Please come visit us on the farm this Sunday September 20 from 11am-2pm for a farm open house! We will be selling our vegetables and eggs, as well as giving tours of all our goings-on. This is all part of Eat Local Week, so pledge to Eat Local, and meet your local farmers! Email us for directions: mudpuddlefarm@gmail.com

It seems as we just were preparing for the transition from summer into fall, and now already preparations have slowly gotten underway for winter. We have been bringing in mulch and manure to amend the soil and prepare the perrenials for the cold. Lots of compost piles are starting to appear around the farm. With the removal of lots of organic matter from the field, our houses’ waste, and the waste from two restaurants we are able to create lots of compost piles. By the time we pull all our summer crops from the ground several big compost piles will have been made.

As the summer crops are removed we are prepared to put the field into cover for the winter. We are going to use winter rye to fortify the ground from erosion, and supply nutrients and organic matter. Mixed in with the rye will be another leguminous crop that will fix nitrogen into the soil. This just another way we are impoving our crops by nurturing the soil.

If this was last year we would be anticipating a heavy frost here pretty shortly. This year is very different. There seems no end to the summer temperature, although the quickly shortening days remind us of the coming cold.

We have been canning tomatoes like crazy. This action, in 100+ degree weather kind of makes everyone in the house a little nuts. But it must be done if we are to enjoy the bounty in coming months.

Also, blackberries have ripened to the point where they can be picked and jammed or frozen (since the stove is busy with the tomatoes, we have opted for the freezer route thus far). Sadie LOVES her some berries, so we must have plenty on hand for the winter.

It is weird to be thinking about the cold months in weather where it is so hot we are never comfortable indoors. (Never isn’t actually true. Between 3 and 6 am the house feels great.) But it must be done. Other than feed our CSA members, this is the whole purpose of the farm right now.

Although, we did just sell 100# of tomatoes to a local school. They will be freezing and canning them for the rest of the school year! Gotta love that thought!

http://www.rogueflavor.org/

Check out the Rogue Valley Eat Local Challenge. Are you brave enough to participate?

Tomorrow marks our halfway through the 20 week CSA season. It feels like it just started and it feels like it will never be over all in the same minute.

On the farm we are busy planting for fall, and keeping up with the summer crops (our corn this year looks way better than last year!), and being very thankful for the rain-but-no-hail that got dumped on us on Wednesday.

Temps have cooled down a whole bunch which makes life just more livable in general for us and the various farm animals.

Tuesdays are our weeding days and Wednesdays are our planting days if you ever wanna swing by and help out. We get going around 8am.

Man, it is super hot here at the Mud Puddle (the car thermometer said 105 yesterday). No puddles to speak of right now. We are working hard to make sure that the plants and animals, and us, get enough shade and water throughout these long days of intense heat. Lucky for us, we can go and jump in the river to cool off. Not so for these poor plants…

Anyway, we weeded this morning around the brassicas that were planted a few weeks ago. In this particular row, we have a ton of volunteer tomatillos and peppers coming up, so they had to be pulled out gently enough not to disturb the kale and chard sprouts. While the adults worked on that, Sadie chased Cornelius ’round and ’round, and trampled some lettuce. We hope it grows stronger due to encountering some baby delivered adversity. God decided to lay in the shady patch of lettuce as well despite the “No dogs in the field” rule. What’re you gonna do? At least he didn’t tear it out of the ground, I guess.

I am done with my Saturday rotation at the winery, so I will be back to doing markets again, which I am excited about. I can’t wait to see how much stuff we have been producing recently, and to check in with all our CSA members and make sure everyone’s expectations are being met. We already have ideas on how to improve for next year, but I want to hear what the paying customers think, too.

This is the letter we distributed this week to all our CSA members:

Hello, Mud Puddle CSA Members!

Some really fantastic things are happening. We have (a few) red tomatoes! Not enough for everyone yet but, hopefully by next week there will be enough for people to have some color in their bags. Also, we’re falling in love with a lettuce that is doing amazingly well for us; a cultivar called Nevada. It’s a French Crisp type, for those of you interested in the lettuce lingo, which means it has a strong heart and an iceberg-type head shape. It also has a nutty flavor that is pretty nice from a head lettuce. Finding a lettuce that does well in the heat is key this time of year. Last year we were up to our ears in super bitter, beyond tangy greens that were only edible drenched with a creamy dressing.

But really quick, can we have a heart to heart? It’s about zucchini (or courgette). A lot of people have strong feelings about zucchini and we thought we could illuminate the vegetable and hopefully give it some interest (or at least some of your empathy). Nutritionally the zucchini is very low in calories and, according to Wikipedia.org, contains “very useful amounts” of folate, potassium, and Vitamin A; ½ cup of zucchini also contains 19% of the recommended amount of manganese, which is very good for the liver, kidneys and brain. In Mexico, the flower is more popular than the fruit, and is used in soups and quesadillas while in England it is the country’s 10th favorite vegetable of all time. The younger zucchini (which we are slaving to harvest) is the best; we try and pick it when it’s under 8 inches long. The really young ones will have a nice orange blossom that is also edible. If you want to try a squash blossom, or a fruit with a flower still attached, let us know. We will do our best to get one to you.

Also, we’ve moved the baby ducks and chickens (more like… teenagers? How do you figure poultry years?) down to the big house in the field. The ducks have made the adjustment very well, defending their flockmates, the baby chickens, from the big chickens. It’s pretty cute. We had to pry ourselves away from the animal behavior study a few times in order to get things done for harvest. Our flock, as it currently stands, is 54 birds strong! Now if only they would all start laying. We’ve noticed however that in the heat the Aracaunas are doing very well (they lay the blue-green eggs). Not something we’d read or heard about, but nice none-the-less.

Lastly, the garlic in your bags is really nice. Don’t feel like you have to cook it. Try it chopped up raw in Gabrielle’s vinaigrette recipe, or just toss it in your salad and stand back for the spicy kick. It’s very good for you. And if you eat enough raw, it will keep the annoying neighbors away.

Happy Eating!
Mud Puddle Farm

Included in your basket this week (week 6):

Carrots
Scallions
Summer squash
Head lettuce—Nevada (a French Crisp/ Batavia Style Lettuce)
Salad mix
Onions
Garlic
Herbs (parsley)

There are lots of items taking the pea’s place.  The change will be gradual, maybe sad, but pea’s substitutes are acceptable.

We started all our fall crops in this little aluminum greenhouse last week.  It fell down yesterday taking most of our starts with it.  The greenhouse was quickly rebuilt out of wood, and all the starts of lettuce, celery root, cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage were replanted.  It makes a wonderful addition to our shanty town that is taking form in the middle of our field.  Next to our shanty town there is some raised beds of yellow raspberries, and then a non-celestially aligned wooden representation of Stonehenge that was here when we got here.

On Monday we planted about 50 tomatillo plants.  We are attempting to seed save for FedCo this year for a little extra loot.

Garlic! What’s not to love.

A bucket of chicken heads from our chicken killing sessions last week.

There is an overhead picture of our tomatoes that are trellised on barbed wire, and inter-planted with buckwheat.  There will be a glorious haul of tomatoes this year.

One of the first things we said we wanted for the farm over a year ago was portable electric fencing (PEF) for the chickens. This more easily allows the whole pasturing thing to occur. Well, a few weeks ago, we invested in it, and today it finally arrived!

Chickens need to be free, yet their movement needs to be restricted.  PEF is the perfect compromise.

Ben and Tim installed it with ease; beer aided them.   Our chickens were scared into their newly electrified range.   Now we observe.   We have lots of hawks, and we will be watching them as well.

Both shelling and snap varieties are coming off the vine in abundance.  Both are equally sweet and delicious, and provide an awesome snack when working in the field.  Now they provide us with energy to swing our new chainsaw;  for fire prevention, firewood, and just general property maintenance.

The kale is ready to cut finally.  In the picture in a Rogue brand hoe.  My god, this hoe is amazing.  Great construction.  Anyway, this spring the curly and red kale varieties seemed to grow a lot faster than the flat leaf green varieties.   There is no good explanation, they just grew better, and we have to role with it.

The potatoes are interplanted with bush beans.  There are wax, green, dragon tongue, garbanzo, and tiger eye beans planted between our potato rows.  The potatoes all have names too.  Robert Paulsen?

Crimson clover tints the whole field red, and feeds the soil with nitrogen.  We are just letting go to seed, and have undersown buckwheat with other crops.