Gears shift in May. Cool-weather crops are in the ground and growing or being harvested. These need maintenance: weeding, mulching, and/or watering, depending on conditions. But the hot-weather crops begin to take center stage in terms of attention. The greenhouse is packed with tomato and pepper transplants that have grown remarkably fast this year. We’re still prone to get frost in our valley through mid-May; we’ve had light frosts at that time for about the last three years. Various questions include: Are we done with frost? And will that next round of storms in the forecast bring hail? Is it better to procrastinate and put incrementally more stress on already big transplants to get safely through one more storm, or is it better to get them in the ground just a bit earlier where they’ll be happier so long as they don’t immediately get pounded by torrential rain or pummeled by hail? How many plants can we protect with sheets if we do end up with a frost threat? We spend a lot of time looking at weather forecasts & long-range models, especially at this time of year. A couple days ago, the National Weather Service was showing 6-10 day and 8-14 day outlooks that showed a high probability of warm. As I initially wrote this on Apr. 30, that forecast window started to trend towards chilly. Sigh. Update: We decided to put the first planting of tomatoes out on May 1 & 2, hopefully for the best. A partial to-do list for early May follows. Continue reading →

April was a glorious month. The weather was seasonal and stable, with appropriate temperatures and generally the right amount and timing of rain with no severe weather (other than the bit-too-much heavy rain right at the end, but we still needed a good soaking). The only real blot on its record was March, which had so many crops & natural plants ahead of themselves that the expected April frosts and freezes did some damage (such as all our young pecan tree losing their leaves). We had to do a lot of work to cover crops like strawberries night after night, but made it through with no damage and what looks like a heavy crop. It was the kind of month where we love working outdoors every day and being so immersed in the rapid changes and developments in the natural world on this farm. Continue reading →

As non-fans of drinking milk on its own, we love making fresh yogurt as an alternative. It’s quite versatile in the kitchen, usable for everything from breakfast to dessert, and we easily go through 2 quarts a week or more. Before we established our own year-round milk supply, we found that we could make a batch of yogurt from local organic milk for about half the price of buying the equivalent volume of organic plain yogurt, with what we considered superior flavor and not shipped in from far away. Whether with our goat’s milk or your own preferred source, learning to make yogurt at home can be a really rewarding and cost-efficient process if you have a little time to spare. Continue reading →

Whole-milk ricotta is the easiest fresh cheese to make at home, requiring fairly standard kitchen equipment and a minimum of steps. It doesn’t take very long and produces a very tasty and versatile product which we think tastes much better than the ricotta that’s readily available in stores. By some definitions, whole-milk ricotta is not really a cheese (because there’s no culture or rennet), and it’s technically not true ricotta (which is made from reheating whey of hard cheese but produces miniscule quantities of curd). However, we consider the simple process and tasty results to be a good first step into home cheese-making. Continue reading →

We ran a survey of our CSA members this week, assessing interest in receiving deliveries of raw goat’s milk from the farm under the condition that it’s not to be consumed raw (read more about this here and here). Quite a few people expressed theoretical interest tempered with some version of “I like the idea but I don’t know what to do with it if I can’t drink it”. This is thoroughly understandable, given the very Western/American cultural view of milk primarily as a pure drink, quite different from many other cultures’ uses of the product. In this and further posts, we’re going to discuss various other ways to use and handle milk in the home to create lots of fresh and tasty foods. Even for folks not interested in our goat’s milk (or for non-CSA members), there’s a lot to learn here about diverse ways to use good milk to make new foods and often save money. (If nothing else, many of these recipes/techniques are the base of versatile ways to use vegetables.) Non-organic goat’s milk is currently selling at a local grocery chain for over $5/quart, as compared to our price of $6/half-gallon, and the equivalent yogurts and cheeses you can make are even pricier. Continue reading →

One of our favorite ways to use mint is to infuse its flavor into various beverages. Most of these involve heating the liquid, then tossing in a few sprigs of mint. To maximize the mint flavor, we’ve found that it is best to add the mint when the liquid is a bit below the boiling point of water. Here are a few recipes for using mint in diverse beverages including tea, mojitos, and chocolate milk. Continue reading →

The recent news of an E. coli outbreak in central Missouri, supposedly tied to raw milk, has gotten us quite annoyed at the way it’s being handled and covered by both the Boone County Health Department and the Columbia Tribune. Given that our goats are now kidding, and we’re just a few weeks away from raw milk being available from our farm, this topic is on our mind. For background on our position on raw milk, read here and here, but the one-sentence version is that we produce and sell limited quantities of raw goat’s milk, but do not drink it raw ourselves and require anyone taking raw milk from this farm to sign an agreement not to consume it raw either; we do this because raw milk is the only way we can legally sell any dairy products without impractically complicated and expensive dairy facilities and licensing requirements. See also the wording about raw milk sales in our CSA information. That being said, we are strong proponents of the personal right of adult Americans to purchase and use raw milk as an ingredient no different than raw meat or raw eggs, both of which also come with health bureaucrat warnings and are risky to handle and consume but are nevertheless legal to be stupid take risks with if you want to. We especially don’t support feeding raw milk to children, but then again we don’t support exposing children to junk food or tobacco either, and those unsafe activities are legal and unregulated at the individual level. But here’s why we’re annoyed with this story and how it’s being covered: Continue reading →

Weather and crop management will always be inextricably linked; this has been especially true in the screwy recent weather patterns. As we transition, at least temporarily, from record spring warmth to a series of seasonal frosts/freezes, here’s a discussion of how weather considerations have affected both short- and long-term planning on the farm this spring.
Continue reading →

March was the warmest on record for our area, but we’re not alone. The Washington Post notes that many other parts of the country had it far worse; for example:

In Marquette, MI, Wednesday’s record-crushing high was 81 compared to the old record of 49, which even the morning low of 52 topped. The same day Grand Rapids, MI scored its all-time record temperature departure (for highs) soaring to 87, 40 degrees above normal.

I guess it’s comforting that we were only 30 degrees or so above normal? Of course, then we had a pretty good frost Thursday night with multiple more to come next week, judging by the forecast. We’ll be covering the strawberries just about every night this week.

Lots of flowers, birds, and animals have become active over the last month. Both crop pests and beneficial predators have been showing up in force. We feel we’ve had far less time to actually enjoy March this year, due to the early warmup and the associated farm workload, and thus have been missing some of the natural signs and events we like to track. But here’s a look at some things we have documented. Continue reading →

Crepe-making is a wonderfully diverse kitchen skill to have; crepes are easy to make and can be used to improve so many different dishes. I’ve used them as spring roll wrappers, pseudo-tortillas, and even as a reasonable substitute for Ethiopian njera (see below). A batch takes so little time that crepes can be an easy meal for a busy night, simply stuffing them with whatever you might have on hand. We learned to appreciate the diversity of crepes through restaurants in Montreal and western New York state (such as this one), and have yet to run out of uses for them. Here’s a look at several different ways to make them, and some of the uses we’ve put them to here on the farm. Continue reading →