Harvest Monday - 29 February 2016

Hello from Eight Gate Farm!

As a sure sign of spring in these parts, we have concluded our 2016 maple syrup harvest. On February 15, at the start of a warming stretch, we set out our typical four taps, one each in the four big sugar maples by the barn. On Saturday the 27th we judged we had enough for our needs, and pulled the taps. For major producers, the season is actually just getting into high gear.

In that 12-day period there were two "runs" of sap. The first yielded about 10 gallons, which boiled down to roughly 1 1/2 quarts of Grade A Golden. Then we had a cold spell, which shuts down the flow. It resumed on the 23rd, This second run yielded another 10 gallons, which became roughly 1 1/4 quarts of Grade A Amber. Here you can see the results of the two runs, and the sharp difference in color. Naturally, the darker the syrup the more intense the flavor.

Left two, Golden, right two, Amber. Both Grade "A."

Here's a link to the new grading standards that most producing regions are now employing.

I've written about how we do this on a small scale here, here, and here.

The Kitchen Goddess did most of the work, of course, while I sat around in my bathrobe offering helpful criticisms. Naturally, I always thank the trees for their service:

Genuine Tree Hugger

So this was a good year. Not as good as last, when we got roughly 3 quarts in only 6 days of tapping. But we started a full month earlier this year, showing how quickly the warmer weather has arrived. 2014 was actually a bust, comparatively speaking, with only one quart produced. You never know.

The local high school has yet to set their taps in our "sugar bush" (quaint term for maple grove) down the hill, but they probably will start any day. Last year they gave us a quart in payment, which we have just now broken into, having used up our own production.

Needless to say, we love having our own syrup on pancakes and waffles made with our own cornmeal. Yes, there are some costs involved. Propane for the boiler cost $15 this year (the rest of the equipment we bought in past years). But it is so worth it. Driving around, I see more and more people clearly making their own on a small scale, which is heart-warming.

As I've said in the past, many people either prefer the "maple-flavored" corn syrup found in "Log Cabin" or "Aunt Jemima" brands, or have never tasted the pure stuff. But such heresy will get you ostracized here in New England.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading, and thanks to Dave at Our Happy Acres for hosting Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday - 8 February 2016

Hello again from Eight Gate Farm! Us northern gardeners get itchy this time of year to see things growing, so anything in that endeavor is most welcome. In leafing through the Johnny's Selected Seeds catalog I came upon something I hadn't considered before--growing micro greens indoors. We have a lovely sunroom that gets quite warm and has lots of light. I use it to start seedlings, but not typically until much later in the year. Why not try something you can "harvest" in the dead of winter?

So I bought a packet of "Mild Micro Mix." It was kind of expensive (as are all Johnny's products in my opinion), $16.50 for four ounces. This mix is all brassicas. I filled a tray with 1.5 inches of potting soil, scattered the seeds heavily as recommended, covered with a thin layer of true vermiculite (not perlite, which to me is just tiny rocks), and misted several times a day. Before too long, there was green everywhere. What a pleasant sight!

Johnny's says to harvest when the first set of true leaves develops. But mine just sort of sat there with its seed leaves for longer than I anticipated. Maybe I had sowed too heavily. I decided to harvest anyway. Harvesting is just giving it a haircut with a pair of shears.

The result was a nice package of mildly-spicy greens; just enough to serve as a salad for two couples. It was delicious with a little bit of light Caesar dressing.

I will definitely grow at least one more crop of this before we get into the main seed starting time. It really was no work at all, fun, and great-tasting. Plus you feel like you are doing something!

On this same concept, I'm growing sprouts for sandwiches. I added alfalfa and Chinese Cabbage seeds for sprouting (i.e. not treated with anything) to my Pinetree Seeds order. If you have not done this before, all you need is a wide-mouth quart canning jar and a screen. Soak a tablespoon of seeds for 6 hours, drain, then rinse daily until ready. The alfalfa only takes about 5 days. I especially love them on a warm toasty onion bagel with sharp cheddar cheese. So healthy too!

I've done several batches of alfalfa, but my first attempt sprouting the Chinese Cabbage failed--it got moldy and stank to high heaven. I'm trying another batch right now, with only a half-tablespoon. Maybe that was the problem. Or the seeds could be bad. Or this is not the way to do it.

I encourage you to try growing sprouts and micro greens if the "gardening" urge is just too much right now, or just for health and taste!

Next weekend I will start my artichoke, leek, and onion seeds. And weather permitting, we will begin to tap our maple trees. Spring is on the way!

Thanks to Dave at Our Happy Acres for hosting Harvest Monday.

Potato Rescue

In 2014, the potatoes we harvested in September lasted in storage until May of this year before the few remaining softened and sprouted. They were kept in a bushel basket packed with shredded paper (hat tip to Rachel for that method), in a dark closet in the guest suite of the house, where the temperature through the winter was a fairly constant 50 degrees F.

This fall we started using that part of the house, because of renovations to the upstairs bathroom. I built some storage bins and put this year's potato crop in the cellar. It turns out the cellar, because of the weird warm fall weather, had much higher temperatures and humidity than I was expecting. Result: nearly all the potatoes sprouted after three months. So what to do with them?

I guess some sort of freezing methods could be used, but we are really trying to keep from adding more stuff to our two freezers. So we decided to try dehydrating potato slices. I'm using the royal "we"; The Kitchen Goddess did the work as usual.

Here is our method:

Slice as many potatoes as the dehydrator will hold, to 1/8" thickness.

A mandoline makes this much easier and more exact.

Blanch the slices in salted water for 8 minutes.

Chill in ice water for 15 minutes.

Pat-dry the slices, and arrange on the shelves of the dehydrator. We just have an entry-level NESCO "American Harvest" machine. There are other brands and models which are undoubtedly better and more efficient, but this one meets our needs (mostly), and has for years.

In our machine, it takes about 5 hours. Meanwhile, spend two hours cleaning potato starch off everything.

The dried slices, now like thick potato chips, can be used in Au Gratin-type recipes, and reconstituted for mashed potatoes. Not as versatile as whole potatoes, but as said, this was a rescue. Since we had 15-20 pounds of potatoes to go through, this is a batch process over several days. We just add to gallon bags as we go.

Can you think of other ways of preserving sprouting potatoes, and what to do with them?

Happy Holidays from Eight Gate Farm!

A short post to wish my readers (all three of you!) happy holidays, whatever you may celebrate!

The Kitchen Goddess made caramel apples to give to our friends--using our own Granny Smith apples and our own maple syrup. Some chocolate-free ones on the right for those with sensitivities.

I wish you could try one. They are amazing. But you need a knife and fork to eat, or it will be a Kriss-Mess.

I'm looking forward to the coming garden season, as no doubt all of you are. Let's hope for a stunning year!

We visit a "seed bank"

The Kitchen Goddess and I are on vacation in Northern California's Wine Country. We both love wine, but she's a wine geek. And I'm a gardening geek. She graciously allowed me an interlude away from the vineyards. So how about a visit to a "seed bank?"

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds has a retail outlet in nearby Petaluma (40 minutes from Napa). It's in a beautiful 1920s-era bank building. So it's a seed...bank, get it?

Walking through the doors, I was instantly a kid-in-a-candy-store.

I can't say for certain, but it looks like they have every variety in their standard free catalog, maybe even their full for-purchase "Whole Seed Catalog."

Peppers galore:

Maybe 2 1/2 full racks of tomato varieties.

I was able to find everything on my list, and of course bought more than that.

The prices ranged from $1.75 to $4 per packet, with most in the $2 to $2.50 range. The sales tax is weird--food seeds are tax-free, but not flower seeds. How do they determine what constitutes food? Some people eat marigolds.

Baker Creek is a fine, environmentally-conscious company. It was great to visit one of their stores. I strongly recommend coming here if you're ever in Wine Country.

2015 Garden Report Card

Every year I like to assess how the garden grew. It pleases me that I grow 40 different vegetables and fruits. As always, some are successful, others not. So here's 2015's report card:

Crop	Grade	Remarks
Apples	A+	2 trees. Over 10 bushels, still left some unpicked.
Artichokes	A	Started with 6 plants, voles killed 2. Harvested 11 'chokes.
Asparagus	C	12 row feet. Decent production from young plants. Planted a 2nd 12 foot row this year.
Beans, Green	A	24 square feet, great initial harvests, dwindled rapidly. Still got plenty.
Beans, Dry	B	Approx 80 row feet yielded 4.5 lbs. Still think we could do better than that.
Beans, Runner	B	Sowed 50 seeds, yielded 1-2 meals of dry beans plus next year's seed.
Beets	C-	Planted 16 squares, 9 plants per square. Not a good year for beets.
Broccoli	B+	12 plants. Heads not as large as last year.
Brussels Sprouts	A+	12 plants. Excellent production.
Carrots	B	32 square feet. Decent production, but not as great as prior years.
Chard	B	8 square feet. Got a slow start and had vole problems.
Cherries	A	2 trees. Incredible fruit set--birds got most.
Chinese Cabbage	A+	Grew in summer only, 6 plants. Outstanding production.
Corn, Sweet	A	Early corn not productive, mid-season very productive and tasty.
Corn, Flint	A	Approx 50 row feet. Yield 8 pounds shelled kernels.
Cucumbers	B+	First planting did not get off to a good start, second planting did well.
Eggplant	D	Slow start, production low.
Grapes	A+	2 bushels, made 5 gallons of blush wine, aging now.
Hops	A	This just keeps getting better and better
Kale	A+	6 plants. Large yield.
Leeks	A	First time growing. Quite a nice haul of fairly slender leeks. Took a long time.
Lettuce	A+	More than we knew what to do with.
Muskmelons	C+	Finally got some large fruit, but still not enough.
Onions	A+	Better production than last year on fewer sets.
Pears	B	2 small trees. 25 small pears.
Peas, snow/snap	A	Big improvement over last year.
Peas, soup	A	First time growing. Got about a quart of dried peas.
Peppers	C	Got off to a bad start. Low production.
Potatoes	B+	29 lbs. from 2.5 lbs seed. Plants not as large as last year. Variety "Kennebec."
Pumpkins	D	Terrible year compared to last.
Radishes, spring	A+	Row cover greatly helped root maggot problem.
Radishes, summer	A+	"Watermelon" variety, summer planting. Got even better yield than last year.
Raspberries	A	Picked several gallons over the weeks.
Spinach	D-	I still cannot grow spinach! Grew slowly, then bolted.
Squash, winter	C-	Got off to a bad start. Low production.
Sunflowers	A+	Grew "Mongolian Giant," which lived up to the name.
Tobacco	A	Grew 4 plants of the "Orinoco" variety. A very pretty plant with a "benefit."
Tomatoes	B+	8 determinate, 4 indeterminate. Initial yields good, but plants taken down by blight quickly.
Watermelons	C	Finally got larger fruit, but still undersized.
Zucchini	A	4 plants this year. Production good.

 

Harvest Monday - 2 November 2015

Welcome to another Harvest Monday update from Eight Gate Farm! As you probably know, Harvest Monday is hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres, where gardeners worldwide show their harvests and harvest processing for the week. Thanks, Dave!

We cut the parsley in the Kitchen Herb Garden down to the ground, and here it is about to be dehydrated. We use a lot of parsley.

Next up is our Brussels sprouts. We started 12 plants; 11 made it to maturity. Having been through at least 3 frosts, we judged it was time.

The largest stalk was 30 inches. Setting aside four stalks to give away, The Kitchen Goddess cut off and froze 30 cups of sprouts.

Next, we took all six kale plants. They, too, profit from frosts, but really no need to wait.

TKG stemmed, chopped, blanched, and froze 28 cups from that.

Next, all the remaining leeks were pulled.

None are huge like you might see in a farmer's market, but they have a lot of nice white showing.

Brussels sprouts and leeks are the kind of crops that you plant in spring and just wait, with very little tending needed. Well, we do fuss over the sprouts a little bit. We snap off the lower leaves as the stalks grow, and in early September cut off the growing tips so the plant puts energy into sizing up the buds. It seems to work.

We also took the last of the chard. It yielded a couple of packages of chopped leaves.

We got invited to a BYOB Halloween bonfire. In our case, that means Bring Your Own Brussels sprouts. Here was our hostess gift. Gardeners are weird.

On Sunday we pressed some of the apples I showed you last week. Here's a little of the process in case you were wondering.

First you have to cut the apples (into eighths works best) and run them through the grinder.

Apple gook, pre-pressing.

Then you dump into the press and crank away.

Lovely luscious liquid.

Of course, it requires multiple trips to the compost pile.

Apple gook, post-pressing.

We processed four bushels, and got six and a half gallons of cider [right about now is where metric folks scratch their heads]. It's hard work, so we rested between each bushel. All told, it took about 4 and a half hours. Five gallons are getting fermented, and the rest we'll enjoy fresh. I'm not sure what we are going to do with the other four bushels of apples. I'm pretty sure they'll keep in the cool barn for awhile, so some will get used.

And now here's a parting shot of the fenced garden, with all beds sporting a blanket of chopped leaves, ready to be tilled in.

All harvests are now in, so there won't be much to show you in the coming months. It's been a great season. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to everyone's posts.