No CSA Pick-up this week

Everything is pretty little yet, due to the cool, wet weather this spring.  We will not be having a basket this week.  Sunday we discovered that seed corn maggots were eating our bean (green, edemame, and soup) seeds and seedlings, cucumber, pumpkin, and squash seeds.  So the kids and I spent this morning replanting what we had left for seed.  Josh bought some more seed today and we'll be replanting the rest tonight.  The rest of the gardens look good.  Everything is growing fairly slow, but I'm sure it all likes the heat today!

First CSA Pick-up

This week's basket will include:

• Rhubarb
• Chives
• Kale
• Bok Choy
• Green Onions
• Popcorn

Bismarck Pick-up will be on Tuesday, June 4 at 5-5:30 pm.

New Salem Pick-up will be on Thursday, June 6 at 5-6 pm.

To those of you who chose the payment plan, please bring the remainder of your membership fee to the first pick-up.

The Gardens are all in

So we finally got the gardens all planted on Tuesday night before the foretasted rainy Wednesday(?).  The rain came last night.  Memorial Day weekend was a big push to get most of the gardens planted.  Josh's brother, Jared, and his fiance, Stacie, came out to help.  It was nice to have their help since they had almost all the tomatoes planted on Saturday morning before me and the kids even got done with breakfast and outside.

We also have most of the gardens weeded, just the paddock one is left.  The job of weeding is pretty endless, so I should say we have the first round almost done.  The next project we'll be working on is mulching.  We lay newspaper down in between the rows and lay straw over the top.  This helps keep moisture in the soil and weeds out.

Here is our plan for the first CSA pickup.  In Bismarck, the first pickup will be on Tuesday, June 11.  In New Salem, the first pickup will be on Thursday, June 13th.  The kale is almost ready to pick now, the spinach will be ready and hopefully the lettuce.  The rhubarb, chives, and green onions are already ready.  It'll probably be a small basket, but the first produce is always the best!  I'll be sending out an e-mail with more details.

We got the first picking of rhubarb this week...25 lbs.  I looked at it today and it doesn't even look like we picked it!  It's definitely growing fast.

On a sunny day before last weekend, I went around and took some pictures of the chickens and gardens.  I'm a little late getting them up on the blog for you.  Everything has grown since then, but it gives you an idea of how things are coming along.

Chickens
These chickens are 6 weeks old here.  We will be butchering on June 7th & 8th.  If you ordered for the June batch you can pick up at the farm on the 7th or in Bismarck on the 8th.  I will be contacting you with more details.

Dandelions
This is the time of year when most people waste money spraying dandelions in their yards.  We don't like the idea of using chemicals or wasting money, since dandelion seed just floats into the yard from the neighbors (like us) who don't spray.  So we make use of them.  We started 2 gallons of dandelion wine.  It should be ready to bottle in a couple months and ready to drink around Christmas time.  It's pretty easy, so if you're interested let me know and I'll share my recipe.

 Gardens

Potatoes

Radishes

Garlic

Rhubarb

Beets

Onions

Broccoli

Peas

Asparagus

 Here's that asparagus patch that we mulched.  It's growing well.  Hopefully we'll be able to pick some of it next year.

Strawberry bed

 The strawberries are starting to bloom.  We're hoping to have a good crop this year!

Strawberry plants

 Irrigation

Water filter pressure regulator for the drip line irrigation.  You can see the roll of drip tape that we pull off and line the rows.  It's really cool!...Way better than sprinklers!

headline of irrigation with the red nossel and drip tape on each row.  It allows us to turn on the water for each individual row.

It's good, it's good to hear the rain!

So we decided to put in drip irrigation last Sunday.  We have most of it put together.  We worked on it during some of the beautiful rain we had this weekend, which seemed a little ironic.:)  We should be able to finish it before we need to use it.

We finally got those transplants in the ground (in the rain) on Friday morning.  It was calm and wet and beautiful.  We are very much enjoying the 2 1/2 inches of rain we got.  We also planted carrots and some more radishes and lettuce.  Many things are starting to pop out of the ground, like the lettuce, spinach, peas, potatoes, onions, radishes.  Everything is looking good!

Prepping some of the irrigation equipment

Two wet kids

John  and Olue were in charge of watering the butcher chickens while Josh and I moved the pens.  It was very hot and they were soaked and having lots of fun by the time they were done.

Freezing with a forecast of Blast furnace

So this was going to be one of our big transplanting weekends, but after the Friday night frost (which killed the whole row of radishes that had just came up that day) and the forecast for another frost Saturday night, temps in the high 80s for Monday and 60 m/h winds on Tuesday (blast furnace?) we decided to wait.  After spending most of the weekend rotating sprinklers (it is so dry here this spring!), we decided it's finally time to invest in that irrigation system.  Josh will be ordering the drip lines today and we're hoping to be able to hook it up in the next week or so.  Hopefully this saves us time and water this summer.

Besides watering this weekend and replanting radishes, here's what we did in the gardens...

• Moved the chicks outside

Olue filling the water

Once they discover Josh is catching them, they all pile in the far corner of the coop.

Loading them into our 4-wheeler trailer.

John, Olue, and Jeremiah watching Josh loading the chicks.

 We have 4 movable pens for our butcher chickens.  They move through the orchard, fertilizing and eating grass as they go.  Butcher chickens can only obtain about 20% of their diet from grass, so we also give them a ration of a ground feed of grains and mineral.  We move them once a day for them to get fresh grass and clean bedding.

I don't have any pictures of the chickens in the pens because I helped Josh unload them and then it was Jeremiah's bedtime (you can see he's not thrilled in the above pic).

• Prepped the rows for transplants

Tilling the rows for cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage & kohlrabi.

Placing the pipe for the row cover.

When we finally get to transplanting (after the winds die down and it's not so hot and sunny-probably this weekend) we will mark out 3 rows under the pipes, then stagger plant each row, water and cover with the row cover.  The row cover allows water and sunlight and wind to go through, but it protects the plants from frost and heavy rains ,and gives them a jump start.  We'll have three of these 50 foot row covers one for broccoli, one for cauliflower, and one for cabbage and kohlrabi.

• Mulched the asparagus

We haven't had much luck with asparagus here, so don't hold your breath.  It's a perennial plant that needs 3 years of growing before it can be fully harvested (prior to that you can pick small amounts).  We planted this bed last year and it's starting to come up, but was froze with this weekends frost.  The frost won't kill the plants, but sets them back.  We have a bed that was planted 5 years ago, but has only done well one year.  The other perrenials planted in the same spot also haven't thrived so we're hoping this new bed of asparagus will do well since it seems to be in good soil.

• Planted part of the kid's garden

We gave the kids a small garden to themselves that they can work in this summer.  Here's a few pictures with a story line, so you can get an idea (small scale) of how we start the gardens in the spring.

First we till the soil where the rows (to be planted that day) will be.

Here Johnny is marking the rows with stakes.  We do this in the fall (for the big gardens).  We use the same rows every year and only till were the rows will be planted.

Marking the rows with a hoe.  We used to use a straight line (string pulled taunt) to make sure the line was perfectly straight.  Now we just eye-ball it and call it "good enough".

Now comes the planting.  Here Johnny is planting a row of potatoes.

Jeremiah staying busy, playing with the extra potatoes.  We need to keep him busy and out of the gardens when we're working in them.  Not because he would wreck anything, but because his favorite food is dirt.  I think he has eaten more dirt in one day than all of the rest of our family combined have ever eaten.  Some reason he likes a mouthful of pasty dirt.

Lu Lu is digging a small hole for the potato

Covering the potato and patting the dirt down.  We then water the  rows.

After the plants come up, hill the potatoes and then mulch between the rows.  Throughout the summer we will water and weed as need, then we will all enjoy the harvest when the vegetables are ripe.

Here are a few more pictures of the gardens

Paddock Garden
One row cover is lettuce, spinach, and bok choy and the other is kale, radicchio, and fennel.  We also have white potatoes, garlic and radishes planted here.  We will be planting the carrots and sweet corn in this garden as well.

Strawberry bed
All of the buds froze last year, so we're hoping to get a good crop off this year.

Celery transplant covered with a milk jug

Celery/Celeriac Row
We use milk jugs with their bottoms cut off to cover transplants that don't go under the row covers.  It allows them to  harden off without direct sunlight and wind for a few weeks after planting.  It also protects them from light frost.

Planting Gardens

We've been getting the gardens planted.  The ground is very dry, so we have to water everything really well after we plant.  Some of the veggies we've planted so far include beets, onions, lettuce, spinach, fennel, radicchio, bok choy, kale, parsley, basil, peas, celery, celeriac, and of course the potatoes.

Planting Beets

This is our main garden, what we call the "Pasture Garden".  You can see the pea fences running through the middle of it.  We planted 5 rows of peas this year.  It seems like you can never have too many fresh peas.

This weekend we plan to plant the carrot seed and transplant the broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower.

Sorry on the lack of pictures.  I'm pretty good at taking the camera out with me, but I get busy planting and forget to take the pictures.  This is a pretty busy time of year for us.  We're all starting to loose our winter white and gain our summer tans.  We look forward to the beautiful sunsets at night, since we're always out that late to enjoy them.

Chicks

Besides growing a huge garden and selling CSA vegetable shares, we also raise butcher chickens.  Our first batch of chicks in now 3 weeks old.  They are doing very well this year.  Next week we will be moving them to their outside pasture pens.  We butcher the chickens at 8 weeks old and sell them frozen whole for $10 and cut up (2 each of breasts, thighs, wings, drumsticks) for $13.  We still have some left that aren't spoken for, so if you're interested in pasture raised chicken contact us.

3 week old chicks in the coop with the big doors open to the nice spring weather

At this "teenage" stage, the chicks are kind of ugly.
They have lost their cute little baby fuzz, but haven't gotten all their feathers yet.

This time of year if I can't find Josh I know he's here, watching the chicks.

 Here are a few pictures of the chicks when they were cute and fuzzy and only 3 days old.  It's amazing how fast they grow.  When we first get them, we have a draft guard up that keeps them close to the cozy warm brooder.

Baby Chicks eating.

They all line up for feed.  These chickens were bred to eat.

We still have chicken left in the freezer from last year, so we've been using it up before the new ones are ready to butcher.  Here are two great recipes that I have recently tried.

Chicken Nuggets
2 chicken breasts, cut into 1 inch cubes
2 slices of bread, grind into crumbs with a mini chopper
1-2 tsp homemade ranch seasoning
1/4 c melted butter
Mix bread crumbs with ranch seasoning.  Dip chicken into butter, then into bread crumbs and place on a greased cookie sheet.  Bake at 375 for 20ish minutes.  I cut one of them open to check if their done.

Homemade Ranch Seasoning
I dry most of these ingredients to make this seasoning, so maybe you can try making it this summer with the herbs in your CSA baskets.
2 TBSP dried parsley
2 tsp dry dill
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp dried chives
small pinch of salt
Mix together and store in an air tight container.  I use a canning jar.

Chicken and Millet
So we didn't cut up any chickens last year, so all of my chickens are frozen whole.  When I get one out to make chicken nuggets I have to use the rest of the chicken, so here's what I make.
1c millet  (I'm sure rice could be used instead, but Josh doesn't like rice, so we use millet.)
1 tsp Ranch seasoning
3 c chicken broth
Chicken pieces (2 wings, 2 thighs, 2 drumsticks)
Mix the millet, ranch seasoning and chicken broth.  Pour into greased baking dish.  Arrange chicken pieces skin side up over millet.  Bake covered at 350 for about an hour.

Chicken Broth
I have made chicken broth two different ways.  One is boiling the chicken backs (what is left of the chicken after you cut off the breasts, wings, thighs and legs) with veggies and herbs.  Or I use the same veggies and herbs in the crockpot when I cook a whole chicken.  Either way works for getting about 3-4 quarts of broth.  I freeze what I won't be using up in the next week.  Here's what I add to the chicken
3 quarts of water (more or less to fit in crockpot and cover the chicken)
2 sprigs parsley
1/4 tsp thyme
1 bay leaf
1/3 c carrots
1/3 c onion
1/2 c celery (you can leave the leaves on)
6 peppercorns
2 cloves
1 tbsp salt
If I don't have all the ingredients, it doesn't seem to be a huge change if I leave out one or two.  We didn't have good celery last year, so all of my recipes have been lacking on the celery and it's tasted just fine.
I strain the broth before storing in my quart jars.  If I cook a chicken back I take the meat off and save for a chicken sandwich or two for lunch.