The flora...

So, as some of you know, I've not been on the farm for the last two weeks (Sorry for being so lazy with my posts! More to come soon!) because I had to have minor surgery. I'm heading back tomorrow, but I've been planning for a long time to give you some idea of what's growing 0n the farm. These pictures are a few weeks old, though, so in a few weeks I'll post a new update. My next blog post is going to be about the fauna, though. We just got some goats, and a bull calf was born (While I was here in Tuscaloosa, AAARGH!) , so next week I'll be posting some stuff that will really melt your butter, so to speak. Anyway, here are some delicious things...

Starting from the east, moving uphill to the west, we have...


Delicious lettuces... at least twenty varieties, which we cut with scissors for spring mix. Spring mix, unfortunately though, is aptly named, as all the lettuce in this picture is now dead or bolted because of the heat. We have some baby greens planted in trays that we keep in the shade for harvesting all summer, but we won't have gobs of great greens again until the fall.






Tomatoes! We have since planted out more than 300 tomato plants, and they're a lot bigger. We trellis them between t-posts with twine, running a new row whenever necessary. Some of them are big enough to be setting fruit now, although ripe tomatoes are still a few weeks off. This picture doesn't really do our beautiful tomato garden justice, so I'll post another one soon.





Leeks! It took us a whole day to painstakingly weed this bed by hand, but man it was worth it. The leeks have really taken off. A few weeks ago, I made a leek and hard goat cheese quiche inspired by Thomas Keller's Bouchon cookbook. I don't mean to toot my own horn, but it was DELICIOUS. Leeks I've also found to be extremely versatile, and I end up adding them to lots of things... tuna salad, broccoli casserole, etc...
Ayla Ficken made a beautiful cooked leek salad with a mustard vinegarette dressing, and it was fantastic. Just cut leeks lengthwise, cook until tender, and coat with a thick, strong mustard dressing. MMM!





The strawberry season was far too short. For a scant three weeks, we had fantastic strawberries, and then they were gone. I'd often steal up to the patch for twenty minutes, and return with incriminating pink stains all over my mouth, hands, and clothing. As you can see, we covered the ground with landscaping plastic for weed control and moisture retention. It also made finding the strawberries a lot easier. I was a very slow picker of strawberries, a fact that I like to blame on my red/green colorblindness, but it was partly because of my strict quality control standards that resulted in many "imperfect" berries getting eaten.


These are garlic plants, which get planted in the fall and are harvested in the late spring. The flowers, which here have not opened, are beautiful pink puffballs. You try to cut them off, though, to encourage the garlic to develop more cloves. (You can also eat the flower stems, called scapes, in stir fry, soup, or anything else that needs garlic flavoring.) These were picked while I've been at home, and we're working on braiding them for drying.



Here we see what might be the most beautiful green that we grow, chard. Although mustard might give it a run for its money. Chard is a subspecies of beet that has been bred to produce large leaves instead of a big taproot. This doesn't come through too well in the picture, but the stems are the most beautiful colors... yellow, pink, purple, orange and white. It's quite dramatic. Unfortunately, I don't particularly like the taste. It's OK, but it's not great. Best is sauteed with just some butter, garlic, and a splash of vinegar.




Finally, here's a picture from the very top of the field. Closest is five rows of kale (which Frank asserts is the bedrock of organic farming), followed by some cabbage, broccoli, mustard and collard greens. Ain't it purdy!