Weeds are not on the Menu

It is good to report that we have finally had a little bit of rain over the course of the past couple of weeks.  The rainfall has been extremely spotty.  For example, at my house we had an inch of rain one day and a friend in Blue Rock had three inches the same day.  The following day we had no rain, but others had half an inch.  However isolated the showers have been any rain is a welcome event.  The rewards of the rain are very evident in the vegetable harvest.  Things are really “coming on” now as we like to say.  I have had to expand my market tables just to hold all of the garden goodies.  Even my pitiful green bean crop is showing signs of rejuvenation.  I have a feeling it’s going to be feast or famine with them—the feast coming very soon—so I hope everyone is ready to eat and can beans.

The down side of the increased rainfall is the increase in weed growth.  All season, I feel that the garden plants have been rather stagnant, and in turn, so have the weeds.  I have been able to leisurely keep up with the weeding and hoeing.  Now I can see that I need to get in gear ASAP or the weeds will soon overtake the plants.  Moisture is still at a premium so I can’t let the weeds get ahead of me or they will rob my plants of any desperately needed water that we may receive.

My sister called me a couple of days ago with an update on her garden.  She has a small plot in a community garden in the middle of Marion, Ohio.  Having a job that keeps her on the road frequently, she was quite pleased that she actually had a few things flourishing in her little patch in her absence.  She was complaining about an abundance of Pigweed invading her plot.  I laughed and said she sounded like a true farmer, as I was just complaining of the very same problem on my farm.  She said her saving grace was the fact that the citizens who were sentenced to community service came to the garden and helped with weeding to work off their sentences—a very practical idea, in my opinion.
            Did you know that some weeds are edible?  Probably most people have heard of cooking dandelion greens or dandelion wine.  Another edible weed is purslane, a succulent, which looks similar to the houseplant jade.  It can be eaten fresh in salads.  The same can be said for the weed lamb’s quarters.  In spite of the fact that these are two of the most prominent weeds in my garden, rest assured that I’m not going to show up at market on Saturday with bins full of them for sale.  Instead you will be able to find an abundance of normal vegetables, so here’s a more appealing option (from eatingwell.com).

Roasted Corn with Basil-Vinaigrette

• 3 cups fresh corn kernels
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
• 1 tablespoon minced shallot (or substitute onion or leek)
• 1 tablespoon red-wine vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Freshly ground pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 450°. Toss corn and oil to coat and spread out on a large baking sheet. Bake, stirring once, until some kernels begin to brown, about 20 minutes. Combine basil, shallot, vinegar, salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Add the corn; toss to coat. Serve warm or cold.

Drought, Groundhogs, and Crows, Oh My

The weather this summer is proving to be tough for farmers and customers alike.  Typically, we vendors don’t like it when it rains during Farmers’ Market because the customers tend to stay home.  However, if it were to rain during market right now, I think you had better make the trip out because you would probably see all of us farmers dancing in it. 

    Of the vegetables I grow my green beans seem to be struggling the most for lack of water.  The early beans were very sparse and mostly short and stubby and curled up.  I like to plant beans every seven to ten days to ensure a continuous crop.  However, many of my plantings came up at less than 50% germination due to the lack of rain and the extreme heat.  A couple of the rows that I planted in mid-June seem to putting on some new growth and looking healthier this week from the half inch of rain we had on Sunday, so I’m still holding out hope for some of them.

            The next major problem many farmers have been facing is varmints.  I am lucky that the deer have not been putting too much pressure on my vegetables so far this year.  They seem to have just taken a little off the tops of some of my edamame (soybeans).  However, groundhogs have been a major problem.  A family of about seven of them took over my watermelon patch and ate half of the plants while they were in there early stages of growth.  That problem seems to be under control for the moment, but now the other half of the patch that is just setting on large watermelon is under attack.  This time it is crows.  Just as they are starting to ripen the crows peck holes in the rind, ruining the whole melon. 

            My first line of defense was to set out several metal posts and attach pie pans to them with twine.  This has worked for me in the past, but I’m not sure it is fooling any crows this time.  I’m going to make a good old-fashioned scarecrow to put in the middle of the patch as well.  I doubt it will do much good on its own, but I’m going to try hanging shiny and noisy things from it that will blow in the wind.  I think old CD’s will make good reflectors and maybe a cow bell or wind chime would help.  I’ll keep you posted if any of this works and if you have any clever suggestions I’d be glad to hear them.  If we weren’t so busy with storm cleanup and getting the house ready for a family reunion this weekend, I’d appeal to my dad to sit out there with his gun.  That would be the most effective trick, I’m sure.

Please don’t think that the news from the farm is all depressing as the first half of this article might suggest.  There are still a lot of good things happening.  The local tomatoes are really starting to ripen now and local peaches are ready as well.  My cousin Jill just sent me this very timely recipe she got off WebMD.  It is as tasty as it is pretty.

Peach and Heirloom Tomato Salad

1 large ripe peach
3-4 small heirloom tomatoes, preferably different colors
½ lb. green beans, ends trimmed
¼ cup basil leaves, cut into thin strips
1 small shallot (I subbed a clove of garlic)
2 tbsp. champagne vinegar
1 tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
6 tbsp. olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the salad:  Bring a medium pot of salted water to boil.  Add the green beans and allow to cook until slightly tender-crisp, about 4 minutes.  Scoop them into a large bowl of ice water. then drain well.  Cut the peach in half and remove the pit.  Cut into thin slices and add to a salad bowl.  Cut one of the tomatoes into thin slices and cut the others into wedges; add to the bowl.  Add the basil and drizzle with dressing (you won’t need all the dressing.)  For the dressing:
Finely mince the shallot (or garlic).  Place in a bowl or in a glass jar with a lid.  Pour in the vinegar and the lemon juice.  Add a large pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper.  Mix well.  Drizzle in the olive oil and whisk or shake well.  Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.  (Serves 2)

Onions: Sweet not Squishy

Last week at Farmers’ Market many of the vendors were not found in their normal places.  We had to improvise and re-arrange at the last minute due to the fact that the fairgrounds had been taken over by the power company as grand central station for their out-of-state crews who had been brought in to rescue us in the wake of our major storm.  I hope that customers and vendors alike did not see this as an inconvenience, but rather, made the best of the situation and were grateful to the men who traveled far away from home and put in long, hot hours to restore our power.  I’m not sure if the camp will be disassembled in time for market this weekend or not, but if they are still there, please still come on out and see us.  You may have to look a little bit harder to find your usual vendors, but rest assured we will be there with lots of fruits and vegetables and smiles on our faces.

            One of my major projects for the last couple of weeks has been harvesting the onion crop.  This is one thing that doesn’t seem to have been much affected by the drought this year.  Planted at the end of March and first week of April when rain was still abundant in early in the spring, the onions must have received the right amount of moisture at the right time, because even without any irrigation, I seem to have the best onion crop I have ever produced.  The size of the onions seems to be bigger than average. 

Last year, which was an extremely wet year, it seemed that when I pulled the onions out of the ground, the outer layer of the onion, which helps protect it so that it stores well, was often wet and squishy, rather than dry and papery as it should be.  Not being well versed in vegetable diseases and problems, my friend Jim quickly came up with the name “squishy onion syndrome” or “SOS” to describe this problem.  I quickly adopted this terminology but, luckily, this dry year seems to have made “SOS” much less of a problem and I look forward to having bushels of onions that will keep well into the fall and winter months.

When I was in college I lived in a house with seven other girls. One of my roommates, Katie, had a summer job at a day spa in Northern Ohio.  This day spa was kind of a fancy place and the following recipe was served to the guests as a main course for their luncheon.  This is a very simple dish, much less fancy than I thought it was at the time, but we would make it often when were entertaining guests (aka boys) for what we considered a fancy dinner in our not-so-fancy college house.

Chicken Purple Onion

·         Two large sweet purple onions

·         Two chicken breasts

·         Six slices of bacon

·         Ranch dressing

Preheat oven to 425º.  Slice Red Onions into six thick slices (about ½ inch).  Slice chicken breasts into ½ inch thick strips.  Place Red Onion slices on greased baking pan.  Take chicken strips and place them on top of onion slices, wrapping the strips in a pinwheel manner to fit on the onion.  Take a piece of bacon and wrap around the outside edge of the chicken, securing with a toothpick.  Top each chicken/onion pinwheel with a generous dollop of ranch dressing.  Bake about 20-30 min. until chicken is thoroughly cooked.

No Electric, No Problem—Farmers Market is Still a Great Place to Shop

There are pros and cons to a year when the Fourth of July falls on a Wednesday.  It always kind of messes up making four-day weekend plans unless you are lucky enough to have a job where you end up with a five-day weekend.  On the other hand, it extends the Independence day celebration into a  week-long event because people often have parties the weekend before, the weekend after, and of course, on the Fourth itself.  This is one of those Fourth of Julys that people are going to remember for the rest of their lives as festivities take place in the aftermath of last Friday night’s storm.

            Perhaps, you were like me, and had a very “Wizard of Oz” moment, running through the wind, brown with dirt and debris, to reach the cellar doors to wait out the storm.  I admit that this is the first time in my life I have ever gone to the basement during a storm.  The garden was not hurt as badly as I feared when I emerged from underground.  Monday was spent working to get the garden as close to its pre-storm state as possible.  What took ten minutes to destroy, took two people about seven hours to repair.  Mostly, this was just clearing out branches and debris and re-laying plastic that had been blown away by the wind.  Most of the plants, though windblown, are starting to recover.  For example, all of my peppers were leaning to the south directly after the storm but are now standing more upright.  Only a few of them were completely broken off.  I wish I could say the same for the many large old trees we lost directly around the house—they will probably take weeks to fully clean up.

            We are among the lucky ones to have our electric restored fairly quickly, but for the many of you who are still without power I wanted to print a recipe that doesn’t require any cooking or baking.  You can still come out to the farmers market and buy fruits and vegetables because there are a lot of great ways to eat them fresh.  Corn can be cooked on the grill; a slice of good tomato and a sweet onion make a great sandwich; a juicy peach is a refreshing treat; and a cucumber snack to cool you off, are only a few of the possibilities.  The following recipe is a classic dish at every summer potluck and an easy thing to make if you have to go to a party this weekend and don’t have any electric.  Perhaps it may be wise, though, to check with your fellow party-goers beforehand so that everyone doesn’t bring the same thing.  I have heard of potlucks where the only things to eat were various baked beans and bags of Conn’s Potato Chips.  Likewise, one large bowl of cucumbers and onions is enough for any party.  Truth be told, I have never used a recipe to make these, so I sort of guessed at the quantities.  Add the sugar a bit at a time and stop when you think it tastes right--some people prefer them sweeter and others more sour.

Cucumbers and Onions in Vinegar

·         One quart small cucumbers or two large cucumbers, sliced

·         One sweet onion, sliced

·         1 cup white vinegar

·         1 cup water

·         1/3 cup White sugar

·         Salt to taste

·         Two sprigs fresh dill, chopped

Combine all ingredients (cucumbers can be peeled or not, depending on personal preference) in a bowl.  Let sit at least overnight before serving.

For those of you who are curious, here are some pictures of the storm damage at our house.

Fascia torn off. (South West corner of house.)

Some limbs on lines.

Mess.

Maple snapped off.

Butternut uprooted.

The coupula still stands!

Beech tree.

Slide. :-(

Chestnut uprooted. 

Chicken coop not too bad, just some branches against the back.  Chicken yard fence destroyed but I was getting ready to replace it anyway.

Jungle.

Hammock and swing are fine!

One limb through the roof. (South West corner.)

Hole from the limb.

Roof damage.  Not too bad.  We were very, very lucky when all is said and done!