems well in the garden. (pics to come soon.)

We are also happy to announce that many of our friends started their own Square Foot Gardens this year. They are all doing well and growing great. Soon, I’ll post some of those pics too.

Speaking of pictures, I’ve been taking lots of them in the garden; just haven’t had the time to download and tweek them before posting….like I said earlier, we’ve been busy.