Month: August 2018

The Great Season Change-over

August 27, 2018

After lumbering down the stairs in my usual under-dressed morning attire, I threw open the patio door to retrieve something from the cabin in the backyard. Cold air blasted me like I’d just stepped into an walk-in cooler. What happened? Is summer over?

Cold House.JPG
Cold House Planted to Greens, Fall 2017

Each August, autumn starts to find us. It starts with some cool nights, and, before you know it, frost. This morning’s insta-chill reminded me that I have to get to work on the great season change-over this week! The fall season is a great time to grow cool-season crops, but, due to the loss of sunlight and heat, it’s a tight window to get things planted with any hope of harvest. Those seeds planted in the ground this week have a fighting chance. In 10 days time, it’s hopeless.

The great season change-over entails us planting the last crops outside, preparing and planting our two high tunnels, and getting some cover crops started in the fields.

One of our high tunnels is currently filled with tomato and cucumber plants and will be our ‘cool house’ where we will heat just enough to keep the interior near freezing into December. This will allow us to move along cool-season greens, radishes, and the like without stressing them through cold. Our other high tunnel, on the other hand, is totally unheated and will be filled with cold-hearty spinach which survive just about anything. Last year our latest harvest was the middle of December and was super sweet after going down into the single digits. We cover the plants in this greenhouse with a floating row cover, which helps retain a few precious degrees as we head into snow territory.

The last couple of years I’ve fallen short of getting cover crops in place, but I’m committed this year. We use a standard rye and vetch mix which is very hardy in MN. It covers the ground so I don’t have wind erosion where the ground is exposed in the winter and it keeps the ground in place when spring rains come, all the while adding biomass and nitrogen to the soil. It’s an all-round good thing, but I just have to get it done.

This whole post is putting me on edge and making me feel like a squirrel who needs to store nuts really quickly…got to go! Lidafarmer over and out.

In the box:

    • A Few Ears of Silver King White Sweet Corn: This is the end of the line on the corn. I find this Silver King a nice change-up from sweet bi-color corn.
    • Cantaloupe
    • Eggplant: A lot of people suffer with finding a way to prepare eggplant. If you’re tired of eggplant parmesan or fried and breaded, try this baba ganoush dip (baba ganoush is also really fun to say).
    • Salad Mix
    • Cilantro
    • Yellow Onion
    • Shallots: These are small and pink in color. You can use where ever a recipe calls for an onion. Store like all onions, in a dry place at room temperature.
    • Carrots
    • Beets 
    • Anaheim Peppers
    • Colored Pepper
    • Tomato mix: Most are romas (best for saucing, not fresh eating) since they haven’t been in before, but you also received a regular slicing tomato and a Cherokee Purple, a wonderful heirloom.

 

 

Pigs and Compost

August 20, 2018

The mighty pig. Well-known for snorting, eating, and bestowing bacon on the masses.  These animals have not only earned these reputations, they manage to do even more! Now I’m running the risk of sounding like a late-night infomercial…”And if you buy now in three easy installments of $19.99, we’ll provide you with the pocket fisherman as a free gift…”


Honestly, we like to keep pigs because they are compost-making workhorses. On a vegetable farm there are always good-veggies-gone-bad and heaps of veggie biomass such as carrot tops we cut off. For any of you who pick up at farm, you may have spied these piles we leave behind as we race off to the dropsites on Monday. Hogs are able to convert these heaps of waste into useful manure that we turn into compost and spread on the fields for added fertility. The process of transforming an overgrown zucchini into fertilizer happens quicker when that zucchini goes first through the gut of an animal. Kind of gross, but true.

In addition, pigs love to root. In the back of our barn, we have these old piles of bedding and pigs like nothing more than to turn it over and over and over. Other farmers buy these machines which turn over biomass to make compost. We just have the pigs do it.

So, you can see why having a few hogs is a mutually beneficial relationship on the farm. They get to eat all they want and root around like pigs should. We employ their efforts to make compost and to recycle the farm’s byproducts. And, oh, we also get some meat to boot at the end of the year. Thank you, pigs.

In the box:

  • Yellow or Orange Watermelon
  • Leeks 
  • Red Onion 
  • Tomatoes 
  • Garlic 
  • Poblano Peppers: These are hot peppers, but typically less hot than a jalapeno.
  • Italia Pepper
  • One Colored Pepper: We have a mix of peppers turning color out there. Some are orange, some red, some yellow…all good.
  • Sweet Corn
  • Lettuce or Salad Mix: Just a sampling as my lettuce bed for this round was just not cooperating.
  • A Few Carrots
  • Fresh Thyme
  • Daikon Radish: Mar and I like this refrigerator pickle recipe, so no processing involved. Just follow the recipe and keep in the fridge until ready to use. You probably don’t have enough for the whole recipe, but you get the idea and adjust accordingly: https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/vietnamese_daikon_and_carrot_pickles/

Hidden Roadside Gems

August 13, 2018

When you travel, do a seek out the independent business or the nearest franchise in a strip mall? I’m betting on the former.

We dreamed up the farm stand at the end of our driveway when on a fall trip to Vermont in 2005, inspired by all the classic wooden stands you find there. Mar and I loved traveling through the beautiful New England countryside adorned with white farmhouses and cows against the autumn backdrop of golds and reds. We drove on these windy roads transporting us from one quaint town to another, all the while discovering these roadside gems like a farm that pressed cider or a farmstead cheese operation.  The whole scene reminded us a lot of….well, Otter Tail County, minus the all the cool farm stands.

Farm stand 8.13.18Since we loved the authenticity and picturesque quality of the farm stands of New England, we decided to build one seven years ago and we have applied that same thinking to everything else that inspires us. Lida Farm is built on the idea that we should just do what we want to see in the world. The world needs good, organic food…let’s grow it. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a community event with food and music, let’s host a fall harvest party. Sauna, let’s build one. Raw milk, let’s get a cow. I know from talking to the many visitors to our area who come across our farm stand, that our stand now serves as their hidden gem when in lakes country and I’d like to think our local community is just a little bit richer from our efforts.

WARNING: TOTAL RANT BY RYAN. My biggest frustration in life is talk about how all the cool stuff happens somewhere else and we are just worthless consumers who have no agency and no means of changing ourselves. If only our community only had more businesses, more energy, more people, a bigger tax base, more grants…then we’d be great.  No, we don’t have to wait for some multi-national corporation or big foundation or leadership guru to build our community into something. We can do that and we are doing that! If you look around, appreciate the small and independent places that are making Otter Tail a really cool place to be.  Even better, if you have the energy to jump into an endeavor, just do it. The world will be all the better for it.

In the box:

  • Celery
  • Tomato mix
  • Flat-leaf Parsley
  • Trinity Bi-color Sweet Corn
  • Onion
  • Green Onions
  • Garlic 
  • Peppers
  • Yellow Satina Potatoes
  • Green and Purple Beans
  • Basil: Please don’t put into the fridge (it will turn black). Instead, treat like a cut flower…trim the bottom and put in a vase with water.

 

Managing Weeds with Silage Tarps

August 6, 2018

The key term is occultation. A bit cumbersome a word, but it sounds cool. Deriving from the same root for the occult meaning ‘hidden’ or conceal,’ we’re basically hiding the weeds from the sun to keep them under control.

Recently popularized in North America by a Quebecois named Jean-Martin Fortier, the practice has been standard operating procedure among vegetable operators in Europe. The practice is simply covering ground with a heavy silage tarp to prepare a clean bed. Under the silage tarp, it’s warm, dark, and moist. This is the perfect environment to get weed seeds to germinate, perennial weeds to cook and die, and generally break down any crop residues or vegetation underneath. The result is a fairly weed-free area which is great for finely-seeded crops. We prefer to use this valuable space for things such as carrots and salad mix.

IMG_6374The only issue with this whole practice is moving a huge tarp. Originally our tarp was 50 feet by 200 feet in size, but moving a monster like that takes a lot of energy (especially after a rain). So, we cut it in half, which makes it much more manageable.

Preparing a bed in this way is magical because it doesn’t take tillage (overworking the soil has a lot of issues) and the tarp is doing its work without any thought or effort on my part. I can just go along paying attention to other parts of the farm, and, when I need the bed, I just pull back the tarp, apply compost by hand, and give a light till just over the top to make a nice seedbed.

In the box:

  • Tomato mix: Yes, regular slicing tomatoes are now coming in with many more in the near future. I’m not in love with the prettiness of these guys, but they have a good taste as any first tomatoes should.
  • Satina Yellow Potatoes
  • Zucchini
  • Cucumbers
  • Green Peppers
  • Eggplant: There is a mix of Italian and Asian style…you got one or the other.
  • Parsley
  • Sweet Onion 
  • 1-2 Fresh Shallots: Looks like a purple onion, but it’s actually a shallot. Really can be used anywhere you use onion. Like onions, it will dry down and cure in a warm, dry location.
  • Beets: A little mix of gold and regular beets.
  • Black Spanish Radishes: This one is a bit of an oddball, so check out this article with three ways to prepare it: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/cathy-erway/black-radish-recipes_b_2617652.html
  • Bunch of Carrots
  • Green and Purple Bean Mix