What did you do this winter?

Well, instead of allowing ourselves to sit around with the winter blues, we kept ourselves very busy around the farm. Not only is winter our time to fix everything that we didn’t have time for over the summer, it is also time for us to relax and enjoy the hard work that we have done all summer to get to this point.

We get to reflect on the past season, being thankful that we have worked so hard towards living a sustainable lifestyle. Meaning, we are not as reliant on other people to provide to us, even in the winter. We have been able to learn more by our experience each year. Winter is our time to read lots of farm books and keep up on the all the new things that are going on in farming.
We have found that a lot of the theories are modifications of what things used to be like back in the day, but with modern use of chemicals and genetic engineering, we steered away from that for a little bit. I mean if you think about how farmers used to live; the way they treated their animals humanely, they grew things that naturally belonged in their respective seasons, they didn’t use chemicals, they supplemented the soil, and they preserved their harvest. It just all really makes sense that we are getting back to those roots. We like to think that we are bridging the gap between generations and just learning how our grandparents or great-grandparents would have lived off the land.

People may think that we are crazy putting in all this hard work to living our lives this way, but it really is worth it. We spend all winter chopping wood since we heat our house with a wood burning stove. It is just nice when the gas bill costs close to nothing. In the summer I do a lot of canning and preserving the harvest, which gives us lots of things to eat through the winter that we produced. It is much better than any store bought goods in the wintertime too!

We raised pigs last fall, so we had our own pork to eat over the winter. And, we have laying hens so we get fresh eggs for ourselves. Overall, it is hard work, but I wouldn’t have it any other way now that I know what it’s like to be more self-sufficient.

Sorry for the delay...

Unfortunately it has been a long time since we have posted things on our blog. We have actually had a lot going on recently and haven't really been able to keep up. We have, however, started our CSA so here is the first newsletter. I will try to stay up to date with this blog thing, but I'm a busy lady!

Welcome to our CSA

Here begins a relationship in which both parties will benefit and hopefully you will enjoy. We look forward to providing you with lots of yummy produce this year and introducing you to some things you may not have eaten before. Included with all the newsletters there will be a recipe of the week which will incorporate the ingredients we are giving you into your meal plan for the week.
I, Gretel, am the one writing the newsletters and am always up for new ideas. Whether it is recipes, or things you want to learn about the farm, I will write what you want to hear. But, this week I will begin with just a little bit about our farm to introduce you to the things we do.
We grow everything organically, but are not certified, so that’s where the term “all natural” comes from. This means we use no chemicals at all so you can feel good about what you are putting on the table for your family to eat. So, if you see little holes from bugs, we try to hand pick them all off in the field, but as you can imagine it is sort of difficult to get every single one.
This CSA will give you the opportunity to experience produce based on seasonality and with it being local too, you will be guaranteed the freshness of the products. So enjoy the salad greens while you have them because with the weather as hot as it has been lately, it doesn’t seem like they are going to last much longer.
For now, we just want to say thank you for joining in on this journey with us. If you would like to come out and see the farm, you are more than welcome to do so. Just give us a call and we will work out a time convenient for you. And remember, you are what you eat, so make sure that’s a good thing!


This week’s package includes:

1. Spring Lettuce Mix- we try to get all the extra moisture out, but if you see some collecting, just add a paper towel to your bag
2. Carrots
3. Radishes
4. Broccoli
5. Dill- if you don’t eat it all fresh, just hang it upside down to dry. Make sure to put it into an airtight jar after dry to keep from over drying. You can use this method for any herbs you get from us too!

Recipe of the Week

Veggie Cream Cheese

2 radishes
3 carrots
1 full scallion or ¼ of an onion
about 1 tsp garlic powder
sprig or two of dill, finely chopped
1 bar cream cheese, softened (I usually just leave my cream cheese sitting out of the fridge for about an hour before making this. Or if you are in a hurry you can microwave it on low in 15 second increments until softened, just make sure not to melt it.)

Cut the veggies up to a manageable size for your food processor. Place the radish, carrot and onion mixture into a large bowl, then add the garlic powder. Scrunch the dill into a little ball and run your knife through it many times, then chop away. You don’t really want large chunks of dill in your cream cheese, so make sure you get it good, then add it to your mixing bowl. Toss that all together before adding your softened cream cheese. Using a rubber spatula to mix is easiest. Don’t miss any of the good stuff!

You can use this cream cheese on your bagels, but it also makes a great spread for a BLT or an egg sandwich! It’s quick, it’s easy, and it tastes great too!


Thank you for your support,
Gretel and Steve

Field trip #2

The same kids came back for more of a beating :) No really they came back to volunteer on the farm again and we actually have them for one more week so next week there will be more pictures. This week we built a pizza oven of cob. This is kind of like adobe, except you mix straw in with it as well. It is a fun process, but it was kind of cold for them to want to mix clay and sand with their feet. We had a few kids help us do the stomping on the clay to mix it, but all helped build the actual oven. Next week we will be cooking some pizza in it to reward them for their hard work.

Field trip!

We had a school come out to the farm for our first field trip. Here you can see the kids helping us spread out compost. Later we laid down drip tape and plastic mulch so that Steve and I can plant tomatoes later. They were a great help! What we got done would have taken Steve and I a lot longer to do, but with an extra 15 people helping, it went very quickly! These kids didn't even want gloves and they were all about it... I love watching other people get dirty!

Wow it's been a long time

As spring draws nearer, we have more to talk about around the farm. We have been keeping pretty busy this winter with me (Gretel) working and going to school and Steve trying to make the farm as profitable this winter. These duckies are our new adventure this year. We liked the pigs so much and the meat was better than any other pork that I have ever eaten, that we decided to do another kind of meat this year too. They are really cute, so we will see how it goes since we will have to be the one processing the meat. I've been trying to work on disconnecting myself from them so I'm not too attached and they are kind of spastic so that helps too.

seed starting

This year we are really trying to push the envelope a little more, after what I would call a successful season of growing during the winter. We have been starting snapdragons since Jan. and have also been doing a lot of Delphiniums as well. All of our seeds are started in the basement under 4 foot fluorescent, after they get so big then we plan to move them out into our small heated greenhouse to continue growing. The problem is we have yet to finish the greenhouse so I'm not sure what we are going to do yet. It will all work out. We also started 2000 artichokes plants.

We are getting ready to start our seeds for the plants we intend on selling as veggie starts, it's a part of our farm that I enjoy, because it encourages others to grow there own food as well as buying from local growers. After those are started it will be time for all our cut flowers, our own garden and for the csa garden. We are really excited about our plans this year for our garden and for our csa garden. In the past years it was all mixed together, which was okay, it just didn't have a lot of harmony. This year we are planning on keeping our garden and the csa garden together and using everything we have learned about spin farming to prove that we can feed 5-10 families on a small garden. I'm very excited about this. It has been such a long time since I have done a small garden for just food.

My second garden ( my personal favorite) was small and really well maintained, this one will not be as small, but it will be kept in order like with small gardens. During that garden is when I discovered that I really enjoy growing food. I am a big believer in food being the staple that keeps families rediscovering communication, by growing, cooking, and eating the veggies that they work so hard together to produce. That is why I can't give up growing veggies on our cut flower farm. It doesn't make a lot of sense on our books, it's not that the veggies don't sell, it's that the flowers sell so well. We will always grow veggies, not just for our selves, but for our community as well. That is very important to us, I always wanted to be able to help different groups of people, but never had the tools to do so, growing fresh, organic food gives me those tools to provide to not only a certain group, but to my community. And, that can be the Berwick folks, the 3 creeks people, or the city of Columbus. We are very lucky to be doing this for a real job. I appreciate everything that I have, even if it is cheap and brakes all the time, no really all the time.

Thank you

winter harvest on feb. 10

Yesterday was a day of harvesting spinach and carrots, Gretel and I harvested 30 lbs. of carrots and 30 lbs. of spinach. That was a lot of fun for us, we have missed being able to play in the dirt for a while with these big snows we have been having here. I took us about a hour to harvest all that spinach, Gretel was moving like a well greased machine, I have never seen her so focused on the task at hand, hopefully that's what we will be like come summer time. The hardest part of the whole harvest was washing everything. We don't have a heated out building, so it make sticking your hands in cold water over, and over, quite awful. But, that's the trade off, sure it's fun playing in the dirt, planting, weeding(not really), adding compost (my personal favorite), tilling, but then it comes to the washing and well its not my favorite. It all works out, and I love it. Check out our stuff this week, we sold to the Greener Grocer and to Black Creek Bistro, both are great businesses and wonderful supporters of local food