Owosso Organics

Before the weather turned to the winter side, Richard spent the day filling the manure spreader and laying a nice layer of nutrients over a couple of gardens; at least the ones we didn’t get stuck in. Fill, fill, spread, spread, get stuck….pull out; fill, fill spread, spread….get stuck. And so it goes.

fill. fill. fill

This is from last week before the weather turned. We were lucky to get this day in, however the fields were wetter than we thought.

Spread, spread, spread....

stuck

Farmer superman!

 Able to leap over manure piles in the greenhouse.

End of day

 The last of the lettuce from fall plant. We won’t overwinter this house.

Winter music

Taylor is learning how to play the banjo! An instrument everyone should learn to play!

Thanks for all your recent inquires about the 2012 CSA. We will finish with the seed orders this week. It all begins very soon.

Who would think that on January 10 it would be so nice outside that we would be spreading compost and digging trenches? Richard, Dustin and Adam worked their tails off today digging trenches inside and outside the greenhouse and laying drain tile ( while I took pictures and cooked all morning) in our most recent effort to try to move water away from the inside of the greenhouses. Every year (I know I’ve said this before) we lose a substantial amount of crops due to water. As the saying goes, “to little water will hurt you, too much water will kill you.” Also early this morning we got a load, 40 yards, of compost and as I write, in the dwindling hours of daylight, Richard is hauling tractor loads of compost into the greenhouse and some gardens. Who says farmers get their winter off! With hopes of another stellar January day we will try to do it all over again tomorrow. Another couple of greenhouses and we will have a run of tile on each greenhouse. yeah!!

Early morning compost delivery

 Early this morning before the ground got too soft he unloaded this pile of magic!

 He made it just before things started to soften up. Now it’s a race to get it all spread before the snow starts.

Dig....shovel...dig...shovel

 The day got warmer…..oh my aching back!

Moving sod.....5" deep.

 T-shirts in January!! These guys are really working. Noone ever said farming was easy.

Close up

 You can almost smell the dirt and sod.

Finally the tile goes in.

After the tile goes in it gets covered with soil and a light layer of sand. Thanks you guys…you did great work! Are you looking forward to tomorrow?

Closing up the greenhouse in the evening.

Evening in hoophouse #1

Welcome, hello, thanks for finding our website. This blog entry ushers in the 2012 farm season. I hope to regularly blog so folks can see and read about our plans for the 2012 season. As we wait for winter to start in earnest (as we haven’t had much snow yet this winter) we are busy pouring over seed catalogs, talking, crunching numbers and planning for the season.  I haven’t blogged since ( what?) November in part to take a break and in part because I got hit with the spam monster. Thanks to my good friend Doug Berch (musician and instrument builder extraordinaire; hopefully I can figure out how to link his website here) he was able to catch and cage the spam monster but in doing so I forfeited all my comments. Thanks the bad news, the good news is I am now able to view any comments you might pass my way henceforth. So please forgive if you commented and I haven’t replied and please do so in the future.

This week on the farm we are expecting a 40 ton load of compost from MSU surplus. We are so hoping it can get here by, like tomorrow, as the first part of this weeks weather is looking very good.  We are also making some head way on decisions on the drainage work that we so desperately need done here.

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. We start taking CSA memberships on February 1 2012. I still need to make some changes on the membership form for this season. We are planning on tweaking the dates of the CSA and possibly the cost as we haven’t raised our prices in about 7 or 8 years.

owosso organic

Greenhouse #3 waiting for longer days and some good rich compost

Owosso Organics

 The sturdy kale plants, still harvesting!!

The quonset greenhouse in winter wood storage mode

Stacking up wood for the long winter…..when will winter come?

My favorite part of Christmas....the cards!

 Still haven’t taken down the cards yet…I love hearing from so many friends so far away.

Ahhh remembering the little purple wedding last summer. A taste of summer.

 I ordered the lisianthus last week. They will be here in only 15 weeks!

Hot peppers

Oh what fun we had with the hop peppers last summer. We still have our special hot sauce. We will have it at the spring market. Enjoy the slowness that winter brings.

This is the last week for the 2011 CSA season!!! Thank you all for being such dedicated CSAers. From the beginning rains in May which wiped out many crops: sweet peppers, potatoes, Brussels sprouts, green cabbage and more, to the heat of July (remember how stinking hot it was for so many days in a row?) to the bounty of the harvest and into this beautiful fall we have finally arrived at the final week of distribution. (Do I sound excited?)  For every failure and heartbreak of the season there was amazing successes.  In May, after almost 7 inches of rain, I never thought that we would be able to rebound and finish the season the way we have. Thanks for all your words of encouragement, excitement and anticipation of the boxes, listening to my never ending complaints, being patient while I slacked on the blog and supporting our little family farm. CSA is a vital part of our financial bottom line. With so many new Farmers markets around the area competing with our existing markets we depend each year on CSA to keep the farm successful. If you enjoyed your CSA experience we hope that you come back next year and tell some family/friends. I will be blogging through out the winter to keep everyone updated on our 2012 plans. Also the surveys are super helpful in planning our next season. So thank you, thank you thank you!

In the boxes this week: Growers choice salad mix, a yummy blend of lettuce, spicy greens, baby Swiss chard and spinach. Garlic, onions, potatoes,baby eggplant, winter squash, some combo of Butternut, acorn and spaghetti squash. Tomatoes, still delicious from the greenhouse. A delicious braising mix that Richard put together, 4 different kinds of kale, Swiss chard and spinach. This would be lovely added to soup or a casserole in the last minutes of cooking or mixed in with a stir fry at the end or sauteed it up all by itself. With the spinach it will cook quite fast so be careful not to overcook.  Hot peppers. Organic popcorn and our own secret popcorn topping. The ingredients are nutritional yeast, Spike (a spice blend) and chile powder. Super good on popcorn (add oil or butter the make it stick to the popcorn) chicken, fish, potatoes, eggs…we added a little recently to grilled cheese sandwiches.

We have been planting the garlic this week and last week trying to take advantage of the beautiful weather. We will be at the Meridian Farmers Market and the East Lansing Farmers Market until the end of October.  We will have tomatoes and some greens until the end! Come see us and get your pumpkins. I’m playing music at Foods for Living on Sunday November6 from 2-4 with my good buddy and guitar player extraordinaire Jim Spring.

The lisianthus house in October

Where once were thousands of lizzies now the fall greens in your Growers Choice salad mix.

Planting the hard neck garlic on a beautiful fall day

With the drying fields in the back ground we take advantage of the beautiful fall weather.

Super workers Dustin ans Adam. Oh my achin back!

These guys worked non-stop to get the garlic in. Thanks you guys!

500 foot rows, one clove at a time

That was a long day for everyone!!

How beautiful.

I sneak one last white lisianthus of the season.

My favorite color of annual statice

I loved this color all season but got only a couple plants. Plan on planting more next year.

Brezzy fall day for hanging out clothes

This one is especially for my mother in law.

So sorry for the long absence in blogging. September has really been crazy with handling the markets/ CSA and all. We have been so busy gathering all that can be harvested before the cold weather hits; the cooler has been converted into a ripening room as lugs are stacked on top of each other with soon ripening tomatoes, the garlic is weighted and waiting to be split and planted. Long gone are the summer squash that were so abundant in August, the vines are brown and dead in the gardens. The sweet peppers have seen their last days and juicy crisp cucumbers are a distant memory. (OK I know that’s cliche but seemed appropriate nonetheless.) We are in “deep fall.” The sun seems so low in the sky even at noon. We leave for the farmers market in the dark and it doesn’t get light until the first customers come in the doors. And we are in our penultimate week of CSA. (the one before the last one. I learned this word, one of my favorites, in my music theory class at MSU where attention is often  brought the penultimate  measure, the one before the last as that is where the cadence is.) In other works, this is week # 17, one week to go.  No growers choice salad mix this week.  Hopefully next week, there will be a nice mix. It just didn’t grow much this week. In your boxes should be: Winter squash. Acorn, butternut, sweet dumpling in some combination. Garlic, onions, tomatoes, curly parsley, possibly kale, green tomatoes, if you didn’t get them this week you will next week. You can do the fried green tomato thing or set them on a window sill, away from direct light and they will ripen. And hot peppers.

Below see some pictures of some really cool pumpkins. We didn’t grow them but got them from a farmer friend of ours and are selling them at the Meridian Market on Saturdays for the rest of October. Notice the huge handles. He has spent most of ten years cross breeding these pumpkins with varies types of winter squash  to achieve this stunning results. They are huge and can be carved for Halloween or baked for pies. Also they have a really long shelf life. And, as always. non-GMO. Come see us at Meridian. Saturdays 8:00AM-2:ooPM.

Farm house in the fall

There were hundreds of ravens in this tree by the house making a real racket!  A sign of fall

Ravens in the tree

Suddenly it gets very quiet and thousands of wings take flight…

Amazing pumpkins!!

Lots of different colors and sizes. Some of them we call the Harry Potter pumpkin. Remember Buckbeek?

All in their splendid glory

Come see us at the Meridian Market for the rest of the month we will have these beauties

Standard share week #15

Standard share in late September

Lizzie house in October

Where once there were lisianthus, now a late planting of lettuce, spinach, beets and spicy mix

Halloween kitty

Happy early Halloween everyone!!

Fall is in the air. After a few stifling hot days last week the weather took an abrupt change and we pulled out our hats and windbreakers for harvest on Monday. We are swimming in tomatoes, peppers, beans and began harvesting the winter squash this week. Planting the fields last spring seems light years ago. The downward path of the season has begun. The harvest for this week and what may appear in your boxes include: Asian Pears, Macintosh Apples blems and all, winter squash most likely acorn or sweet dumpling, Garlic, Cukes probably the long Asian cuke, Green peppers and the sweet Italian bull horn shaped, Beans, Eggplant, Tomatoes of all kinds….baby romas, small saladette tomatoes great for roasting or fresh eating, Heirlooms, cherry tomatoes… another week off for the chard and kale, they will probably appear next week.

Standard share week #11

Week #11 boxes. Hope everyone enjoyed their box!!

Flowers for a friend

The last of the lisianthus and loads of sunflowers went into these magical bouquets this week.

More flowers

A little red strawberry fields gomphrena greets you!

White lisianthus

Good bye lisianthus untill next year. I will miss you like a dear friend.

Proud Sunflowers next to sensitive lisianthus

The colors of the garden in early fall. It will all end too soon!

Standard share week #12

Hope everyone is enjoying their veggies. Thanks!

Just a quick post to let everyone know what’s in your boxes this week. Somethings listed may not appear in your box; somethings in your box may not be listed. You know….farming and all.

Garlic, zucchini/summer squash, sweet peppers both bell and the bull horn shaped ones called Carmen Sweets, cilantro or mint or some other herb but no basil this week ( can you believe it?) tomatoes, probably the little Roma’s and or the small saladette tomatoes, Asian Pears, they will need to ripen to a lighter green color, Eggplant, and our beautiful mixed beans. This I know, maybe some other stuff too.  Wow, what a run on sentence that was. Thanks everyone. We take Cody to University of Michigan tommorow!

Very important. Next week is labor day weekend. We will follow the same schedule as usual. See all the Okemos folks on Labor day Monday!!!!

As we approach the harvest season in earnest so we approach the home stretch. I can feel it in the air….the other morning as we began work there was a smell that can only mean one thing. Fall. Maybe it’s the cool  in the evening, maybe it’s the diminishing light or its subtle angle but I can feel it. In this crazy busy harvest season there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Where I used to wake at 2:00AM and worry what will fill the CSA boxes that week, we now have no problem filling the boxes with an abundance of produce; in fact we track the boxes carefully as to not put too much produce in the boxes rather wanting everyone to be able to use up their veggies before the next box comes. For the most part the lisianthus are harvested which is a huge work load off my shoulders. (There were some weeks of late when I arrived at the market on Saturday having no idea what was harvested and packed in the truck having been in the Lizzie house the entire day.)  Hopefully now I can post blogs more consistently also.

Appearing in your boxes this week were: Tomatoes both slicers and baby Roma or cherry tomatoes. Cucumbers, long Asian and Armenian. A mix of zucchini and summer squash. Baby eggplant bursting in whites and purples. Onion, garlic, basil (it’s been an unbelievable basil season) cilantro, the first of the sweet peppers, the greens this week were either chard or the last of the summer lettuce.  Maybe more… I don’t remember, it was a symphony of veggies this week.

We added a family member to the farm this week. On the way back from the market on Saturday on I-69 I spotted a broken down couch thrown on the side of the highway. As we passed it I saw the slightest silhouette of a kitten perched on top the chair. We had the big farm truck so were unable to stop. On Sunday on the way back from the Great Lakes Folk Festival we saw it again. How could this be? Were we really seeing a kitten and how could it have survived with the torrential rains of the weekend, right on the side of I-69. How many thousands of people passed the kitten? We turned around….there is was, curled up inside the smashed chair. He’s very sweet and I’m sure glad to be off the highway. We need another cat like a hole in…no like another 7″ of rain, but well he’s here now.

I’ll try to do recipes next week. For now just this farm update. Thanks everyone.

baby eggplant

This is what the baby eggplant look like in your CSA box. Many different kinds!!

Standard Share Week #8 8-10 2011

Week #8 Standard share….last weeks box !!

lisianthus delivery

A mid-week delivery all in white, purple, red pink and lavender.

Saved from I-69

So happy not to be spending another night on the highway!!

Veggie Art

Fun in the packing shed. Summer Art!

Fall planting

Spinach, beets and lettuce mix for fall CSA boxes.

At the East Lansing Farmers Market on Sundays

Come see us at the East Lansing Farmers Market on Sundays at Valley Court Park!

Pickin with Drew and Derick at EL market

At the EL Farmers Market.

After hours and hours of cutting flowers followed by another huge chunk of time clipping and arranging, a handsome groom came to pick up the flowers for,  no doubt the most important day of his life. When I close my eyes I see purple.

A beautiful purple wedding

So much work and so satisfying a job well done

Weddings!

Purple with a touch of pink!

Little Gems

All ready for the big day!

purple lisianthus everywhere

The purple lisianthus are in full bloom in the hoophouse.

A touch of white.

Best of luck to you Betsy and Gary.

I’m so sorry I haven’t blogged in over 2 weeks. It is the great lisianthus harvest time and they have been kicking my ass for the last few weeks. Lisianthus is the speciality flower that we grow; we have about 1200 plants in our newest hoophouse and no matter what we do to try to extend the harvest season (different varieties, delayed planting schedules…) they all seem to bloom at once. You have to get them cut and into the cooler or you will lose them and I have been spending most of my time in the hoophouse cutting flowers. Right now we have over 100 bunches of lisianthus cut and safely tucked into their floral sleeves in the cooler just waiting for the phone to ring especially from the wholesale florist to order gobs of bunches.  (Please call me Pat…please call me Pat.) Anyone reading this blog interested in lisianthus just call me…I’ll make you a good deal on the most beautiful flower in the world.

We are finishing up week #7. You will notice some new things in your boxes!! Anchoring the boxes this week is lettuce, probably the last of the lettuce until fall. Kale, I’m trying to alternate kale and Swiss Chard. Garlic, which should be fully dried by now. Onions, Basil, Cilantro, zucchini, either green zucchini or yellow zepher summer squash which can be substituted for any zucchini recipe. The colorful little veggies are eggplant. (see pic below) We grow baby eggplant, very tender and non-bitter. Folks often grill/ kabob or roast the baby eggplant. Also you can use in any eggplant recipe. Some folks got a tiny bag of green beans…should have more in the coming weeks. Tomatoes continue to trickle in, one or two here and there.  The funny green orb thing is a medium hot pepper called Mexibell. Remember as for all hot peppers, the seeds are the hottest. I think that’s about everything. Oh cherry tomatoes also made a brief appearance, they should be in everyones boxes soon.  Here are some recent pics and hopefully another recipe I might find. Oh, did I mention the 5+ inches of rain we got last week. That was a bummer. But life is good, just want to find a home for these lisianthus.

Baby
Eggplant rounds

Ingredients

1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2
teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
salt
to taste
1
eggplant, sliced into 1/2 inch rounds
1
quart vegetable oil for frying
Directions

In a shallow dish, combine corn meal, chili powder, oregano and
salt. Dredge each eggplant slice in this mixture until coated on both the
sides. Shake off excess.

1. Heat a small layer of oil in a large skillet. When the oil is
   hot arrange a layer of the the eggplant rounds in the oil and fry uncovered for
   2 to 3 minutes. Flip the rounds over fry until golden brown. Continue adding
   oil and frying the rounds until they are all fried. Serve either hot or cold.

Pooh and Richards Roasted Vegetables

Cut or cube any of your favorite CSA veggies. Our favorite are: Peppers, Garlic. onions, potatoes, carrots (later in the season, winter squash, skins removed, sweet potatoes) zucchini, tomatoes…

Mix all veggies in a bowl, keep zucchini and tomatoes in separate bowl.  You will add these halfway through cooking as they cook really fast.

To veggies add: 3T good olive oil. 3T balsamic vinegar. 2T soy sauce. Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.

Lay veggies on a cookie sheet. On top shelf of oven cook (I use convection roast setting) at 375-400 degrees for about 20 minutes until veggies are soft and slightly charred. Add Zucchini and tomatoes about half way through cooking. Serve over a bed of rice. Top with fresh basil.

baby eggplant

The baby eggplant in your box look like this. Small tender and deliciuos.

lizzies lizzies everywhere

We are surrounded by the beauty of lisianthus!

Me and my bro

Me and Mike on the last day of his visit. We miss you uncil mice!!