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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