We still have produce for sale!

Although our regular market season is over, we still have some produce for sale!  If you are in the Lancaster area we can arrange a pick up time so please contact us at glennfamilygardens@gmail.com or on facebook under Glenn Family Gardens!

We have:

Turnips- 3/$1

Kale- $2.50 for a gallon bag

Mixed radishes- $1 a bunch

Decorative Broom corn- $1 each

Rainbow swiss chard- $1 a bunch

Thanks again for a great Market season. 

Summer update...

Alrighty, I updated to the new Blogger so things seems to be back in order :)  Here are those pics I wanted to post from this summer.

Starting in no real order, here is our Amaranth that we grew this year.  That is a 6 foot fence, and the catalog said they would only grow to 6 ft. so that was a fun surprise!  We had a lot of strong winds this summer and the only reason these suckers didn't blow over was because of that fence.  We harvested quite a bit from about 5 of them.  We has good intentions of harvesting from the rest but we got lazy and they went bad :(  Next year we are going to do a better job!  They were so easy to harvest from.  They don't have a hull so they are a great beginner grain.  You just rub them off the seed head and winnow them with a fan on low.  The winnowing was a lot easier then I though it would be.

Here are some of our asparagus beans.  These are fun to grown and get a lot of people to stop and look.  They have an interesting mushroom flavor to me.  They are best stir fried.

Here is a basket of our cherry tomatoes that we grow.  Green, purple, yellow, red, and orange.  These make awesome brushetta :)

Here are our favorite hot peppers, fish peppers.  They have the best flavor and make great hot pepper jelly as well as dried pepper flakes.  We entered some of these in the county fair and we are hoping to get a ribbon!

Some freshly dug Jerusalem artichokes (dirt included!).  Jerusalem artichokes are an interesting plant.  They are a member of the sunflower family and the edible tubers have a water chestnut texture.  I think the flavor is smokey, almost like they have been hickory smoked.

We tried growing Mexican sour gherkins this year which were really fun and productive but a pain in the behind to pick.

And finally a picture of our market table a couple of weeks ago.  Hope you all had a good summer!



So Long Summer :(

I was planning on posting lots of pictures and catching up but Blogger has made some changes that I do not like at all so I will be checking out Wordpress in the next couple of days. I am hoping there format is more user friendly. I will keep you posted!

Weekely Produce Updates Now On Facebook!

As you can see we haven't been putting much on the blog. With John working, farmer's market, and me selling at craft shows, it has been pretty busy around here. For those of you looking for weekly updates on the produce we will have at market please check out our Facebook page by clicking on the first widget on the right side of our page. Even if you don't have a Facebook account you can still see the page.

Christmas time will probably busy for us as well but I am hoping to start posting more stuff. Hang in there with us :)

What we will have this week 8/20...

We will have...

Tomatoes

Okra

Kale

Chard

Green beans

Asparagus beans

Basil

Mini pumpkins

Purple beans

Mexican sour gherkins

And I am pretty sure that is it!

What we will have 8/13...

We will have...

Peppers (jalapenos, fish, pepperoncini, corno di toro, and bell peppers)

Squash (cocozella di napoli, patisson strie melange, yellow crookneck and mini pumpkins)

Genovese basil

Chard

Kale

Flowers

Cucumbers

Okra

Heirloom tomatoes (assorted cherries, and traveler's)

See you there!

What we will have 8/6/2011...

Heirloom cherry tomatoes (red, yellow, orange, and green)

Corno di toro, spanish heirloom sweet pepper

Fish peppers, an African American hot pepper

Pepperoncinis, italian hot peppers

Jalapenos

Heirloom summer squash and zucchini

Sumter and Poona Keera cucumbers

Genovese Basil

Rainbow swiss chard

Blue curled scotch kale

Mexican sour gherkins

Asparagus beans (Asian long beans)

Recipe of the week...

The recipe for this week was the cheesy jalapeno cornbread from "The Yummy Life". Yummo!

Blogger was being a stinker last week so here is the recipe from last week. Easy refrigerator pickles from Pick Your Own.

Little eco owls...

I made these little owls from re-purposed wool sweaters.  So far they have been a good seller at market which has been really exciting!  Here is a pic of them...

I am hoping to do some crafty type shows in the fall so I wanted to get a feel for how they sold.  Looks like they are a keeper!

What we will have 7/23...

Rainbow Chard


Kale

Collard Greens

Hot Peppers (jalapeno, and pepperoncini)

Dragon Tongue Beans

Pickling Cucs

Poona Keera Cucs

Heirloom Summer Squash

Dog Treats

Garlic

Genovese Basil

Garden before and after...

We generally don't post too many pictures of the garden after June because by then the weeds are usually out of control.  This year is a little better then most since we have been spending so much time at the farm.  We still could do a lot more, and hopefully will be able to someday!

These are our squash we planted a month ago...

Here they are now.  Yikes!  You can't tell but we have squash and melons planted all down the length of the garden.  They are all heirloom of course and are showing really good disease resistance.

Tomatoes a month ago...

Tomatoes now.  We are really bad at staking our tomatoes so they are just laying everywhere.  This is a bummer because the tomatoes will rot if they are on the ground.  We will still get lots but next year we are really going to focus on staking!  Do you see the random sunflowers that came up from last year?

Here is our table from market this week :)

Recipe of the Week 7/16

We are now going to feature a recipe of the week at market, and share it here.

Zucchini Cakes:

2 cup grated zucchini
2 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
1/2 cup diced onion
1 clove diced garlic
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

Mix all ingredients in large bowl.

Coat pan with oil.

Cook like pancakes.

Top with sour cream, or salsa.

What we will have 7-16-11...

Sorry this is late but we have a ton of stuff and we just got done getting it all ready :)  We will have...

Rainbow Chard

Kale

Collard Greens

Hot Peppers (jalapeno, and pepperoncini)

Beet Greens

Dragon Tongue Beans

Pickling Cucs

Poona Keera Cucs

Heirloom Summer Squash

Dog Treats

Garlic

Genovese Basil

Uh I think that is it! Hope to see you there :)

Make your yard a money maker, not a money pit...

So just a reminder of our situation, we grow stuff at Johns parents house an hour away and stuff in our yard.  Our yard is less than 1/4 acre but you would be amazed to the all the stuff we jam pack into it!  In fact, most of our produce has been coming from our yard the last couple of markets.  Most people dump a bunch of money into flowers for their yards and mulching and weed killer and bug killer and landscaping etc..  I am way to cheap to even consider that, so we just plant all edible plants.  The only thing we have that isn't edible are our holly bushes, but those provide decoration for Christmas time so they are OK in my book (John can't stand them and wants to tear them out for their lack of usefulness, but I love Christmas so I win.). 

Their has been a lot of buzz about the Julie Bass and Oak Park MI stuff (if you are a hermit who has been living in the woods for two weeks and this is your first chance to get on a computer and you stumbled upon my blog as the first page you visited then you can find info on that here).  I for one this that every human should have the right to supply their own healthy supply of food.  Anyways, I really hate talking politics so I will stop there.  Here are some pics of what we are growing in our yard this year...

This is our amaranth we planted out front.  Amaranth is a grain, related to Lamb's Quarter.  It doesn't need hulled which is a plus since we do not have anything to hull grain with.  The leaves are also edible and can be used like spinach.  I was afraid it was going to get knocked down by a really bad storm we had the other day, but I think the fence helped protect it.  Not sure when the seed heads will grow but I will keep you posted.

This is calendula growing in front of the house with the holly bushes behind it.  Is that a tree seedling in there?  Whoops!  As you can see it is a rather sprawling plant, but the flowers are pretty!

Ground cherries growing on the side of our house.  They are a really tasty fruit, and I am hoping to have enough to can some pie filling.

Here is one of our Jack Be Little pumpkin plants growing in the side yard.  We have two mounds but it was super weedy so I didn't want to take a picture and embarrass myself!  They are a compact plant and are great for small spaces.  I think the vines only reach about 4 ft.  They are super productive and we are hoping that we can give pumpkins away at my son's Halloween party.

We also try and shove things in every available space.  These mini basil plants fit perfectly here!  BTW, those crappy looking logs are blocking our dog from escaping the yard.  We are just classy like that ;)

Here is the strawberry bed in our side yard.  Our house used to be a duplex and this was where the stairs to the upstairs apartment were.  It is the perfect spot for our strawberries!

These are our sunchokes which didn't survive the storm so well, hence the string holding them up.  Unfortunately for our neighbors they won't be ready to harvest for at least another month or two!

This is rhubarb, rainbow chard, and fish pepper on the other side of our porch.  The rhubarb has been really productive this year, I actually have enough frozen to make jelly for once :)

Here are some pole beans growing up the fence in our back garden.  Note the compost in the trash can being held together with a bit of WV steel (another example of our classiness!).  Pole beans are amazing in small spaces.  They will climb up any fence or trellis and you will get a ton from just a couple of plants.

Here is our popping corn growing in our other garden in the backyard.  I can't wait to harvest this!  It is multi-colored and I think the kids will love it :)

Here is our kale, rainbow chard, beets, and carrots in the back garden.  The chard is also a great crop for small spaces.  It is ornamental, produces over a long period of time, and is very productive.  I read one blogger who said she harvested 40 lbs of chard from 4 plants!!!!

There is so much more I would have taken pictures of if it hadn't been for the weeds!  In my defence we got about 6 inches of rain followed by high temps and I swear the weeds doubled in size!  With the price of food and safety issues with food from huge factory farms with not so great conditions, I think everyone should grow as much of their own food as possible!

New produce and preserving the garden's abundance...

We spent about 7 hours at the farm yesterday and the garden is really in full swing now.  I am always surprised at how fast our cuc's and squash grow, but this year has been crazy so far!  I actually bought
some yucky old cuc's at the store because I wasn't expecting to have any until next week.  We are trying a new variety this year called Poona Keera.  It is an Indian heirloom and is really fantastic.  Not only is it early, but supposedly it never gets bitter.  It has a firm and tasty flavor.  The only bad thing would be the skins get a little tough as they get older so they are best picked when white or yellow.  Here is a pic of them...

We are pretty well prepared for the "Why are you bringing bad cucumbers to market" comments (I would have been among those people 4 or 5 years ago!).  Thankfully our regular customers are some pretty cool cats who are OK with trying some unusual stuff.  I think they look cool as heck!  The whiter one has a less tough skin.  You can see a little brown on the ends, but it is still tender.  The ones in back taste great as well, the skin just needs peeled.  Supposedly if you let them go they will turn all brown and look like a potato.  The texture is really firm, almost like a zucchini that tastes like a cucumber so we think they will make great pickles. 

We also harvested a bushel of chard for market this Saturday.  That is the most we have harvested so far, and we sold a lot of it but had some left over.  I really didn't want to waste it so John made some quick refrigerator pickles from them.  He didn't season them at all, as I do not like pickled beets seasoned, just vinegar and a very tiny amount of sugar.

I can't wait to eat these on salads and sandwiches!  We forgot (again) to take pics of the garden while we were up there but we are going up again this week so I will do my best to remember.  The difference between the garden now and a month ago is incredible!  I will leave you with a pic of our garlic harvest this year.  Some of them are cut off, but most of them are in the pic (please ignore the messy yard and un-weeded yard! Lol!)

Garlic Scape Jelly

Soo I wanted to post about this earlier...you know like when garlic scapes were still in season ;)  But you can easily make this with regular garlic which is now coming into season.  I just used the recipe in the Ball canning book but did not roast the scapes and added a tbsp. of fresh chopped rosemary.  It is really yummy and the rosemary really adds that extra special yum quality!  Pour the jelly over some cream cheese and serve with crackers.  Delish!!  This makes a great last minute gift or hostess gift as well :)

What we will have this Saturday...

Produce we will have Saturday the 9th:

Summer squashes including Cocozella Di Napoli (Italian heirloom with a great flavor and stays tasty even at a large size, Patisson Strie Melange (French heirloom patty pan), early yellow crook neck.

Rainbow Chard

Blue Curled Scotch Kale

Garlic

Genovese Basil

Oregano

Why we do what we do



Checking on the wild berries!

 Now that we are in our third season of marketing our produce at the local farmers market I thought it best to give some history of our farm, and why we do what we do.   About four years ago my wife and I decided to be more conscious of the food we eat and where it comes from.  We began with a small garden and shopped at the farmers market in the summer.  We also tried to supplement with grocery store organic products but this was beginning to be a bit expensive for our budget, and did not fit well into our desire to eat more locally produced foods.  As a natural progression we wanted to grow as much of our own food as possible in a chemical free, earth friendly manner.  Then it hit us!  "There have to be more people in our situation",  those who desire a healthy locally produced product but feel it is to expensive for them.  This lead to our decision to start a farm.    We strive to raise our products free from pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers utilizing bio-diverse farming methods, crop rotation, animal manure, and compost.  We also raise as many heirloom fruits and veggies as possible, excluding all GMO crop varieties.  We feel holding ourselves to these standards is important to our family, community, and the the well being of the planet as a whole.

As our farm grows we hope that you will grow with us.  This blog will not only chronicle our growth, but serve as a tool for our customers to have access to us, and as an information database for "how to" gardening, cooking, and all around simple and frugal living.

Summer garden update...

We have been very busy lately with the garden and market.  After a weird spring, things seem to be coming along nicely now.  Even our spring stuff didn't do too bad.  Right now we mostly have scapes and rainbow chard.  We might have a few radishes to take tomorrow but we won't know until we go up to the farm tonight.  I saw some ripe berries the other day so I am hoping we will have some.  At least enough for us ;)  We also had some new potatoes last week which were sooo tasty.  Everything homegrown tastes better than the store bought stuff!  We have been keeping up on the weeds pretty good this year.  Honestly weeding our garden is like trying to cut your lawn with a pair of scissors.  It is so big and there are just soooo many weeds.  So it doesn't look perfect, but it isn't too bad either.  Here are some pics of the garden...

None of the pictures really do justice to the size of the garden this year.  It is twice as big as last year.  It actually goes down smll hill so there is quite a bit you can't see in this picture.

These are the peppers and okra.  Usually peppers don't do well at the farm because of the soil, but this year we put down some compost and they are already bigger then they have ever been before.  The okra was started waaaay too early but is really doing great.  "They" say okra doesn't do well when transplanted but these are doing wonderfully.  We have already harvested a handful so hopefully we will have more when we go up today because everyone in our family likes okra.  We use newspaper and straw as mulch to help keep in the moisture and discourage weeds.  When you mulch like this you get a whole little micro world of beneficial bacteria and bugs that help the plants and soil.

Here are the potatoes.  You can't see most of the plants because of the straw, but there are quite a few of them.  We are trying some new varities this year so we are excited to see how they do.

Here is where we direct seeded our squash plants.  We are doing successive plantings all the way up the length of the garden.  We have pumpkins, summer squash, winter squash, cucs, and watermelons here.  We planted them waaay closer then we should have because we really lacked the space we needed.  We probably won't be able to get to anything once it all starts growing!

Here is the tomato patch where we have just shy of 200 different heirloom tomato plants.  We started them way to early as well and I really thought they would all die they were so sickly when we put them in the ground.  I actually bought about 10 more plants from our favorite nursery so I could be sure we would have tomatoes for ourselves.  Thankfully they all look great!  Alrighty enough chatting, lots to do before market tomorrow!

Whoopsy!

Oops I haven't posted in awhile!  We are super busy with the farm and market right now.  Both are going great.  The garden looks awesome.  I just harvested our first new potatoes yesterday, along with some okra.  I fried it up with some garlic scapes...yum!  I also made a garlic scape pizza this weekend which was awesome!!!

It amuses me that my kids are growing up in a house where taking pictures of your meals is pretty normal!  LOL!  Market has been going really well.  Not only have we been selling a lot but we have some pretty neat stuff at our market now.

Don't these look like little Easter egg candies?  They are actually Quail eggs and are super tiny and cute!  I think my kids will really like them boiled.  I might get around to that today.  We spent all day at the farm yesterday and I got some good pictures which I will try and post later.  Here is a picture of our market a couple of weeks ago.

Spring Garden Update 2011...

What a rainy spring we have had!  Well rainy and cold.  The cold has been harder on the plants than the rain I think, although our first srop of radish seeds did get pulverized into the ground by a nice heavy spring rain we had.  We went up to the farm today to check and the radishes we planted last week are twice as big and had much better germination rate than the radishes we planted a month ago.  That is the gamble you take when you plant early.  Sometimes you get a great crop and sometimes you get nothing.  I am not a big gambler, but in this particular situation I think it is worth the gamble ;)  We gathered more big field rocks from the farmer's field today.  You can read about this from last year here.  We are putting some new flower beds in the front yard.  The rocks we gathered today will be the border around that bed.

We planted some of our favorite lettuce, Black Seeded Simpson at the beginning of this month.  As you can see they are still very small.  March was so cold, they never really got a good start until the last couple of weeks.  We are hoping to have some by the 2nd or 3rd farmers market.  We like this lettuce so much because it is fairly bolt resistent, and is one of the last lettuces to get bitter.

Here are our two year old Starbor Kale plants from last year.  They over-wintered well.  I think we ony lost 3 plants this winter.  Not only are we getting a large amount of Kale from them, but they should so to seed this year and we can collect our own seed frm them.  This kale has really great flavor.  Much better in my opinion than Dinosaur Kale or Red Russian.  This kale is also good used fresh.  I like to use it in turkey wraps or fresh salads, or it canned be cooked and eaten on rice or pasta.

Here are the seedlings of the red romaine lettuce that we got for free from Baker Creek Seeds, one of our favorite seed companies.  They include one free seed packet with your purchase.  We planted them in a 4 ft bu 4 ft area and they seem to have germinated well.

These are our Bloomsdale Spinach seelings.  Spinach is one of my favorite greens.  Fresh spinach had the best flavor.  Can't wait until we can pick this stuff!!

Hoping we will have some stuff for our first farmers market, April 30th.  Will keep you posted on our plants! 

A new tutorial and making takeout at home...

So I finally posted that reusable snack bag tutorial on the website.  You can view it here.

We have also been trying to cook different things at home.  Not only do we need a change of pace, but we have been getting a bit carried away with eating out.  Now in a former life I used to eat out a 3 or 4 times a week.  Now we should really only eat out once every couple of months.  Lately though we have been getting takeout from a really good (especially for the midwest) Chinese restaurant down the street.  In an effort to save a bit of money I tried making some dishes at home last night.  They turned out really great!

The first thing I made was this simple noodle soup.  I simply made chicken broth and chinese noodles.  I cooked the noodles, rinsed them under cold water and put some in each bowl.  I topped the noodles with sliced mushrooms, baby bok choy, and green onions, and poured the hot broth over it all.  We then seasoned it with soy sauce and sesame oil.  It was sooooooo good!!! And very cheap :)

Next I did a Kung Pao chicken.  The recipe I got off of allrecipes was terrible!!!  I really dislike that site. I hate when recipes get great ratings, but when you go back and read the reviews later they give the dish 5 stars but change 10 things in the recipe.  When I realized the sauce was going to be crappy I had to do some super quick improvising which turned out great!  I wish I had time to write down the recipe, but I was so rushed when I was doing it I didn't get the chance.  It was really really good.  It is nice to know that I can do it on my own!  Next week I think we are going to try some mexican food :)

Working on some new stuff...

I have been busy working on some new stuff this past week.  We always seem to get out of the habbit of being less wasteful.  Nothing big, but we need to get back on track.  I made some more cloth napkins this week.  We also finished out last roll of paper towels, so it is back to using cloth towels.  Sometimes you really do need paper towels though, especially when it comes to food.  For instance, patting a whole chicken dry with a cloth towel always leaves fuzzies.  The bad thing is, if we have the paper towels we will use them for everything.  Kind of an all or nothing type deal.  I am going to try and go without them again and see how it works.  I have also been wanting to replace ziploc baggies for awhile now.  I always reuse them, and recycle them when they are too worn out, but I wanted something that I could send to school with my son that wouldn't get thrown out.  Since most of our containers are glass, I decided to make some reusable snack bags.

I wanted to make something that was waterproof so I could send stuff like strawberries or grapes.  I did some research, but there doesn't seem to be any reliable information about the safety of using ripstop nylon or PUL.  I settled for unbleached linen instead.  It works for snacks like pretzels, raisins, and peanuts, and I prefer the idea of using cotton.  I still wouldn't mind having a few bags that could be used for wet snacks so if anyone does know of a place that sells food safe nylon material please let me know :)  They are super easy to make and require little materials so I hope to have a tutorial up on the website by next week!

This week whole chickens were only .85 lb. so that was the focus of my meal planning this week.  I made a roast chicken last night (that turned out awesome!), and chicken salad, and chicken stock today.  Tonight I will use the stock to make chicken noodle soup and the chicken salad will be dinner for tomorrow.   I finished a new page for the website, so check it out if you would like to learn how to make 3 meals from one chicken. 

Our grocery bill has been a bit out of control the last month or so.  Still trying to get back on track with that as well.  One thing I am working on is serving more whole grain, dry bean, and potato side dishes as well as a veggies side dish with every meal.  This seems to help stretch meals.  Always more things to try and areas to improve I guess!  Hope you enjoy the new page!

Making your own shampoo...

I recently decided that I wanted to stop buying shampoo and start making my own.  I hate all the packaging that comes with store bought shampoo.  Plus all that garbage that gets absorbed into our skin and then goes into our water is just gross.  So I started researching it and there are some really easy and cheap alternatives to shampoo. 

My favorite is a combination of baking soda and apple cider vinegar.  You can find the full page at my website.  Enjoy!!

Finally some nice weather!

This has been the longest winter ever!  This last couple of weeks have been really rough on all of us here.  It has been especially hard on my little boy who loves to be outside.  My husband took Friday off of work so we could get some planting done and it was great to be outside!  We have all felt so much better.  Even my little girl who is only 18 months has been so much happier this weekend.  We went up to the farm Friday to get some stuff done.

The day was so nice!  Blue skies and 65.  A perfect day to do some planting.

My little boy had so much fun helping out.  He planted all of the fingeling poatoes.

We really expanded our garlic patch this year.  We only had 2 rows last year and we have 6 this year.  I also planted a half row of spring garlic. 

Last year we planted arugula for the first time and it is like a weed in the garden now! 

We also had quite a few turnips in the ground still.  Some were baseball sized.

I also found an arrowhead in the garden.  This is the third one I have found in the garden.  This one looks to be in good shape, just missing the tip. 
Today we had some stuff to do around the house.  We are expanding our side garden and I cleaned out the back garden.  We also bought a pound of snap peas that we are planting along all of our fences (aka chicken wire to keep the dog out) to maximize space.

This is actually a lot bigger than it looks.  We planted snap peas all along the fence here.

I found what I suspect (note the word suspect.  As in I don't know for sure so don't take my word for it!) is bittercress.  I can't find a good source for identifying it online, so I am going to pick up Peterson's Field Guide to wild edibles.

We also have a lot of things coming back on their own.  Here is some spinach...

and mustard greens...

And Starbor Kale that we overwintered.  We should get seeds this year from the kale and the mustard greens as it is their second year.  We really enjoy this type of kale.  It has a mild flavor and is great in smoothies.  It is really nice to have all this stuff coming back that we don't have to do anything to!  We also have rhubarb, lavender, ground cherries, cress, horehound, strawberries and other stuff I am forgetting, that will come back on their own.  We still have a lot of planting to do so hopefully the weather will continue to stay nice!