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!