Yes, we have tomatoes…finally!

Seems like it started raining for the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival the first week in May, and kept raining for another month. As a result, we were even later than usual getting the garden planted. We got through the first few farmers markets of the year with plants from the greenhouse; after that things were a little sparse for a while (garlic scapes and radishes, anyone)? Slowly, the crops have been coming in. Summer squash and cucumbers are winding down, but where, oh where, were the tomatoes? The week of the Howard County Fair at the beginning of August, we had five – count em, five – ripe tomatoes. Not enough of any one variety to enter in the fair!

Finally, in the last couple of weeks, our booth has really started looking like a farmers market should. This week, we had five varieties of heirloom slicing tomatoes (Brandywine, Yellow Brandywine, Striped German, Black Krim, Green Zebra) and one non-heirloom variety (Celebrity). One heirloom plum tomato (Debarao), the classic Italian San Marzano paste tomato, plus the ever popular bite-sized Juliet (nearly a bushel)! Although classed as a plum tomato, Juliet is also good for salads, salsas, and fresh pasta sauce, not to mention eating out of hand. Let’s not forget the cherry tomatoes: super, super sweet Sungold and the small, pear shaped Red Pear and Yellow Pear.

Hmmm, what else? A smattering of squash, cucumbers, and onions. Four kinds of potatoes (Russian Fingerling, All Blue, Yukon Gold, and Norland red potatoes). Swiss Chard. Lots of extra large green peppers, some colored bells, and two varieties of frying peppers. Ten varieties of hot peppers. Tomatillos. Several varieties of eggplant, including the miniature "Fairy Tale". Three kinds of basil (Italian Large Leaf, Red Rubin and Fino Verde "baby" basil). Spicy Red Korean garlic. Zinnias. Did I forget anything?

If we can find some time this week to clean it, we will have our "Westminster White" garlic next week. (So called because we originally bought it at a festival over ten years ago and have no clue what the real variety is!) Right now, Greg has the chainsaw out cutting up a tree that fell on the fence in the sheep pasture, so it looks like we’re not cleaning garlic today!

Stop by and see us one Saturday morning at the farmers market!

Kris

Of Radishes and Garlic Scapes

Being a market gardener surely inspires some unusual meals. We have access to all that lovely home-grown organic produce, but what we really end up eating is damaged crops (think split tomatoes or the potato the shovel went through), or whatever’s left over at the end of the market. A few weeks ago, the only thing the garden was producing was radishes and garlic scapes. Some a.m. thunderstorms kept customers away from the market, so we had a LOT of radishes and garlic scapes leftover.

Radishes weren’t too hard to deal with. We ate them:

• Out of hand, with sea salt
• Shredded with cabbage and carrots in a "Health Salad" (we had bought a lovely organic cabbage at the market)
• Oven roasted (OK, I admit, this recipe still needs some work)

The traditional French way of eating them, by the way (especially the long breakfast radishes), is with butter and salt. I have yet to try them this way, but I did find an article about it on the Internet.

On to the scapes. If you are not familiar with garlic scapes, the scape is the flower stalk of the garlic plant. They are only available for a limited time in the spring. Since we grow a lot of garlic, we have a lot of scapes. I don’t mind, because they are yummy!

All of the following got two thumbs up from Greg:

• Roasted in the oven with olive oil and salt. (Customers tell us they are also great on the grill.)
• As garlic scape pesto (using the recipe from MaryJanesFarm).

The real winner was when I substituted scapes for asparagus in the "Sausage and Asparagus Skillet" recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks, Simply in Season. I also added some chopped fennel. Made with Evermore Farms pork sausage from the market, this was so good we’ve had it several times!

A Tale of Two Breakfasts

Many years ago, when I first heard about the concept of food miles (how far your food travels from farm to dinner plate), I realized that there was something very wrong with the food system in this country. As a market gardener, I was intimately familiar with the concept of local produce, but I hadn’t thought much beyond that. At the same time, I had just about given up eating pork products because most of the commercial pork in this country is raised in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) a.k.a. factory farms, which are generally super bad news for the environment.

My real awakening came from reading a column in Edible Chesapeake magazine called "A Tale of Two Breakfasts". Author Tom Harbold (who happens to be a regular customer at our farmers market) compared two breakfasts—his usual morning routine, versus one featuring ingredients he had purchased from local farmers. Wow, he had even been able to buy his breakfast bacon locally! Plus he had met and talked to the people that had produced his food! It made me realize that local applied to more than just produce, and gave me something to aspire to.

Fast forward to 2009. We are very fortunate to have some new meat vendors at our farmers market this year, so I finally have a source for bacon! Here was my Sunday morning breakfast today:

• Pasture raised heritage breed bacon from the farmers market (hooray!)


• Eggs from our backyard


• Two slices of sunflower/oat mini-loaf from the farmers market, spread with fresh farm butter from Trickling Springs Creamery in Chambersburg, PA (which I buy at Roots Market in Clarksville) and strawberry/rhubarb jam from the farmers market (although I will have homemade strawberry jam soon, strawberries are in season!)

Yummy (and local)!

Kris

Eating Local - What's for Dinner, May 31 2009

Have you tried emu? Emu is a high-protein, low-fat, nutrient-packed red meat, and the American Heart Association has included emu in its listing of heart-healthy meats. Our farmers market has added an emu farm to its lineup this year, so I decided to give it a try. I bought a pound of emu sandwich steaks, with an eye to doing a stir fry. I also bought some asparagus and some spring onions with nice sized pinkish-red bulbs.

I cut the green tops off the onions, and set them aside for future use. I then sliced each onion bulb in half. Next, I heated some olive oil in my large non-stick skillet, and added two cloves of garlic, sliced, from my stash. I tossed in the onions, then added the emu steaks. The thinly sliced meat cooked fairly quickly, even though it was still partially frozen. When the meat had lost most of its reddish tinge, I added the asparagus, which I had sliced on the diagonal into one inch pieces. After stirring it all around, I put on the lid and let it cook until the asparagus were tender. I finished it off with some balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper.

Sorry, no pic of tonight's meal; I was too hungry! But Greg made lots of mmmm noises as he ate, and said the dish was "awesome". We will definitely be buying more emu!

It's Farmers Market Day!

"It’s farmers market day" I chirp gaily (because it annoys my husband) when the alarm goes off at 4:30 a.m., our normal rising time during the farmers market season, which runs from the end of May through the Saturday before Thanksgiving. It just so happened that yesterday was opening day for our primary farmers market, the Downtown Westminster Farmers Market (http://www.westminsterfarmfresh.com/). The weather cooperated fully and gave us a gorgeous day. The market was abuzz with excitement as shoppers reconnected with farmer friends from past seasons and checked out the new vendors. Strings on Wings provided musical entertainment. We took loads of tomato, pepper and basil plants to the market, along with brown eggs from our laying hens, plus wool and yarn from our sheep. It will be a few more weeks before we start having produce to sell; Greg’s primary focus through the beginning of May is in the greenhouse getting plants ready for the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, so we are always late getting the garden in. The recent rainy weather hasn’t helped any either! The market is a "producer only" market, which means that everything sold is produced by the farmers selling it. When you shop at the market, you support agriculture in Carroll County and contribute to the local economy.

In addition to us, returning vendors included:
Tomatoes, Etc., Westminser, MD – Produce and plants
De La Tierra Gardens, Taneytown MD (http://delatierragardens.com/) – Certified organic produce, plants, and beautiful cut flowers
Nev-R-Dun Farms, Westminster, MD (http://www.nevrdunfarm.com/) – Certified organic produce and plants
Orchard Country Produce, Gardners, PA (http://www.orchcountry.com/) – Fruits, vegetables, baked goods, jams, jellies, dog treats
Groff’s Content Farm, Rocky Ridge, MD (http://www.groffscontentfarm.com/) – Organic grass-fed beef and lamb; natural free-range chicken and eggs; pasture raised pork

New vendors at the market yesterday included:
The Farmer’s Daughter – Whole wheat bread and yummy cinnamon rolls
For the Birds – Organic, free-trade coffee
Carlhaven Emu Farm, Westminster, MD (http://www.carlhavenemufarm.com/) – locally raised emu meat and emu oil skin care products

In future weeks, a cheesemaker (Hawk’s Hill Creamery, Street MD http://www.hawkshillcreamery.com/) and another farmer selling pasture raised meats (Evermore Farm, Westminster MD http://www.evermorefarm.com/) are expected to join the market, along with the return of Sharon’s Baked Goods (cookies, muffins and cakes). The market is open every Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to noon, and is located in the Conaway municipal parking lot on Railroad Avenue (Rt 27), 2 blocks north of Main Street.

More pictures from Opening Day are on the Thorne Farm Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=116588&id=57593701994&l=487dc9171b. Sign-up to be fan of Thorne Farm while you’re there!

Eating Local - What's for Dinner, May 25 2009

I came home from this past weekend’s Sustainable Living Fair full of inspiration for local eating, plus the ingredients for a local foods feast. I originally planned this meal for Saturday evening after the fair, but a tire blow-out on one of the trucks on the way home threw a wrench in those plans. We already had plans for Sunday with family, so the feast had to wait until today.


Here’s the menu:

Asparagus Frittata - our own eggs and asparagus from Orchard Country Produce (http://www.orchcountry.com/index.html).


Oven Roasted Potatoes with Pesto - potatoes also from Orchard Country Produce with fresh pesto made with our own basil and garlic. You may ask "Pesto at this time of year?" Well, it helps to have a greenhouse full of basil plants in need of pinching back. I was able to harvest enough tops to make a double batch. The garlic was stored from last year’s harvest.

Mixed Green Salad with Radishes and Spring Onions – lettuce, spinach and green onions from White Rose Farm (http://www.whiterosefarm.com/) and radishes from Nev-R-Dun Farm (http://www.nevrdunfarm.com/).

Limeade with local honey and homegrown mint


I had been planning on drinking a Grenache Rose from local Serpent Ridge Winery (http://www.serpentridge.com/), but ended up drinking that Saturday night after having the truck towed home (no spare and no jack, shame on us).


The non-local ingredients were olive oil, pine nuts, parmesan cheese, vinegar (but I’m working on that one), salt, pepper and of course limes. If you want to recreate this meal, all of the local ingredients will be available at the Downtown Westminster Farmers market (http://www.westminsterfarmfresh.com/), which opens this coming Saturday, May 30.


Now, off to wash the dishes…


Kris

New Arrivals

It all started with some dog toys that our foxhound, Larceny, was not interested in. Larceny was raised in a working kennel belonging to the Carrollton Hounds hunt club, and apparently had never learned how to play. Treats, yes; toys, no. Over the years we had accumulated a number of toys that she totally ignores. We thought we would see if the local humane society would accept them as a donation for use in their shelter.


While I was checking out the hours that the humane society was open, I also took a look at the stray and adoptable animals, which I do from time to time. There were three things that caught my interest – a rooster, a goat and yes, a dog, an Australian Cattle Dog mix. The rooster was up for adoption; the goat was a stray and would be coming up for adoption soon. I proposed to Greg that we take a run up to the humane society to donate the toys and check out the rooster and goat, and oh yes, while we’re there we might as well look at this dog. (Some background -- we had an Australian Cattle Dog for many years, who passed away a few years ago. Jacko was an outdoor dog who took his job of guarding the farmyard very seriously. He was definitely Greg’s dog; I could always tell what Greg was doing by looking at Jacko. He would be totally focused on whatever area of the farm Greg was working on. Even though Greg said one dog was all that would fit into our small house, I knew that he missed Jacko.)


So off to the Carroll County Humane Society we go one Saturday morning. We just missed the rooster; he had been adopted out right before we got there. The goat was still there, but one of the staff was thinking about taking her. All that was left was to look at the dogs. Chloe, who turned out to be an Australian Shepherd/Australian Cattle Dog mix, was lying quietly in her pen with her head on her paws. Unlike the other dogs that were barking and bouncing off the walls because of the visitors, no amount of coaxing could get Chloe to stand up and come to the gate. Hmmm, we thought, there must be something wrong with this dog. But the staff assured us she was very lively and loved to play fetch. It was time to get up close and personal.


They brought Chloe to meet us in the "Get to Know You" room. Chloe immediately found a ball and was ready for a game of fetch. She was eager to be petted and played with, and went right over and sat on Greg’s feet. Greg says it was love at first sight. There was just one hurdle; what would Larceny think? So home we go, to get Larceny and bring her to the humane society to meet Chloe. All four of us got together in the "Get to Know You" room, where the dogs pretty much ignored each other. Larceny wanted to eat treats and have everyone pet her, while Chloe just wanted someone to throw her a ball.


We also found out that Chloe had just come in to the shelter the previous day. I must have seen her picture on the web as soon as it was posted. It seemed like fate was at work, so we decided to go for it and brought Chloe home (along with all the toys that brought us to the humane society in the first place)! Chloe is a sweet girl and looooves to play. She also likes to ride in the car (unlike Larceny, who always looks carsick) and has now gone to the hay auction with Greg a couple of times. Although the dogs still pretty much ignore each other (obviously, neither one is an alpha), they get along well. They get walked together, and slurp water side by side from the same bowl after a particularly vigorous outing. Chloe has almost convinced Larceny to play with her, although it’s obvious Larceny has no clue what she is supposed to do.


Oh yes, the humane society called the following Monday and said we could have the goat. So we have added Clover, a little pygmy goat to our menagerie. We’re still working on the rooster.

Kris

Greenhouse Update

This was a strange year in the greenhouse. The first planting of basil seedlings developed some form of root rot and died. The germination on peppers was spotty, and the ones that did come up and got transplanted didn't grow, just stayed the same size. Too many cloudy and cool days in April, I guess. Then Greg spotted aphids on some of the peppers. Uh oh, somehow, we had forgotten to order the ladybugs which we usually release in the greenhouse as a preventative measure (ladybugs love to dine on aphids). Out came the insecticidal soap, which helped with the aphids, but scorched some of the plants (Greg sprayed them on one of the rare sunny days we had) and I hopped on the internet to place an emergency order for ladybugs. Good thing the tomatoes were fairly trouble free!

Our big plant-selling event each year is the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival on the first weekend in May. Our sales during that single weekend generally equal our entire farmers’ market season. We have repeat customers that have been buying plants from us for eight or nine years. We usually bring four truckloads of plants to the Festival; this year we only took two and for the first time did not have any peppers or basil. Add to that a damp weekend (off and on showers on Saturday and steady rain for most of the day Sunday) and it seemed to be a recipe for disaster.

In the end, although our sales were down, things could have been worse. The threat of rain on Saturday did not hold back the crowd at all; I heard that at one point they even had to close the parking lot of the Howard County Fairgrounds because it was full! We sold just about every plant we took to the Festival and came home with a total of four trays of plants. Sunday sales were slow, but that could have been because there really wasn’t much left by then as much as because of the weather.

Now that we’ve had a couple more weeks of warm weather, the peppers are finally looking great! The second planting of basil is coming along, and we’ve transplanted more tomatoes. We’ll be taking a truckload of plants to the 2nd Annual Maryland Heartland Sustainable Living Fair next weekend, Saturday, May 23 2009 from 9 am - 5 pm at the Carroll County Farm Museum in Westminster, Maryland (http://www.sustainablelivingmd.org/). Come join us if you are in the market for some sustainably grown plants for your garden!

Kris

2009 Lambing Season

Here at Thorne Farm we know that lambing time is just around the corner when Kevin Ford arrives to shear our sheep. For a number of reasons, we like to have the girls sheared before lambing starts. This year, shearing day was on Saturday, February 21. Several friends attended our shearing day open house and helped skirt fleeces. A couple of fleeces were sold to spinners "right off the sheep’s back", while another one was set aside for a customer who had reserved it after buying some of the wool at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival last year.

Once shearing is over, we sit back and await the arrival of the first lambs. The ewes are penned up in the barn each night, which makes checking for signs of labor much easier. Greg checks the barn before he goes to bed around midnight and again at 4:30 am. This year’s first arrivals were a set of twins (a ram and a ewe) born to "Silly Sarah" on the afternoon of March 12. "Lady" had twin ram lambs around 5:00 am on March 15, while "Black Louise" had a humongous 14 pound single ram lamb around bedtime on March 20. (No points for creativity here - Black Louise and her twin sister White Louise were named after their mother, Louise.) "Rosemary" had twin ewe lambs ten days later on the evening of March 31. All four ewes to lamb so far were our natural colored ewes, and all had black lambs.

Then we waited, and waited, and waited for the last two ewes to lamb – our two white ewes, "Dizzy Lizzy" and "White Louise". At the 4:30 am barn check on the morning of April 18, Greg reported that Dizzy was acting, umm, dizzy – off her feed and restless, all signs of early labor. There was a little mucousy discharge, but she never really seemed to get down to pushing. We monitored her throughout the day (I spent a couple of hours just sitting with her and watching) and eventually decided that something was not right. Time for my best James Herriot impression. What I found was a large set of tangled triplets. I pulled the first one, a white ewe lamb presented with a head and one foot forward, without too much difficulty. The second unfortunately was born dead – breech birth and stuck like a cork in a bottle. The third was presented with the head back, our least favorite presentation. By that time, I was too worn out to pull any more (imagine how Dizzy must have felt!) so Greg took over once I got the front feet out. Somehow, with a lot of heaving and ho-ing, we safely delivered a black ram lamb. When we finally got Dizzy and her two lambs tucked into their lambing pen, we realized it had been a while since we had seen White Louise. Finally located her – she had gone off to another barn all by herself and delivered a set of twin white ewe lambs!

Now the oldest lambs are just over two months old and the youngest will be a month old tomorrow. All are growing by leaps and bounds, and we are glad to have another lambing season behind us!

Kris

Makin' Do With What You Got

Make Do With What You Got is the title of a song and album by Solomon Burke, which my husband Greg got for Christmas this year. As many of you know, in January we found a larger farm that we could actually afford, just a little north of our current 4 ½ acre place. More acreage would have allowed us to do some of things we’ve wanted to do for a while – permanent beds for asparagus and strawberries, a second greenhouse, more sheep – but just didn’t have room for. A larger house wouldn’t have been bad either, especially one with some of the amenities we are lacking – a second bathroom, dishwasher and air conditioning.

In order to have the down payment and closing costs for the new farm, it was necessary to sell the existing place. We knew that would be challenge in the current economy, but approached it with the attitude that if it was meant to happen, it would happen. Well apparently, it was not meant to happen. After five months on the market with only a handful of showings, we have decided to make do with what we’ve got and have taken it back off the market.

There are actually a lot of pluses to staying here – I love my cozy little house and the way it nestles into the woods. We have lots of shade in the summer, and lots of windows that open to let in the breeze that is nature’s air conditioning. In spring, I wake to the sound of bird song, and in high summer I am lulled to sleep by the buzz of cicadas. The mortgage will be paid off in a few years, so retiring at age 55 to farm full time is not out the question. (A new 30-year mortgage would definitely have ruled that out!)

Greg is considering renting some ground from a neighbor to allow us to expand the garden and maybe make room for that second greenhouse. And instead of getting a bigger house, we’ll take a serious look at all of the stuff that fills this one (starting with everything we crammed into the two storage pods out back in order to de-clutter the house and make it presentable for showing)!

So here’s to making do with what you’ve got,

Kris

Second Sunday Spinners

Our spinning group, the Second Sunday Spinners, met today Rose Woodsmall's farm in Emmittsburg (even though this was the third Sunday in March, for anyone who's keeping track). The group originally started as a study group for the Baltimore Weaver's Guild, but has expanded to include friends and friends of friends. This month we had a large turnout, with thirteen attendees. Here's a look at all the cars parked in Rose's driveway.

There were lots of spinners, as well as a knitter and a rug hooker. I decided to use this time to brush up my digital photography skills! We had some new spinners in attendance, so Annie O. gave lessons on carding and combing wool, as well as spinning.







No two people had the same spinning wheel. Here's a look at the wheels everyone was using.

Next month, I will focus on what fibers everyone is spinning.

Kris

Gearing Up For Spring

Quiet time on the farm is over. After the relatively laid back days of December and early January, with only the routine chores of feeding the animals (apart from shopping for a new farm and putting this one on the market, but that's a story for another day), it's time to look ahead towards spring. The first thing on the agenda is the annual seed order, which we traditionally do on the Martin Luther King holiday, since Kris has that day off from work. This year, we will be starting the following plants in the greenhouse: 14 varieties of slicing tomatoes, 7 varieties of plum tomatoes, 9 varieties of cherry tomatoes, 18 varieties of hot peppers, 12 varieties of sweet peppers in assorted sizes, shapes and colors, 9 varieties of eggplant and 8 types of basil. As usual, we will be doing lots of heirloom varieties. In addition to all of the usual suspects from past years, we have added two new ones this year -- Turkish Orange eggplant and Scotch Bonnet peppers -- based on customer requests. Greg will be starting the first seeds in mid-February, and the plants will be ready to sell just in time for the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival the first full weekend in May.