Tours, Turnips, and Cow Kisses

This week I got to plant the potatoes I'd cut up on my last visit.  The plan was to plant all 350 pounds of them, but you know what they say about the best laid plans.  Ben and I managed to get the 100 pounds of Red Pontiacs into the ground.  Ordinarily, the pieces would get buried about 2" deep and dug up at harvest.  John and Ben experimented last year with covering the pieces with rolled out straw bales.  It made harvest time much easier, since all they had to do was reroll the bales and pick up the potatoes.  The experiment was deemed successful, and is being repeated.

John gave me an edible tour of the garden, pointing out what's emerging, what's being choked out by weeds that never died over the winter (we never got a freeze here), and what he planted as an experiment in past years.  As we walked around, he plucked various leaves for me to taste.  It is, by far, the best way to tour a garden.  There was lovage that tasted like celery, and salad burnet that tasted like cucumbers.  My mind immediately went to thoughts of a Greek-style pesto.  Since the plan is for the farm to get an inspectable kitchen for pestos and salsas, those thoughts may come to fruition at some point.  My favourite salad snacks of the day were sorrel, which was refreshingly lemony, and African Blue Basil.  I could have munched on the sorrel all day, and I desperately wanted to make a bouquet of the basil to carry around with me at all times.

It was intense and yet mellow, soothing and yet stimulating.  It flowers constantly at this time of year.  Unlike other basils, it doesn't go to seed or die back, so it can only be reproduced by cutting.

Another thing that had gone to flower over the winter was baby turnips.  When they flower, they're done growing, so these had to be harvested.

Normally, they would grow more quickly and develop bigger roots before being picked, but the weather's been quite unusual lately, so these are quite small.

I got to prep several buckets full of them to go to Bistro Bethem, where chef/owner Blake Bethem is apparently quite fond of them.  Sophie came by for a little quality control inspection.

After giving me her approval, she returned to the heated mat in the greenhouse that was keeping her warm on an chilly morning.

After I finished with the turnips, I went to check on the greenhouse.  I can't stop fretting like a mother hen over every little seed I've planted.  I inspect each flat and wonder why some have sprouted but others have not, and marvel over how much they've grown since the previous week.  It was fascinating to see how basil and zucchini that were planted on the same day have both sprouted, but to vastly different degrees.

The basil in the foreground is less than an inch high and is completely dwarfed by the neighbouring zucchini.  More peppers have started appearing, but they're still quite small because of their winter growth.  This habanero wasn't even as big as my thumbnail.

On my way over to the dairy pastures, I spotted this little figure.

He had been completely hidden by crazy weeds on my previous visits, or maybe I just wasn't yet ready to make his acquaintance.  Having been introduced, I went on to see the cattle.  There were lots of calves who observed me from a short distance while I became friends with #485.  (No, they don't have names.  John jokes that the males should all be named Brisket, as there is no use for them on a dairy farm.)  She sniffed me a bit before kissing my hands and arms, with a quick little peck on the cheek.  If you've never been kissed by a cow, you're really missing out on one of life's sweetest little treasures.

Potatoes. Why Did It Have To Be Potatoes?

My task this week was to cut 350 pounds of seed potatoes up for planting.  John has been kind enough to give me tasks that take my bad back into account, so I was comfortably situated at a rescued restaurant counter.  Even so, being confronted with all those potatoes gave me flashbacks to every soup kitchen I ever worked in.  "Hey, new girl, start peeling that pile of potatoes.  We'll tell you when you're finished."  At least this time, I didn't have to peel them.

Seed potatoes look just like the regular potatoes you get at the store.  A lot of people throw out their potatoes when the eyes sprout.  Next time yours look like this, cut them up so there's an eye on each piece and plant them.

After about 5 hours of work with a pocketknife, I was done.  Finally.  This is what 350 pounds of potatoes looks like.

After all that cutting, it was time to visit the greenhouse.  I didn't take any pictures last week, but there wasn't much to see.  All the gazillion dozens of tomato seeds I'd planted had yet to sprout, leaving me fretting that I had done something wrong.  I was quite relived to see them growing quite happily this week.

Last week, I planted a more varieties of tomatoes than I could count.  Most of them were seeds John got from trading online with other growers.  (Check out Tomatoville if you want in on the action.)  All told, he estimates there are more than 40 varieties working their way through the dirt and into the sun.  He's also growing more than 100 varieties of peppers.  (Traders should go to ChiliGrower or The Hot Pepper.)  They're not producing much yet, but some of the winter ones have struggled valiantly and managed to produce some tiny peppers.  Here's a Cleo's Dragon Habanero, your requisite pepper porn for the week.

That little beauty is about the size of the tip of my thumb.  John described it as very sweet up front, but then building to a very surprisingly hot level in the finish.

Out in the field, I met Ben.  He's worked for John for the past few seasons.  He spent the day busily weed whacking down the overwintered patches of greens to make way for new plantings.  There's already a nice bed of lettuces growing.

Some of the overwintered greens are still worth something before they're whacked into oblivion.  This patch of brassica and arugula has gone to blossom.  Since the blossoms are both beautiful and edible, don't be surprised if you see them garnishing your plate at Bistro Bethem.

Ben was also sorting through some hops seedlings that had overwintered.  Not all of them will make it, but there was enough to make a good start.  Eventually they'll be trellised along some teepee-shaped chains so they can stretch themselves to the sun.  Hops are beautiful when they're flowering, so I can't wait to see them grow.

Those are all Cascade, but there will be Centennial and Crystal as well.

All of this activity was, of course, supervised by the farm's manager, Sophie.  She was feeling quite lazy this week, but managed to plant herself in the middle of all the activity with a great vantage point to our hard work.  She really understands the fundamentals of good management.

Speaking of great vantage points, this was my view for the day.

The farm has over 500 cattle.  The dairy ones, like these, are Holsteins.

The meat ones are primarily Angus, with some Hereford blood mixed in.  Thirty years ago, there were about 100 dairy farms in Spotsylvania County.  Today, there are just 4.  The milk was once processed here in Fredericksburg, 26 miles from the farm.  Later, it had to go to Charlottesville, about twice as far.  Now, it has to go all the way to Norfolk, more than 150 miles away.  There, it gets mixed in with milk from all over the place and processed.  As much as I try to buy local, I've discovered there's really no such thing as local milk around here.  (There is, but it's totally illegal to buy it, and the government gets downright cranky about it.)  I have yet to see John mention the dairy side of the farm without hearing, "the dairy industry is ridiculously over-regulated."  I'm still learning the full extent of what that means.  But don't worry--you'll be learning it right along with me.