Corn, Beans, & Potatoes

My 8 rows of sweet corn, the length of the strawberry field, boosted me through the week. The 4th of July weekend was a big market and I was one of two to have sweet corn--and the first local producer. I have my uncles to thank for that as they got it in the ground so early. I sold for a dollar more a baker's dozen than last year, $5/bdz. Wednesday was against 6 other vendors with greater quantities and lower prices, so I dropped mine to $4.75/bdz. Thursday I had no problem selling at $5/bdz and actually left the market early for lack of produce! Changing prices at market confuses me a little. I heard once that businesses lower prices to increase volume, but usually increase in volume does not increase profits to compensate for the pricedrop. So I wonder if I'm just shorting myself a quarter every 13 ears for no reason.

I also brought half of my potatoes, which the Farmette and I had been digging up the week before. She advertised them as Red, White, & Blue potatoes and mixed some red New Potatoes, Yukon Golds, and All-Blue Potatoes. The All-Blue are actually purple and were also, to our surprise, the best sellers. I only sold potatoes on the 4th of July and I'm now saving the rest in hopes that their eyes begin growing in time for a huge August planting. I've fallen in love with potatoes because they have an easy rhythm. Dig a hole, plant an eye, cover hole. When plant is a few inches tall, shore up sides so potatoes have room to expand. This also weeds the area. By the time the weeds begin shading out the potato plant, it's time to harvest which is really more like digging for buried treasure. I think every shovel yields about $1.50-$2.25 in potatoes. It's fun. So I'm saving as many as I can and hope to get more than 10 rows in my fall planting. That's just my hope. I'd be surprised if I had less than 8 rows though.

My beans frustrated me because the weeds were small and close, so I could only hoe between the closely planted rows. These weeds ended up doing me a favor: they didn't shade out the plants, but they did prevent sun spots from developing on the beans. Kneeling between rows to pick them is still a pain though, especially with foxtails biting at your hands. I'm hoping the pole beans succeed on the popcorn planting and prove easier to harvest.

This has been my first big week since strawberry season and I like the crop shift. My yields are higher than last year all around and I'm beginning to get an idea of how long it takes to do what with each crop. If I buy a walking planter next year I can plant x10 as fast and perhaps even succeed with a regular crop schedule, instead of putting stuff in when it's about the right time or when I get around to it. I would love to have a few people working for $8/hr next year, harvesting $20/hr in produce.

Tomatoes and the Three Sisters guild of popcorn, pole beans, and spaghetti squash are on the horizon. The tomatoes look like they're burning up from the bottom, a problem that hurt my uncle's tomatoes last year. Those plants still produced but not as much as they should have. The Three Sisters look fantastic in some places and poor in others. My timing was bad with them and I would plant the seeds differently if given another chance, but there are still pole beans climbing and squash plants curling out everywhere. I even harvested 7 volunteer zucchini that grew out of last year's rotten fruit. I told people at market that I just wanted to get rid of them and would take whatever they offered. The high price was $2.25 ea. and the low was $1 ea. An easy $10.50!

While the farm isn't as profitable as I wish it was, it's significantly better than last year. And once again I'm getting excited about the prospect of hiring workers. I don't know if I'll need any again this year but I suspect I will.

There's Nothing Mow Satisfying

The farm has really been busting my balls. I feel defeated every time I'm there, even when things are going well. This is in part because my labor does not translate into enough compensation. The delicious, home-grown food is not enough to overcome this glaring problem with the farm.

The strawberry field is overrun with weeds now too. Mostly grass. I hate grass. I really, really hate grass. And I have neither the time nor the inclination to put eighty hours of hand weeding into the field when in three more weeks, I'll have to do it again.

I have decided, with great regret, that I must use petro-chemical sprays to control my strawberry field's weed problem.

In about two weeks I'm going to spray Poast, a grass killer. That's about 60% of the weed population and the hardest to deal with. The rest I'll continue to kill by hand.

And while I have been frustrated, overwhelmed, and dissatisfied with the farm since the end of strawberry season, I did smile for the first time today while working. Because today, I mowed down the strawberry field.

I raised the mower deck to its highest setting and went up and down all twenty rows (I'll get the everbearing rows tomorrow after I harvest them). I did cut up a few lengths of drip-tape irrigation but it'll be easy to fix. I don't think I hit any of the strawberry crowns, which would have killed the plants. The mowing was a success. And more than that, it was cathartic. My weed problem didn't vanish, but it's gone for at least two weeks now, and when it comes back the grass will die, and the rest will quickly follow.

The largest obstacle now is how to narrow and clean up the rows themselves. They're too thick with strawberry plants. The Southeast corner is a veritable ocean of strawberries.

Hoe Foolish Can I Be?

I talked to the Birdhouse Lady who gave me the strawberry jam recipe and said the Farmette thought a lb of sugar per lb of strawberry was way too much sugar. To which Birdhouse Lady replied, "oh my god it's cup not pound! do you know how many cups are in a pound? eight!"

I then looked at the recipe as I wrote it down and it says right there, cups. Not pounds. I don't know how I got it wrong like that but I did.

She said I didn't make jam, I made syrup.

I'll have to have some pancakes this weekend.

No time for puns!

I've done a lot this past week.

I made jam for the first time, then did it again--now i've got two pots going at the same time while I update this blog. It's good jam but I think it needs less sugar. I'm doing the 1:1:1 ratio of lb strawberries; lb sugar; tbls lemon juice. I think each unit makes 2 12oz jars. I'm going to pair a jam jar and a jar of honey (unknown size) and sell it to friends and family. I can't sell honey at the markets because it requires a permit and I have very little honey.. I checked the hives and my stronger one (possibly named: queen mary? feedback on names please or suggest your own!), which swarmed and was caught, has produces one honey super of very light honey. I should be harvesting it this weekend. The other hive (Victoria?) has been the weaker the whole time, but aparently it swarmed anyway and I failed to capture it. I had planned on splitting it into a fourth hive but I didn't get to it in time I guess. Timing is so crucial in farming. Victoria hasn't produced any honey at all--just a 3" uncapped circle of honey on one frame. What should the third hive be? It's in the orchard, replacing one of two hive sites that have been out of commission since two winters ago.

The berry plants finally burst and are filled with strawberries. It takes me dawn to dusk to do four rows out of twenty. I had the Farmette post two ads on craigslist: one advertising U-Pick, the other asking for pickers to come help Friday for Saturday's market. The going rate is .75c a quart. I pick 10-12 quarts an hour, so that's $7.50-9/hr. I've had about 20 calls including a 49yo woman, a mom's van full of 16yo girls, a few pairs of friends, and an old man who says he'll pick slow but steady. Most of the calls came yesterday while I was picking for this morning's market and so I let them all know they could come today too. Half that said they would showed up.

C. showed up first and stayed for 90 minutes. He's a lanky high schooler who, when told to bring a long sleeved shirt to avoid a rash from the strawberry leaves, chose to wear black. It was 93 and the hottest day of the year so far. He picked 6 quarts in 90 minutes so I gave him 5 bucks. I doubt he'll be showing up on Friday. On his way out of the field he told my uncle, "it's a lot slower than I thought it'd be."

Ch. & N. were about my age and showed up at 5:30. I gave them directions and they even pulled into the Big Red Shed's driveway and in front of my truck with the U-Pick Here! sign and the table with a scale and strawberries on it, but for whatever reason, they thought they were in the wrong place. A few minutes later my Aunt found them walking through her living room and she handed them off to my Uncle who drove them out to the field. Good start, eh!

Ch. & N. came on the heels of C. leaving. I told them speed is the name of the game. They picked 2 quarts in the first 10 minutes. Crouching, hunting for those berries. Then they stopped crouching and started laying down in the field. Said it was easier on their knees, etc. They each averaged 5q/hr.

I mention all this because I'm concerned that everyone who shows up will be so slow Friday morning and ultimately leave unhappy and feeling underpaid like C. did. (For the record, Ch. & N. seemed satisfied and said they'd come back but I did give each a quart of berries just to make sure they might.) I'm going to be fine. I set up the deal, and I think it's fair--I do better with each quart they pick. I just don't like the idea of people leaving feeling like I took advantage of them. I'll just see how it plays out.

I heard the pickers in California get .20c a quart but that's a different production method and set-up. Still, I'd like to know how many they can pick an hour.

All that said, hiring help is awesome. This is the first time I've ever done this and I probably should have a week ago, but it makes me want to hire someone to do everything. That's unrealistic, and this is the only time where it has really made sense to hire people, but still... it's fun.

An update on the mushroom situation: I talked to a couple who sell at the market. Oyster Mushrooms, $12/lb. At first he was very reluctant to talk to me about his production methods at all. He told me his story and opened up after I said I'm from California, I'm just doing this for another year and then moving back to a big city, and I want to learn a skill I can take with me. I can't really farm in a city, but I could grow mushrooms. Ah, he said. Well, here's my card, and I'll be happy to answer any questions you have after you leave the state.

He started growing in 1991 and sunk 60k into it by 2000. He only failed for 9 years, with very sporadic success. By 2000 he had it all figured out, and now it's easy as could be. It's just a step by step production system. But he hasn't made that 60k back and really only sells at the markets because he's already got the system set up. He says: you're going to fail. You won't succeed and if you do you won't make any money. The biggest problem is, once you've figured out how to grow them successfully you can only sell so many a week. I don't know exactly how much he sells, but he said restaurants aren't consistent and don't order enough ~10lb a week between a few of them. And the markets are too small. So now that he can produce as much as he wants, he's still hitting a low limit on sales.

I said I didn't think that'd be a problem in a city and he agreed. In a 10' cube room, he told me, I could get 100lbs in one flush. But, to grow 1lb or 2000lbs requires the same initial investment of about $25k to create the production system that needs to be "x10 more sterile than an operating room."

It's something I'll be thinking about. So my current mushroom plans are these: stop trying and take my losses for what they are (~$120?) and then try to convince him 6weeks before I leave the state to mentor me through an entire production cycle. I'll bring him my plane ticket itinerary and any other documents he might need to as proof of my immediate departure and offer myself as free labor. Hopefully that works. Stay tuned for the next mushroom update in many months!

The Farmette and I moved out of the barn last week and now we live downtown. It's a 15 mile commute each morning for me now, and while I dislike all the additional driving, I am much more productive now that I'm not 2 minutes walk from my home at all times. 15 minute breaks don't turn into hour long ones now.

I jarred the jam. 4.5 lbs strawberry/sugar, 4.5 tbls lemon juice turns into 8 1/2 12oz jars of jam. Jamming is a sticky process.

Long post! Great job, you've made it to the end!

A Slow Hoeliday Weekend

On Saturday I sold out at the market by 11. There were five other strawberry vendors who all sold out first. Next time this happens, I think I'll take advantage of being last and raise my price a dollar a quart.

I put an ad in the paper for Saturday & Sunday. Unfortunately there were two typos: U-Pick Strawberry's, instead of ies. & then the road name was misspelled. I don't care too much about the berry typo, but the road name does not auto correct on map searches. I've been trying to call to complain but the classifieds line has been tied up for hours. I think they know I'm gunning for them.

The U-Pick opened on Sunday and has been going for two days now. The traffic is half of what I wish it would be: 10 cars each day. I've asked each how they heard about us and most have said from signs I've put on the nearby roads. A few people have called from the newspaper ad, but they have yet to show up. I intend to put more signs up as they seem to really be working and I'll need more people yet or the strawberries will outgrow the pickers. I was afraid to whisper before, but now I'm looking for a megaphone.

We had a casualty Sunday morning. Within an hour of setting up the tent and stand the wind picked up and snapped the legs off it. It's unfortunate, but another vendor at the market foretold this happening saying, "O, a camping tent. I've seen a fair few of those fold over themselves." The Farmette's mother bought it for us and we're sad to have lost it, especially since the next tier of tents is three times the price.

My hay fever has been horrendous recently and I rubbed the skin around my eyes raw yesterday. Very unenjoyable. But it led me to write this haiku:

Spring is beautiful

But these are tears of hatred

Emphasis on hay

I bought jars for strawberry jam. I joined an internet game forum in middle school and while we've all outgrown that game, there's still about thirty of us posting together. They've been asking me for my honey for a year now, demanding I mail it to Australia, Canada, England, Sweden, &c. So my plan is to make it a honey jar & strawberry jam combo package. I'll be using the "bads," all the berries with bug bites or sun spots for the jam. They're still good and delicious, but I can't sell them. Every four or five quarts of good berries produces one bad quart, so I have plenty to use.

I've been extra busy the past three weeks and have had very little time off, but now that U-Pick has begun I find myself in an odd position: I'm working, but I'm not actively doing anything. I tried working in the field between customers but I missed two because of it. They pulled up to the stand, stood around for a minute, and then drove away before I could get to them. This down time led to the haiku mentioned earlier, and now this post. Tomorrow I'll be back to picking as many berries as I can though in preparation for the downtown Wednesday market.

A Helping Hoe

I'm so bad at updating and there's so very much to update about so I'll try my best to be brief.

My cousin got hitched a couple weekends ago and the whole Honest Farmer family was in town for it. My parents and sisters helped my in the field two afternoons and had a great time. While digging holes for tomato transplants one sister yelped at every new bug she encountered: grubs, caterpillars, worms, spiders. She was very brave and I was proud of her conquering her tiny many-limbed fears. We were all fortunate the gnats weren't out in swarms.

Speaking of swarms, I found one near my hives on a dead thorn bush as I was looking for shovels. I offered my mother a chance at helping me catch the bees but she said it was a man's job and volunteered hers. We geared up and gave it a go but the bush was at the top of a steep ditch slope and it wasn't easy. Somehow bees kept flying into my helmet and eventually the Big B (my assistant) was holding the hive and holding the back of my helmet closed while I shook thousands of bees off their prickly perch and onto the frames.

Normally swarming bees are docile; these were not. They took to the skies around us and I will admit now that I kept my cool despite bees in the helmet mostly to save face in front of the big guy helping me. It took two tries to get the queen in the box. Also, the swarm was huge: 30k strong probably. At least three times larger than any other swarm I've seen. Thanks B—we did good with those monsters.

The parents stayed an extra week to help on the farm and we got the brambles completely trellised (a huge and ancient box to check off on that to-do list) and also picked the first strawberries and sold at both the major markets I'm attending this year. Mom found a fantastic strawberry table cloth for the booth, and the Honest Farmette made two Berry Best Farm t-shirts and a cloth banner for the booth. Thanks to these ladies I look like I belong at these big-league markets.

The strawberries are coming on faster every day. Four flats have been picked so far this season but I'm picking tomorrow with the Farmette for Wednesday morning's market and I'm hoping for at least four, hopefully 6. Soon I won't have a choice but to open it up for U-pick. I'm playing it by ear and keeping closed lips right now. So many people have been asking already I have no worries about too little too late in terms of advertising. I imagine if I put a single sign just down the road that sees .5 cars per minute I'll be picked out by hour's end.

And because this is Spring, my favorite malady is back: hay fever. I now look like bandit at all times while outside. I don't think it's necessarily a bad look for me, and it certainly works to keep my allergies under control, but I realized as I pulled open the front doors at the bank today that there's a time and a place for everything.

The upcoming crops to be added to the list are: snow/snap peas, spinach, & lettuce. Also, the blackberries have flowers on them and I look forward to them producing for the first time.

It's Hoe Most Spring!

Got the ball rolling yesterday. Over the weekend my cousin helped me construct an indoor growing shelf of four 78”x5.5” boards bolted to two pallets. There's room for a third at the top, but my measurements were off and it has snowman proportions. I'm considering it a feature; built-in organizing for plant height.

While filling out my downtown FM (Farmers Market) applications I discovered just what type of insurance I'm required. Minimum Liability Insurance of “$100,000 per person; $250,000 per occurrence; and $100,000 property damage.” I've known this was coming so I call my two prospective insurance agents.

The first I called at work, my uncle's agent whose receptionist told me from my receptionist desk downtown that she'd be sure to tell his daughter as he'd be out of town for a few more weeks. She called me back and I stumbled through a conversation where she teased out my situation and then said she'd get back to me. It was an education.

The other number I had from last year from the chicken farmer. I'm not normally great at business calls and find myself hanging up with words barely stumbling out of my mouth or sometimes shouting at the last moment with one last neglected question. But I called the chicken farmer's insurer and told him I was calling for him, how I got his number, why I wanted it, who I was, and what I needed. In that order. And then I told him I was more or less a squater on my uncle's land and had no existing insurance, or even anything to insure. Unless, would a company vehicle work? I didn't think so and I don't have one yet.

It was a mundane business conversation that went without a hitch, a wonderful change from the past year's blubbering through phone calls with plant, irrigation, seed, and apiary suppliers. I spoke with him while watching the rain by the door and realized I might be talking a little too loud because of it so I stepped away and lowered my voice as he said he'd get back to me in the morning. And then, with a suddenly softer voice, I flubbed my farewell and said, bye. See ya, bye. So I'm still stumbling a little at the end, oh well!

Tonight I take my first steps towards mushrooms (I'll stomp stepping all over these walking metaphors) by sterilizing distilled water with an autoclave and rehydrating my spores from last year. I've never used a pressure cooker before or been concerned with sterile environments, practices and techniques, but it's only the beginning of March and I have a good dozen mushroom harvests ahead of me this year.