Fall crops are up!

When I pulled the garlic from my kitchen garden, at the end of July, I immediately started prepping that space for fall crops. Garlic harvests best when the soil is dry, so that soil was very dry. I added a couple of buckets of compost, and roughly hoed that in a little. Then a bunch of water, (the kids wanted to play in a sprinkler, it was a win-win operation.)  Then I  seeded Swiss Chard, Red Russian Kale, the last of the onion sets that were still in a plantable state, some green beans, white turnips and Cylindra beets. It might sound like a lot, but there's only 2-3 feet of each one.

Thanks to a week of rain and a waxing super moon, I had GREAT germination on all of them, and with any luck, it will be a welcome wave of fresh veggies at the end of the season.  I'll be curious to see if the beans will have enough time to produce, they are bush beans, so I only need them to put on that first big flush.

Worst case, they'll shade out some weeds and be interesting from a research/trial-and-error stance.  But I'm betting at least half will give me food. That Swiss Chard and Kale will probably give me food well into winter, they are both super hardy.

Some notes for future reference. No onion sets for sale this late in the season. Keep more onion sets in a dry dark location after spring plantings. That means I have to buy enough in the spring so I'll have leftovers that I can plant in fall. And actually get them into a safe place. I had probably 3 little bags of sets this year leftover, but one got wet during a watering "incident" that soaked my whole gardening basket, so it rotted. One was left in a sunny place and sprouted, then rotted.  Only one was in a dry dark place, and of course, that was totally by accident.

Other food related things going on, include a bunch of canning. Dave has really stepped into the lead on preservation work, but we still work together on most batches.  We've done a couple rounds of zucchini relish. Bread and Butter pickles are still to do this week.  Some sweet corn next week. We've dried a lot of herbs. Tons of oregano, some mint and parsley.

I don't know if we'll get a tomato glut this year, it's been so mild, there are barely enough heat units to ripen anything. I'll just have to wait and see how the rest of August plays out.

Spring Doings and Plannings

Some of y'all might be wondering what I'm up to. 
Some of y'all know what my plans are in general, and some are still in the dark because plans are still close to the vest.

So here are some general things that are going on. Some of you will know how these fit into my larger plan, and some of you will just have to be patient until I can reveal all.

I've got my spring garlic count! 90 made it through our harsh winter.  I lost some, in places where I didn't get enough mulch on top of them.  But 90 is still respectable. If I get 3 big cloves from all 90, planted this fall, that will be around 270 garlic plants up in 2015.  My crazy old lady co-gardener was surprised to see garlic in the plot this year. Most people around here are when I tell them what the plants are.  :-) It just means I'll have a monopoly on the market when the scapes are ready in June.  The scapes may be about all we eat or sell of this crop. Well, those and the smaller cloves I don't want to plant. This crop is meant to be the seed garlic for a larger cash crop next year.
My daddy asked me if there is a large market for Iowa garlic. I believe there is. My farmer friends at Coyote Run Farm, south of Des Moines plant something like a half acre of hardneck garlic every year. They have a picture of baby Rowen and I out for one of their garlic planting parties in 2009, so I know how much they plant. I know I will not be anywhere near that level. I also know they sell out every year.   The trick is nice big bulbs, and tasty varieties. Those two things are impossible to find in grocery store garlic. Get people hooked on the deliciousness that is locally grown hardneck garlic, and they'll never go back to the sad little grocery store garlic.

My cold frame performed well again this year, in all of its DIY glory.  The last frost date is this week, (and true to form for this spring, we have a frost chance for Friday) and my spinach has been producing like crazy since the beginning of May. Another week and we'll be buried in lettuce, some of which was also in the cold frame and is beginning to crowd out the last of the spinach.

My farmers market in town continues it's downward spiral.  This year the Chamber of "Commerce" has decided that it won't start until JULY 2nd!!  For fucks sake!  The other local markets are already starting, we went down to the opening weekend for Sioux City's market this past Saturday. And sure, it's no July market, but people were THERE! Vendors had greens, onions, eggs, meat, transplants and crafted goods. Customers were THERE! Why our Chamber thinks May and June don't deserve market times in our town, I don't know.  I strongly suspect it's because they are fucking morons.

Moving on. I've decided I will still register as a vendor and go in July-Oct.  I've also decided I'll start when I have the produce to start, and damn their official start date.  I'm making my own sandwich boards to offset the lack of city support for earlier selling dates. (Their limited support of the market includes signage along the main highway through town pointing motorists one block North to the market location.)  A big shout out to my dad, who brainstormed a bit with me on the sandwich boards. I got a start on them this past weekend, and my rusty woodworking skills came back to me. I even remembered to buy sandpaper and sand the boards before applying the primer. *high five* I'm making them really solid so they should last quite awhile. I'll be adding other things to my market stall this year. A scale is top of the list. I scored a big food-grade tray last year in a trade with a fellow market vendor, so that will find uses this summer. If I have enough of the chalkboard paint left when I'm done with my sandwich boards, I might make up some small boards for labeling prices/varieties of veggies.

In the fun news category, I'm signed up to run in another 5k this summer. The Color Run in Omaha in mid July.  I've been out jogging a few times this spring, in between the rains and storms. So far I'm running better than I did at the beginning of last year, much better. So, I didn't lose it all over the winter. Looks like this week might actually let me start the 3 times a week training that I did last year. If things go to plan I'll get to run with my younger brother, the ex-Marine. It sure would be nice to have a good time with him, it's been too long. And knowing that I'll be running with him will certainly keep the pressure on during my training.  Us two, competitive? ....yea.   :-D

So there's what's going on right now. We're keeping busy and holding on. How are things with all y'all?
-Jennie

Losing Ground

One of the main drawbacks to my current style of Urban Farming is that space can disappear. Not like it vanishes, the dirt is still there, but suddenly I find out that my share of it is only 10% of what I expected because now the old gal wants to let a girl scout troupe plant it to earn badges.  Or the church decides they are much more comfortable about spraying Round Up around the food plots than they are about letting me hoe and mulch the weeds into submission.

Oh and the other drawback is having to deal with the crazy. I got a call from the old gal this weekend about the whole scouts-taking-over news, and she was chewing me out because I was planting peas too early.  Didn't I know they are supposed to go in on Good Friday?   O_o

No, lady, I did not know that I had to plant my seed based on the schedule you expect to see from your lifetime of living in this small isolated Christian town.   I thought I would just plant my peas as soon as the soil was workable.

I'll be happy when I have plots of land that I have contractual and agreed upon rights to plant on. Enough space that my succession plantings can be done logically and not squeezed in to any random available space. Peace of mind as I plant my garlic in the fall that I'll still be growing there in the spring.

So I'll be in new ground again this spring. :-) It's good practice for me.  Got some feelers out already.  And of course that better solution is waiting in the wings for next year. As long as my courage and savings don't give out.

Speaking of practice, so far I'm really liking the looks of my tomato and pepper transplants. Still a few more weeks where things could go horribly wrong with them, but I feel like my years practice is finally paying off. I actually have pepper seedlings.  Literally a first for me. I'm trying onion transplants again too.  Been a couple of years since I tried, and I've learned a lot since my last attempt.


I've got big goals for this year. I can't let something like losing half my grow space deter me.   Onwards!
-Jennie

How Have Thigns Been Lately?

I know, I know, the blog has been quiet lately.
There are multiple reasons for this. I've written a couple of posts that didn't get published. They were mostly written for me. But I may publish them later, as certain break points get closer.

The short story is I'm not really happy with how my life and work are aligned right now. Dave and I have exciting goals for this year, in relation to this disconnect. We're going to make some changes. Some changes will be more drastic than others. Some changes I can't talk about yet, because we're not ready for them to be public knowledge. Most of the changes will happen in late fall/winter.

Life is too short to suck it up and deal. Not that I'm not doing some of that. But you know what I mean. If somethings not working, I'm the type that wants to try to fix it.

The high level breakdown is I want job #3 to replace job #1. It will mean turning a hobby into a fully fledged business, my own business. It's a hobby with a decade of practice and a hobby that I find myself more and more passionate about as the years pass. It's a hobby that I'm used to documenting and tracking; numbers and money. The passion will help, and I'm quietly confident in my skills.

I am doing lots of number crunching right now. We have savings goals for the next year, broken down into month goals.
I have business planning to do. I'm taking an online course in the type of business planning I need. (This is another reason the blog has been quiet, my personal online time is more focused on that class and the work I'm doing to set us up for next spring. In fact, I should be working on my homework right now. :-D) New tax forms I need to get familiar with so I document the right things this year and next year.
Moving expenses plus start up expenses. Ouch.

Is it going to be easy? No.  Is it guaranteed to work out? No.

Does any of that mean I'm not going to try? Fuck no.

So, that's how things are right now. :-D

On a lighter note, seeds are already sown for spring, I have onions and leeks in my little greenhouse doing their germination magic.
We bought a new car! Well, new to us anyway. It's a 2011 Subaru Outback. The boys have plenty of foot room, Dave doesn't hit his head on the roof of it, and it will handle more of the things that I like to haul around, and more of our leisure activities.

The boys are growing bigger by the day. Rowen is excelling at his preschool work, and we're trying to figure out how we want to do Kindergarten. We homeschooled the preschool, and since we're probably moving before next spring, we are likely to home-school the kindergarten too.  Logan is practicing all his words, learning new ones every day.

Hope all is well with all of you.
-Jennie

Meeting Goals

I'm counting down the days till my 30th birthday.  1 month exactly is all I have left of my fabulous stint as a twenty-something. Honestly, I'm fairly proud of the last decade. It's been an amazing journey, I've had a lot of fun, and I've worked really hard. The start of my 20's I was a stripper, trying to make my way through my last couple years of college. I dodged a bullet when my roommate's pot growing operation got busted, and that was a tricky year that followed. But, I fought to stay in school and graduate, and I made it, albeit with few prospects for an engineering job at the time I walked across the stage. The troubles kept me in Ames for one more year, and that was the year that saw love blossom with the man I'd eventually convince to handfast with me.

This weekend we'll celebrate 5 years together as a common-law married couple. <3 nbsp="" p=""> Two kids. Two beautiful boys. The eldest is already accelerating towards the big kid ramp. The youngest, just yesterday he was a babe in arms, and now of course, he's chasing after big brother as quickly as his chubby little legs will take him.

Some goals have fallen by the way-side. I'm not a rising star in the salsa scene. I haven't left the country since my study abroad trips in college. My kids aren't bilingual. I'm not a xenogeologist. Although, technically that last one died before my 20's.

Some goals are works in progress. My student loans are still massive. But I've paid off the car and 98% of the credit card debt. Home-ownership seems like a pipe dream at this point, so far away and so unlikely, it's not even worth the title of "goal." How can we save for something like that? I get 4 checks a month, one of them goes to rent, one of them goes to student loans. That leaves me 2 checks for everything else. And we do save. We have a savings plan. But all it does is keep us from drowning during normal emergencies, (car repairs, family visits, root canals..) we can't seem to hang on to any of it for long enough to build on it. ...   That got depressing, let's move on.

Some goals are being met. I ran a full 20 minutes last weekend. That's 2+ miles, and definitely 1 mile farther than I've ever run in my life. That same day I set up at the farmers market and sold out of everything except bok choi. It was only 30$ worth of garden bounty, but it was MY garden bounty. Urban farmer... it's not an organic CSA with regular paying customers.. but I'm proud of the start and determined to build on it.  The small start also helps to defray the costs (in time and materials) of growing my own food. Having non-GMO food, free from pesticides, herbicides and fungicides is worth the trouble, but it's nice that I can finally make some money from it too.
I've learned to quilt, and learned to knit.
I've learned yoga, belly dance, and lots of salsa moves.
I live with people I love, in a house full of things that I've created, surrounded by green growing things that sustain us all.
I've found my footing as an engineer. The road for this one has been rocky from the beginning. I don't know why 17 year old Jennie got so scared of the geology path. I don't know why I thought computer engineering would be a good fit. It never really has been. Sure I have the smarts for it, but let's be honest, I don't have the passion for it, and probably never will. I don't care about technology, I'll pick hand tools over gas powered anything, every time. I haven't missed my personal cell phone, and feel no need to get a smart phone. So while I have found that I can competently start up giant factories, pumping out consumer goods and pet food, I find I have little interest in the work, or the goods produced. I'd rather be digging in my gardens. How that dichotomy will play out over the next decade remains to be seen. 

I'll be running a 5k to celebrate my birthday next month. You're all invited. :-)
Sioux Falls Glow Run
August 24th, 9pm at Falls Park.

I may do some tweaking to this blog, just to keep it current, so don't be surprised if the look changes a bit.

I may set some goals for the next 10 years, any thoughts on something I should add to that list? :-D

Take care y'all.
-Jennie

My First Farmer's Market!

Well, we did it. :-D It was not the grandest farmer's market offering ever.  It was a sincere effort though, and I think the first one was memorable and wonderful and a stepping stone to greater things.

Dave was gone from Friday evening till Sunday afternoon with our only car. So, I had to rush home from work and get the farthest gardens harvested so I could use the car to transport the goodness back to my kitchen.

After Dave was off on his way, I got everything washed and trimmed and put into bags* and back in the fridge.  Then I harvested the home garden, and processed those vegetables. Then I started to try to figure out how me, the produce and my two small boys could all get to the farmers market ~ 1 mile away. I called some friends, but none of them could make it work. So, I quit looking for fossil fueled methods and started looking at what I had.  What I had was a sturdy wagon.  So, I grabbed the pop-up cooler, (It's round with spiral supports and it flattens down to a disc when not in use.) and checked that it would fit in the center of the wagon. It fit! So, then I checked my display baskets in the wagon, and picked out 3 of them that fit well and looked good.

Saturday morning I was up early, and left the boys in bed. I got the produce out of the fridge and into the cooler. I got some breakfast for me and boys made and packed into the wagon, along with the diaper bag and toy bag.  And if it sounds like there was more bags than vegetables in the wagon...well that's not far off.  I woke the boys, did some potty/diaper time, and then sent them straight out to the wagon. We left the house around 7:45, 15 minutes later than I had hoped, but still really damn good for a first market day with 2 under 4.

Rowen was so sweet and helpful! I was worried the early hour would leave him crabby, but he surprised me. Logan was his usual cheerful self, and quite happy to be strapped to me in the sling.
So off we went, and I imagine we were quite the sight.  Me with the 1 year old in a sling on my hip, pulling the wagon which was overflowing with baskets and bunches of green. Trailed by a 4 year old jabbering away about everything.

We made it to the farmers market right at 8am, and were set up by 8:05, the only plus side to the tiny offering and wagon-setup.  I giggled at Sue's pronouncement that she had already made 3$. And got the boys settled in the grass with their breakfast of toast and milk. My breakfast was coffee and toast crusts, I'll have to work on that next week.

Sue and I ended up being the only two sellers for the opening weekend of the farmers market in LeMars. Which was disappointing. But, it means my suspicions are accurate about the dire state of the market, and it means I was 100% right to push forward with my own market selling attempt. (To compare, a few years ago there were a half dozen regular sellers.)

I made one sale, my first sale! I sold a bag of the May Queen lettuce, (gorgeous stuff, so tasty and such pretty little heads,) for 2$. Thanks to Mama Pat for the seed. :)

*Why bags? you may be asking. Well, here's my thinking. Give customers what they want. The average American buys produce in plastic bags at the store, the average citizen in LeMars won't bring a reusable bag to the farmers market. Plastic is what they are used to. By washing and trimming and bagging things like lettuce, I may be skirting the edge of what I'm legally allowed to do, but it gets the produce into a state that's comfortable to the customer. It makes the high cost produce I'm offering closer to the convenience vegetables they are used to seeing in the super market.

The boys had a surprisingly good time.  I shouldn't be surprised, they both love outdoors, I planned for food and drink and toys, of course they had a good time. Rowen had a couple of conversations with Sue that I think both enjoyed.  From the adult side, it was nice to have kids to play with in the long spells between customers.

Next week I'm looking forward to bringing a table and the pop-up shelter. I'll probably not bring a ton more in the way of veggies, not until I start seeing more customers.  I will bring my cloth goods though, just to have more on display.  I need to touch base with the local food pantry too, and see if they would be interested in unsold produce, I can't make enough soup to keep up if no one is going to buy anything.

Speaking of, that's what I did this week, I'm calling it Farmer's Market Soup.

Farmer's Market Soup 7/6
4 cups of water
1 bunch of swiss chard, torn from spines and roughly chopped
1 bunch of green onions, diced and divided in two piles
4 garlic scapes, chopped to green bean size.
1 kohlrabi, skinned and shopped.
2-3 carrots chopped
1 can of white northern beans
1 can chicken stock
1/2 pound of beef
salt/pepper/spices

Bring salted water to a simmer, add the kohlrabi, scapes, carrots and half the green onions, simmer for 4-5 minutes or until things are soft.
Brown beef in a skillet, with half the green onions and some salt/pepper. Set aside.
Add beans and chicken stock to simmering water. Simmer for 5 or so until the beans are nice and soft. Add in the beef and the chopped swiss chard. Simmer until the chard is soft. Done.

Family loved it. And it's a big batch of soup, we're still eating on it 4 days later.

That's all for now.
- Jennie

Nervous Ramblings Before My Farmer's Market Debut

Well, this afternoon I'll head out to my gardens. I'll harvest some of the veggies that I planted a short couple of months ago.

...
Then I'll try to sell them Saturday morning. 

It seems weird. It seems unbelievable. Like, maybe if I close my eyes I'll wake up in my bed and it will be a dream.

But it's not a dream. I've already had obstacles. The market usually starts midway through June, but veteran market sellers thought this spring was too cold and wet, and they wouldn't have anything to sell, so the city moved back the starting day to this weekend. My begging and pleading that I HAD VEGGIES TO SELL did not sway the city gal in charge of market stuff.  So, I watched a couple of crops get too big and go to seed, and that was frustrating. Tossing good produce into my compost pile because I hadn't thought to arrange for an alternative, because I hadn't even dreamed that they would move the starting date.  I guess I'll chalk that up to my first lesson.

More obstacles yet to overcome. Dave is working in Des Moines all weekend, and of course taking our only car.  So, me and the 2 babes will have to figure out a way to transport all of us and my market stall to the market, with no car. :-D Thankfully it's only a mile or so away.

The things I don't have, seem to outnumber the things I do have.  No money box, no scale, no table even yet!

Will it be enough? Will I be an embarrassment to the Farmer's Market?  I'll be taking pictures for my own records, and I'll report back.

If you're in the area, stop by and wish me luck, or buy some lettuce. 8-noon LeMars Olsen Outdoor Center.

Leaving a Garden Space

Some of you may know I've been gardening with a local church for the past couple of years.
I was looking to start a community garden in my town, and the local Ag Extension gal heard from the church group that they were trying to start a community garden. So she connected us, and I got on board, thinking I could help them with their project, and save myself the trouble of finding a bit of city park or corporation land.
I've had internal misgivings from the beginning. I thought, "I'm supporting a church, even if it is indirectly. Am I really comfortable with that?"
And at first I was comfortable with it. They had me and another gardener that weren't church members, and the level of proselytizing was low, and based mostly in one-on-one conversations, and I know, meant as kindly outreach. They were serving community members, and there was talk of sending the excess veggies through the local food pantry.

The food pantry never saw anything. Instead, time after time, the excess was distributed among gardeners and church members.  This bothered me a little, but I knew at least some of those gardeners and church members were on fixed income, or raising families, and I thought, at least it's getting to someone.

Then I hear this year, they turned away a local family that was looking for gardening space. Because it "would take too much organizing," and I'm not sure why that is, except that they didn't belong to this church. But I don't either, so why they got turned away... I don't know. And that bothers me a lot!

And they've been spraying chemicals. Roundup for what I considered a small weed problem. Some other herbicide (unnamed, see communication note below) on the patch of sweet corn, that's right next to one of my plots.

Communication has been lacking. They make plans to till something or spray something, but then if those plans don't pan out, they just do whatever they want when the whim takes them. I lost my hill of watermelon this year because someone decided that June was a great time to till, so they just did it one day, and they disregarded my plot markers and just tilled right through the middle of it.That bothered me a lot, and led to a angry email exchange.

I didn't feel like I was part of a community garden, I felt that I was part of a church garden, for church friends to garden in. I talked with the lead about my concerns, and she admits that the Community she was wanting to serve with this "Community Garden" was the church community, and not the neighborhood/town.

How insular. How disappointing.  I guess I should have known better... should have listened to my conscience.
So I told her I'm not returning next year.  I don't want to use my precious time and energy to promote and assist a garden that's only going to serve a small church group.  Nope. I'll finish out this year and harvest what I have planted, but no way am I putting more of my time or energy into this project.

What does this mean for my gardening? The community garden space is about half of my gardening space right now.
The short answer is, I'll find land elsewhere.  I found more this year through friends. If the farmers market EVER OPENS I'll have a card at my table explaining my need for more land, and I can distribute those amongst my customers. Hopefully I can find more growing space that way. If I have to put out an all-call to my friends this winter, I can try that too.  If I have to scale back my operations, I can do that.  I might, maybe, if I can find the time to take off work to do it, talk to the city council about a city sponsored community garden. (The city council meets at the oh-so-convenient time of 10am on Thursdays or something like that.) I may need some time off from community gardens though, even secular ones. So no promises on that one.

- Jennie

Nooooooo!!!

*Sigh*

So, I thought the LeMars Farmers market started this Saturday, but apparently it doesn't.

The other seller I chatted with yesterday said that it used to open in June, but the veteran sellers were worried that the cold wet spring would leave them with nothing to offer, so they moved it back to July 3rd this year.

JULY!!!  FFS people!

I asked the Chamber of Commerce person in charge of the market if I could sell MY stuff early, because I DO have veggies to sell. She's avoiding the question. *sigh*

I have lettuce and peas and rhubarb and scapes ready to GO! I was so stoked for this weekend.

Now what am I going to do?

Put up a table in my lawn and sell from there? :-D Put an ad in Craigslist?  Sell door to door?
.....  This is so frustrating!

On a funnier note, I was visiting one of my favorite sellers last night. She's originally from Korea, married an Iowa farm boy and raised two daughters in LeMars. She walked us home and was introduced to my front yard garden.  Guess which crop she totally flipped over?

Scapes of course. :-D The hardneck garlic is the star of the garden again this year. And the scapes are perfect for harvest this week. She couldn't believe that I had some. Apparently green garlic with scape attached is a prized veggie in Korea. She had become resigned to Americans not knowing what it was. I had to promise to order her some this fall and help her plant. And then I had to cut 4 scapes off so she could cook up a BIG dinner with them. :-D She's lucky I like her.  I was planning a big order of garlic this summer.  I have saved my seed for 5 or 6 years now, and not had any problems. But if I want to grow more next year, I'll either have to eat NONE of this year's garlic or order some more heads from Seed Savers. Yea, we're just going to order more heads, because garlic fresh from the garden is too heavenly to abstain from. So, ordering some for Su won't be a problem.

If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.
:-D I will eventually sell some veggies.  This is only a setback.
Have a good weekend everyone. Go support a farmer's market.
-Jennie

Planting at a Run

Well, Memorial Day approaches, and we've finally given winter the boot.  My garlic plot is the only block of plantings that doesn't look behind. Although, some of the early radishes are coming along, and one of my pea plantings is looking vigorous, even if its neighbor planting is a little behind where I'd like.

Snowstorms well into May meant that my usually busy spring of planting cold hardy crops was delayed for the most part. Thank goodness for my cold frames! The lettuce that was under those has had a great spring, the ice and snow slowed them down, but the frames did their job, and hubby and the boys helped with some of the on-and-off as our weather did its crazy dance. (On and off refers to the taking frame tops off when we hit 70+, and putting them back on when we dip below 35 or so.)

So this past weekend saw me planting at a run, trying to get greens, peas, onions, potatoes, corn and kale into the ground, before the rain that was expected Sunday. Oh, and getting the lawn mowed, because by the time the snow melted, the grass was 5-6 inches tall. And installing the new rain barrel, and fixing the old barrel. :-D And of course, all of that was on top of the normal weekend work of the dishes and laundry that we do every weekend.

I don't mean this to sound like I do EVERYTHING and hubby does nothing. :-D Quite the contrary, I am able to do all I do, because he does so much. He was watching which-ever kid wasn't with me in the garden, and cooking us some meals and doing his share of the dishes and laundry. He did at least half the lawn, and got the new rain barrel installed (AND LEVELED!)

I did manage to get a LOT planted before the rain started Sunday. Enough that I feel almost back on track.  Memorial Weekend usually sees me planting out some of the heat loving plants. I'll probably check soil temps before doing that this year. It may just be too cold still for me to put out my little tomatoes.  I started them a little late indoors, so it's all strangely working out.

I'm already running out of space in my gardens. :-D
I've left some room for the beans and peppers and tomatoes, but probably not enough.  I may have to get creative.
I'll be back with a full rundown after this weekend. I imagine I'll have every last inch planted by Monday. :-D

-Jennie

Farmers Market Dreams

Yea, I had my first Farmer's Market dream last night.

Things are moving along on that front. I'm still waiting to get the market seller form/signup thing from the city chamber of commerce.
I'm still trying to figure out what's legal for me to do, and what's illegal for me to do. And by that I mean I'm trying to navigate the murky legalese surrounding "food processing." Iowa's Food Code if you're interested, is here.

I've found out that I could add some baking to my offerings quite easily under Iowa law. And it's looking like if my sales are under 20K, I don't have to have much in the way of licensing. I think I'm not allowed to cut my fruits/veggies though.  I can't seem to find that exact wording anywhere in the Iowa Code, but other states are very clear that while selling cabbages or carrots is fine, grating them to make a cole slaw base, is not allowed without a commercial kitchen.

Will I cut my veggies anyway? Take a copy of the code with me to the market to argue that I don't see that wording anywhere in it? What are the chances I will even see a food safety person up here in NW Iowa at the tiny little market I'll be at? Slim I think.  I know there are market vendors here that sell things that are outside of whole fruits/veg or baked goods. And I doubt that they have licenses for anything.  My brain is still working through all the variables, check back with me next month for my decision.

In spite of the chilly weather, I have a lot growing already, and I'm busy putting as much into the ground as I can, as quickly as I can. I've noticed that I'm a bit quicker than I used to be with some of the basic tasks involved with planting. Familiarity and what not. Hopefully that will help me manage the work load associated with my 1000+ square feet of garden space.  Again, check back with me in a month for an update. :-D

Baby number 2 is already finding his groove in the garden. Yesterday he was eating dirt and sticks and rolling around in the freshly tilled earth. He was so cute he stopped traffic when we were at our new corner garden. I literally had conversations with passing drivers about how I got my kids to like gardening. Hint: Start them young, preferably at birth. 

I have records about what is going where, and as soon as I get everything in, I'll do a bit of a roundup about what all I have planted and how I'm dividing things up. It's a lot! At least for me. :-D

Time to get back to it! Posting will likely be scarce until everything is planted. Just the way of things.
-Jennie

Ice is Gone, Lettuce is Up!

I know I've raved about them before, but y'all are going to get another dose today.
I LOVE COLD FRAMES!
My cold frames are in a new location this spring. I shifted them at the beginning of winter last year. In one of them, I shook a stalk of lettuce seed over it before I closed it up for winter.  I was rewarded this weekend when I took the top off and found a nice crop of 2 inch high lettuce growing vigorously.
The rest of my garden is basically still ice-locked. But those cold frames are just enough protection that early starts to lettuce and spinach thrive. We opened all of them up for an overnight dousing with 40 degree spring rain on Saturday, then closed them up again.

Rowen and I did manage to get some peas and radish seeds sown.  The SE corner of the main bed had a nice covering of mulch on it, so we were able to get down a couple of inches with the hoe, and that was enough to get those seeds in. They won't mind icy toes, and they won't mind the 1/2 inch of ice/snow we got last night. Both the soil and the last flurry of winter will be melted by this weekend, and that's the soonest those seeds could be sprouted and looking to send down roots. The melting ice will give them some moisture, which we're still a little behind on.
It's hard to believe last year on this day we set a record high when we hit 92 degrees. 

That's the other great thing about cold frames. They take a lot of the guess work out of early spring planting. Namely, the first stuff up is planted in winter, and the seeds figure out a sprouting time all on their own. This obviously only works with seed that will survive the winter's cold. The cold frame is solar based, and come mid-winter there just isn't much solar power to be had. But, I have a variety of lettuce that is hardy enough it has seeded itself in our lawn, so it works well for this application.


It's quite likely that this early crop of lettuce will be ready before the Farmers Market is open for the season. I'll probably have a couple of crops of spring stuff before the Farmer Market opens in Mid-June.  (Note to self, the Sioux City market opens on May 8th, why does ours open so late? Can I petition for an earlier start?)  Some of it we'll eat. We're always hungry for fresh greens by the time the first lettuce crop is ready. Some of it though... I'll have to find creative ways to sell it if I can't petition for an earlier start to the Farmers Market.
I could maybe bring a box into work and sell to co-workers. I'd have to check with a few people before doing that, but it's possible they'd ok it, we've been on a healthy kick at work lately. I could be a rebel and just have a one-woman farmers market, and open the market early whether the city likes it or not. (Our market is in a lightly used public parking lot.)  I could go even further down the rebel path and put up a table in my front lawn next to the sidewalk and advertise the veggies there. ("Free Veggies, plus suggested tip" might get me around zoning laws.) Further pondering: If girls scouts can sell cookies door to door, could I sell lettuce door to door?  10 year olds probably don't need the profit margin that I do, but it's a thought.

Well, that's all for now.  Spring continues its relentless march. My first year as a market grower is off to a good start. (Of course the start is the easiest part....)

-Jennie

Urban Farmer

Well, it's starting to look like I will be an urban farmer.  I am still ironing out details, but I think I may have found more growing space.  It's closer than the community garden plot, which is nice. It's even on the way to the community garden plot, (we'll have to see if that's a good thing or not.)
I was relieved not to have to resort to flyers, or begging random strangers with sunny lawns. All I did was ask various friends that I knew had spots they were tired of mowing. I just explained that I was looking for more gardening space for organic veggies and waited to see if anyone would bite. One did! I will have to share the space with said friend's Mother-in-Law, who apparently was also interested in his sunny patch of lawn.  She was going to make him help her put it into garden, so I think he was relieved to be able to pass the project to me. :-D Hopefully she has realistic expectations about what we can grow. And hopefully our gardening styles mesh well. It almost sounds like she's a very inexperienced gardener, she sounded relieved that I would help site the garden and get it tilled. We'll see how things look next week when we go out to pound stakes and measure. But I'm thinking I'll get 200-300 feet squared of new growing space. For reference, I have roughly 300 ft^2 in my front yard I plant, plus various perennials and herbs grown in flower beds around the house. And I usually have ~300 ft^2 in the community garden I can plant. 
We had our first board meeting last week for the community garden. I re-read the rules, and was surprised to find that the ban on selling produce that I thought I remembered, was NOT there. I guess we just talked about it, but decided against it. So, that means I can use my community garden space for this endeavor.   This will hopefully use that space a little better.  I have been using it to put extras from my main plantings in the front yard.  (The last half of the seed packet in many cases, planted a week or so after the main planting.)  That works sometimes, but often the community garden spot is a bit too shady to grow the same types of things that I'm growing in the front lawn.  So, if I treat it as space for the market growing, I can focus on growing just the few crops that will really do well in that slightly shady space, and do staggered plantings of those crops and hopefully get some good results.
All added together I'm going to be farming less than 1/16th an acre. :-D But, it's a start.
I went and visited with one of the LeMars Market sellers yesterday evening.  Sue is originally from Korea and married an American guy from LeMars. She's been growing veggies in her backyard for the past 15 years and selling at the market. I think she probably grows on less than a 1/16th an acre, I've seen her backyard. I know she focuses on fewer veggies than I do, she really likes her cucumbers and tomatoes and peppers. I have noticed though that the past year or two she hasn't sold out of those items any week. She just has so much of those 3 things, that there's sadly not enough demand for. We were talking about who she thinks will be at the Market this year, and her thoughts mirrored my own, she thought it quite likely that she and one other gal would be the only ones there. She was excited to hear I was going to try to sell.  *whew*  Part of me was a little worried that I would be seen as an interloper, stealing customers with my hobby farming.  It was a relief that she was excited to have another potential seller.

The snow is finally melting. Rowen and I were outside Weds night planting spinach and lettuce in the larger cold frame. I'm not 100% satisfied with the new rebuilt spot for that frame, so I'm watching it closely this spring. I may have to rebuild it. I'm glad those seeds are out there, we're supposed to hit upper 50's today.
I have tomato and pepper seeds planted in cells on a heat mat inside. And the rest of my seeds on the kitchen table, eagerly awaiting their time in the garden.
I can't wait!
-Jennie

Growing Veggies for Market (A Love Note to My Husband)

I love my husband.
He didn't marry a farmer.
He made the perfectly rational decision to marry his stripper/engineer girlfriend, expecting to have to tolerate fresh veggies out of a kitchen garden. And occasionally stiff towels from the clothes line.

So when I asked him what he thought about me wanting to grow veggies for this year's market there were a lot of responses I was prepared for.
No F-ing way.
You don't have time for what would amount to job #3.
Think of the children.

I was ready with a whole host of arguments for those. I was sure I could talk him into it.

He said, "Ok."  He said, let's figure out how we can avoid sinking too much money into it this first year. And that he had noticed how inspired I was after the NW Iowa Food Summit last week. Proving once again that my husband continues to know me better than I know him. He did mention that HE was NOT interested in waking up early on Saturdays to go to the market. :-D Which was a reasonable thing to point out.

This being near Valentines allow me to embed our song here for your listening pleasure.

I can promise you That by the time that we get through The world will never ever be the same And you're to blame....

So, mushy stuff about my husband aside, there are a lot of things I still need to decide and get busy on if this is actually going to happen. I probably need to find land outside of the community garden plots I've been gardening in. Those plots have restrictions about selling the produce grown in them. I have some ideas for where to find land, and I'll be pursuing those as quickly as I can.

I want to start small. That's practically a guarantee considering the size of the market, the size of the customer base and the money I have to work with. A few crops to offer each week would be ideal, but even 1 or 2 would be fine. 

I want to use some of my cloth goods to supplement the (hopefully) veggie sales.  Diapers and cloth wipes and cloth napkins and wetbags, there's no place to buy any of that locally, and I think that could be a niche I can fill. Those things don't rot or go bad, so I'm hoping they can help ensure a table full of goods each week.  Dave says I could probably sell some of his excess paracord bracelets too.

Some of my readers may be wondering, WHY?  Sounds like a heck of a way to waste a bunch of Saturday mornings.   It may turn out to be just that. But, it might not.  The answer to why is a little complicated. My local farmers market is dieing. The number of vendors has dwindled noticeably in the 3 years we've been here.  Partly due to the success of a bigger market south of us in Sioux City.  Partly due to the aging market producers, a couple of them have moved off of their land or just generally retired. That's hard for me to watch happen.  I am passionate about local food. I dislike having to get food from faceless national corporations, usually all that's on offer is various flavors of oil soaked corn and soybeans. Or bland generic veggies from California, (or Mexico.)  I want there to be a thriving counter to that bland facelessness. I want to be one of those faces providing fresh tasty local food.

I don't know why, or where the urge comes from.  It has grown gradually over the years, from that first rabbit-devoured attempt in Ames, through my many garden plots since.  Every carrot I've pulled out of the ground. Every little seed planted. Every session with the hoe. The feeling has grown. There are some days I want to leave my engineering cube and never come back. Just wander home, find some ground, and spend the rest of my days happily grubbing in the dirt.

My debts have me trudging back to the engineering job every Monday morning though.  Bidding farewell to my mud stained jeans and bare feet for another 5 days. I'm hoping that by doing at least a little bit of retail agriculture, I can claim a small part of the dream. I'm hoping that part-time market grower is enough to keep my passion for it alive, and my skills growing until I can arrange the rest of my life to fit better with the whole veggie-growing thing.

There were founding fathers who were farmers-and.  Farmer-and-inventor. Farmer-and-legislator. Surely it must be possible to be an Engineer-and-farmer. 

Even if I have no land. Even if I have no tractor or truck.  Even if I'm 29 with two babies. The world needs more farmers. This country desperately needs more farmers.  I want to be a farmer. Surely this shouldn't be an impossible match. I know that it will be an uphill fight though.  Land is expensive. Selling a product that is inherently high value and inconvenient will offer up significant challenges.

 I'm tired of waiting for the perfect time though.  Now is the time. It's imperfect and uncertain, but NOW is the time. Step 1. After that I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and let things fall as they will. I'll leave you with the full Paul Harvey quote made temporarily famous during the Super Bowl this year.

And Mom, if you're reading this. I do have fond memories of Paul Harvey.  I'm sure adult Jennie would argue with him more often than child-Jennie did, but the fond memories of car trips listening to "The Rest of The Story," are there.

Wish me luck y'all!
 -Jennie

Reboot

Greetings readers.
I am still alive. :-D

Having a baby is like getting hit with a ton of bricks.  :-D  I promise, I'll have his birth story up soon, but the important bits are, he's here, we're both fine and life is slowly regaining a bit of rhythm.
Logan Ash Erwin  is what we saddled him with and he was born April 19th in the wee hours of the morning.

It's been a wonderful spring and we've had a great start to the summer too.  I've been enjoying every intoxicating moment of his newborn months.  All the wonderful baby smells, baby kisses and little coos.  The digital world took a backseat as real life held me enthralled.

My full time job went on hiatus for an 11 week maternity leave.  I'm back part time right now, and will resume full time in a couple of weeks.  Yay for employers who aren't asshats!! :-D  Seriously though, America lags so far behind other industrial nations for maternity leave, I'm happy that this company fully supported my 12 week leave, but I can't help but feel that I would have loved a 4 or 5 month break.  Sigh.. C'est la vie, n'est pas?  I'm back to 90% full speed, and feeling great, so hi-ho hi-ho, it's back to work we go.

I'm once again gardening 3 different gardens, which is an odd mirror to my postpartum period with Rowen, when I had 3 different plots in Des Moines. Peas had a good run this spring, Rowen even got into the spirit, and every time we went out to the garden he asked to pick "Peee-pod!"  Lettuce has gone wild in my yard, it's literally sprouting up in the grass and along the edges of every flower bed.  Love it. I had a great crop of radishes, and found out that I like the White French Breakfast radishes a little more than the typical little red ones. Rounding out our salad heaven was a terrific batch of green onions.

I just harvested my beloved garlic crop.  18 beautiful heads, some of the biggest I've ever grown.  Yay!

Whoops!  There's the baby call, gotta run.  I promise, more posts about everything soon.

Fall harvests

I'm a pumpkin carving master.

We have a few hardy crops in the ground that are continuing to produce tasty fresh food.
The pumpkins of course have been a fun harvest.  They are indeed edible, I found that really the texture is the only thing that's different between my random pumpkins and the nice "pie pumpkin" I got from the store.  And texture can be amended with judicious applications of the immersion blender.  So, two thumbs up for the random pumpkin experiment.  We got a few carving pumpkins out of the deal and more pumpkins than we'll be able to eat.  They are sitting on the porch looking festive right now.  Snow is forecasted for next week though, so I need to bring them in if we intend to try and eat any this winter.

Dave is a pumpkin pie master.

I tried something last night that was pretty tasty. I roasted the usual sweet potatoes for Rowen, with some of the pumpkin flesh I had saved from carving, and then mashed them together with the usual butter/milk/spices.  Pretty good.  Hard to tell that it was sweet potatoes and pumpkin mixed together. Considering the lack of sweet potatoes to be found this fall, that will help stretch them a little bit.  On a related note, I'll be figuring out how to grow sweet potatoes this winter. :-D

The first of three pumpkin harvests.

The swiss chard is still doing fine, nights below freezing don't bother it much.  It's the brightest green you can imagine, my community garden folks are jealous, I can tell.  They're envious of my tasty greens as they hoe under their sad bedraggled tomato vines. :-D

The turnips are still going. I have those buffered with piles of leaves and covered with row cover, just to help keep the ground from freezing around them.  Now, if I could just find a way of cooking/preserving them that the boys like.  One of my friends tried a turnip pickle that turned out ok...

Rowen and I picked the last of the carrots yesterday.  He was eating them dirt and all, before we even left the garden.  He usually doesn't like carrots, so that was a win.  Yay for frost sweetened carrots.We only pulled a half a pound or so out, but that's not bad considering the complete lack of attention I gave these things.  I do that every year.  Carrots take sooo long to germinate, and then they are hard to keep alive, and then they grow sooooo slowly, that I'm always sure they're going to kick the bucket before making any roots, so I give up on them. Then along comes November and I'm digging up the tastiest carrots I've ever eaten, and wondering why I didn't try just a little harder in July to get the carrot bed weeded and watered.

Kohlrabi is also still producing.  They definitely slow down once we get past fall equinox, but they withstand quite a bit of cold without much fuss from me. Plus, they look like alien saucers, which I love.

I found a bit of oregano under the leaves in the summer herb patch, doing well enough that I harvested a handful and put it in some water in the kitchen.  We ate some on the roasted veggies last night. Mmmm fresh herbs in November. Not too shabby.

Still to come: 3 small heads of purple cabbage, that I'm giving every last day I can before harvesting them.  They were the heads buried under the pumpkin vines. They are still alive because I made a bridge for the vines to climb, but they were definitely slowed because of the shade.  I'm more likely to eat them in Nov than I was in July when the other cabbages matured, so it's a good thing I think.

Fall Begins

I drive to work with the sun rising over the golden corn fields.  The tractors are already at work in the early light. An occasional pheasant or hawk can be seen taking their morning sun. I'm sure there's beauty to be had in places like NYC, but to me, nothing beats the views I enjoy here in NW Iowa, especially on a sunny fall morning.

The entertainment isn't terrible either.  We took the boy to the corn maze again last night.  He had fun last year, but this year he was much more interested in the playground and the kids than he was in pumpkins or corn. And of course we had to discuss all the animal sounds that the petting zoo animals made.

I asked the pumpkin grower what she thought about my volunteer pumpkin patch and how edible the fruit are likely to be. She thought I had a great chance of having edible fruit, and a likely chance that they are edible but not fantastic-tasting.   That makes me excited to try them and see.  We picked up a couple of squashed for decorating and 1 pie pumpkin just to compare against my volunteers.

The garden is limping along, tomatoes are gamely ripening, one at a time, so I'm hopeful I'll get one last batch of something made with them.  Seeds are setting and drying. Squash are hardening. 

"Though the fields lay golden;
Something whispered, snow."

Family=Family++

For my code-impaired readers, the title means basically Add 1 to Family.   :-D

I'm happy to announce that Dave and I are expecting a little podling around May 20th.  I'm happy to have a warm little proto-human nestled inside for the long cold winter ahead. And I'm happy that most of the ice and snow will be gone when I hit the huge-and-clumsy stage at 8+ months.   It'll mean another year of spring planting with nursling in tow, and winter garden planning to include another baby's worth of peas and squash. Love it. :-)

We had our first frost yesterday, so the gardening heyday is definitely done.  I've got my blankets and such out, trying to extend the season, Rowen helped me wrap the tomatoes up.  It kept them from freezing, but they are definitely stressed, I can see signs of blight and I just don't know if all the green tomatoes will ripen or not.

The squash vines are slowly dieing, revealing their fruit goodness. I think I'll have a few butternuts and a dozen or so little green acorns and 6 at least pumpkins.  Whether they are all edible, remains to be seen, since most of those are volunteers.

The squash has been a fun experiment

We have large quantities of goodness stashed away in jars. Green beans did really well this year, as did the herbs and onions and garlic.  Potatoes did well enough, and I might get one more head of cabbage before the end of the year.   So, while I'm not ready to see it end for the  year, I am happy with the bounty we got for our efforts.

Rowen helping pick the green beans

Kindergardens - The edges of the day

Dawn, and dusk. Something about those times creates magic in the garden. Dawn still retains some of the darkness and mystery of night. Fog and mist twine around the growing produce, especially here in zone 4 as we ease into chilly September. There's so much promise to the day, what will be new? A new tomato? A new squash blossom?
Dusk brings an easing of the day's heat. Dew gathers as the coolness of night spreads. The fading sunlight and the twinkling of the first stars. Yea, there's definitely something about the edges of the day.

August has been a productive garden month. We've had a steller run of the bush green beans and purple beans. I've got the first pumpkin, and we've harvested at least a dozen summer squash. Potatoes and onions and garlic are nestled in their storage locations. Rows of jars are full of August bounty. Little bits of summer, ready for the long winter ahead.

Rowen quickly learned the joys of green bean picking. After he tired of plucking at random parts of the patch, he decided to help move the piles of beans from one place to a "better" place. Then he decided that the green beans and the purple beans should be in different piles. lol
He's also really intrigued by the watering process. Mostly I think he just likes to play in the water, but often he'll fill the can up and lug it around and water plants that interest him. It doesn't seem to be plants that necessarily need water, one time he spent 5 minutes watering one especially large squash leaf.


We have some amazing volunteer squash that have literally taken over the yard this month. (And the tree, and the garden and the compost pile....) Behold, the elusive tree squash. A delicacy, or so I'm hoping.

Stay tuned for an exciting child related announcement later this week. :-)

It's my birthday!

Yup, August has always been my favorite month. Enough sunshine that I'm finally warm. Tan lines, and tomatoes. Parties for my favorite people. (August babies are the best, and not just because I'm an August baby.) The days are still long, the nights are clear, and everything is growing. This post is a bit of an amalgamation, as things are busy, and I have stuff to share, but not enough time to flesh them all out into their own posts.

Rowen and I invited a co-worker and his daughter over for the potato harvest. We all dug in the dirt and came up with a big pot full of potatoes and a wide array of bugs, spiders, rocks and weeds. I swear the kids were just as excited over the bugs. :-D The potatoes yielded a good amount of well formed tubers. They didn't have the scab problem that I noticed last year. I was hoping for that, because I had read that a first-year-from-sod garden would grow out of that problem the second year. I know others nearby that don't seem to have my success with potatoes. I would swear I'm not doing anything special. But, I'll write down some of my practices, in the chance that something will work for those attempting to grow potatoes.

First, I put them in the ground early. Here in zone 4, that means a week or two before the last frost date. I'll protect them with a quilt or something if there's going to be a hard freeze, but they are otherwise able to handle the cold temps and frosty mornings. I dig a trench, and put the potatoes in there, mounding up the dirt to one side. I cover with part of the dirt, and a small layer of straw. As the vines grow, every 6 or 8 inches, I put more of the dirt on top, and more straw. New potatoes will be formed above the seed potato that you planted, so you have to give them room to do that. Loose soil, with the straw to keep things airy, but at the same time, light is no good, and will turn them poisonous, so the layers have to be as sunlight blocking as possible.

I don't do anything to the seed potatoes. I'll let them get some good budding on the eyes, and then I just plant them. I don't cut them, I don't dust them with anything... I'm very laissez-faire about it. I have had good luck buying seed potatoes from an Iowa source, Seed Savers, and I've had good luck buying seed potatoes from the bins at the farm store in town.

That all I do. :-D I watered them a couple of times, during really dry weeks, but not very much. For those struggling with golf ball sized potatoes, maybe some of this could help. You could try asking your local ag people too. Here in Iowa the people to ask are the ISU extension offices, they have all sorts of good info on local growing environments and what grows well and how to do that.

My coworker's daughter had a great time, and hopefully enjoyed the potatoes I gave them. Rowen loved having a little friend to play with. Total win-win.

In other news, the plum tree and the apple tree that I gleaned from last year, are both a bust this year. The plum tree has no fruit set, and my neighbors report that the apple tree is sparse and wormy. I'll do my own recon of the apple tree, perhaps some higher branches have something worth picking. This compounds the problem of the raspberry canes not producing much this spring. So, it's looking like this weekend I'll have to do a serious search for some local fruit and spend some money to get my fruit preserving done. I hear there's an apple orchard on the south side of town. This is ok. We're much better off financially than we were last year at this time, and if I have to spend money on something, at least it can be local fruit. It's too bad about the plums though, those spiced plums were freaking delicious.

I'm doing some canning outreach. As a twenty-something I'm well aware of the skills my generation is missing. One of these is How To Can. So, when a local gal mentioned she'd love to learn, I took note. I have 20 pounds of tomatoes to process this week and I've invited her over to help and learn the basics. She's a great bow hunter, so I'm hoping she'll return the favor and teach me a bit about turkey and deer hunting, since all I have experience with is birds.

So, summer wanes, the toddler grows, and I'm trying to get my community more prepared for the unraveling. I love it, but there's always work to do. :-) That's about as profound as I can be today. As always, I love hearing from y'all, so chime in if there's something you're dying to talk about.