November 26, 2014

Good morning, it is real neat that we have just passed our second anniversary for the Alpine Farmers Market on Murphy Street. How time flies when having fun. It continues to be the high point of my week. It is such a treat to get to visit with everyone. The market also continues to grow and we are averaging 15 to 20 vendors on many occasions. I still envision the market spilling out from the courtyard and proceed to fill Murphy street. This happened last Earth Day when we had more than 50 vendors present. Talk about a party.

We always welcome new vendors. I feel some times when a patron comes to market they come up with ideas for things to sell at market and they come join us.

Deb and I sat down one Saturday and brainstormed for some potential vendor products that would be real good additions to all of our wonderful vendors. What follows is by no means a complete list.

Artisan bread maker, Commercial mobile kitchen, Tortillas, Homemade soap, Gifts in a jar, hand made toys, COFFEE, Frozen meals, Plants and seedlings (mainly veggies), Fruit and of course more Growers.........

I think it is appropriate to mention that we do not have a set up fee but we do very much appreciate any donation. We do ask that any vendor that makes $100 dollars or more to give a donation of $10 to the market.

Why do we ask this? These funds are used to advertise, and to build improvements for the market. Donation dollars have built our wonderful permanent shade structure, chalk boards, sand box and toys, crayons and coloring books, table top toys and a fabric Alpine Farmers Market sign. 

Soon we hope to have a rain catchment system and then we can plant some trees. Some caliche under the structure would be nice along with the driveway into the courtyard. We do have a donation jar on a table along with a wish list of projects that these donations would fund. There also is a blank space on this wish list for anyone to add their own ideas. All ideas are welcome!!

The market has come such a long way since there were only three or four vendors. I look forward to what the future holds for the market.

If you would like to join our vendor family or know someone who would, please call Mark or Debbie at 432-837-0118.

I can be reached at markdirtfarmer @gmail.com

November 20, 2014

Good morning, as we slip into fall and move towards winter it is getting close to when I start sowing my next years Solanaceae crops. Some of those wonderful new world veggies that I can not imagine how Europe lived with out them until the discovery of the new world. Myself, I would be hard pressed to decide between the two major ones (my opinion), in fact if I could only grow one, I really could not decide. These are hands down my favorite veggies, Tomatoes and Chilis. Nothing like the taste of a red ripe tom chomped down on in the garden as the juice runs down your chin. Or peeling a fresh roasted chili and devouring it as the smell of roasting chilis fill the autumn air. Who really could choose between the two.

There are some reasons why I like to grow these veggies from seed. Mainly I like to grow open pollinated (OP) veggies as opposed to hybrids.

OP seed can be saved and you do not have to purchase seed every year. Hybrids curried favor after world war two. Who hasn't heard the words hybrid vigor. They have been passed off as superior to OP. Maybe in some aspects. If you are looking for even sized, even ripening, resistant to various garden pests, these would be your veggies. But YOU would never be able to save the seed. Something that large corporation seed companies would like to see. One little note these are all qualities that are found in OP seeds but not all in the same seed.

Like hybrids you can select veggie seeds with desired qualities. There is one book that I refer to as my seed bible. This is none other than the Garden Seed Inventory sixth edition printed by the Seed Savers Exchange. This is a book that lists all of the OP and heirloom seed that was available in 2004 for North America. This book, besides listing veggie varieties and descriptions also list sources for these seeds. For me it can be spell binding, but then again I am geeky that way. Looking through the book you can find traits like the hybrids. Of course where else did hybrids get their traits but from none other than OP's. A little note all heirlooms are OP but not all OP's are heirlooms.

I have mentioned on several occasions that I start the above mentioned Solanacae around the middle to the end of December. This is a time of year you would be lucky to find a cabbage plant for sale let alone a tomato. This is my numero uno reason for starting my own Solanaceae from seed. Not to mention because I grow a few hundred solanacae plants, the cost to stock my garden would be huge. They also would not be my favorites.

Another good reason to grow your own plants is that you will not inadvertently bring some critter or pathogen into your garden. Seed just do not have hitchhikers.

One of the other real cool things about seed, is they are by far one of the best food bargains out there. They are incredibly inexpensive when you consider your potential return. One can experiment with new varieties and if the new choice does not work out, you have only your time as the big expense. Of course growing from seed takes more time than just buying a plant.

Even though towards the end of December I have winter veggies that are ever so close to harvest I like to think the sowing of my Solanacae crops as the beginning of my garden year or for me spring has sprung

One last little note: take a look at a local seed rack, there may be a dozen toms to choose from. On the other hand in my seed bible there are over 65 pages of tomato varieties and around 25 varieties to the page. So many to choose from but think of all that diversity. This is exciting stuff!!!

Sadly last weeks freeze finished off the last of the summer veggies. Summer veggies from the first of March to the Second week of November, not a bad run! Of course there were some “interesting” moments to get here. But hey, the middle of to the end of December (just a few weeks away) and next years crops will be started. How cool is that!!

I did have some challenges this fall with getting my fall and winter veggies growing. Some of them were operator error and others were dealing with critters. I think the most amazing critter was the harvester ants. They were actually going into the seed beds and digging up the germinating seed only to haul them back to their nests. I solved this by burying fabric covers around the edges of the seed bed. No more problems. I have so much more to learn!!

November 13, 2014

Good morning, on a recent Sunday, Deb roasted a bunch of veggies to go with dinner. Seems like there were garlic, onions, sweet potatoes, tomatillos and beets. It has only been in the recent past that I have learned that I like beets.

No wonder so many people do not care for some veggies, so many of their memories are from their childhood and these memories are almost set in concrete. Right up top on the “no fly” list for me were canned asparagus, canned spinach and canned beets. I remember the use of vinegar to help the flavor of the beets and spinach but the asparagus was left to stand a lone.

It wasn't until my family moved to Kentucky that we harvested wild asparagus that grew up in fence rows. This was the first chance I had ever had to really taste this wonderful veggie. It would be many years latter after I had “flown the coop” before I was able to really taste spinach or beets.

Spinach was first and I found how wonderful it was lightly sauteed or even just raw. What truly a waste when canned.

Beets probably would never have passed my lips if it were not for my Alpine, TX. garden and a request for me to grow gourmet beets (slicing red beets, gold beets, chiogga and white beets). Well I grew these beets and when it came time to harvest I tried to contact this person and she would not return my call. What to do??

Deb found a recipe that called for roasting the beets. We roasted them until the sugars caramelized on them and then quickly devoured them while raving how wonderful they were. Neither one of us knew what a wonderful treat they can be.

It has given me pause to revisit some of my more unfavorable veggie experiences. For the most part the revisiting has been favorable but I must say neither okra or spaghetti squash have made it onto my menu. I have recently tried them with the same appeal as before. Guess that leaves more for other folks to eat.

I guess where I am going with this is that childhood memories can be quite powerful and hard to overcome but who knows what wonderful tasty things you might be missing if you were to try them once again from a fresh harvested and prepared perspective. It could very easily knock your socks off.

Well it does look like winter has come again what with the recent chill down. Sadly summer veggies are gone for another year. This week has been a bit of a challenge trying to prepare for the cold, harvest and take care of civic duties. Lucky for me I was called to jury duty and with 30 as my number I won the lottery so to speak. Needless to say I have not gotten as much harvested as I would like. The fore cast low for Thursday is in the teens and the high is only expected to reach 39. As I write this it is 25. If the high is 39, the fabric will remain frozen to the ground. If this happens I will not be able to have Friday deliveries because I will be harvesting and preping for market. In the event that I am unable to harvest, I will send out an updated veggie list latter today for those folks that would like to place orders for Saturday market pick up.

 

November 6, 2014

Good morning, Funny how folks can have such strong feeling about a group of incredibly nutritious and downright healthy veggies. Responses from “I can’t live without them” to “nothing green is going to pass my lips”

Greens are incredibly easy to grow and depending how you grow them, they do not take up a lot of room. If you harvest leaves instead of plants, you can harvests for months. The main reason I plant new seedlings of kale and chard is the kale gets to looking like 2 foot tall palm trees and the chard begin to look like leafy baobab trees. This makes them hard to keep covered.

Besides their ease of growing they are very high in vitamin C. I suspect why everyone thinks of oranges first for vitamin C is most likely advertising or maybe the story of how the English got one of their most noted nick names of “Limy”. They would pack citrus on their ships to help prevent scurvy due to vitamin C deficiencies. It just may have been a bit difficult to pack peppers and leafy greens on a long voyage pre refrigeration days. But take a look at this list of goodies that have more Vitamin C than the advertised King of “C”.

http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20745689,00.html 

Who hasn’t purchased a wonderful looking orange, pealed it to eat, only to find the interior to be not to dissimilar to packing material. This is really quite disappointing. Pithiness is not a problem with greens because you eat the whole thing and you do get to see what eat.

Besides vitamins greens are loaded with antioxidants. If I understand these things properly, they help heal aging or damaged cells. These cells left untreated can morph into a bunch of nasty’s of which cancer is one of them. Not saying by eating greens you will avoid these nasty’s, but they may go a long way towards preventing them.

I might add a very good friend was diagnosed with one of the gender specific cancers. One of the treatments that were suggested to her was to eat lots of greens. This put the cancer into remission and we look forward to hearing from her next checkup. Follows is a link to many of the wonderful attributes of greens.

 http://www2.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/FCS3/FCS3567/FCS3567.pdf  

One can eat greens raw or cooked.  Deb says whenever a recipe calls for greens, she will use what green she has on hand. Each green has just a little different taste and can change a recipe just by changing the green.

Something we have done is to dehydrate greens and add them to any recipe. In a crumbled up state you get the goodness but not necessarily the look of greens in a food dish.

Also for lots of wonderful green recipes, check out the Chard Cornicles on facebook. 

 

Besides if you are serious about local produce, greens are a very good choice. As noted above how I grow greens, they are quite different from other winter veggies that I grow. Carrots, onions, kohlrabi, beets, parsnips… you have to grow a whole new plant to get a harvest. This can be difficult during the colder parts of the winter, but greens will keep producing all winter long.

And leave the oranges on the rack and eat yourself a bunch of greens. Your health will thank you for it!!!

What a wonderful rain this week. As of Wednesday afternoon we had received 2.4 inches with a yearly total of 14.9 inches. Just about average. Nice and slow so a real soaker although I did notice a little overland flow but nothing like a cloud burst rainstorm.

Summer vegies are fading real quickly now, what with the cooling and lower light levels.  It is only 5 months until I replant them for next year.

Greens are coming on (Asian, chard, kale, broccoli raab) Kohlrabi are continuing to bulb, maybe a small harvest of spinach next week.  After a few complications with the boc choy, I should be transplanting soon. My peas are up for over wintering and an early spring harvest.  Things are looking pretty good. Oh and one last note, the sweet harvest is done and poundage was pretty good considering 2 beds had RKN. Final tally of 531 pounds so we should have sweets for awhile.

I can be reached at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com

November 3, 2014 potential frost / freeze

Hate to admit it but it looks like the season is about to change. This wind and clowd cover are ushering in a cold front. Wednesday nights low is predicted to be 35 and depending how calm we are we could have a good freeze. Thursday night is 41. Precaution is needed for freeze sensitive plants.     Good luck mark