Flying Tomato Farms

Exciting news for South Dakota local foodies–Dakota Rural Action has put their incredibly useful SD Local Foods Directory online.  It’s searchable, too!

Visit the online version of the South Dakota Local Food Directory here.

By the way, may I ask why YOU aren’t a member of Dakota Rural Action? Support their great work on behalf of small farms and local producers by donating here!

Yep, I guess it is.

We spent the night out on the Missouri with friends–it was good to dust off my kayak after a few weeks of unstable weather not really conducive to being out on an island (unless you’re a more die-hard river rat than I am).  The boat had been sitting out in the backyard for so long that ants had built a nest under my seat.

The evening was really fine–the water warm enough for swimming and bathing, and the sun’s rays bold enough to warm and dry us off afterward.  Our tent has taken a beating out there, but it held together enough to make a reasonable shelter from the morning’s heavy dew.

We had a little pot-luck dinner and Walt made a breakfast scramble  this morning–plus coffee and around.  A couple little fledgling birds waddled out onto the path between campsites, and we found a huge black and white long-horned beetle. Vega and another dog became fast friends and kicked up more than a little sand.

Now it’s back into town to take care of the land-lubber responsibilities.  The gardens got weeding and watering love yesterday morning, and I managed to clean up my weed-patch of a community garden plot as well (which is where Terry found me to pass word about the river gathering). Today is all about essay critiques (for me), roofing (for at least two of the group), dishes, and other mundane tasks.

But the next few nights look clear and fine as well. No need to waste a bit of the short, sweet summer season on the river–we’ll likely be out again tonight.

Spent the late morning and early afternoon with M. at the Newton Hills Hoedown watching a couple bands perform, including one that his dad is in.  It was really a perfect day for a festival–mid-80s with a nice breeze to keep the heat from building up.

Didn’t get out to the farm until about four o’ clock, and while we enjoyed the relative peace of a bug-free late spring, the mosquitoes are out in force now. We were swatting and swearing with wild abandon at the feisty blood-suckers while attempting to get some work done.

The first project on my agenda was to mow the weeds (yes, mow them–it had got that bad), then mulch down around them with a few of the bales of straw left from Mike’s spring delivery. The mower had to be checked out first, as the last time I used it, it started belching smoke and didn’t stop until long after the mower quit running.

H. graciously did the honors while I stood there ready to dial 911 in case it blew up.  It didn’t, so we dragged it across the farm to the hill on which the squash and melons are planted, and I started cutting a wide swath around the patch, pausing every once in a (short) while to use a pole to lift the safety skirt, so the mower could discharge the wet, heavy grass pulp.

When that was done, and I’d donated more than my share of blood to the aforementioned mosquitoes, I went around dusting off the leaves of the squash and pulling the weeds that were too close to mow. In the process, I found a squash bug, squashed it (pun intended), and then added to the maintenance checking the underside of each squash and melon leaf for eggs.

I only found one cluster, which I also squashed. The patch being clean, I pulled the truck down to the main garden and loaded, with much effort, four very wet, heavy, falling apart bales of straw, dusting off all the fallen mulberries I could (no need for mulberry seedlings in the squash patch) and checking for critters before I heaved them into the truck bed.

The Western garter snake had babies (see, I told you that big one was a “she”), and there was a young one in the straw pile, plus plenty of beetles and spiders and all sorts of sprouting fungi. I hauled the half-rotten bales back over to the squash patch, and donated even more blood as I cut them open and laid flakes around the plants.

All this didn’t take that much time (though it got me plenty dirty, sweaty, and itchy), so I spent the last hour or so in the main gardens weeding around the basil and tying up tomato plants to their trellises.

The broccoli is still growing–a couple of the heads that weren’t ready for cutting Thursday are ready now–I took the biggest one and am eating the whole thing by myself for dinner, as H. headed to a party I was too tired to attend.  The second broccoli row in the east garden will have some heads ready for next week’s market.

Dinner was pretty simple–I cut up the broccoli into big florets and soaked it in salt water (removes critters), then heated some olive oil in the Dutch oven and added a few chopped garlic scapes and a couple tiny carrots too small to bunch for sales.  Then the broccoli went in, everything got tossed, and I slapped the cover on, turned off the heat, and let it steam.

At the end, I added some leftover sausage and cabbage from last night plus a little red wine, heated the whole thing through, and downed it all promptly.  We don’t always eat fancy at Flying Tomato Farms, but we always eat good!

A locally-made feast!

One head of spring cabbage, one or two summer onions, a couple tablespoons of butter, a bottle of your choice of beer, a package of Dakota Harvest lamb brats or Bluebird Locker’s South Dakota brats (4-6 sausages).

Heat oven to 350 degrees (or make a nice bed of coals). Chop the cabbage and onions and spread them in the bottom of a Dutch oven with a lid. Mix the cabbage and onions with caraway seed, thyme, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, bay leaf, and celery seed.

Dot butter over the top of the cabbage, lay brats on top of that, then pour the beer over all.  Put the top on the Dutch oven and cook all for about 45-minutes to an hour in the oven or over the coals. Serve with Dad’s Bakery or Mr. Smith’s sourdough bread, mustard, plus more of the beer you cooked with.

Well, it got hot yesterday, but not nearly as hot as projected.  The weather forcast was all over the place yesterday–from one hour to the next, the projected highs went from 98 to 84 then back into the lower nineties.

We had a very ominous cloud come through at about 10 a.m., but nothing came out of it but a few sprinkles. We did get a nice shower late last night–I hear the lightshow was fantastic, but I slept right through it!

I went out twice yesterday to hand weed, pick peas, then later on to hoe as the soil surface dried out.  The first planting of pole beans has overtopped its trellis, and I’m amazed at how fast the tomatoes and broccoli are growing.

I’m usually ahead of my plants’ schedules when I project when something will be ready, but although I thought it’d be next week for broccoli heads, it looks like I’ll have a few from the first planting in the north central garden ready for market this week. I have never seen broccoli size up so fast!

The nice thing about broccoli (as opposed to cabbage, which is a little more iffy about re-sprouting) is that a good variety will sprout a nice-sized (though not huge) central head of about 4-6 inches in diameter and when that head is cut, the plant will sit there somewhat confused for a couple of weeks, then start producing smaller side-shoots through the rest of the season.

This morning, Kelly (my fellow farmer) and I spent an early hour in the northeast garden weeding out the strawberries.  I’d hoed them earlier in the season, but the second flush of weeds had really taken over in there. I always think I’m really on top of the weed situation until the June rains come, and then I see quite clearly through my self-delusion.

Another surprise in the gardens yesterday was that the okra, planted on Sunday, is already up and growing!  I’d soaked the seed overnight, as okra’s seed coat is especially hard.  You can also use a file to nick each seed’s coat individually to give moisture a way to get in.

I did do that one year out of desperation to plant that same day, and I learned from the experience that there are certain kinds of desperation best avoided–germination was very poor. This time, four days from direct seeding after a night of soaking, germination appears to be almost 100%. The humid heat can’t be hurting–it probably thinks it’s in Dixie.

For market this week, I’ll be cutting the last few heads of cabbage in the northcentral garden and starting on those in the east garden as well.  As mentioned above, I’ll have sugar snap peas–those are harvested throughout the week, as peas will quit producing if you don’t pick every other day or so.  We are eating the Sunday picking at home, but I’ll have a few more bags this week from yesterday’s and tomorrow’s pickings.

The summer squash are coming along now–I’m guessing it’ll be a week or two for good-sized ones, as I planted a little later than many locals.  I need to mow around those plants before they get too big and then mulch them down with straw. It’s just too late for hoeing there–it’s a new garden, so the weed cover is intense.

I did go in with a hand hoe and get around the hills at least–and also re-seeded some of the hills of winter squash and melons on the landscape fabric above the summer squash area.  The Moon & Stars watermelon seed that H had saved did sprout (at least some of it), and the empty holes from a seeding of Neck Pumpkin (some did come up–not all) are now sprouting spaghetti squash.

I’ll have to do one last seeding in that melon and winter squash area with something that grows fast–probably the seed saved from a volunteer muskmelon that’s likely a hybrid of Athena F1 and Minnesota Midget. Those are both fast-growing varieties, so it’s fairly likely I can get some juicy ripe  single-serving cantaloupes for the hot days of early fall.

My house is officially orange.  A sort of an orange sherbet or creamsicle shade.  Blue and green trim is coming in the next few days.

Tomorrow is projected to be 98 degrees, with a heat index of 107 or so. I’d tell the guys they are welcome to take the day off, but they are hale and hearty souls, so I won’t be surprised if they work through it.

They also primed my doors today, which means in this already awful heat and humidity, I have had to have the doors open and the air (which I’d finally turned on yesterday against the humidity) off. I guess if they can take it…but then, we went to the pool and then down to the Coffee Shop Gallery for ice cream sodas.

Luckily, Vega is a very good dog, and has mostly just stayed in the house, panting and lying in the coolest spots she can find. Occasionally, she walks out into the yard and collapses on a patch of cool green grass (which really needs mowing) and looks very pleased with herself for being so free.

Spent some quality time in the west garden late this morning and early afternoon pulling Canada thistle (again).  I’m keeping on top of them pretty well this year, and I hope to finally exhaust the roots and eliminate them completely by the end of this season.

I pulled about three seven-gallon buckets worth of mostly thistles and other weeds growing up along the western edge of the gardens and dumped them all on the compost, which has been cooking along with the heat and humidity.  I turned the pile again yesterday and found no trace of the six baby bunnies I’d thrown in there–and no trace of anything burrowing in to get at them, either.

Started clipping the seedheads of the fourth-year row of green onions as well–they give a satisfying “plunk” when snipped–the sound magnified and echoing down the tubes of their stems. The weather kept going from rainy and breezy to sunny, still, and horribly hot and humid.

While picking the sugar snaps in the north central garden, I smelled that smell, and said to myself as I turned around looking, Geez, it smells like something died around here. Indeed, a western red garter snake had died–it somehow got its body stuck underneath a landscape staple and couldn’t get out.  I don’t think it was the big one I posted images of a few days ago–it looked much smaller than her.

So, I was finishing up picking peas on the back of the trellis, and telling H, who was working on the weed whacker nearby, about the snake, when I heard a peculiar sound.  It sounded like an audience clapping, and it kept getting louder.

“Is that rain?” I asked just before it started pouring.  The sound of sheets of rain pouring down on a valley full of corn leaves has a sound remarkably like a standing ovation–getting louder as it approaches.  I finished up the pea-picking getting completely drenched in our latest shower.

I’m considering re-thinking my nickname for this part of the state–instead of “The Southern Paradise of the Dakotas,” we might better be called, “The Southern Rainforest of the Dakotas.”

So, I was up early getting the kitchen cleaned up and quiches made for a Fathers’ Day honoring brunch for H. Daughters K & S will be here with their families, and then we’ll head over to K’s this evening for a dinner.

The brunch was a sort of consensus yesterday evening over at K’s (while my son M bounced on the trampoline and the rest of us took turns bouncing with him), and I mentioned that I had way too many eggs in the fridge, and should I make something with them to contribute to the dinner? That was out, but brunch seemed a better option.

So, up early in the pouring rain–put in a call to my own dad back in Vermont, who was fishing with my brother on Bristol Pond, then set to work making the pastry.  I pulled out the whole wheat flour and shortening, and filled a little glass with water and an ice cube.

As I was working the fat and flour together, my immediate brain thought something wasn’t right–there just seemed to be too much fat for the flour, even though I knew I’d measured correctly. So, I added a little more flour, completely ignoring the historical memory brain that was yelling, You Fool! It’s humid as a rainforest! You NEVER add more flour to pastry! Never!

Patted the pastry into a ball, wrapped in wax paper, refrigerated, and set about preparing the fillings: reconstituted dried morels and dried tomatoes, sliced onions, a little bit of lamb sausage, plus the eggs, milk, and herbs.  I was even thinking how I might be able to get three quiches instead of two out of that pastry ball because I’d so cleverly added the extra flour.

Those of you who know pastry are shaking your heads, knowing what came next.  I took the dough-ball out of the fridge, sliced it in half, and it fell completely to pieces.

“Crap!” I shouted.

Told you so, didn’t I? But you didn’t listen…, came the snide reply of my historical brain.

Well, we at Flying Tomato Farms are nothing if not prepared to make do with the results of our screw-ups (yes, that’s the royal “we”).  I patted and cajoled each crumbling half of pastry ball into a pie plate, using a bit of ice water to glue together the bits.  The pastry will be a bit “rustic,” but I think it’ll be edible, if a bit on the tough side.

After patting in the pastry, I laid slices of muenster cheese over the bottom of the shell, to further secure the pastry, and topped them with the aforementioned fillings before pouring in the egg mixture.  The third “quiche” will end up being a (crustless) frittata–I’ll start it on the stovetop, then finish under the broiler once the other two are out of the oven.

Well, the guests have arrived, and the quiches and frittata look fine.  The pastry is a bit thick, but not terribly tough, so I’ll call it a success and dig in!

I posted yesterday on the economics of that short row of cabbages in the north central garden.  Most of those cabbages are out now (there are three left–I took out the cabbage-looper mangled one this morning), and only their stumps remain.

Most people probably know that rotting (or even fermenting) brassicas of any type have a most disagreeable and strong odor that is pretty unpleasant to the human nose.  Right now, I’m betting on it also being disagreeable, or at least confusing, to the “nose” (or whatever scent apparatus they possess) of cucumber beetles.

I’d sworn I wasn’t going to put cucurbits–squashes or melons or cukes–of any kind in the main garden areas because the cuke and squash beetle problem there is, well, a problem.  H. tilled up a new garden for me on the hill across the farm for my winter squash, summer squash, and melons, and that has been planted for a few weeks–with no sign of the evil-doers as yet.

But there’s no real space for cukes there, so I’ve had to get a little creative.  The cabbage stumps in the northcentral garden are about eighteen inches apart, and they are sitting in some pretty well-loved soil.  There’s also a row cover already in place there (not that it’s that hard to remove it–though it might be a bit wet and muddy).

I did some research yesterday in my various garden books about a good succession crop to go in after spring cabbages, and it turns out squashes and cukes and melons are some of the best, according to my sources.

So, this morning, I worked up the soil in between the stumps (and also carefully between the remaining cabbages that’ll come out next week), and seeded two kinds of cukes–a hybrid burpless slicer called “Summer Dance,” and the heirloom “National Pickling.”

I put three seeds in between each set of cabbage stumps (or plants) in a furrow in the middle of the row, leaving myself some space on the edge because I’ll likely want to erect some kind of trellis for the cukes once they get bigger.

I also tossed a little bit of soil on top of each stump to encourage it to rot and give off a strong odor, and I might even go back when I harvest the remaining cabbages and hack up the stumps a bit to let in moisture–since my harvest cuts were so clean.

My hope is that the strong odor of brassica rot will mask the odor of young, tender cucumber plants, tricking the cuke beetles into believing there’s nothing under that row cover for them to try to sneak underneath and eat–at least until the cucumber plants get big and strong enough to remove the row cover and trellis them.

The biggest problem in past years has been getting the cuke plants to that strong growing stage–the cuke bugs always find them early (even under the row cover), and both eat and spread disease among the young plants, causing big, and sometimes total, die-offs.

I did have a good year with cukes last year in the lower part of the east garden, which is a good distance (for a bug, at least) away from the north central garden, so I also have distance working for me again. The year before last I tried growing cukes in the west garden and later in the central, and they ALL were killed–even the ones supposedly not as attractive to cuke beetles.

But even in a good year, it’s only a matter of time before the yellow and black stripey devils find them–sometimes we even get the spotted ones, too.  But, if the plants are growing fast and strong, they don’t cause nearly as much damage, and there’s less need for controls that might interfere with pollination or hurt the native bees.

Yet another interesting experiment for my CSA sabbatical year.  I’ll keep posting results here, and with success, bringing the results to the farmers market!

Out in the gardens this morning, harvesting for market, I started figuring (or figirin’, in the colloquial).  I was harvesting my beautiful Caraflex spring cabbages and thinking about how much I should charge per head.

The row of cabbage I was mostly cutting from is in the north central garden (I have another row in the east garden that are a little bit slower), and it’s, oh, maybe 25 feet long.  It holds seventeen cabbages.

Those cabbages were started in my house in a seedling mix that I put together myself.  They were grown under lights until they reached transplant size (4 weeks or so), and then hardened off outside and transplanted (with a shot of fish emulsion in the water) into a row that had been amended with composted horse manure.

Then they were dusted with diatomaceous earth to protect against cabbage borers, cabbage butterflies, and other things that like to eat cabbage as much as I do (maybe even more than I do) and then covered with floating row cover to protect against bunnies and deer, and secured with landscape staples (and a few rocks).

When they started heading up, I weeded around them, gave each a half cup of composted chicken manure, and dusted them again.  I watered them a few times when it was dry, though lately that hasn’t been an issue.

Seventeen cabbages fit in that north central garden row, and despite my best efforts, one cabbage was eaten by rabbits or deer (it was at the end didn’t quite fit under the row cover), and one was invaded by a cabbage borer.

So, that gives me 15 cabbages to sell out of that row (there’s another 25 or so in the east garden). I harvest them by cutting them low on the stem, handling carefully to avoid breaking leaves, dunking them in cool water to rinse off any critters, diatomaceous earth, and soil, and pack them gingerly in my coolers, which hold only about eight heads each.

By comparison, I had a row (same size) of salad mix in that same garden that was amended with composted horse manure as well.  The salad mix was direct-seeded, so required less labor and did not spend time under lights in my house or use up any seedling mix.  It did get more water to aid in germination, and it did get some intensive weeding time (harder with this kind of thickly-sown crop).

The salad mix did not get fish emulsion, nor did it get chicken manure.  It was row-covered.  Altogether, I harvested that row four times (which is a somewhat intensive process), and got about thirty total bags of salad mix each harvest.  My salad mix sells for $3.50/bag, but let’s say three, because I would add other herbs and arugula as well.  Total gross off the salad mix row: $360.

In order to gross that much off 15 cabbages, I’d have to charge $24 a cabbage. If I divided it by the seventeen cabbages I actually planted in that row, that’s still a shade over $21 apiece.

Well, obviously, I’m not going to charge $21 per cabbage.  That would be a good way to have a lot of cabbage on hand after the market, as well as a lot of people questioning my sanity. Too, I don’t expect to gross the same amount off every row I grow (wouldn’t that be nice!).

All this figirin’ has led me to realize (as I’ve been told Steve Solomon notes in Gardening When It Counts) that growing cabbage, as compared to a lot of other crops, takes more labor, more space, and more fertility. “When it counts,” it’s probably not the crop to grow.

And, unlike the salad mix, when you cut it, it doesn’t “come again.”  You might get a ring of tiny cabbages around the base of the plant if you’re lucky, but they’re not really salable, and it makes more sense to simply succession-plant that space with another crop once the cabbage has been cut rather than reserve the space and hope for teeny cabbages.

With all that said, I’m thinking of my beautiful and well-grown spring cabbages as a “treat.” And I’d wager they’re a treat that, if compared with a conventionally-grown cabbage in a laboratory setting or a taste-testing, would prove a far superior product.

I’ll have these cabbages at the farmers market this week (today!) and next, and perhaps even a few into a third week.  I’ll be charging $4 per luscious, crispy, lovingly-grown head.  Now doesn’t that sound like a good deal?