Are you part of the 90% who toss food before it's time?

Thursday, February 22, 2024
Are you part of the 90% who toss food before it's time?

As a country girl I learned a lot from my grandma about “waste not want not”.  One of my pet peeves is how consumers let food dates intimidate them into throwing away perfectly fine food.
Truth: With the exception of infant formula, product dating is NOT required by law.  In fact food expiration dates have more to do with quality than safety. They’re the manufacturer’s best estimate of when the product...

Romanesco

Wednesday, January 17, 2024
Romanesco

Produces own Christmas trees
What are these strange little trees?  Romanesco broccoli, aka broccoflower or Roman cauliflower, is botanically a member of the cauliflower family.  It has a flavor that is milder and nuttier but yet similar to both broccoli and cauliflower. It dates back to 16th-century Italy and is grown as a cool weather crop.  Fun fact: the florets are near perfect fractals.  The...

Winter on the farm

Wednesday, January 17, 2024
Winter on the farm

Winter months on the farm
If we’ve heard it once we’ve heard it a million times: “It must be nice to have the winter off” or “What will you do with all your free time over the winter?”  For real??  Please don’t say something like that to your local farmer.  Winter may be a little slower paced but it’s just as busy as during planting and harvest season.  
Some of what’s going on… First there’s...

Coming out of Hibernation

Thursday, March 23, 2023
Coming out of Hibernation

Many of us, myself included, look forward to the new seed catalogs with the anticipation that people of a “certain age”  used to look forward to the Sears catalog when they were kids.  OK so I really dated myself there but for avid gardeners picking out what to grow is the highlight of the winter.  I love seeing what’s new and considered the hot trend.  

Preparing tips for the growing season

Prune...

Winter Reflections

Thursday, December 29, 2022

As the year comes to an end and cold winter days are upon us, here are some ramblings of the year past and year to come.  As is typical for us we had many ups and downs.  There is the constant struggle with the weather and having enough help to keep moving forward.  Many only see the faces at the store or farmers markets.  It’s the unseen faces who keep the day to day operations going that are the true...

What to Use for Pumpkin Baking - It's not what you think

Tuesday, November 1, 2022

Just like the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus canned pumpkin is a myth of sorts.  According to the FDA “pumpkin” is “prepared from golden-fleshed, sweet squash, or mixtures of such squash with field pumpkins.”  Essentially a pumpkin is a squash but a squash is not a pumpkin.  They both belong to the Curcurbita family.  What you buy canned is most likely made from a Dickinson Pumpkin (first photo in header)...

Holiday Tradition-Fruitcake

Sunday, October 9, 2022
Holiday Tradition-Fruitcake

I know you’re rolling your eyes thinking it’s not even Halloween and you’re talking about Christmas fruitcake.  In my defense a good fruitcake takes planning.  It’s got to sit for aout three weeks and absorb the magical brandy which helps make it moist.  My mom and dad were always on the quest for the perfect fruitcake.  Growing up it was none of the Claxton boxed stuff but always homemade.  The best...

From farm to table and back to the farm

Sunday, September 25, 2022
From farm to table and back to the farm

Sustainable agriculture:  
The goal of sustainable agriculture is to meet society’s food and textile needs in the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. (https://sarep.ucdavis.edu/sustainable-ag)A question we are asked all the time is “Are you organic?”  The short answer is no.  The more complex answer is yes & no.  We have always considered our farm...

Sept 12, 2022 A New Adventure-Farm Thoughts

Monday, September 12, 2022
Sept 12, 2022 A New Adventure-Farm Thoughts

As summer winds down and fall dances in we are shifting from berries to apples and melons to pumpkins.  We are already finding orange Jack O’Lanterns in the field and there’s even a Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin peeping through foliage.  We have started picking winter squash and putting fields to bed in a cover crop for the winter.  If you’ve been in the store lately you’ll see a new face or three.  We...