Beans climbing in the morning light
I love summer mornings on the farm. Once morning chores are done, I love to just poke around the garden and take in the splendor in the beautiful morning light. Here are some pictures from this morning.
Broilers, finished with their morning grain, looking for more
Bee and mustard flowers
The snack bar
We’re in that wonderful time of year when the tail end of blueberry season overlaps with the beginning of blackberries. In the brambles at the edge of the orchard, fat blackberries seem to have ripened over night, and the clusters I’ve been protecting from the goats have turned from hard and green to deep purple that drips with juice when you brush them. In the blueberry patch, the last clumps of berries are tucked beneath the leaves, and picking them is like a treasure hunt.
The canes behind the girls’ swing set are completely off-limits to grown ups–we call them “the snack bar”–but every day I do a sweep of the rest of the property, picking whatever I can before the birds do. When the blackberries are in full swing, I’ll make a big batch of jam, but this morning I felt like making a quick treat for breakfast: black and blueberry preserves. The natural pectin in the fruit gives it a nice texture–firm enough to spread on biscuits and cornbread, but gloppy enough to spoon over ice cream.
A trio of pattypans
We planted pattypan squash for the first time this year, and now that they’re maturing (in abundance!), we’re not quite sure what to do with them. Do we pick them when they’re small, glossy and still faintly green (my preference)? Or do we wait until they’re matte white and spaceship-shaped (Karl’s)? And how to cook them? We’re looking for ideas, and we’ll also be fiddling around on our own. Check back for our favorite recipes–in the meantime, any tips?
Charlotte has been really into making salads recently, which is both exciting, and as it turns out, delicious. Her latest creation is a carrot salad with dill and smoked paprika. Seriously. She made this up herself. The smoked paprika and carrots really go nicely together. There are no real measurements of anything when Cha Cha cooks — it’s pretty much all to taste, but here’s a basic recipe, I fudged the amounts, so feel free to fiddle with them. We love it!
We have 3 spots left in our home cheesemaking workshop this Saturday!
Learn how to make easy homestead cheeses in your own kitchen. In this workshop, we’ll make a simple fresh chévre and Ten Apple Farm’s signature MonChaCha, a firm raw milk aged goat cheese. Workshop lasts all day, with a potluck lunch, afternoon tasting of our favorite American artisanal goat cheeses, and evening milking lesson. $35 fee includes cheese tasting and packets of culture to make your own cheese at home. Limit 10 people. (Date: Saturday, July 24, 9am-3pm)
email info[at]tenapplefarm.com if you’re interested!
garlic, fresh and flavorful
We’ve begun to harvest the garlic from the garden, despite the fact that we never got any scapes. We’re not sure why we didn’t get any scapes, perhaps it was the weeds or perhaps it was not enough compost or organic matter or fertilizer, but in any case the small compact heads are packed with juicy garlic goodness. It’s a delight to run down and pull up a new head every time Margaret says we’re out of garlic. Nope, not yet.
Nested in for the night...
When I went in the barn last night to put all the critters to bed, I found all the baby chicks were all snuggled in for the night in one of the nesting boxes with their mama. There’s one more that ducked back behind mama hen.
This weekend we finally finished the grape arbor / gateway to the orchard, and with your help, filled in the last row in the garden. Last year we planted 2 grapes on either side of a place where we imagined building pretty much exactly what you see above… a birch frame and arch, with a ladder up the sides for the grapes to climb up and over the structure, creating an arbor and gateway into the orchard. We got the frame and the first rung of the ladder built a couple of weeks ago, which gave the grapes something to grab on to, but they soon were looking to climb higher. We’ve been working on clearing out the thicket between the garden and the orchard, and taking out a few of these small birches served two purposes, and actually a third, as the goats were happy to munch all the leaves off the upper branches.
Thanks to everyone who weighed in on Facebook with suggestions on what we should plant in the last row of the garden. We actually had an empty row and a half, so we ended up planting 3 half rows: arugula and beets, the popular favorites on Facebook, and also a half row of broccoli raab, a bitter green that we love, and that we’ve had little success with in the past, and want to keep trying to get right.
For the first time ever, we’ve planted the entire garden! This may not seem like a huge accomplishment, but it’s something that we’ve never, in the five years that we’ve lived on our farm, been able to manage. We always seem to leave a few rows unplanted or overgrown–I call them “Snake Hollows” because they act as a wildlife refuge–and by this time in the season we’ve usually given up on reclaiming them. But as of last weekend, we have everything in, from the leafy potatoes to the creeping squashes to the new, spindly peppers (we don’t have much hope that they’ll be productive, but we’re trying). Everything, that is, except for one final row, sandwiched between the newly planted bok choy and carrots. Any suggestions on what we should plant? Here’s some of what we’ve got for leftover seed, help us choose!
Check in on Monday to find out what wins the row!
Pretty peas
It’s peak pea season in the garden, and we’ve picked, shelled, and frozen at least 5 pounds in the last week. The plants bounced back from the groundhog’s attack last month, and there are still pods to be picked before we tear out the rows and their birch trellises this weekend. A few more rows of broccoli are going in soon, but in the meantime, the goats have been nibbling on the empty pods and the girls have been sneaking as many sweet, raw peas as they can. When we get a chance to cook them, our house favorite is to simply steam them in their own juice with a smear of butter, and toss them with a little parsley.
IN STORES NOW! Our new book, Living With Goats: Everything You Need to Know to Start Your Own Backyard Herd, comes out in October 2009. Stay tuned for more information about book signings and Goatstravaganza II! Read more...
This is how it all started! The Year of the Goat: 40,000 Miles and the Quest for the Perfect Cheese, tells the story of our journey from New York City to a farm of our own. Hop in the "goat-mobile" and join us on our cross-country goat trek across America. Read more...