Asparagus Pickles

Twilight at 10 PM...when the mosquitos come out!


When the sun goes down it's time to make asparagus pickles!


Our fresh asparagus is so good you can eat it raw. And since it's never touched by anything but rain water you can eat it right out of the garden. Lot's of people like it grilled on the BBQ with seafood or chicken and a simple oil/herb dressing before you grill is simple to do.

Steaming is good too and I like a honey mustard vinaigrette on top. Try this with chilled asparagus for a lovely summer side dish.

Don't over cook it! Steam or grill for about 6 minutes, depending on the thickness of the stalks.

I've been having a hard time keeping up with mine and some of the stalks got a bit ahead of me. Still nice and tender and good to eat, but not as attractive as they should be in the market. So I made some hot and spicy asparagus pickles. I like to make pickles because it's something I can do with a simple hot water bath canner.

I make my brine with salt, vinegar and water and then I add the flavors I want with the asparagus. This time I used a southwestern style mix of garlic, red pepper flakes, chives , fresh oregano sprigs and cilantro seeds.

If you live near a farmer's market you can probably find asparagus now. Buy enough to eat fresh and about 4 or 5 pounds to pickle. Then serve your pickles as a summer treat along with olives or fresh tomato slices or cut up in a mediteranian style salad.

Drop me a comment if you'd like the recipe.

Getting Green

!
Farmer John needs a shave! Today I was on the run all day! It's 9:00 PM. Twelve hours since I stepped outside to work today. It was all mad effort in the greenhouse. Plus I voiced 2 commercials in the studio and supervised an ISDN session in Santa Barbara.

Dandelions add color in the garden. They also let me know I am way behind in weeding the asparagus and mowing down the grass! They're pretty though.


I worked up my own planting mix for filling the flats we use to start seeds in the greenhouse. I added organic fertilizer to a premade organic mix of mostly peat. Nice and light so small seeds can break the surface easily. The soil temperature is only about 50 degrees F. It's too cold to direct seed many of our plants into the ground. Optimum germination for many seeds is 70 to 80 degrees F. The greenhouse gets plants established at warmer temps and gives us a head start. It got up to 90 degrees F inside today. Outside air temp. was about 60.


Here are some of the dill seeds I harvested in the greenhouse this week. I planted some in flats. They look better than the commercial dill seed we bought. This is Hercules Dill - and heirloom we bought from Richter's in Ontario.

YAY! The beds are turned and composted and the shelves are full of newly seeded flats. I'll take another snapshot in a couple of weeks so you can see the greenhouse when it really is green! My friend Will Oakley and I built the green house several years ago. It's become a really important part of our production.

Here is the view looking out into the yard.

I have so many more projects that all need to be done yesterday. Spring is a very demanding season. Fortunately, it's still too cold for mosquitos. But I was visited by a few of those nasty little black flies today. They are small, but they can draw blood. More bats please!

I saw a bat fly out of the barn in daylight the other day. I hope it was going to get some friends.
They eat pests like crazy!

The CBC radio is currently airing a long form program on Korean Shamans. Wow, I wish we better radio in the States. It's good company.

Well, I have to get ready for bed. I'll be up at 6:00 AM. (That's 2:00AM in Santa Barbara!)

Summer on the Farm

When winter goes so slowly it seems impossible that summer could fly so fast, but here we are headed for the end of August already!

We started with weeks of dry weather. But the last week of July flipped us into a pattern of rain every day for the last 3 weeks! This has been tough on us since picking was first delayed and then became impossible to put off, regardless of the field conditions. Also, plant diseases become a problem when the leaves can't dry out for days on end. We had two consecutive days last week when it rained 12 hours straight each day. I guess when the poles melt the water has to go somewhere.

This weekend we'll be setup at the Provincial Plowing Match in Dundas, Prince Edward Island. We'll be picking and packing for the next few days to get ready for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday Farmers Market. If you're in eastern PEI we hope you'll stop in for the fun.

For those of you, "from away" this event is a good old fashioned country fair with a carnival midway, music, animal showing, craft judging and etc. And yes, the event is centered around the plowing competition and the naming of the "Queen of the Furrows".

To win, this lovely young woman must not only have charm and poise. She must be able to plow a furrow. I'd like to see Miss America try that one on for size.

Here are some pictures from the past few weeks on the farm:


Blueberry Pickers

Wild Raspberry Dude.

Annie Picks (and eats) berries

Cherry Pickin'

What's On the Menu?

I'm often asked, "What do you grow?"

Unlike the commodity market producers who can answer, "Potatoes" or "Wheat" or "Corn", our answer takes a bit longer. We have been working since 2000 to create a diverse "market basket" of selections that include hand raised vegetables, fruits and flowers, all of which are MCOG certified organic. We sell from our farm gate in Murray Harbour North, PEI and we distribute produce to several locations including Nabuurs Garden Center in nearby Montague and periodically in Murray River.

We rely a great deal on Vesey's Seeds in York, PEI. I really appreciate their support of local organics and the fact that they run their own extensive trial gardens in the same climate and soil conditions where we work. The trial gardens are open to the public and are a wonderful local resource.

Here are a couple of Highlights:

We'll have our first full season of Jersey Giant Asparagus starting this spring! A welcome early spring vegetable, we anticipate being able to extend the harvest this year so that more of our friends will have a chance to enjoy the delicate taste of really fresh asparagus!

Our popular California Mesclun Salad greens will be back again. This mix was selected by Margaret Prouse to be featured in the PEI Linking Land and Sea demonstrations last summer at the Provincial Plowing Match in Dundas.

One of the ingredients in our mesclun salad mix, the edible nasturtium blossoms, add a splash of color and a lightly spicy flavor to the greens. They also add taste of history. The seeds we use on PEI to grow our old fashioned trailing nasturtiums were originally wild harvested in Santa Barbara, California, where nasturtiums are hardy and perennial. This particular plant was an escapee from somewhere along the wet-weather creek in the foothills behind our home. It's not unusual to find these heirlooms growing wild in the canyons near places where homesteaders once farmed or ranched. They were often planted as a salad cress or green and may have been brought here by Spanish Colonists. Historically they were also a popular feature in traditional English culinary gardens.

* * * * *

We've done a lot of experimenting in the past couple of years to find the best varieties of island favorites and last year we had a booming good season for yellow beans. Thanks to Vesey's, I think we've found the perfect variety to keep islanders happy during "bean season" this summer!

Last year we introduced Lemon Cucumbers at Dundas. This heirloom from Australia looks like a lemon and has a nice light flavor that makes it a great slicer for fresh eating! We expect to have 5 varieties of cucumber this summer so be ready to crunch, slice and pickle to your heart's content.

That's all for now...

We'll have time to enjoy a bit more hot stove farming before the snow melts and it's time to work the soil again. Meantime, I'll put another stick in the fire if you'll put the kettle on!