We were blessed all over today. (I said that last year on Labor Day, too.) Phil and I had talked through which of the 21 farms might be the best to visit, and so we piled into the car at 8:15 (waking three boys to leave) and headed out.
I was most interested to visit an elderberry farm a couple of hours north of here. Brightwood Farm and Vineyard had some organic grapes (a challenge!), and a planting of elderberries. So helpful to hear what they do. When the plants blossom, they clip all blossoms from the waist down. If they left the blossoms to fruit, the fruit would just droop into the dirt, and that would be unpleasant. By taking flowers, they make elder flower wine and elder flower jam. Then the fruit ripens, and they cut off the entire fruit clump, put it in garbage bags, and put it in the freezer. That helps destem; then, when the weather is freezing in the winter, they winnow in front of fans to help get rid of the rest of the stems.
To keep the elders reasonably sized, after harvest is done, they prune to shoulder height. (They did have some European elders that are probably 15' tall, and must be harvested on ladders.)
Propagation: easy. They take cuttings from the plants and stick them in dirt. Many of the cuttings take root. (Can you believe that? No rooting hormone! No special treatment! Stick 20 twigs in a pot of dirt in the greenhouse, keep it watered, and call it good.)
They do have driptape running along the base, but I was impressed that they have grass growing right up to the plants themselves. Unlike blueberries, with their finicky roots. And there is little needed by way of support: a T-post every 20', with some twine about chest height, needed just during fruiting.
I liked that they planted some along the driveway. Why not? Use those little spaces.
There were Tunis sheep. I am sort of like, "Sheep, meh," but these sheep, no kidding, came up to us. We petted the sheep! That is crazy. Our sheep would never come up for a little loving.
The boys loved the three donkeys. They were talkative girls, but very sweet, too.
And there were ducks. Isaiah was over the moon: he just loves ducks.
At the end, I tasted seven of the house wines: three elderberry, two elderflower (which were totally, totally different), a pear and a peach. And the boys had a little jam tasting. I really liked the elder flower jelly, and the elderberry jam had a rich flavor.
It was like a full vacation in an hour.
We next stopped at The Orchid Station. I was the only one there then, so I got a private tour of the 8000 square feet of orchid growing. All I knew about orchids before arriving is that they are expensive flowers that are for sale in Whole Foods sometimes.
Now I know a lot! Purchase adult clones from China, so you know what the color will be and so that it won't take three to five years before the flower buds form (three to five years!). Pot on, and hold at the ideal temperature, around 55 to 85, I think. That means lots of heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer.
Water by hand for at least six hours a week. (Eight thousand square feet, growing 4" plants: that's a LOT of watering.) And drive 1000 miles in a weekend to deliver the plants.
A beautiful greenhouse, filled with flowering plants that will last two to six months. A farm dedicated to doing one thing really well.
I loved this one. The boys stayed in the car, until the very end when I gave them an abbreviated tour.
One of the most clever things in greenhouse was the movable tables. There were some sturdy wooden tables, covered in hardware cloth. But one section had metal tables, with rollers. An entire section moves, creating the walkway. As the owner said, it's like having an extra row of tables in the same space. Brilliant.
We then headed to a permaculture small farm. What a restful feel. There was a medlar tree, with its fruit with a turned out bottom. Since none of my medlar seeds sprouted, it was fun to see.
There were a few jujubes, gojis, a mulberry, willows. And a fungal jungle, a mushroom array. There were vertical mushroom logs.
Horizontal mushroom logs.
Mushroom logs on the ground.
And fruiting mushroom logs.
And there was a hammock. The boys had a great time in the hammock. All four of them.
Jadon.
Isaiah.
Abraham.
Joe.
Right until it pulled out of the tree and tumbled them all onto the ground. That was not a happy way to end the visit: to tell the farmer that the hammock might look all right, but was probably not safe to sit on. The involuntary glance of irritation made me sad.
We quickly stopped by another farm. They had little to see, and the scale was greater than we would ever want to have, but I like the sequence of photos taken by the tractor. "Joe, look at the camera."
Joe decides to really NOT look at the camera, and Abraham wonders what Joe is doing.
That's just photos with children, I think.
The last farm we went to was a joy. Fairweather Farm is a one acre, one greenhouse, one young lady farm, and it was fun to see how much she had accomplished in her three years of growing. She grows mostly herbs and flowers, for teas and spice blends. I had a private tour with her Aunt Amy. We looked at the various mints, the vigorous echinacea planting, Isaiah's beloved hibiscus. We talked peonies (don't dig them, take the buds before they bloom if you want to have flowers without support) and dahlias (should be staked individually and dug each fall), celosia and lavender.
The greenhouse is used for starts and, come fall, for drying. Spread out the plants, turn on the fan, and, when mostly dry, finish off in the dehydrator. Dual purpose greenhouse.
While I talked and learned, the boys pulled potatoes with the future sister-in-law of the farmer. Isaiah found a huge one (and a small one), and was very proud.
The three younger boys all fell in love with Aunt Amy's dog Rocky.
Perhaps the best part for me was a suggestion for a new way to plant seeds. While there are aspects of the soil blocks that I have liked, I don't think I have had fabulous sprouting rates, especially this last year.
Aunt Amy sprouts her seeds in a flat, using a soilless medium (maybe Pro Mix?). She scatters the seeds on the mix, and covers them and recommended. When the seeds have sprouted to about the size of toothpicks, she puts them in a 4" pot, covers them up the stem a bit, and continues their growth.
As she said, "Little plants like to be together." It might sound odd to say that seeds might get lonely if they are each on their own little soil block, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to me. If seeds grow together in a flower, perhaps they would prefer to be seeded close together.
The other thing Amy said is that the compacted blocks might be just a bit too intensively mushed together to allow little rootlets to grow easily. Loose, friable soil works better for her. I'll try it.
I was so proud of the boys, too. The dog helped break the ice, but they were talkative and helpful. When she learned that we homeschooled, she said, "I wondered. Such well-behaved boys." When we left, Aunt Amy said, "You could be the poster family for homeschooling."
Much better to end on that encouraging note than the discouraging hammock incident.
Coming away this year, I felt like our smallholding here is not so backward. None of the farms we visited had thousands of trees, or hundreds of acres. All of them had cheerful owners and interns, willing to share experiences and advice.
Isaiah wondered if one day we could be one of the Meet Yer Eats! farms. Last year, that seemed like a pipe dream. This year, I can at least imagine it.
And that feels good.
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