What's new 10/27/2009
by Joanne Frazer
Wow, this weather sure makes gardening fun! We got so much done this week: John and Wonder cultivated some beds in the early part; then on Friday John, Andy, and I harvested the 'Painted Mountain Corn'; then John, Sakina, Tom and I, with a little help from some other friends, harvested another 2700 pounds of potatoes (we dug up russets, Yukon Golds, and some reds); and finally today I got to culivate my flower beds. Again, I say 'Wow'!
It was quite an adventure figuring out how to dig up the potatoes! The soil at Wages Creek has quite a bit of clay in it so it was very heavy and had lots of thistle plants growing amongst the potato plants. Tom's neighbor, Mike, has an old tractor that's been on their land for over 50 years and Mike loves to tinker with it. After many attempts he was able to till up 10-12 beds. Everyone had different jobs to choose from: digging out the potatoes from the turned over soil, loading up baskets with them, carrying the baskets to the sorting area, sorting them, and then finally bagging them. Then, near dark we weighed them and divided them into thirds. We were very happy with the harvest (even though we still have 10 rows to dig). There were some beauts and most were number 1 quality.
The corn is so beautiful. It's kernals are multicolored: burnt orange, deep, dark purple, maroon, rust, red, amber with yellow stars, and (yes) yellow. It is flour corn rather than sweet corn. We'll be grinding it into polenta and corn bread flour. I can't wait to see what color it turns out to be! Andy thinks it'll be reddish. I'll keep you posted and we'll have some prime examples out on the table this Wednesday. We'll be saving quite a bit of seed so that we can get a coastal corn variety started.
Vegie alert! Skip this paragraph if you don't eat meat! We have a new offering: Cluck Bucks! Yes, that's right...in the last order of chicks we included some meat birds. So, we will be selling them for $20 each (the price of one 'Cluck Buck'). They will be fed organic feed and grazed on the fresh pasture that's sprouting. We also plan to shred kale to make sure they are well fed with our nutritious greens. They'll weigh about 4 pounds and should be ready in 8 weeks. Now, in order to get that big they will be eating A LOT of chicken feed so we are offering the 'Cluck Bucks' to offset the cost of their meals. They will be dressed and ready for cooking or freezing. Please order early if you want some. We need the money to buy the feed in one lot to get a discount and the word is out already we have orders for about one quarter of the birds.
medium box : $10.00
1 bunch of beets
1 bunch of kale or chard
potatoes
radishes
carrots
large box : $15.00
1 bunch of beets
1 bunch of kale or chard
potatoes
radishes
carrots
cabbage
fennel
Wondering what to do with the radishes in the boxes? You can, of course, slice them and add them to your salads but you can also cut a slice of bagette, spread it with butter, and top with thinly sliced radishes for a nice lunch or tea time treat!
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