Consider a gift of local flowers for Valentine's Day!

Consider a subscription to farm fresh flowers in lieu of the supermarket bouquet this Valentines day! See our new subscription application on the blog!

We are just now catching up on the farm enough to update our woefully neglected blog. It has started out to be a hot and dry summer and looks to be more like this for the rest of the summer. In an effort to conserve water we have been installing drip irrigation throughout the farm. The water comes out of plastic tubing and concentrated only where the plants are growing.

See the drip irrigation on the broccoli and greens

Another new thing we are trying this year is pruning and trellising our tomatoes in the hoop house. The tomatoes are supposed to put more energy into their fruit instead of their foliage. Hopefully this means more tomatoes for you, our CSA members.

See our happy trellised tomatoes. Notice the red mulch. Supposedly they do better on it, so we are experimenting to see. Also notice the drip irrigation in our hoop house.

Spring in the Montana!

Hello an Happy May Day!

Spring is, as usual, teasing us hear in Montana. I have been able to plant peas, early greens, yummy salad turnips, and some early flowers. We are actually quite early compared to last year and are right on schedule for our first share to be delivered on June 11th. Below you can see the peas poking through the ground and our garlic looking quite good.
We planted significantly more garlic this year--so that means more for you! We have been saving seed from our collective stock over the past three years. Ben's is from Judy Fisher in Belgrade, and mine from a garlic farmer in Livingston.

The greenhouse roofing saga continues, but we should be finishing that up by this weekend! As you can see we have outgrown our little sunroom and are excited to move everything over to the greenhouse soon.

Plants in the sunroom--ready for a new home!

We're back at it!

We are gearing up for another season. This year we are expanding our membership. If you know of anyone interested please forward them the link to our blog site! The sign up sheet is now available on our site, but they can also email with any questions they might have.

Some new features this year...

• I have added a flower CSA to the farm. For $150.00 you will receive a weekly bouquet late June through mid September. 
• New bags! Each CSA member will receive our own sturdy bags made from recycled chicken feed bags.

 We are building a greenhouse to handle all of the new starts for our expansion. Ben's handywork is converting a storage building into a greenhouse with recycled windows. We are very close. Below is a picture of our work so far. It should be ready to keep our plants nice and cozy in a week or so:

As much as we love the chickens, they were wreaking havoc on the entire property. We discovered that they must have a bit of termite in them because there were holes everywhere and they ate every little green bit they could get their beaks on. Ben and I stealthily moved them to their "summer quarters" and clipped their wings last Saturday night (our idea of date night). Now they can eat all of the grass and their poop will provide much needed nutrients to the beds. Here they are in their new home:

The season seems early, so I planted peas outside in hopes that we will have them for our first or second delivery. I will also plant another round in a few weeks along with greens and such. We seem to be on time for our June 15th delivery target. We look forward to serving you again this season!

In your share, plus a recipe:

Our fall crops are coming on so we again have lettuce and greens. 

• Roma tomatoes (for sauces)
• Thyme and margoram
• Red onion
• Pepper
• Baby bok choi (for stir fry)
• Lettuce
• Cantaloupe

 My favorite quick tomato sauce:

Saute 1/2 of the red onion in 1/4 cup of olive oil (you can add the chopped green pepper if you like at this point). Add 2-4 cloves of chopped garlic after the onion is soft and fragrant. Also add 1 tbls. of chopped thyme and margoram. When the garlic is fragrant, add all of the chopped tomatoes--should be about 2-3 cups. 

Cook down  the tomato sauce for 45 minute to 1 hour, stirring occasionally until it is not as watery and the tomatoes have started to break down. For a smoother sauce, pulse it in the food processor, or just leave it to keep it chunky. If you want to add meat balls the 45 minute mark is a good time to let them cook in the sauce. My favorite meatball recipe is, of course, on Epicurious--I usually cut this in half and use only elk (or hamburger):

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Spaghetti-and-Meatballs-351190

Also I promised to give my aunt Judy's salsa recipe. I receive permission to post it when I was back visiting my family in Colorado this week. It is very close to Seth's Grandma Irma's recipe, who is from Durango, Mexico. That really is the best salsa I have ever tasted, but she would never let me have her recipe! 

2 chopped (roasted either under the broiler or on a grill) green chiles

2 cups of chopped tomatoes (or a 16 oz can)

2 teaspoons of chopped garlic

2 scallions

1 tbls chopped cilantro

1 tbls of fresh lime juice

1 tsp of sea salt (or to taste)

Blend or pulse for about 15 seconds in the blender or food processor. serves about 20 people.

Update from the farm...

One of the things that I love about farming is the cyclical nature of it. It seems like yesterday that we were working our tail off trying to get everything planted and here we are now trying to cover crop and close everything down for the season. One of the goals for our farm is to put enough food away during the winter to off set our grocery bill and to savor the taste of summer when it is 20 below outside. Last year we canned 32 quarts of tomatoes and this year we are well on our way to that.

From the Greenhorns- A young and beginning farmer organization (not that I am young, but hey...)

Below is a picture of the concord grapes that Ben so lovingly planted two years ago. This is our first year that we will have grape jelly (two whole jars) from them. The freezer is full of beans, pesto, peas and edamame for the winter. Ben's other effort on the farm is our broiler (meat) chickens. They will be slaughtered this weekend and put in the freezer. We are thinking about growing out and selling some turkeys for next year, so keep that in mind for Thanksgiving 2012.

Grapes before....

Grape jelly after... The other stuff is apple butter from our apple tree.

Our farm theme song...

Hello again!

I have taken a brief hiatus from the farm blog due to travels and general burn-out from the harrowing schedule of the farm. If we had a farm theme song Red Clay Halo by Gillian Welch and David Rawlins would be it..not that we have red clay here--but our hands and clothes are perpetually muddy! Just look at how fast David Rawlins put that capo on...wow!