Day 69

Saturdoodly and no market? Yes, I worked with Daniel today and found out I'm grumpy on Saturday mornings, but I cheered up after some blackberries. We started by raking in the sunflower/pea cover crop over in Main House. Then we baited the fence lines with aluminum foil dipped in peanut butter. Apparently, the deer just jump over the fence (crappy fence if you ask me) so Cory decides to bait it with peanut butter to give them a shock to let them know not to go there. Oh, and we saw a snake by the fence line, just hanging out doing snake things.

While Daniel sprayed deer off on the plants, I set up irrigation with the squash and cucumbers. Then we headed down to lower field with the sweet potatoes to spray more deer off. I found another snake in the back of mini truck in a bucket and dumped him into the bushes. It was kind of a repeat in both fields, with different deer be gone techniques and snakes. I've had better days.

Day 68

Okra Day! It's okra because it's new and here, real time people, real time. We started out by harvesting squash, zucchini, and cucumbers. Then moved on to Asian cucumbers, green beans, and sick looking strawberries (might make decent jam if there were more). The gang split up at this point, Cory and I harvested a few okras, sunflowers, and zinnias while the others gathered up cherry tomatoes. We all met up and went to Jeff Cook field where we harvested broccoli, kale, chard, zinnias, beans, and caterpillar jungle gyms cauliflower.

Asian's are funny looking

Sweet cherry goodness

Daniel made lunch, there was pasta and tomato sauce, tortillas, beans, avocados, cheese and for dessert jello. Erica and I are not down with jello because it contains gelatin made by boiling down bones, skins and hides of pigs and cows. Yeah, pass an apple. After lunch we ran over to Chef Andrew to drop of 2nds of tomatoes and cucumbers. He had finished making a gazpacho with tomato sorbet that was amazingly delicious!

Then we picked blackberries and blueberries for market tomorrow. While Cory and Elizabeth went to bait the fence for the deer, Daniel and I finished up the row covers and sprayed Deer Off from the minitruck around Main House field. We got to break early because everyone was exhausted or in some kind of pain, oh the joys of farming ;)

Day 67

Howdy! I had a really long day today, our schedule this week has been roughly 7-7. I started out by gathering potatoes in Newborn...lots. Then we trellised the peppers with bamboo; Erica and Daniel hammered in the bamboo and I taped the peppers loosely around them. We had some high schoolers from Atl come in and help, so we knocked out the field in no time. After that we headed to Gus' where we said so long to the strawberries and ripped up the plastic row covers.

For lunch we headed across the street to meet up with Ricky to see the new house he's been working on for Sandy/Burge. He said he started with the ceiling caving in and rumble up to his neck, in two months he's turned the place around completely. This will be another "cabin" for Burge members to stay in, and will be more secluded from the others because it's by itself on a large piece of property. Ricky also gave us some peppers and pepper relish he canned last year, amazing! I think if a guy ever proposed with pickled peppers I was say yes on the spot. He told me to try some on my pbj, I did, and it turned out surprisingly super good!

After lunch we finished up with the strawberries and moved on to removing seeds on sunflowers. After we removed the seeds and put them in a bucket, we used a winnowing process. It's a technique used back in ancient times to separate grain from chaff, only here we're separating the seeds from the rest of the sunflower junk (don't be intimidated by my terminology). When you blow the fan the shells with seeds inside are heavier and fall back in the bucket, whereas the lighter debris blows out. We mixed the seeds with peas and are using them as cover crop in the Main House field.

Winnowing

Off to Main House we installed floating row covers, replaced dying cucumbers with new, and journeyed to Jeff Cook for more row covers. I practiced more stick shift driving and then Erica and I watered both greenhouses. Whew!  

PS, okra is coming up and tastes fantastic right off the stem! Who knew?

Day 66

Sweet, as in honey sweet! I think I'll work my way backwards today to get to the honey action faster. I just finished direct seeding arugula, which I've never done before. I figure if I messed up no love loss with arugula. You put the seeds in little dispensers in the top of that there seeder and go back and forth across the row. We also met up with Ricky and are having lunch with him tomorrow across the street to see the house he's been working on for Burge. Sandy was walking around with the owner of Gun and Garden magazine, so Erica and I met her and her husband. They were proud of their "outdoor" shoes which looked like they had bought just for today...yuppies.

Before that we went to Jeff Cook to weed the onions. Not good times, there was pigweed all over the place. Thorns for day on these little buggers, even the leaves have thorns, what jerks! But who cares about pigweed, let's talk honey.

Before and After

Daniel and Erica extracted honey on Saturday, so the beeswax was on top of the strainer draining down honey goodness to the bottom. Cory likes to keep the beeswax and I hear it's expensive, therefore they ran the wax through warm water and bunched it into a ball.  You have to clean off the honey otherwise the bees will swarm like crazy...crazy. Where was I during this process? None of your beeswax! I've been waiting all day to say that and now it's out of my system *ahem*, I was busy taste testing or "cleaning" the honey bucket.

Nothing to see here folks, busy working

 Before lunch we prepared for CSA boxes and picked more cherry tomatoes. If you ever wondered about how to store your veggies for a period of time (like we do with all this produce), here's a website that covers pretty much everything.

In The Box

3/4 pint Blackberries
1 pint Mixed Cherry Tomatoes
1# Mixed Squash/Zucchini
1# Cucumber
1# New Potatoes
1 head Burge Heirloom Garlic
1 head Pac Choi
1 bunch mixed Italian and Thai Basil
1 bunch Radishes OR 1/2# Green Beans

 Also included in the box this week was Tongue of Fire beans! I haven't tried them yet but am more than a little excited too.

Day 65

Easter ain't over Radishes

Elephant Garlic

Machete Day. More on that later. This morning we began with harvesting Pac Choi (eye roll) and Radishes. Neither Erica or I am able to eat all the radishes in our box so we are going to try to pickle them and see what happens, I'll keep you updated on Pickle Watch 2012. After that we went to Jeff Cook field to harvest the rest of the Burge elephant garlic. They need to cure for a couple weeks, so we put them on some pallets under the barn. We cleaned and did our bunching thing, then intern J and I went to harvest more potatoes in Newborn field.

Yeppers, that's garlic

 Daniel broke out the machete to split the bamboo. We are using the bamboo to trellis the peppers. He showed me how to start a cut in the middle then push down (without losing appendages) at the bottom I put pressure on the other side with my foot. I was hoping someone would ask me what I did today while I was in town, but no luck. I told one cashier at Whole Foods I worked on a farm and the conversation stopped abruptly and with odd looks; can only imagine replying with a "I macheted some bamboo after lunch, you?" 

Next, we made up 10 CSA boxes for our Tuesday delivery/pickup. Then I loaded the bamboo up in the back of Suzi the truck. That sentence looks so simple, fast and easy but the job was long, hard, and okay it was simple but for the sake of my argument, really complex. Weeding came next, I headed over to the hoop house with the green beans and weeded until I couldn't weed anymore, or until I had to water the greenhouse.

 Mice Wars 2012 is still going on, I had no idea, but I'm still winning. I had booby trapped my room particularly my dresser and unknowingly caught a mouse intruder. I don't know how long ago and I won't give details, the important thing is I'm still in the lead! Also, I found this little lizard on the porch around lunch, saw the little guy twice.

Harold

Death Receptacle/sock holder

Day 64

Today was colorful! We worked with a wide variety of fruits and veggies...and I used some colorful language. Started out by harvesting squash, zucchini, and cucumbers in the lower field. While the others finished up, I transplanted squash in the spaces where other squash didn't make it. I planted them in the middle of watermelons too, which will be pretty random when it comes time to harvest and we're traipsing all through the field trying to find the squash. Adventure!

We split up and intern Jason and Daniel went to cut down some bamboo for us to use to trellis the peppers. Erica and I harvested blackberries and blueberries--in a monsoon. Blueberries are the new guy in town, and it's best to wait until they are actually the blue color. I know this by taste testing (yes, I do that a lot) when you eat a purple blueberry you might as well have eaten a sour patch kid with a side of bitterness, which is why they are appropriately named blueberry, lesson learned.

After we dried our clothes in the dryer and ate lunch we went back for round 2. Erica and I weeded in the hoophouse then picked tomatoes. We have different varieties like brandywine, orange sun gold and yellow marigold. Now I admit, I have never liked tomatoes. Only in salsa and spaghetti would I accept them, but these heirlooms are a completely different story. They are delicious and I think the ones they sell at grocery stores and restaurants should be illegal. I've been popping these cherry tomatoes in my mouth like candy, I mean taste testing. So yum.

We came back and cleaned, weighed, pinted to get ready for tomorrow! Time went by really fast today, especially for a Monday, hope yours did as well.

Day 63

Market Day, or rather, yesterday was! I know, it was Friday but I don't make the rules so it was Market Day! First we bunched, cleaned, weighed, and I started a market list to keep track of what we's gots. We also had to finish up harvesting sunflowers, Asian Greens, and last round strawberries. Elizabeth, our volunteer, helped out again today and while they went to harvest more potatoes, I stayed behind to pint the strawberries and greens...and chat with Neely about zucchini bread recipes. When they came back we harvested blackberries, yumseys.

I made lunch today, combined a lot of our veggies (squash, striped zucchini, garlic, onions) with some of our tomatoes and sweet thai basil over linguini. On the side I made kale salad, Erica does this a lot and I thought it'd be fast, easy and cheap, yep kale salad's like a hooker. After lunch we had to head out to market in Buckhead. There was a wreck and we had to detour making us late to market. Thankfully the organizer wasn't too peeved and we sat up before the bell rang.

This market felt different being on a Friday, more like an event. There was an Iron Chef Competition going on and being filmed throughout most of the day. We provided some of the food for the event and Cory was interviewed about how he felt about chef's using our produce, or something like that, she was cute but her questions needed work. Also Candice owner of Red Queen Tarts dressed the part tonight and made things more festive over by us :)

We didn't sell as much as normal; however with Cory's selling skills we were able to salvage the night and ended pretty okay. You tha man Cory! Here's his Kale salad recipe:

Kale Salad

-1 bunch kale, stems removed and finely shredded

-1 small handfull golden raisens

-1 small handfull chopped nuts (honey roasted pecans or sliced almonds are nice)

-1 spring onion, finely diced

-red wine vinegar or balsamic

For the dressing (Honestly, I've never made the dressing, it doesn't need it if you put enough balsamic, but if you're feeling ambitious go for it!)

-2 tbsp Tahini
-1 garlic cloves
-1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (1-2 lemons)
-2-4 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil, to taste
-1 tsp kosher salt + freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
-1-2 tbsp water, or as needed

-small handful of parsley

Combine dressing ingredients in a blender or food processor, blend until smooth. Taste and adjust ingredients for flavor and consistency. Toss with salad ingredients. Allow to marinate for at least 30 minutes to allow the acid to "cook" the kale. To add a little kick, toss in a little red wine vinegar before serving. Enjoy!