Whew! It has been a busy week around here! Which is why I haven't posted anything to the blog. Here's a run-down of the past several days.
Tuesday: Farmer John loaded the oldest bull and took him to the processor aka butcher. Taking an animal to the processor is always a difficult day at the farm. But, we'll be excited to have grass-fed hamburger for sale at the farmers market in a couple weeks.
Wednesday: After school we got everything ready for the farmers market. This was the first one of the season, so we were a bit out of practice and it took longer than usual. We picked and sorted about 20 bags of lettuce, 10 bags of kale, 8 bags of spinach, and 20 bunches of radishes. Also cleaned all the eggs we had. All but the eggs and beef were packed into coolers for the night.
Thursday: We left school a bit early, got home, loaded the truck, and headed to the first Wetzel County Farmers Market of the season! It was so much fun to see all the producers and customers. It is such a social event, and everyone seemed excited to be there. We even had a couple special visitors that came all the way from Wisconsin! This week one of the local radio stations broadcast from the market. They talked to Farmer John along with some of the other producers.
Friday: Farmer John picked up a truckload of plants from George at Sunshine Farm. I helped Joyce (Farmer John's Mom) make 50 half-pints of strawberry jam. Yum! When I got home from that, Farmer John and Farmer Pap were down in the new gardens tilling. Pap was on the tractor, and Farmer John was aiming the Jetta's headlights on the garden. They finally decided to call it a night around 10pm.
Saturday: There was more work tilling the new gardens. Then Farmer John direct seeded more corn, more green beans, pinto beans, black beans, and kidney beans. Then the real work began. We planted 800(!) tomato plants. That might be a new record for our farm. I'm so glad we had a couple extra hands to help, they made the job a lot easier.
Sunday: We were both exhausted and took it pretty easy. Farmer John picked up more plants from the greenhouse at one of the high schools. (No more tomatoes this time!) We have lots of peppers now, which will go in the ground sometime this coming week. And now, it's bedtime!
WoW! It's great to see everything you guys are doing! How do you manage to keep everything weeded? We don't have nearly the size of garden that you have and weeding is never-ending.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I made strawberry jam this weekend and my strawberries always seem to float to the top. Do you have a trick to keep the berries evenly distributed?
Holly
http://simplyresourceful.blogspot.com/
Holly - Thanks for reading! I don't have a good suggestion about the berries. Ours have done that before too. This past weekend we made freezer jam, and the fruit for that stays evenly mixed. I also like it because I think you can taste the fruit more because it doesn't get cooked.
DeleteI'm enjoying catching up with your blog too!
Hi Mollie,
DeleteI canned another batch of strawberry jam and discovered what I was doing wrong. Instead of letting the jam sit for 5 minutes before pouring into jars, I need to stir it continuously for the 5 minutes. I've been following old directions for years and decided to actually follow the sure-jell instructions. Problem solved!
Holly
Mollie and John - it is getting close to how the farm ran when it was up and going when I was wee little - only thing is, you don't have as many cattle yet! lol LOVE the GARDEN by CARLIGHT! If it were a subaru's lights - I'd say you have a commercial! Love you both and Garden ON!
ReplyDeleteSusi- I'm betting you'll end up with some of those tomatoes :)
DeleteIt would be a great VW commercial too. The Farmer's Market is charming and will soon be a big weekly event for the community. It was great seeing you and sharing beer and pizza after the Market. You both look so happy so you must be in the right place. Or maybe it's just the end of the school year?
ReplyDeleteLorraine- Thanks so much for the visit. It was a real treat. I'm glad you got to see our little market. Hope it will be bigger on your next visit. We are happy to be back in the gardens, as well as have the end of school in sight!
DeleteMollie! You two are really living the dream! I love hearing the updates on the farm!
ReplyDeleteThanks Toby! Great to hear from you. How's your flock doing??
DeleteAren't the gardens a smorgasbord for the deer? how do you keep them away? garden fed venison at farmer's market next year?
ReplyDelete