My Summer on a Farm: 2011

I'm Back!

It has been too long blogosphere! I have been very busy enjoying all the wonderful things northern Minnesota has to offer in the fall and that did not leave very much time to write it all down. We are rapidly approaching Christmas and I find myself yearning for the days we get to dig in the dirt again. Amazingly we have no snow on the ground here...a rare treat for December. It may upset some but as far as I am concerned we could just go right back into spring now! The fact that I can see the dirt but I cant play in it is kinda mean of Minnesota to do to me. I am heading to Florida for the holiday maybe I can find some dirt to play in down there.
As far as farming goes...we pulled the last of the crops out two weeks ago and tilled in the hoop houses. It was sad to see them all go and we are all missing salads!! It is such a treat to be able to eat fresh veggies all summer but now we are eating soups and stews which taste pretty good too.
As far as the blog goes...I will be doing some updates through the winter but I will be working hard on updating some of the features for our CSA members. I will be adding a lot of good information about the vegetables we will be putting in your buckets as well as lots of new recipes and lots of fun facts.
I remember when the tomato hoop house looked like this

Now it looks like this...

We added some compost, alfalfa pellets, and soy meal and then tilled everything up. In the spring when the ground is no longer frozen we will have awesome nutritious dirt for the summers tomato crop.

Getting stuff done!

Do you ever just wake up productive...I did! On Sunday morning I woke up around 6:30am and after watching the beautiful sunrise (from bed) I slipped on my running shoes and ran almost 3 miles. When I got back to the house I made some eggs and hopped in the shower. While showering I noticed how badly my tub needed to be cleaned...so I did that and when I got out I noticed how badly my house needed to be cleaned so I started to do that. I washed all the windows (inside and out), and rearranged the living room, vacuumed behind the couches, tables and under beds. In the middle of all the deep cleaning I also had a chance to make pumpkin puree and applesauce. I have good intentions to do a lot of baking this winter and I love pumpkin anything. I have never made pumpkin puree from scratch, I always buy the cans of it. Now that I know how incredibly easy it is, I am going to do it every year. I first made coffee...

I had 5 small pumpkins and it made a lot of puree. Start by washing your pumpkins and preheating your oven to 350*. I started cutting just the pumpkin tops and putting whole pumpkins in the oven, it was taking way to long to cook. So I started cutting tops and bottoms off and quartering the pumpkins, arranged them skin side down on the pan. You also need to scrape off all the gunk; sometimes it is easier to cook the pumpkin for a little bit then scrape the gunk but you can do it before you bake it too. Make sure to set the seeds aside, they make an awesome snack. It takes at least a half hour, but more like 45 minutes to bake. You can tell it is done because the pumpkin will be soft and the skin will peel off pretty easily. The smell of pumpkin cooking is awesome and it kept me motivated to clean the house...maybe I will have to cook pumpkin once a week because cleaning is not fun.

Then into the oven...

Started them skin side down...

Then flipped them

Peeled the skin and into the food processor...

I bagged and froze most of it but set some aside to make some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. I will make sure to tell you how they turn out.

Soon to be made into cookies.

I love pumpkin seeds, and if you have ever had them you know how bland they are. You can season them any way you want. I chose to do a sweet batch and a savory batch. I did cinnamon sugar which turned out awesome, I am going to make some pumpkin bread and sprinkle them on top. I also made cajun pumpkin seeds, just used some seasoned salt, pepper, and a light sprinkle of sugar to tone it down a little, they also turned out great. To roast pumpkin seeds you just rinse them let the drain in a strainer and season how ever you like, stick them in a 300* oven and cook for about a half hour. Check them frequently because they will burn.

After I finished the pumpkins, I moved onto apples. I have been wanting to do some experimenting using applesauce to replace oil in some recipes. My step father just had heart surgery and I want to make sure the things I bake for the holidays he can also eat. I made about gallon of unsweetened applesauce, bagged it and froze that as well.

This will be grape jelly.

I bagged that up, stuck it in the freezer and headed over to meet John in the garage where we made wine. That's right, after all that I even squeezed wine making into my day. This is such an interesting process and was fun to learn. I set aside of grape juice which I will use to make grape jelly at someday. We made three different batches of wine, we will try each to see which is the best way to do it next year. The first batch was just juice (that was squeezed the night before), the second was juice and pulp, and the third was juice with pulp in a bag. As far as time spent on each batch, the first was the most time consuming due to the squeezing all the juice. If it turns out the best it will be well worth the time spent. The first step is to organize yourself...must get all your ingredients and tools together as well as a copy of your recipe. The grapes we grow are a cross between a concord and a Minnesota wild grape, so John chose a recipe that works well with wild grapes and also ordered a yeast that is used for wines made with wild grapes.

Once we had everything gathered and established a plan we added the water to the first batch.
The next step is to test the acidity of the mixture. We needed the acidity to be at .65 once we achieved the acidity we could add the sugar, yeast nutrient, and the pectic enzyme. We put 2 pounds of sugar for every 1 gallon of liquid, each batch was about 5 gallons...that's 10 pounds of sugar, the yeast will have to eat something.

Testing acidity

After adding all the ingredients we then had to check the sugar density...

The last step is to add campden tablets; this kills any natural yeasts in the wine. On Tuesday we will add our yeast to it and the first fermentation will start, but for now they will sit in the garage....

And as we were finishing up and getting ready for dinner, John let me sample the wine he made last year. Can't wait to taste these batches...

Before and After

I have been lucky enough to experience all the changes on the farm during the summer and I wanted you to also see how amazing the changes have been.

This is the big garden, it was planted in the beginning of June and everything will be tilled under the first week of October. The largest garden on the property grew beans, collards, kholrabi, peas, potatoes, summer squash, onions, fennel, broccoli and cauliflower; that is a pretty impressive pile of dirt.

The grapes were so fun to watch mature..."fun" may be exaggerating a bit but it was pretty cool seeing grapes grow in Minnesota. Check back here for a post about my adventures in wine making.

Tomatoes! This was a labor of love, from building the trellises, to planting the tomatoes, tying every one of them up and picking them; I had an opportunity to learn so much about them. I am pretty sure I could grow tomatoes in the arctic or a desert. I will miss having "second breakfast" or "first lunch" in the tomato hoop. What a treat to be able to eat cherry tomatoes right of the vine.

One more week...

With the end of the season coming quickly, we have spent a lot of time cleaning and organizing the farm; taking down the trellises for the cucumbers and beans, deadheading the gardens digging glad bulbs to let dry out and then store for the winter, and so much more. Apples are falling from the trees faster than we can pick them and the leaves are right behind them. Grapes are super ripe and begging to be made into wine. I am anxious to add wine making to the long list of things I learned on the farm this summer. The other day John, Lissa, and I were reminiscing about the first couple of weeks I spent here, I was so excited and couldn't wait to get my hands dirty. After 6 months, I still find myself anxious to be outside and play in the dirt. The farm certainly looks beautiful when it is in full bloom and the vegetables are plenty but there is also beauty in decay. Fall brings such awesome colors and piquant smells to the farm and even though most of the crops outside are dead or dying there is still life in the hoop houses. Last week we planted a bunch of cold weather crops including mixed greens, radishes, and cabbage.