Week #3 Pickup

Things are going fairly well so far this fall.  Even without me at the farm for a few days and a pickup Jennifer managed well.  That is an extremely difficult task with three little ones to care for simultaneously.  Crops are doing well with a few flea beetles and aphids still popping up but not really as bad as some years.  The green beans (Provider) have done extremely well and I am glad I planted them.  It was a new variety for us.  I had thought about waiting until the spring to put them in but I can now do another crop in March.  Our trial of red Asian greens look great and taste wonderful too so I think that I will plant enough for a few pickups.  It looks like we have another winner.   The tomatoes are planted in the greenhouse and will be followed by peppers and eggplants.  The strawberries trial is doing OK, but they probably need more light than under the shadehouse.  I will be moving them into the greenhouse as soon as I get the irrigation switched around.   I made roselle jam last week and it turned out great.  It tastes like a cross between cranberry and cherry jam.  I only needed about 3-4 cups of prepared roselle to make the 4 small jars of jam.  Delicious and it past the kid test! Although most anything with sugar usually passes the kid test.
I almost forgot that a bear was spotted at the farm!  Buddy the Bear.

Anna got to take her class mascot home so Buddy made his way into some of the farm shots.  You'll have to "bear" with me on this one.  I did learn that our chickens are very cautious of bears.  Smart chickens!

First Week Pick Up 2011

Things are off to a good start at the farm.  Loquats are flowering, sugarcane is ready, the roselle is tasting nice, and the bok choi looks awesome.  One half of the beans are doing phenomenal.  The other half is not looking so great.  I did the exact same thing to the two rows.  The front half is full of beautiful picture perfect beans.  The back half is still producing but not like the front.  Very perplexing.
A few of the usual suspects are back as well...aphids and my nemesis flea beetles.  Otherwise things are alright.  I am still trying to get the greenhouse set up for the tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and strawberries.  I've got the tomatoes in and the irrigation drippers set up.  I just need to order the roof plastic. 
I planted a few trees over the last few months two pears and an apple.  Last week I planted three persimmon trees.  One was for Karl Rossa passing. 
I hope to have a few pictures soon. 
I will unfortunately miss the first week pick up because I will be doing Extension work in La Victoria, Dominican Republic.  I have been asked to see if I can help out the village agriculturally.  Jenn will have harvest duty for the first time.  I called my Dad out of retirement to lend a hand which he graciously accepted.  Thanks Dad!  I hope things go well for her.  I'm sure she will handle it just fine. 

Season's Start 2011

I've been somewhat dragging me feet to start the blog back because it is one of those things that will need to be done late at night when the kiddos are in bed and I have a few minutes to myself.  Well, we are off on our way to our 4th season at Steed Farms and the veggies are doing good.  Rain was well timed with our first planting and things got a good start.  Things have dried up considerably since mid October and we could use a few soaking rains.  Plants just do so much better with a rain instead of irrigation water.  We have had a few issues with some fungus on broccoli raab and some mites on our red kale but nothing too overwhelming. 

We planted two cover crops the first one has done well with perfect timing of rain.  I always try to sow the seeds before the rain.  The next cover crop was sown but the rain prediction was entirely wrong and we only got a fraction of the rain and the seeds that germinated died off.  So I'm not sure what I am going to do just yet. 

We added goats to the farm.  Well, at least a neighbor is leasing some of our back 1.5 acres for his goats.  I need to take a picture of them.  He did a great job of putting the fence up and is willing to offer goat meat to us.  I believe that the minimum amount he is allowed to sell under USDA rules is 1/4 of a butchered goat.  He would sell 1/2 to a whole butchered goat if you like.  We will send out an email if you are interested with prices.

Our pine trees that we planted all died again this year as our ground is so high and dry.  We got too dry in spring and early summer for them to establish.  So I am thinking of adding grass fed beef to our farm.  Stay tuned in to see how that goes.

On a sad note...my last blog post mentioned how we probably would not see some of our community members with the start of the fall season.  I didn't realize how prophetic that would be.  Many of our members will probably remember Karl Rossa.  The friendly gentleman who wore a Navy hat and loved to talk about the latest ongoings.  He passed away this October from a heart attack.  We are deeply saddened by his passing and he will be missed not only from our farm community but also our larger community.  Please keep Audrey and his family in your thoughts and prayers.  I was looking forward to giving him back a book he lent me over the summer "Internal Combustion".  I thought it might be nice to plant tree this weekend to celebrate his life.  We will miss you Karl.  I've included his obituary.  http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary-print.aspx?n=Karl-Rossa&lc=1543&pid=153998083&mid=4841434

Summer Break 2011

Summer is here and we are between seasons.  A time for cleaning up and planting cover crops in to add fertility and decrease weeds in the vegetable plots.  This is the time when we are both looking backwards and forwards and I feel giddy like a kid on summer break from classes.  It is not easy to farm and a small reprieve when the demands of the weekly pickup diminish puts me in a mood reminiscent of school days when you know the summer is ahead and classes are behind.  I am hoping to get some much needed maintenance done on the greenhouse, equipment, and fields.  We will see how that goes.  I am also starting to take stock of next year's crop plans and experiments. Aside from feelings of levity I also feel a tinge of loss from not hearing the weekly goings on of all our members.  Jennifer and I really love the conversations we have with our "extended" farming family and I miss the interactions we have on Saturday.  We really feel connected and in some ways can tangibly feel the community surrounding the farm and I like to hear how our produce creates stories.  How members cook it or share it or eat something before they even get to the house.  I don't tire of these anecdotes.  Eating is so central to life, family, and friends and I am grateful that we can provide the centerpiece (or at least a side dish) to that endeavor.  I also know that some of the members won't be returning and we may never see them again after the season and we will miss them.    I hope you will enjoy whatever rest you can get this summer and take time to renew and refresh.  I think that I won't blog again until I have something to talk about and will rest a bit this summer as well.  Until we return in the Fall; live well, eat right, pray, play, love, rest, and enjoy your summer.

Week 24, 2011, Last Pick up and End of Season

Well this is the last pickup of the 2010-11 season. I think it went rather well overall. Not without complications but I feel that the amount and variety of produce over the season was pretty good. I hope that our patrons feel the same way. Things have really run their course in the field and there is very little to pick for this last week. Some things like the silver queen corn, watermelon, and the tropical pumpkins will not be ready but we will have an after-season pickup. This final pickup after the season is one that will be like a gleaning day. Anything in the field is up for grabs. There won't be a whole lot of stuff to pickup. Much like the pre-season pickup that we had before week 1. Where things are ready that falls out of the normal season and we would rather share the produce with our members than see some of it go to waste. The corn and other stragglers should be ready then. By the way, the silver queen is about a foot over my head and I have never grown corn that looks so robust and healthy. I am really looking forward to picking it, if the good Lord wills it.

I finally had to remove the rooster from the laying flock as he was causing some severe damage to some of the hens. I processed him and brought him home for dinner. The kids were really keen on eating him and seeing what he would taste like. Anna had 2.5 helpings of the bird. I was a little apprehensive, Jenn more so. But the kids lead the way with a fearless example for the grownups to follow. I must say he tasted just like chicken :) He had extremely dark meat that almost tasted like a cross of chicken and turkey. He was very good and much more tasty than store bought meat but a little tougher as well. The one thing that struck me was how sturdy his legs were. The leg bones were about 30% longer than the ones in the store. Maybe it is because he got way more exercise. He really was a very beautiful rooster with really nice plumage. If he was nicer he would still be running with the ladies. There might be a lesson for thought there.

I am turning my thoughts to covercrops, where I will plant next, and equipment repairs/maintenance over the summer. I am thinking that I will fix up one of the greenhouses for vegetable production this winter. It would be nicer to grow in there than worrying about covering up the warm season plants with freeze cloth and then taking it off each time. I think that I will try tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, and either zucchini or cucumbers. I am also working on a plan to replace my Dad who has been a tremendous asset to the farm over the season. He will be retiring after Saturday from the operation. We thank him for all the hours he puts in during the week. He is moving to Clearwater so commuting would be out of the question. We will miss him dearly around the farm. But I hope he enjoys his time away and not worry about the daily operation.

Week 20, 2011

We are slowly wrapping up the season. Thankfully it has gone very well. I am really excited about the peaches, nectarines, and the plums that have produced abundantly. Unfortunately, when they are ready to be picked, they are ready. The peaches have been falling off the trees and every night I pick them off the ground and either give them away or cut them up and freeze them. Jennifer makes a great cobbler. But we get a little bit overworked cutting up peaches at midnight. They attract a great deal of flies, wasps, love bugs, stink bugs, and bees. In fact, I got stung by a wasp while making a blind reach to pick a peach off the tree the other day. I am really looking forward to giving them to our members this Saturday. I would be nice if they ripen a bit over time. Maybe next year I will pick them early and let our members ripen them at home.

The corn, watermelon, cantalope, cukes, zukes, peppers, pumpkin and beans are growing pretty well. I am very disappointed by the new zucchini for us "Costata romanesco". It did very poorly being prone to viruses. Our saved zucchini seeds seem to be doing better. All in all it looks like we will finish well this year.

I had to remove one of the older Dixie Chicks from the flock last Saturday. I did some reading on the matter and figured I had general idea. It wasn't a pleasant task, but in the end it was best and it turned out fairly well. It took a lot longer than I thought. I had a bunch of learning on the job. The chicken ended up as Copper's food for the week. Next time it should be quicker. I think that a whole bunch of folk wouldn't eat chicken if they were left to the task of preparing their meal with a start of a live bird. You really have a whole bunch of time to think about things when you are preparing the bird. I feel that this week I will need to cull out the rooster as he is beating up on one of the older Dixie hens. Her comb is nearly off and he won't let her off of the nest area.

Teaching the Next Generation

We took last week off at the farm to spend time with one of our member's girl scout troops. We had a great time with questions and answers from both sides of our time together. It is always a pleasure to teach the next generation about how there food is produced and the importance of farming. I had a great time educating about our farm, organic produce, chickens, loquats, parts of a plant, life cycle of crops, harvesting seeds, harvesting produce, drip tubes, planting bean seeds, tasting fresh mint, among other topics. I learned that girls scouts really like eating fresh carrots and they do not like mint. It was also a good break for the spring/summer crops to put some growth on to finish out the season. We also tried to release two chicks that one of our member's friends needed a home for. We let the scouts name them. They aptly named them Daisy and Brownie. We had to remove the chicks before we left the farm. The were being hen pecked and trying desperately to escape. Here are some pictures from our day. Thanks to all the young ladies for taking time to learn what Steed Farms is all about. Thanks for the pictures from our member Jackie.

Week 17, 2011

The summer is here. It is now 90 degrees plus in the afternoons. We had a tremendous storm a few weeks ago that dumped 3.5 inches of rain and pounded our transplants with extreme winds. The storm spun off six tornados that skirted us, but thankfully we were spared the worst. We had a few problems with structures of the greenhouses failing but nothing major.

We have planted Contender beans, bell peppers, sweet peppers, jalapeno peppers, tomatoes, seminole pumpkins, cantaloupes, cowpeas, watermelons, sweet corn, okra, and basil. The red potatoes are doing well and eggplants finally picked this week. Loquats are finished and I was able to make an orange/loquat jam that I wasn't too happy with. It needed more acid. I think lemon would have been the trick. I used a not quite ripe Valencia orange with higher acid but it wasn't enough. I'll try again next year. The peaches are nearing maturity and hopefully will be picking in a few weeks. I am trialing lima beans, a black eye pea, and will be planting some climbing beans to see if I can interplant with the corn we planted.

We will be taking a week off to allow for things to grow a bit and have a troop meeting of one of our member's girl scouts. This should be fun showing teaching them all the happenings around the farm. I am busy lining up jobs for them to try to learn what we do and how important the production of food is. I am also hoping to convey that there are alternatives to the way some small farms run.

Here is a photo update on our small grain trial. Photo credits go to A. Steed. Oats, rye and wheat are shown.

I came up with a good recipe for spinach. That the kids could not get enough of it.

Sautee a clove of a garlic in olive oil and butter.

Chop up the spinach and wilt down. Add some salt.

Add some chicken broth (1/3 cup) and reduce. Then serve and keep your fingers out of the way of the forks!

Week 15, 2011

Things are moving along nicely at the farm. Very low humidity with 60 to 85 degrees. The plants are growing nicely. Potato tops are looking good with a little damage from some Colorado potato beetles. The Italian (Nadia) eggplants are finally putting out a crop after being in the ground for 6 months and getting frosted multiple times. I'm not sure the plants realize they are supposed to be mature at the end of 3 months from transplants...well at least they are producing. Onions are starting to swell. I ate my first almost ripe loquat of the season yesterday. Not too bad. They will be ready to harvest in a week or two. The tomatoes are starting to ripen up well. Uncle Matt's cherry tomato is ready to harvest again. They are a farm favorite. I can't figure out what the red garlic is doing. I'm not sure if it has grown too thin or if it will swell in the future. The peaches are getting bigger and I can't wait to taste them. We have a bunch of plums and nectarines that are sizing up this year as well. The beets are almost ready to pick. We will be planting corn, okra, and more basil this week.


Here is a great looking recipe from Jennifer (one of our member supporters) for a mustard, fettuccine, and mushroom dish. Just click this link http://tiny.cc/kpuai Enjoy! If you have recipes to share let us know.

Week 13, 2011

It is quickly warming up. It is unfortunate that our lettuce doesn't stick around to enjoy. As soon as it starts looking nice it gets hot and bolts (sends up a flower stalk). This has happened the last two years. I wish we could figure that one out.

We have started to harvest the rainbow swiss chard. It looks beautiful. We cooked some up, boiled first for two minutes, then sauteed in olive oil. Anna said that it tasted like corn??? I think we decided as nice as it looks, we prefer bok choy or napa cabbage as a green side dish.

The peaches are sizing up nicely as are the loquats. It looks like it will be a decent harvest this year. I kept waiting at the farm for my mulberry trees to break buds and when I checked them they were all dead. I have a tree at the house and it grew about 15 feet or more in just two years. I was hoping that it would make a nice quick fruit crop, shade and some cover for birds. I was really surprised that they couldn't handle the low temperatures. I will need to find out the temperature range for that plant and rethink my plans. I seem to do that a bunch out at the farm. As in the case of my perches for birds around the crops that have bugs. Good idea for the birds to stop at the crop. It was working well. It also worked well for the farm cat. She loved the idea as I discovered a pile of feathers near one of my perches. I will need to rethink that idea and remove cats from the farm. I am waiting to find out were her kittens are before we let her go. I discovered my annual wren nest in the shop and it made me sick thinking that the bird would have to dodge the gauntlet to nurture its chicks.

I am beginning to think that we might have a few weeks of slim pickings at the farm until the warm season crops get ready to harvest. If the fruit fill the void we will be OK. We are waiting on zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, peas, beans, cucumbers, cantaloupe, calabasa, and watermelons. Grow! Grow! Grow!

Week 11, 2011

Its the end of February and it has warmed up considerably. The cole (cabbage type) crops are all sending up flowers (brocolli, raab, bok choi, napa cabbage, etc.). The first crop of potatoes are breaking their way up through the ground. The peaches are forming into their wonderful sweetness that will be picked in a few more weeks.

The chickens are only laying a few eggs a week. We had some for breakfast the other day and I took a picture of the comparison of ours and a nutritious vegetarian, Omega-3, cage free, store bought. Ours is the darker one. It definitely looks different and the yolk stands taller in the frying pan. I'm not sure if darker equals better but I tend to think so. Definitely prettier.

The hamlins oranges are finishing up. The lettuce are coming on great right now and look beautiful. Our warm season tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, cucumbers, squash and basil are sown and just starting their new little lives. I will be sowing beans and cowpeas soon and am waiting for the lettuce to finish up so I can plant the corn in their place. We will be harvesting carrots, oregano, kohlrabi, and cherry tomatoes soon.

Week 9 update

The season is progressing well. We planted our spuds two weeks ago and will be planting some more this weekend. We are trying the red LaSoda potato. It was bred in the Louisiana breeding program and is a standard red for Florida. We had some initial success on our third season growing potatoes once we figured out that ants were eating the older tubers and boring into the stems. We are going to plant a little more this year and hopefully we will harvest in a few months.

Carrots, and bunching onions are sizing up and are a great addition to the weekly pickup. I planted three weeks of Broccoli and used two different varieties and it seems that it all came on at the same time. It can be a really large challenge to plan the season out ahead of time with so many changing variables especially counting the weather.

The arugula is starting to flower which will take it out of production, but I planted a back up that will be maturing later on.

The large tomatoes are shutting down but I planted seeds for a spring crop last week. It was interesting to see Uncle Matt's wild tomato take a breather this week. The plants had a growth spurt for the last two weeks with new growth and a bunch of flowers showing. There will be gobs of cherry tomatoes in a few weeks when they all ripen up. I also planted peppers and eggplant again for this spring. I placed an order for some sweet peppers, corn, and a few beans I am hoping to trial this year. I was also reading one of the bloggers I follow and he mentioned a squash called costata romanesco as a good producer as far as disease goes so I thought that I would give it a trial. I almost thought about planting for the spring and summer this weekend but with near freezing weather this week I figured I would wait another week.

There were three eggs in the coop today. Looks like the girls might be getting ready to lay again.

Pest Control Operations

I have always thought that the most important thing a farmer can put on his crops is his/her shadow. In other words being observant to what is going on in the field is extremely important when you are limited to a handful of organic pesticides. In an operation like ours there is no easy way out in dealing with pests. We can't just mindlessly and indiscriminately spray our fields with insecticides. Being observant is crucial to understanding what and when things are going on with pests and their predators. I've noticed during the fall and into the spring small flocks of little migratory birds fly across the fields generally moving east or west and stop to pick insects off the plants. I have watched them pick off aphids from the leaves and then hop to the next plant to do the same. It seems that we are in a major flight path for these little predators. I've also noticed that they tend to fly to a spot that is higher than the surroundings in relative terms.In this picture of my freakishly large red bok choi that I am waiting to save seeds from there is one leaf that is taller than the surroundings and it attracts many bird stops. You can see it sticking up on the top picture. Apparently to the birds it is a great lay over spot. The next picture supports my observations. With having a small farm we have the benefit of being able to increase the biodiversity of the farmed land to enhance the productivity. I had the idea that maybe I could get the flight path changed somewhat. I thought that I might place little roosting posts around crops that typically attract pests to see if I can slightly deviate the flight path to our benefit and the benefit of the birds.

I will place the roosts this weekend and observe what happens. The picture above is the bird in action in the bok choi/leek row. I believe that it is a palm warbler. Earlier in the year we planted mulberry trees along the edge of the vegetable plots to offer cover to birds that might hang out in the fields a little longer. It seems that if there is no structure they tend not to linger in the open. I am also hoping to build some fertility to the ground with planting deciduous tree crops and gain a little shade for plants that stress out in the summer heat such as lettuce. We will also be able to harvest the berries when they are ripe. Hopefully it will be a win, win, win, win solution.

Week 6, 2011

Things are going fairly well this season aside from dramatic weather changes. Our diakon radish are doing great and are very tasty. Jennifer put them into a stew last week and they were delicious. They almost tasted like a carrot but not quite. Mustards are looking good and the bok choi keeps producing. The tomatoes are still trying to brave the cold and we are still picking them with Celebrity far outpacing the other varieties and Uncle Matts wild tomato heavily producing the miniature cherries and still looking great.

The rye, wheat, and oat plot have tillered and are slowly building up their momentum to produce a seed head. The picture above is the small plot with rye up front then wheat and oats in the foreground.

The chickens are starting to lay a few eggs again. About 2 per week at the moment. I am looking forward to giving everyone eggs this year.

Pines Take Two

It was a long and gruelling week at Steed Farms. We replanted the Andrew Steed Pine Forest with roughly 6000 pines (8 foot between plants and 10 foot between rows) over 12 acres. We planted pine tubelings this time instead of the bareroot seedlings and hopefully they will do better than last year. They are about 5 inches of roots and 6-10 inches of tops. We were told to leave about 0.5 inches of the top of the root ball above the ground. Unfortunately the pine planter that we rented is extremely difficult to plant to a certain depth with any accuracy. It is a neat planter and the same one that we rented last year. But it doesn't lend itself to accurate depth of placement. So my father, brother, and I have walked every row of pines and when needed hand adjusted each seedling or planted a new seedling where there was a skip. We even planted about 6 rows completely by hand to see if that was faster. It wound up being about just as fast and easier on the body to use the tractor pulled planter. The weather could not be better for this planting. It rained the entire day we planted and some the next day. We had a few days of sun and then more rain and the forecast is predicting more in a few more days. Just perfect. We could not ask for better weather for newly planted pines. In graduate school I volunteered to work at a lab managers Christmas tree farm. After I was thinking about taking Martin Luther King Day off to plant the trees I remembered him telling me that he always tried to plant his Christmas tree pines around this date in the field because it always rains. That advice seemed like it worked this year. He might be a better climatologist than the experts who said that this would be a warmer and drier winter than normal.

One of the days this week before going out to adjust the depth of the pines we planted, I hoed the weeds in a row of vegetables. I stopped to sample a bite from a leaf of the komatsuna which I have never tried before and is a new crop for us. It is also called Japanese spinach mustard. It was delicious. I know this is hard to believe after eating our bok choi, napa cabbage, and brocolli raab, but it is one of the best greens I have tasted. It was almost sweet like spinach but without the bitter taste and with a hint of brassica flavor. I am really looking forward to its harvest. I was reading that you can harvest the older leaves like collards and let it grow through the Spring. I will be planting more this weekend. I have also been busy planting lettuce,cabbage, more napa, bok choi, and turnips. I hope to start planting potatoes this week and then start the transplants for more tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers.