Hurricane Irene

Lots of people have been asking me how we are preparing One Love Farm for Hurricane Irene. With apologies for sounding facetious, the answer is everything and nothing. We are picking everything we can as quickly as possible. We're blanching tomatoes and freezing them, drying peppers and crushing them, roasting eggplant and making eggplant balls. That's the everything part.

The nothing part concerns the plants. As much as I would like to protect the plants outside, there's not a lot to do. Cover them? Surely the winds would blow off the tarp. We just have to get as much harvested as possible and hope for the best. Hopefully everyone in the path of Irene stays safe and dry.

Weeds

Crabgrass

Freshly weeded

Weed block to keep the crabgrass from coming back

This has been an especially bad year for weeds. Crabgrass grows in beds, between beds and even in cracks in the asphalt or in a handful of dust that blew up next to a rock. The roots can go down over a foot making the weeds especially difficult to get out.

But really, all those are just excuses. When harvest comes in, weeding takes a backseat to .picking veggies. And, as you can see from the pictures above, weeding has taken a backseat for a few weeks. Today, I weeded several beds and pulled weeds between some of the beds. Then, I put down some weed block in an attempt to keep the weeds from coming back. It may word to keep weeds from between the beds, but as sure as the sun rises, I'll be out there next week pulling more weeds from veggie beds

Tomato Soup

This is my favorite time of the growing season. Tomatoes, eggplant, onions, peppers, basil and so much more are coming in fast and furious. The question is, what do you do with all this bounty? We freeze tomatoes and pesto, and make eggplant balls and freeze them as well. We process peppers and keep onions and potatoes for the winter. But we also eat lots of this fresh produce during August, September and October.

Last night Karen took our tomatoes, onions, garlic and basil and made an amazing soup topped with olive oil. Then, she put a piece of bread baked by our friend Isis at the bottom of the bowl and labeled soup on top. I love these meals where everything is from the garden (except the bread). Can't wait for Karen's ratatouille with more of our veggies, including our potatoes.

Tomatillo

Looking back at the four years I have been doing this blog, I'm surprised that I have never posted about tomatillos, because we've been growing them for so long and love cooking with them. Also known as husk tomatoes, tomatillos are used in Mexican dishes. Tomatillos are easy to grow. In fact, I have not planted tomatillos in about six years because they reseed easily. I have tomatillos growing 200 feet away from the original bed. Likely a bird carried the seed or I tossed an overripe one and the seeds sprouted the next spring.

I've seen lots of recipes for Tomatillo Salsa. Here is a link to a recipe from the New York Times food section. But, I much prefer roasting the tomatillos. Be sure to wash the tomatillos in warm water first. The tomatillos have a sticky film on them that washes off easily. Then roast them in the oven until they are nice and soft (some of the tomatillos will get brown on the top). Let the tomatillos cool and add onion, garlic, cilantro, salt and a cayenne pepper. Blend in a food processor and serve with chips.

Valencia Tomato

I have heard a lot of people complain that tomatoes are late this year. And, compared to last year, they are right. Everything was early in 2010 and we were harvesting tomatoes in mid July. But, in 2009, we didn't harvest tomatoes until September. 2009 and 2010 are the extremes, and this year is about average; harvesting tomatoes in August.

We have been harvesting lots of heirloom varieties like Black Prince, Matt's Wild Cherry, Green Zebra, German Johnson and Valencia (pictured above). Speaking of Valencia, coming up in a couple of weeks in Valencia, Spain they will be holding the annual tomato fight in Bunyol near Valencia. Please spend the day pelting each other with tomatoes. Check out this link for more sloppy information on this messy festival.

Oak Park Hates Veggies

My motto as a homeowner has always been "More garden, less lawn." That means taking up grass whenever possible and planting veggies. Then, I learned about the City of Oak Park, MI prosecuting a homeowner for doing just that...

The town rips up your front yard to put in a new sewer line. Instead of planting grass you decide to put in a veggie garden. Nice raised beds to plant tomatoes and cucumbers to feed your family. What a good example to set for your kids to teach them where their food comes from.

Then, the city gives you a ticket because your garden is not to code. Why? Because the city thinks that the only things you can plant in your front yard is grass and trees. You put up a website and Facebook page to show the insanity of the ticket in hopes that the city will see the error of its ways. Instead, you are charged with a misdemeanor and face 3 months in the gray bar hotel. Much media coverage ensures and the City Planner, instead of making an apology digs in his heels. In the end, there is a happy ending. The court drops all the crazy charges against you.

A postscript to this story has the woman in Oak Park, MI moving to Seattle with her family so her husband can take a new job with Amazon.com. I am sure the city of Seattle is more accommodating to veggie gardens.

Dried Chiles

We grow a lot of hot peppers (chiles) at One Love Farm. But, we don't often sell them at the farmers' market. Instead, we dry them in a dehydrator, crush them into a powder using a blender and mix them with herbs to make a chili powder. This year we are growing the usual suspects; Cayenne, Hot Portugual, Anaheim and Pablano. We also got some Big Jim Chile seeds and are growing them for the first time. They seem similar to Pablano as evidenced by this recipe in Saveur. We like our Chile Rellanos with potatoes and cheese, but this recipe is really nice, too.

Onions

50 pounds of onions

Onions are a favorite to grow at One Love Farm because they can be planted in early spring before many of the more tender crops. So when you are itching to get something in the ground, onions are a good choice along with your peas, beets, radishes and hearty greens. We plant onion sets. Those are the mini onions that you plant directly in the ground. You can also plant onion seeds, which we have difficulty germinating or seedlings which are tiny onion sprouts.

This year I planted red, white and yellow onion sets in early spring. Onions like full sun and beds with good drainage that are weed free. We got two out of the three criteria. Can you guess which one wasn't accomplished?

This weekend I dug up the onions, washed them off and put them on a screen in the garage. We will use the onions fresh this summer and store the rest in the basement for fall and winter. Here is a link to a good article about growing and storing onions. I have found in researching onion growing a lot of conflicting information about growing and storing onions. Some say to wait until the leaves have all turned brown before harvesting, some say to harvest when only some leaves have turned brown. Some say to pull out onions and others say to dig them up with a garden fork like a potato. Some say to wash the onion before curing, others say to leave the dirt on. I say experiments and find what you think works best.

Potatoes

I'm sure you've always wondered what 35 pounds of Fingerling and Blue Potatoes looks like. Wonder no more!

Stolen veggies

Snack for a rabbit

Rabbits take a bite out of a sweet pepper. Deer munch on a grape vine. Woodchucks mow down a row of lettuce. Once I even saw a bird flying from my garden with a tomato in his beak! But that is nothing compared to old ladies who will pick your plants clean when you are not looking. Here is a link to a great story I read in the New York Times today about "sidewalk grazers."

Cayenne

It has been hot and dry the last few weeks, so the peppers have thrived. We picked some bell pepper and Karen stuffed them with rice and veggies. Pablano are a few weeks away, but Cayenne and Hot Portugal have started to turn red and some are ready to pick. I'll be drying them for Chili Powder this week. I've already started drying parsley as well which is a key ingredient in Chili Powder.

Sunflowers

Sungold Sunfowers. Check out the bees pollinating the flowers.