The how to, from scratch, growing, harvesting, preserving, fermenting, savoring food farm blog
Alternative title: Garden Porn. Grin. Yummy recipe for kohlrabi at the end.
I LOVE this time of year. The time when all the hard work finally starts to pay off. Every day, you find a new long-awaited treasure in the garden…or the chicken coop. It’s kind of like having Easter in August. Here are a few of the recent finds. Read the rest of this entry »
I had a lot of other titles for this post.
When I dreamed of having a booth at a farmers market, I imagined growing beautiful mixed lettuce, bagging it up, and having people swoon over it while paying me twice what it cost in the grocery store because it was grown organically, gourmet, and they had met the farmer personally. NOT. Read the rest of this entry »
Well, the tree swallows that were nesting in the nest box right next to the front door have gone along their merry way. (I think I heard a parental sigh of relief.) Normally when baby birds fledge (i.e. leave the nest) you will see them around the yard for a few weeks, trying out their flying skills and begging food from their parents from every tree branch. Not so with swallows, who spend their lives finding food on the wing. I wasn’t there for the actual event, but I have a deep appreciation for a critter who, never having flown before, or even completely stretched out its wings in a small nest box with 3 or 4 siblings, makes that inaugural flight by leaping into the air, trusting to instinct that it will all work out just fine…and it does. I was able to capture these pictures a few days before the babies departed, when they were clearly getting big enough to be ready to go.
The yellow edge to their beaks, which all baby songbirds have, to my knowledge, is called a gape.
There is an interesting rhythm to life on a farm. Most of my life, I’ve been at an office job every weekday by 8:00 am. I tried to cram in all of my “hobbies” during my non-working hours. Now, there is no 8-5 job, and the hobbies are now my life. And because I love what I am doing, I flit from garden to scrap woodpile to kitchen toiletry invention like a hummingbird sampling a field of flowers. It’s wonderful to be my own boss. It’s wonderful to set my own priorities. It’s not so wonderful to not have a day off! Read the rest of this entry »
It IS useful sometimes.
Perhaps you’ve heard some version of this John Muir quote “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” Well, on this farm, it would read, “When we try to pick up anything by itself, we find it is hitched to a piece of baling twine“.
Trust me, this is bigger than the photo makes it look.
We’ve been slowly shoveling, pitch forking and sometimes hand pulling our way through a large pile of rotting hay on one side of our old barn. There used to be a roof over it. The roof collapsed in a winter snow, and then was left to rot for who knows how long. So first, we had to remove the half rotted tin roof. Then we started working on the hay, which, if the number of baling twine pieces is any indication, used to be at least 10 ft tall. Read the rest of this entry »
I was really excited to move to a lower elevation and have a longer growing season. But with every new garden comes new challenges as well. My new weed nemesis (which I will happily accept instead of bindweed in Colorado) is annual bugloss, which is in the borage family, and has the prickles to prove it. It is absolutely everywhere, has been coming up since April, and is STILL germinating. Read the rest of this entry »
Note the lack of radishes, which would not be here even if they had been perfect. Those are homemade sourdough croutons, by the way.
We marked where the joists were with spray paint so we didn’t accidentally step through!
I have a wonderful husband. For the last year, he’s been working in a town 3 1/2 hours away from our farm. So he is there during the week, and here on the weekends. This separation has had the effect of making us really appreciate the time we get to spend together. And those rare three and four day weekends are especially welcome.
So what did we do over Memorial Day weekend? Reroofed the old chicken coop/now garden shed, of course! All of the old outbuildings on our place are roofed with tin, in various states of rust and disrepair. In some cases (as was the case with the coop) whole sections are simply missing, lost to the wind or the snow. The coop had been leaking for a while, and one section of cross pieces was rotted out as well. So off came what was left of the tin, off came quite a few old wood singles (picture 50 years of fine dust and mouse nests), and out came the rotting sections, to be replaced by salvaged wood from other parts of the farm. Then on went a donated corrugated plastic roof, left over from when my Mother-in-law reroofed her car port. Sweet. Read the rest of this entry »
Three apple trees on the property. Fingers crossed for a good crop this year.
I hereby officially petition that the first day of Spring should be floating, depending on where you live, and tied to the first apple blossom. It finally feels like spring is here, in the third week of May!
The wild lands near my house are starting to bloom, the plum flowers are almost done, the apple blossoms are just starting, and one of our 5 lilac bushes just started to bloom yesterday. Nights are still in the high 30’s/low 40’s, so the garden is growing S L O W L Y. But it IS growing. Read the rest of this entry »
That is, if you are a cat in the catnip patch. He’s lying ACROSS the bush!
Miles Away Farm Blog © 2011, where rather than lazing in the catnip with a good buzz on, I’m out in the garden installing irrigation line.
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Miles Away Farm Blog 