Eggs and Wood for the Holidays!

We are nearing the end of 2010 and we are so thankful to all of our customers for helping make this a wonderful first year. 

Even though the fields are covered with snow, we still have some farm goodies to help with the holidays. 

Eggs - $3

Cooking up a storm this week? Get some farm fresh eggs for all of your baking and Christmas breakfast needs. 
We will be increasing the price next season, so take advantage of the lower price while it lasts!

Wood Bundles - $5

We have bundles of wood ready to keep you warm. Each bundle is a bit larger than the ones they sell at the grocery store and includes a fire starter. 

Both the eggs and wood can be picked up this week at our house in Blawnox through Dec. 23. We are available during the day and evening, just shoot us an email or give us a call at 724-954-3238 to schedule a pick up time.

From our family to yours, we hope you everyone has a safe and happy holiday season!

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Winter To-Do List

These are in general order (and as a reminder, we GROW in Kittanning but we LIVE in Pittsburgh,PA):

1. Finish getting nursery ready (the one for the human baby, not the plant babies)

2. Remodel kitchen and install a dishwasher.  (you have no effing idea how critical your dishwasher is to your sanity until you've lived w/out one, unless you mostly eat fast-food but then you wouldn't be reading this site if you did)

3. Organize basement of Pittsburgh house to better support Market stand support operations once the gear for the kitchen remodel is out of there.

4. Support Kristie through baby delivery and first weeks of having baby in house.

5. Set up New Improved Serenity Valley Farm website (that will include online store and heirloom PA Proven seed sales) and FaceBook pages.

6. Research How to Care For and Raise Livestock as we hope to buy a few cattle this spring to keep the unused pastures mowed.

7. Build/buy 1-2 green/hoop houses to support seed starting operations and season extension.

8. Research/install multi-strand electric fencing to deter the massive amount of critter damage our beds are under.

So's it's looking like I'm gonna hafta strap on the "One-Legged-Man-->Ass Kicking Contest" hat and get busy.

How hard could it be?

Check back every so often and I'll let you know.

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CLOSED FOR THE SEASON!!

We wanted to thank every one for a GREAT first season!  We didn't even plan on selling this year but things went well enough that we had enough to provide for the community.  Thanks again for the warm welcome and we look forward to seeing all our customers again this next spring.  COME GROW WITH US!!

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FINAL WEEKLY FARM STAND THIS SATURDAY!

Welp, we've decided to call the ball and have chosen THIS Saturday (16OCT10) as our final market-stand for the 2010 season.  Come by, say hi, and sign up for our winter newsletter so you can find out when we are gonna hold our first stand for the 2011 season next spring. We want to thank all the wonderful people we've met this year and look forward to seeing y'all next year as you come grow with us!  But keep checking in on the blog cause as winter approaches, I'll have lots more time to get blog posts up where you'll be able to see the improvements we are making for 2011.  I'll give you a hint, it involves livestock, and build-it urself greenhouses.

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Homemade Yeast in Western PA

I planted buckwheat this year because I'd heard it was really easy to grow in virgin soils (it is) and it was a prolific producer of grain that could be turned into flour for use in breads and pancakes.  I thought it'd be cool to be able to make bread using flour that you had grown yourself.  For the ultimate in do-it-yourselfdom I wondered if it was possible to make your own yeast, that way you could make bread that was sourced entirely from stuff you made.  I remember looking up 'homemade yeast' on the interwebs and finding some pages that talked about the white powdery stuff on the stems of wild raspberry being a wild yeast and how you could take a stem of that and stick it in a bowl of flour and water and a 'yeast starter' could be made that way.  That sounded a little weird to me and I kinna stopped reading about it at that point.  Then we heard a bit about baking bread with homemade yeast on the Splendid Table podcast and it sounded super-cool.  Here's a link to that site which does an awesome job laying out how to make your own yeast, step-by-step.

http://splendidtable.publicradio.org/listings/101002/lost-art-of-bread.shtml

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Garlic has arrived.

So, October is the time for the planting of the garlic bulbs.  You want to give them about 4-6 weeks in the ground before the first good frost and in Western PA, that's about..... NOW. So, thinking I was slick, a few months ago, I ordered A WHOLE POUND of Organic Heirloom Garlic Bulbs from High Mowing Organics and planned to do my exponential grow thing to that WHOLE POUND of garlic, (which it turns out is only like 4 bulbs, each of which contain 7-10 cloves, and it's those cloves that you individually plant and they become the new bulbs which you then harvest, separate, and re-plant etc..) where I plant all whopping 28-40 cloves this year, harvest approx. 25 bulbs (or 175 cloves) next year and re-plant those and some time around the year 2020 I have enough tasty heirloom garlic to sell to our loyal customers.

Sat down, did some brainstorming as to how I could reduce the time until I had marketable garlic, and the two winning ideas were #1. try and order more garlic online line and get it planted as soon as it gets here and hope there's enough time and/or #2. hijack one of them garlic freighters carrying garlic from China to here and sell it here.  Both ideas had their own specific problems, #1 for instance, turns out there is/was a massive run on heirloom garlic bulbs this year and all of my normal suppliers were wiped and #2's problem was my ship boarding skills are a little rusty and my helicopter is in the shop.
Decided to go with idea #1 and adapted and overcame its problem set by using this new technological innovation called "The Google" to find new untouched garlic suppliers.  Now, assuming the site I ordered from was not a hastily designed shell site for a "let us exploit the small farmers who failed to initially order enough garlic by stealing their online sale info whilst making them think they are slick ordering garlic in October" scam I should be golden.

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No Farm Stand This Weekend 09OCT2010

So, given that we are approx. 9" low on rainfall across the state, the fall crops that we planted back in August are languishing a bit.  As a result of this stunted growth we've decided to take this week off from the farm stand and give the crops a little time to digest this rain we've been getting.  We should be back on 16OCT10 at the Veteran's Memorial location at Freeport Rd. and North Ave. with a bunch of fresh spinach, lettuce, beets, carrots, fennel, pumpkins and squash.  See you then!

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PePe Le Peeeew

So earlier in the season we were having issues with what I thought was a bandit groundhog taking a single bite out of each of my eggplant.  So I got one of those live traps (seen in the very left of the above pic) and put it in the lower field in hopes of catching him so's I could relocate him,  I'd placed the trap about 2 months ago, baited it with a fresh red bell pepper and left it.  Nothing ever happened with it and I'd kinna forgotten about it.  Yesterday, while out spreading some Milky Spore to combat the Japanese Beetle, Dora (the Dog) comes trotting up and a wave of skunk scent hit me.  Dora knew she'd been hit by a stink bomb as she has a pretty sensitive sniffer. She was rolling her nose and head around on the ground going 'oh god oh god get it off! get it off!'.  Once she'd determined that I couldn't magically make the horrible smell go away she went off to go seek relief elsewhere.  I kept doing what I was doing and made a mental note to look up skunk remedies before I let her in the truck again.  As I got down to the lower part of the field my eye caught movement from the trap and after my mini-heart attack I saw it was the skunk in the trap.  I went back to the barn, got some telescoping poles and let the little dude go free.  He was pretty hungry and went straight to looking for food as he worked his way back to the woods.

Here's a link to the article that saved the skunks life, cuz I had the .22 with me in case the results from my search of "What do skunks eat" was "primarily they eat garden crops planted by human males whose name begins with B" but, as it turns out, they eat mostly grubs and bugs and rodents so :  Skunks are okay for crops, most of the time.

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WE'RE SMALL TIME NOW!!!

So our little local paper did a story on us!  Check it out.  In there you'll see mentioned some topics that I'll expand upon once the growing season winds down and I have more time to type.

Here's the link:
http://www.yourfoxchapel.com/herald/article/farm-stand-brings-fresh-produce-blawnox-nearby-residents

As for tomorrow's farm stand, we're at the Blawnox Community Field and new this week we have Baby Bok Choi, Butternut Squash, and bundles of firewood in bigger and cheaper bundles than you'll get at Giant Eagle AND it comes with a fire-starter block (not sure if the GE ones do that or not.)

See you tomorrow!

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Planting Winter Cover Crops in Western PA

So, it's apparently about that time.  Once a bed is finished for the growing season the least ideal thing for you to do is to put it to bed for the winter with bare un-rejuvenated soil.  That's why you hear growers talk about cover crops.  Cover cropping is basically where you take a bed that is resting and grow something on it that serves a purpose whether it is erosion control, weed suppression or adding nutrients to the soil.  We chosen to use a "Hairy Vetch/Rye" combo this year on the farm with our beds that are coming out of summer production.  Technically we're in the last few days that this mix can be planted as it needs a certain amount of time to establish vegetative growth in the fall before it goes dormant during the winter and explodes back into growth in the early spring while the fields are still too wet and cold to be worked for other crops.  It's then that you till that vegetative growth into the soil as green manure or just roll it down as a weed suppressing mulch.  Here's a link to the guys at Rodale who did a really great write up on it.  (Almost) never too late to plant hairy vetch.

Photo from Rodale Institute

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Saving Watermelon Seeds

If you are among those lucky enough to have purchased one of our Moon and Stars melons, you may be wondering what to do after the deliciousness? Well, aside from coming out and buying another Orb of Tastiness next Saturday at our stand (we'll be down at the Blawnox Community Field, next to the high rise from 9AM-1PM) you can save the seeds from your Tasty-Session and plant them next May/June and grow your own melon vines.
As you eat the melons, spit the seeds into a cup, when done, pour the seeds into a stainless steel strainer and swirl them around under running water with your finger.  Once they're cleaned off pour them into a cup and fill with water, remove any seeds that float to the top then pour them back into the strainer.  Shake/swirl to remove as much moisture as possible then dump them out onto a piece of wax paper and leave them in a dry room with good air circulation.  Give them a stir with your finger twice a day for week and then when they are dry enough to snap in two when bent, go ahead and put them into a paper envelope and store in a cool dry area till middle of next spring and you can grow your own tastiness!  Refer back to this post where you can find a link to the seed company where we got ours from.

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Blawnox Farm Stand: 04SEP10

We'll be located at the War Memorial tomorrow 9AM to 1PM at the corner of Freeport Rd. and North Ave..

New this week will be the premier of the Moon and Stars Melon

Some red and green Thai Chili peppers that will weld your face shut they are so hot.

And the normal goodness we usually have.

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This coming Saturday's Market: Sept. 4th. WaterMelonMania

Gonna have a theoretical ton of watermelons for sale this Saturday.  I say theoretical cuz it's gonna be 90+ degrees all week without any rain.  I understand that my chances as well as the watermelon's chances of surviving the week are...limited.  Hope to see you Saturday!

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August 28 Market Stand

We're shaking things up folks and heading back to the Blawnox Community Field this week. We like providing access to the senior citizens that live next door who can't get up to the Freeport location. Hope to see you tomorrow from 9 a.m.-1 p.m.

Here's what we've got this week:

Red tomatoes

Yellow tomatoes

Cherry tomatoes

Large heirloom tomatoes

Green peppers

Chocolate peppers

Poblano peppers

Jalapenos

Swiss chard

Lemon, pickling, slicing cucumbers

Basil, sage, parsley, cilantro

Free-range eggs

Hardwood Charcoal

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BEEEEEHOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLDDDDD The Delish!!!!!!

I present unto you photographic evidence of the tasty treats that were offered for sale at our 21AUG2010 Farm Stand.

Kristie setting up in the morning.

L to R: Jalapeneos, CrookNeck Squash, Lemon/Dill/Slicing Cukes, Poblano/Chocolate/Green Bell Peppers

These tomatoes are change your life forever good.

Me about to put our SFMNP signs up.

We got approved to accept the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program checks! So come on out and get you some deliciousness.

Yes, they are that good.

The End.

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August 21 Market Stand

Sorry this is a little late, but if you're looking to come and get some fresh veggies we'll be at our market stand again this week. We are back to our regular location -- the corner of Freeport Road and North Avenue in Blawnox from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Hope to see you there!

Here's what we've got this week:
Red tomatoes
Yellow tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes
Large heirloom tomatoes
Green peppers
Chocolate peppers
Poblano peppers
Swiss chard
Lemon cucumbers
Radishes
Basil
Free-range eggs
Hardwood Charcoal

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So...uhh...

I haven't been  in the fields since Friday.  I'm pretty sure the weeds took the weekend off and the grass mowed itself and the self-planting seeds just went ahead and did what they are supposed to do.  Actually, I'll be happy if I get out there tomorrow and confirm that the groundhogs didn't hold Lolla-Pa-Eat-All-Brett's-Crops-Looza 2010.

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August 14 Market Stand

The market stand is back folks and we've got lots of tasty treats!

The Goods
Red and Yellow Heirloom Tomatoes
Green, Chocolate, Ancho, and Jalapeño peppers
Zucchini and Crook-neck Squash
Eggplant
Lemon Cucumbers
Carrots
Beets
Radishes
Swiss Chard
Basil, Parsley, Catnip, Sage
Homeade Hardwood Charcoal
Conventional Corn

Details

Saturday, August 14

9 a.m.-1 p.m.

Blawnox Community Park (different from previous location)

View Blawnox Community Park in a larger map

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Early Jalapeno Pepper

These suckers are 'MeltChoFaceOffHott'.  I'm from Texas and thought I was used to jalapeno peppers.  It seems the peppers I was used to were the ones that had sat on a truck from Mexico or California and thus the "heat" I thought they had was not a true representation of the power these things possess. Behold these little nukes, our Early Jalapeno Pepper.

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Ancho Poblano Peppers

Not as hot as they look (as "spicy" as a green pepper), but plenty damn tasty.  I'm pretty excited about these peppers as I love anything that can be dried and used during the long, cold winters.

These Ancho Poblano Peppers also are doing very well under black plastic.

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Pingtung Long Eggplant

You can't see it, but it's adorable.

The second type of eggplant that we are growing this year is called Pingtung Long Eggplant, a Japanese variety. The green link goes to a description (all our links here on SVF are in the green color seen above so if you see it and you want more info, click any text you see in that color).

This stuff is tough as nails (at least under black plastic) in Western PA and even though the Japanese Beetles took a swipe at it, it appears they decided to leave it alone as they are from the same country.

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Who's that there? Tasty?

OH HI!! HOW'YA DOIN?

In the category of cool-unique looking eggplant, this variety ranks up there.  Check out our

Listada de Gandia:

As we only plated about 6 of these this year, their availability will be limited to the early birds who get to our farm stand right at 0900AM but we're gonna save a few for their seeds and plant the heck out of them for next year.

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Whatd'ya mean I'm late?!?

So ummmm.... if you've got your finger on the pulse of Western PA agriculture/gardening you know that you and most everyone you know is BURIED under a mountain of cucumbers.  Except me. For my name is Johnny, Johnny Come-Lately.  Took me a few weeks past the normal planting date to realize that I had no cukes in the ground.  Welp, better late than never. These are a theoretical 2-3 weeks from setting fruit and harvest.  If I was all tricky like, I'd say I planned it this way and did it to take advantage of the warmer than usual pattern we'd been seeing and KNEW JUST KNEW that I could plant them late and harvest them long after all other producers had succumbed to powdery-mildew and other such cucumber killers.  We'll see how that works out for me.

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Yeah but can you EAT it?

So, here it is all National Farmers Market Week and what are we gonna be doing?  Setting up our farm stand for the fourth week in a row? Nope.  Heading off to a wedding in NY cuz we're crazy and that's just how we roll.  Sooooo to keep your appetites whetted for the tasty deliciousness that is SVF produce during the week that we are to be away, I finally got a camera out into the fields and snapped some pics of the fruits and veggies that will be headed to our Saturday farm stand table come 14AUG10. Check back each day for pics of a new featured crop.  Today I present to you:

Moon and Stars Melon

As the link above explained, this is an heirloom variety that is super-cool to look at.  As this is my first year growing watermelons, I am a little trigger-happy in harvesting them.  I pulled one last night and it was too young, I pulled another one today and I have a bad feeling it was too young too but rest assured I promise not to harvest any more for at least another week and by the 14th of August these babies are gonna be in the 20-30# range and are gonna be AWESOME.  Plus, as an heirloom variety, you'll be able to save the seeds and plant them next year in your own backyard gardens.

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Farm Stand Info for 31 July.

Dear valiant and discerning customers of the Serenity Valley Farm Stand,

This Saturday, 31JUL10, we will be operating in our normal location in front of the Veteran's Memorial at the corner of Freeport Rd. and North Ave. in Blawnox from 9AM-1PM. Click HERE for a map.

We will be selling our first Ancho Poblano peppers of the season so you might wanna dig up your favorite recipe for those now, or click HERE for some repertoire expanding suggestions.

I know I said I was gonna get some pics up but I was a bit pressed for time as I had to accompany Kristie to a certain doctor's appointment that marked the end of a certain first trimester that allows us to deliver certain news that means not only are we growing crops but we are now growing future human labor to help raise those crops. That's right, Kristie is pregnant with our first!  Come say Hi! And buy some tasty treats from us this weekend!

Next weekend, 07AUG10, we will be attending a wedding so there will be no farm stand.

The FOLLOWING weekend, Sat. 14AUG10, we will be setting up at the Blawnox Community Park (click HERE for a map).

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Upcoming crops

So... it's been crazy busy between getting the farm stand off the ground and trying to beat back the continuous onslaught of weeds so I haven't been able to get a camera out into the fields to show you the deliciousness that is ripening on the vines/plants.  But stuff that is ripening includes jalapenos, eggplant, and TOMATOES!!  I don't wanna jinx anything but I think we mighta beat the blight this year.  I'll try and take some pics tomorrow.

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PA Farmers Market Nutrition Program

To better serve our community we have applied for permission to accept the Farmers Market Nutrition Program and Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program checks from the USDA and PA Department of Agriculture.  You can read about the program by clicking HERE.  We'll let you know if/when we're approved!

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Produce Available for 24JUL10 Market

So, we'll try and post this every Wednesday or Thursday to let you know what tasty and delicious treats we'll have for that Saturday's market. We'll also try to post an approximate number of units that will be available so if you just gotta have some fresh beets and you see that we'll only have 4 units available you'll know to get to the farm stand sooner rather than later.

Keep in mind these crops and figures are approximate, it's entirely possible that between the time I do the 'inventory walk' on Wed or Thur. and Friday morning's harvest time that all of crop such-and-such could be wiped out by a roving horde of groundhog-deer-hail-rabbit-monsters.

Update (7/23/10): We figured out we were pretty off with our units, so we're just going to include the list. 

Crops 

Green Beans
Dill
Lettuce
Rainbow Chard
Carrots
Flat Parsley
Raddishes
Basil
Lime Basil
JALAPENOS
Raspberries

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How to store fresh basil

Sooo, we're selling fresh basil this month and one of the challenges of market farmers is knowing all the different quirks and requirements for keeping individual types of produce the freshest and best looking. Some crops are best harvested as early in the morning as possible (unless on the cusp of a cold-front) like lettuce, some are best harvested after the morning dew/dampness has dried off (beans). Some plants, once harvested, prefer cold damp storage conditions and some, like basil, do not.  Here's a great Chowhound discussion on how best to keep your tasty and delicious Serenity Valley Farm Lime-Basil fresh for the longest amount of time.

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Serenity Valley Farm Farm Stand

We had our first farm stand today at the corner of Freeport road and North Avenue in the borough of Blawnox in Pittsburgh, PA. We'd like to give a great big thank you to the warm welcome we received from the people of Blawnox. As residents, we look forward to bringing fresh, nutritious, organic produce to the neighborhood for many years to come. If you'd like to come say 'Hi!' and partake in the tastiness, we'll be at the Veteran's Memorial  at Freeport Rd. and North Ave. in Blawnox on the 1st, 3rd, and 4th Saturday of every month from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. On the 2nd Saturday of each month we will set up at the Blawnox Community Center providing easier access to the highrise residents. For the most current information including available produce, check back regularly or call 724-954-3238.

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Rain Glorious Rain

3" before I left for home today.  We needed it.

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Kubota B2920 Starting Issues...

Pro-Tips: Tractor Maintenance #243

So, those of you out there who ALSO own Kubota B2920 HST tractors (hereafter known as the FarmAssaultVehicle-29 or FAV-29) may one day come upon a situation where you can't get your tractor to start after you've been operating it in some 'challenging' conditions.  Seems that one can get enough dust on the hydraulic arms that return the HST 'Forward-Reverse Pedal' back to neutral thus preventing the pedal from cleanly reaching the 'rest/neutral/stop position'.  If the pedal isn't perfectly in the neutral position, when you try to re-start the engine, it won't work as that is a "safety" check (you can't start the engine is the pedal is depressed in either direction) that the engine checks on before it allows the starter to turn over.  So, if you find yourself with a Kubota B2920 that won't start and you can't figure out why, try putting the key in the ignition, heating the coils, then turning the key to start it as you normally would except at the point the engine would normally try and turn over, rock the "HST go-reverse" pedal back and forth till the engine turns over.  Worked for me and saved me having to have the B2920 shipped back to the dealer for warranty work.

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How Hot is it?

My CamelBak holds 100 oz. I drank two of them today.  That's 12.5 lbs. of water.  My weight is the same as when I got up this morning.  I wonder how much salt it takes to push 12.5 lbs. of sweat in a 6 hour period.  Dunno but I'm gonna go suck on some rock salt till it doesn't taste good any more.

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More Planting

Finally completed the Three-Sisters (Corn, beans, and squash) planting and got some slicing and pickling cukes in under the black plastic mulch.  Still have buckwheat and black beans to get planted once we get a little bit of a dry spell.

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Pro-Tips: Harvesting Tip #363,

So, our Ryobi Xpand-It curved shaft weed trimmer failed back in the beginning of June.  Being the cheap ass that I am I was trying to score a used one on CraigsList fo' cheap.  Being the even cheaper-ass I was waiting for one for sale that was within 20 minutes of driving time.  Fast-forward 3 weeks, do you know what weeds growing along side garden beds can do if left unchecked for 3 weeks?  It was starting to get a bit out of control so I broke down and joined Consumer Reports, read that the Echo series of weed trimmers was supposed to be pretty sweet and went out and got the Echo SRM-230. The thing is a friggin hoss.  Given that weed trimming/weed control is about my least favorite task on the farm, it made sense to get the proper tool for the job.  In the few days we've had it I can tell you that there is a reason you see Echo straight shaft trimmers on the sides of landscaping trucks and not other silly brands.  What I will tell you is that it is not the best of ideas to weed eat along side of beds you plan on harvesting from the following day unless you wanna spend the time and water to wash the shredded grasses out of the folds of your lettuces and other veggies, ask me how I know.

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Cool Pics of Sugar Snap Peas

Here are some pics of the peas that are planted along side the oats.  The recent cold snap we had at the start of June sent them into production, not sure how much longer they'll last as we head into mid-June.  But plowing them under when they and the oats are done should make for some pretty sweet soil for any follow on crops.

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Dill and Cilantro

So, even though Cilantro was a pain in the ass to grow in Texas because it was too hot, I've had some success getting them started here in PA.  What I don't know, is how long the weather can keep them from bolting.  Given that the strain is an heirloom, I can select for late bolting (bolting is where the plant rapidly moves from the vegetative to the flowering state) but we do love some cilantro and dill.  The dill will be awesomes for canning later on.

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Rainbow Chard iz Pretty

So, back in Texas I grew a bunch of Swiss Chard and the stuff was a battle tank, very easy to grow and you could pick leaves off it all season long.  I saw other people growing the Rainbow variety and was a bit jealous cuz their stuff was so much prettier than the Swiss stuff.  So when I got up here to PA I decided to give the Rainbow variety a shot.  It's turned out well.  The stuff is not only a tasty treat but you can take the especially colorful stalks and put them in a flower glass and enjoy the colors.

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