urban farm

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A slower time

October 12, 2016 Weekly Updates

It’s been another rough couple of weeks as I try to recuperate from yet another cold! At least this time of year isn’t the worst to be forced to take a break. During the summer, even a few days away from the garden can lead to an unmanageable amount of backed-up work. However, right now is the sweet spot of the season. It’s still warm enough that everything is producing and therefore we don’t yet need to start the big job of ripping out plants and preparing the beds for winter. At the same time, it has cooled off enough that growth has slowed on both the crops and the weeds, meaning harvesting...

Rain and critters

October 1, 2016 Weekly Updates

Well there’s nothing better than waking up on a rainy morning to find that your entire tomato trellis has collapsed sideways onto the peppers and eggplant! So instead of getting to enjoy the relaxing morning of sitting inside and drinking cocoa that I had imagined while lying in bed and listening to the rain, Mike and I got to don our rain gear, stick Caleb into his stroller under the front porch, and try to pull thirty feet of sopping wet tomato plants back to a vertical position. I will be the first to admit blame here- as you know, the first section of tomato trellis collapsed on itself a couple of...

Sweet potato greens

September 29, 2016 Garden techniques, In the Kitchen, Other recipes, Tips & Tools

In a small garden space, I always aim to grow as many crops as possible that allow me to plant the bed space more than once a season. However, there are certain veggies we love enough that it’s worth growing them even if they do take a while. Sweet potatoes are one of those crops that take up bed space for a long time, from mid-May until at least mid-September. The upside is that you usually get quite a hefty harvest of tubers at the end of this time. And, even better, sweet potato plants actually offer a second harvest option that many people don’t know about- the greens. All you...

Bean crazy

September 14, 2016 Pests, Tips & Tools, Weekly Updates

Last week’s mild heat wave gave new life to the summer crops and forced me to withdraw from my “no more canning” stance. I simply couldn’t help but put up another round of pickled roasted peppers. Additionally, we’ve seen a new influx of cherry and slicing tomatoes, which are now once again covering much of our kitchen counters. But the real beneficiary of the warm weather was the string beans. I harvested almost 3 pounds in one day over the weekend and then another pound two days later! Harvesting beans even this far into the fall is something new for me. At the farm I managed until this year, we had a serious...

Panisse Lettuce

September 10, 2016 Garden techniques, Tips & Tools

Yes, I couldn’t resist using this picture again! One of the benefits of participating in the City Harvest program is not just that I get free transplants in exchange for our donations, but more specifically that this pushes me to try new varieties of crops that I may not have grown otherwise. After years of farming, I have a personal list of my favorite varieties to grow. I know which types of lettuce do best in summer heat, the sweetest carrots, and the heaviest-producing tomatoes. This is great on the one hand, but in another sense can limit me from trying other, potentially even more amazing varieties.  When I got the...

Harvest season

September 6, 2016 Weekly Updates

It’s been tough keeping up with the garden work recently after getting sick twice in a week and a half. I didn’t even know that was possible! Even though the weather has cooled down significantly, meaning that growth and ripening have slowed some as well, this is also the time of year that both warm- and cool-season crops are coming in strong, hence our association with fall as harvest season. So even with slightly less summer crops to harvest, we’re still getting more than enough to eat, donate, and save for the winter.  With the cooling temperatures, however, it’s officially the end (or near end) to canning for the season. We have been...

Keeping on

August 20, 2016 Weekly Updates

The heat wave broke gradually over the course of this week. Although we’re still having typical hot summer weather, at least the humidity is down slightly and it’s been getting cooler at night. An additional help were a series of overnight rains, easing the need to water in the garden despite the heat. One thing that I have always loved about farming and gardening is the cyclical yet changing nature of the work. Just when you start to get really sick of a certain task, the seasons have begun to switch and it’s on to the next thing. I always am so excited for the first harvest of greens in the spring, but by...

Oven-dried cherry tomatoes

August 15, 2016 Freezing, In the Kitchen, Other recipes

Several years ago, while working at a farmers market, I learned from a customer about her method for drying Roma tomatoes in the oven and freezing them to use over the winter. Ever since, I’ve been dying to do the same, but never got around to it until this summer. Since we use most of our Roma tomatoes for canning and really needed another outlet for the cherry tomatoes (besides our mouths!), we decided to oven dry cherry tomatoes instead. The result was exceptional! This is a perfect technique to preserve cherry tomatoes for eating in the near future or for freezing to use in the winter. Even better, you can substitute these for...

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