Frogs

Shortly after moving to Hope Valley, we built a water garden in the back yard. Ponds surely attract wildlife, and this one is no exception. Birds love to get a drink from it and one time a pair of ducks were swimming in the water. Frogs also found their way to the pond. We have some bullfrogs and the population grows every year. What starts out as thousands of tadpoles is whittled down to what is now a population of half a dozen bullfrogs and an unknown number of spring peepers. While it is pretty easy to find bullfrogs, spring peepers are difficult to locate. They are nocturnal and hide well due to their camoflage skin. Spring peepers are small, about the size of a quarter. I will often be surprised to find them under a leafy canopy in the garden. Spring peepers are known for the LOUD mating call. In spring they start pepping loudly. So loudly, in fact, that we have to run a fan in our bedroom to drown out the noise. Sometimes the mating calls get so loud that I will yell out the back door "Get a room and do it already!"

Peaches

August means peaches in Rhode Island. There is nothing like picking a peach right off the tree and eating it. We have a couple of fruit trees at One Love Farm. The birds get all the cherries and the apples never really produce well. This year the pear tree didn't flower at all. But, we got some great peaches!

From the picture above you might wonder what that is hanging from the tree. We've always had trouble with birds getting the fruit off the tree before we pick it. This year Karen put some small aluminum plates on the tree. When the wind blows, they come together and make a sound that scares the birds. It worked and today I picked a couple dozen peaches.

It is very hard to grow organic fruit in Rhode Island. That is why our peaches are far from perfect with lots of blemishes. But the taste is out of this world. Since we only have two peach trees, we don't sell our peaches at the market. But, Sharon from Narrow Lane Orchard has peaches, apples and nectarines at the Richmond Farmers' Market.

Lettuce gone to seed

Lettuce gone to seed

Lettuce is a cool weather crop. When it gets hot the lettuce bolts, or goes to seed. The lettuce will turn bitter and send up a shoot. The shoot will have tiny yellow or white flowers which will turn into seeds. After the lettuce plant dies or there is a frost, the seeds will drop to the ground. Birds can also scatter the seeds by eating them.

Most people pull up lettuce when it turns bitter, but we let some lettuce go to seed. If you let your lettuce bolt, some of the seed will drop and if it finds a hospitable location, it will sprout next spring. We find the seed is most successful overwintering near the wall of a raised bed garden or near a rock. This provides shelter some the cold winter and the heat from the wall or rock will radiate at night creating a tiny microclimate. This year, don't pull out all your lettuce when it goes to seed. Leave some in the ground and enjoy some early spring lettuce next year!

Beans

We usually don't grow a lot of beans at One Love Farm. For some reason, the rabbits love them. Actually, I think there is only one rabbit, down from dozens due to the local hawk and his extended family, but that's a story for another time. When the bean plants get to be about 3-4" high, the rabbit(s) come by and eat off all the leaves. They don't eat the stalks, mind you, just the leaves. This year I tried a little experiment. I planted 80' of beans and left them uncovered. Then I planted another 80' and covered them with bird netting. Sure enough, at 3", the uncovered plants were mowed down. I pulled them out and replanted with some extra tomato seedlings I had. Bad, bad year for tomatoes, but again, that's a story for another day.

The beans covered with the bird netting, however are doing great! The plants are vigorous and we now have beans ripening. You can see from the picture that we planted purple string beans. I've never grown them before and we'll let you know how they taste, but they are striking with their majestic color on the plant and I imagine they will be gorgeous on a plate.

The only drawback with this method of rabbit control is weeds. it is a bit of a pain to remove the bird netting, so weeding this area has been neglected. I weeded this bed two weeks ago and before I did so, it looked like I was growing an extrememly successful crop of grass. But after some back breaking work, being careful to leave the bean plants undisturbed, I saw rows of beautiful bean plants. Now if I can just figure out a way to keep the flea beatles off the arugula!

Basil

One of the best things about summer is making a batch of pesto with fresh basil. Because of the wet cold spring (and summer) everything has been slow to mature at here in Rhode Island. But, eventually, everything comes around at its own pace. This week, basil is ready to start being harvested. I put fresh basil in salads and serve it with cheese and tomato or chop some in eggs. But, my favorite way to prepare basil is in pesto. Most folks have a pesto recipe that uses basil and olive oil, salt and garlic. Some recipes call for red pepper flakes (we use our own chili powder). You can also add roasted nuts. Pignoli (pine) nuts are traditional, but I also know people who roast walnuts for their pesto.

I like to add other stuff to my pesto as well. Arugula is a hearty leaf that will stand up to the food processor. I have tried to make straigh arugula pesto, but found the flavor too one dimensional. Now I often add a handful of arugula to the food processor with the basil for a basil/arugula pesto.

Another of my favorite pestos is garlic scape pesto. Garlic scapes are the flower stalk the garlic plant sends up in early summer to try and reseed itself. I have made pesto with just garlic scapes, salt and olive oil with chili powder. This is a very strong pesto and I don't recommend eating it with pasta alone. It is best when a spoonful is tossed in a pot of sauce or soup. You can dilute the potency of garlic scape pesto by adding basil to the garlic scapes. This makes for a very fresh and green tasting pesto. In fact, this is my favorite way to add garlic to pesto. Try it!

Herbs

We grow a wide variety of herbs at One Love Farm. We use basil and parsley in our lettuce mix. Rosemary and oregeno are used in our focaccia. Dill, chives and other herbs are used in our seasoning mix. Mint makes a wonderful iced tea. We also use a ton of herbs to make our chili powder every fall. In addition to lots of hot peppers, we use oregeno, parsley, thyme and other herbs in the chili powder mix. You would be amazed at the volume of herbs required to make a tiny jar of chili powder.

In the past, I would fit herbs in anywhere I could. A patch on a hill here, a bunch next to the steps there. I would even mix them in with the lettuce and other veggies where I had room. This year I decided to expand the herbs and give them their own garden. So, I put down a few yards of good soil, added in my organic fertilizer and planted several dozen parsley, sage, thyme, mint and rosemary plants. I added in a bunch of basil for good measure. So far the herbs have done great. In fact, I found a rabbit enjoying some parsley this afternoon.

There is an old saying that herbs thrive on neglect. I think that meams they don't like to be fertilized too much or watered too much. I know that a lot of herbs like to dry out between waterings. No such luck this June as we had rain 24 out of 30 days. However, with the very dry months coming up, I am sure I will be watering the herb garden quite a bit this July and August.

Grape Vines

New Grape Vines

For years we have had a small vineyard at One Love Farm. The grapes were red and white varietals that could stand the winters in Rhode Island. However, a couple of harsh winters killed a third of the vines. Some vines produced a decent harvest, other vines, almost no grapes at all. I tried to make wine from the grapes, but the quality was never good enough for anything more than cooking. For the last few years, I have made jelly out of the grapes.

This spring I ripped out all the vines. I saved four vines and will use them to wind up an arbor I am planning to build this summer or fall

However, I wasn't prepared to give up on growing grapes. Last year I bought some vines with the intention of using them to replace the vines that were killed over the last couple of winters. I put them in pots until I could get them in the ground. Shortly after that I decided I would be ripping out the vines, so they sat in pots until today. I picked what I hope will be a better spot for the vines where they will get more morning sun and may be protected from some of the harsh winter winds that I think contributed to the demise of some of the vines in the old location. These new vines are table grapes. They are for eating and making jelly. We haven't given up on making our own wine. But now we buy the grapes from the professionals in California.