Turnip Time

Sweet and tender roots are ready for autumn harvest.  For most of the growing season they are invisible, save for vines or leafy tops.  Now, before the frosts begin, we have the pleasure of reaching down, loosening the grip of the still warm and fragrant soil, and drawing out these hidden treasures.   

Dependable and durable, roots keep a long time after being harvested.  They can be stored and enjoyed well into the winter, giving flavor as well as substance to hearty cold weather soups and stews.  Staples in every kitchen, the familiar triumvirate of carrots, onions and potatoes are almost a stew in themselves.  And who doesn't love to have a bouquet of scarlet radishes waiting on the counter, ready to add some texture and just a little heat to salads?  Beets, earthy of flavor and glorious of color, have become quite trendy, enjoying a culinary renaissance just as kale did a few years back.  But the queen of all the roots, the beautiful and graceful turnip, is somehow sadly overlooked.

Heat tolerant and cold hardy, turnips are grown in nearly every climate.  Cultures on every continent include turnips in their cuisines. But here in the U.S. turnips are not a vegetable of choice.   Perhaps for a nation of immigrants it is the memory of hard times and limited diet back in the old country that has turned several generations of Americans away from the turnip.

In fact, during the early part of the 20^th century turnips were grown quite extensively in North America.  But they were cultivated as a forage crop for livestock, as the root and the plant were recognized as excellent sources of nutrition.  Considered animal food, the turnip was too humble for the dinner table.   Eventually even the growing of turnips for animals faded since it is a crop that requires a lot of hand labor to harvest and store. 

The back field was planted as a forage crop before it became home to the chicken tractors. *

Turnips are unquestionably a valuable food for animals and humans.  They are packed with Vitamins A and B12, Potassium, Calcium, folates and Omega 3s.  But turnips offer the cook more than nutrition.  Turnips and their larger relative, the rutabaga, are roots of great versatility.  Try turnips raw, sliced very thin or julienned for dipping or in salads. Their flavor is peppery, but a bit milder than most radishes.  And dispense with the hassle of peeling, unless a turnip is very large, the tender skin just needs a quick scrub. 

Tiny turnips, plum size or smaller, can be cooked up whole, tops and all.  The green tops, like spinach, mustard, and other greens are a high nutrition food. Boil bite size chunks of larger turnips until fork tender and serve simply with butter, salt and pepper.  You can go a step further and mash them.   Boiled mashed turnips and potatoes is the classic Scottish 'neeps and tatties.'  Or puree them smooth to create a great soup base.  

Roasted or oven baked turnip slices offer amazing caramelized sweetness, and turnips liven up a medley of sauteed autumn roots.  Raw turnip slices bathed in a vinegar and sugar brine become a crisp pickled compliment to rich, savory stews.  Turnip gratin, turnip risotto, turnips braised with apples and onions, turnips in curry, and borscht, and slaw, turnips turn up in recipes from round the globe.  

Is it not time to celebrate the turnip: the beautiful turnip, pure white or golden, sometimes with shoulders purpled by the sun; the graceful turnip, whose form is found in Byzantine domes as well as spinning tops; the steadfast turnip waiting to be rediscovered and invited to the feast?

* See  4/14/14 post about chicken tractors.

Chickens in the Woods

The little chicken house in the woods has been empty for a while.  Though two older hens do occasionally wander up there, trying to escape the hustle and bustle down around the chicken wagon, the little coop has not really been in use since last spring.  It is the perfect spot to raise just a few birds at a time, so in August we set the space up as a mini brooder.  It is now home to sixteen lively young poults.  They arrived as day old chicks last month, and by winter they will be ready to leave the house in the woods and join the big girls in the chicken wagon.

 

Our flock of laying hens, we realize, is beginning to age, slow down a bit.  The most productive years of an egg bird are from about age one to age four, when some hens can lay an egg almost every day.  Some of our birds are now almost four. Though chickens typically live 12 or more years and do continue to lay throughout their lives, the number of eggs decreases as they age.  We expect our AARP candidates will continue to contribute, but we have to anticipate that it will be at a more leisurely rate.  If we hope to maintain our current egg production, we will need to regularly add new young hens to the flock.

  

At Green Gate Farm we like to keep a mixed flock with birds of varied ages, breeds, and characteristics.  The most reliably productive layers are the red sex-links, cross-bred chickens that mature quickly and pack their whole reproductive life into their first three or four years.  The unglamorous name for this kind of chicken refers to the strikingly different appearance of male and female chicks, a sexually linked trait which makes almost foolproof the selection of newly hatched female chicks to raise for egg production.  The eggs of our sex-links are standard brown, medium to medium large in size, and the birds themselves are a rather unassuming dusty red.  They may be Plain Janes, but these ladies are certainly champion egg layers.   

The beautiful old style and heritage breed birds in our flock contribute other valuable traits.  These are breeds which tend to live longer and to be consistently productive longer.  We especially look for breeds known to be effective foragers and birds that are able to adapt to extremes of weather.  And we want birds that lay distinctive, beautiful eggs!

The large creamy or peachy brown eggs in your Green Gate Farm dozen are from the Buff Orpingtons, a breed that originated in Britain in the 1800s.  The sky blue or greenish blue eggs are laid by Americaunas, a relatively new breed, but developed from a very old South America variety famous for its exotic blue eggs. By next spring you should also be seeing some eggs that are a lustrous terra cotta or a dark chocolate brown.  These will be from the two new breeds we’ve added: the Marans, an old French breed, and the Welsummer, which originated in the Netherlands.

Here are the chicks on the day we picked them up from Whitmore Farm, a nearby small farm which specializes in heritage breed livestock. 

 And here they are a month later on their first excursion outside in their run.

Though you can only see chicken wire in the photo, the little chicken house in the woods is a fortress. Netted to protect from aerial invaders and surrounded by bulwarks of gravel and earth, it is a safe home for vulnerable little birds.  Once these young ones move in with the main flock, the little house will be empty again, but only for a while.  We're already planning for next spring's occupants, a new generation of chickens in the woods.

For more information about heritage breed chickens, here are some interesting links:

http://www.whitmorefarm.com/

http://modernfarmer.com/tag/heritage-breeds/http://www.livestockconservancy.org/index.php/heritage/internal/heritage-chicken

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Keeping Pigs in the Loop

Nothing leaves the farm.  That was one of Pap’s maxims.  Pap, the father, grandfather and mentor to a new generation of farmers, worked his family’s farm here in Jefferson County from the 1930's until the present decade.  He was a dairyman, maintaining a herd of prize-winning Jerseys, so of course milk left the farm, but not much else.  Pap's words meant nothing leaves the farm if it can be put to use.  The cow manure stayed to fertilize the hay fields, the hay stayed to feed the livestock.  Anything that could be composted was.  Anything that could be reused went into the shed until it was needed.  It was a closed loop system, just as it had been in his own grandfather’s time.

Here at Green Gate Farm we strive for a closed loop sustainable system.  Like the traditional farms of a century ago, our aim is to raise different kinds of livestock and a variety of crops.  The resulting diversity of products we can grow provides some insurance that if there is a problem in one area, there are other areas that are still productive. 

These various uses of the farm’s land – some for gardens, some for pasturing chickens, some for pasturing pigs, some for hay, and some just resting –  are key to maintaining the health and vitality of the soil itself.   The soil benefits from the activity of animals on pasture.  The shallow scratching of chickens searching for insects and the deeper rooting of pigs help open the soil.  Closing the loop, the manure the pastured animals deposit each day puts back into the field many of the nutrients which had been consumed. (See link below to January 2014  posting on manure.)


                                     

This year we’ve put a lot of energy, both creative and physical, into having more pigs in ‘the loop.’

Thus far, the pigs we’ve raised at Green Gate Farm have fallen into every category – purebred, purebred heritage breed, and crossbred.  A couple came to us half grown and were ‘finished’ here on pasture.  The rest have arrived as weanlings or shoats and have been entirely pasture raised.  Each of them taught us a little more about what kind of pig works best on our pastures.  

The attributes we are looking for in pigs are most pronounced in the older heritage breeds.  Some breeds, like the Poland China and Red Wattle, are well suited to living outdoors all year.  Some, like the Tamworth and Ossabaw Island, are eager and effective foragers.  We particularly like the Gloucestershire Old Spot, a very handsome old English pig which combines all these traits.  And the Old Spot is an even-tempered pig, quite comfortable with a lot of human interaction.   

Intern Maria and friend

The biggest part of incorporating more pigs into the loop is to begin a breeding program, and we want a Gloucestershire Old Spot to be the cornerstone of that enterprise.  Breeding the animals here means we would be able supply our own young pigs to raise, and we would be helping to preserve the genetics of a breed which is on the 'critical' list of endangered heritage livestock breeds.

Gregor at three weeks

So Lars tracked down a fine young weanling boar and named him Gregor, for Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics. This little guy will grow to 500 or 600 pounds and will become, it is to be hoped, the founder of a porcine dynasty here at Green Gate Farm.  It will be a while before Gregor's progeny are the pigs you'll find in our pastures, but those future pigs, born here and raised here, will carry forward the great genes of a heritage breed, and will help Green Gate Farm keep closing up that sustainable loop.                

January posting:  http://greengatefarmtable.blogspot.com/2014/01/manure.html

For information on heritage livestock breeds visit: http://www.livestockconservancy.org/

Natural Predators in the Garden

An Army of Scarlet Ladies

In the beginning of summer, when the chard, beet tops and other tender greens were just reaching their peak, tiny destructive invaders began to appear in the gardens.  Sap-sucking aphids, flea beetles and leaf hoppers, though barely visible, can cause major damage almost overnight. These insidious little munchers are a fact of life in our no spray world here at Green Gate Farm. Though the gardens are home to many beneficial insects that make a living consuming those critters that damage fruit and vegetable crops, it seemed that reinforcements were needed.  Call in the scarlet ladies!

Live ladybugs (or ladybird beetles) can be ordered over the internet by the pint. So within 48 hours about 9,000 thousand beetles arrived.  Ladybugs travel in a quiescent state and must be maintained at a temperature just above freezing until they are released. Ladybug farmers recommend putting them in the fridge for several hours to calm them, then releasing them in the evening. The cold and quiet of the refrigerator apparently calms the little ladies after the

turmoil of their trip.  Releasing our ladybugs at dusk gave them a chance to settle into their new habitat during the night. They especially appreciated the moisture from dew falling in the evening garden, since ladybugs, like most travelers, can suffer some dehydration. In the morning, refreshed and rested, the ladies began the job they were brought in to do.  


Each beetle can hunt down and consume as many as 80 aphids a day. Multiply that times 9,000 and you can see how effective this natural predator can be. Once established with a steady food supply, our army of ladybugs began to mate and lay eggs. Their offspring, when in larval form, are themselves fearsome predators, consuming insect eggs as well as aphids and other soft-bodied insects. Over the course of this growing season, five or more generations of voracious scarlet ladies will be patrolling the Green Gate Farm gardens working to keep your produce safe!     

Leslie monitoring the ladybugs patrolling the chard .

Solar Systems

The last evening of May is filled with fireflies.  Rising out of the pasture and the garden just at dusk, they begin their ritual intermittent flashing.   The males flash as they fly about, while the females, which stay close to the ground, light up briefly to signal their availability.  A wonderful variation on this spontaneity occurs among firefly species in the Great Smoky Mountains.  These insects tend to synchronize their flashes, all simultaneously flashing on and off, sometimes in great pulsating waves through the dark treetops.  So sitting on the front porch, watching the firefly courtship display, I thought I might have spotted another variation in the firefly repertoire.  There seemed to be an occasional reddish flash among the fireflies lighting up over the front garden.  And it had a steady pulse, showing up through the pea vines and fronds of asparagus, blinking almost like a light on an appliance.  Which of course is exactly what it was, the blinking light of an appliance you can find here and there all around Green Gate Farm . . . a solar charger.

                                                 
These chargers are a convenient way for farmers to supply current to electric fencing far from any other power source, and electric fences are essential to keep livestock in and vegetable munching deer out.  The photovoltaic cells in solar chargers convert sunlight into the electricity needed to operate the fence.  The red light I saw was from the charger for the area occupied by the youngest pigs, two Red Wattle crosses. They’ve spent the past six weeks ‘rototilling’ an area that will be planted later in the year. (See January 21, 2014 post on Manure for more on how pigs help us in the garden.)  

Pig areas all over the farm are fenced with a plastic and wire tape about one inch wide.  Lars sets the special flexible posts all around the perimeter and then affixes the tape at pig nose level setting another strand or two above that.  It takes only moments to train the pigs to recognize and honor the taped boundary. Forever after they will recognize that tape and assume that as long as they stay within it they will be comfortable and safe.    
   

                                             
       Lars setting the fence. Pigs being pigs. Charger on post to right.              Chicken wagon with charger on the left. Ladies scoping out escape routes.

The beauty of the solar chargers and flexible fencing systems is that the livestock can be moved regularly to new pasture.  This is especially true for the laying hens, who need to be moved often, so the chicken wagon is equipped with a solar charger too.  The fencing used here, woven plastic and wire, is about 3 feet high and encloses an area of about 500 square feet of lovely pasture.  Some of the ladies, though, seem to be expert escape artists, flapping over or slipping under the fence, just to prove they can.  But they always manage to slip back in when it is feeding time or when the setting sun signals it is time to go inside to roost for the night. These days that is just about the time the fireflies appear. Then the pasture shimmers with hundreds of tiny flashes of light and a single little red one standing guard in the twilight.

                                                 
 Link to those synchronized fireflies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcKx9wlCfiQ

Rhubarb - Eternal Happiness

You’ve seen them in the market, the long rosy-hued stalks of rhubarb. They are so fresh and appealing, but a bit unfamiliar, a bit old-fashioned.  They look like something that requires a lot of work and complicated recipes to make edible.

A perennial vegetable, rhubarb has stalks that look like celery but with large, crinkly, spinach-like leaves.  And like spinach those leaves contain oxalic acid, so much oxalic acid that the leaves are considered highly toxic and should never, ever be eaten.  The crisp and juicy stalks, however, in lovely shades of green, pink, or ruby red, are a tangy treat when eaten raw or cooked. 

Because it grows to be a fairly large plant that will come back year after year, rhubarb needs plenty of space where it can grow undisturbed for the several years it needs to become established. At Green Gate Farm we planted our rhubarb in the deep but narrow areas of soil between strips of outcropping limestone.  It has been growing happily in the well composted ground for three years, and this year, at last, we can begin to harvest and enjoy it. 

The flavor of rhubarb is a bit elusive, sometimes described as berrylike, but earthier.   Really, it is completely unique. If you like tart and crunchy fruit, try the stalks raw, dipped in brown sugar.  For rhubarb compote, crisp, or pie, cook up a batch sweetened with a bit of sugar or honey. It will be more than a sweet treat, for rhubarb boasts sweet nutritional benefits.  From just one cup of diced rhubarb you can get 10% of your daily requirement for potassium, 8% of dietary fiber, 10% calcium, and 16% for both Vitamin K and Vitamin C.  In Great Britain, during the lean years of World War II, the growing of nutritious rhubarb was strongly encouraged, and the government actually controlled rhubarb prices to keep them low enough for all citizens to have access to it as a reliable local source of Vitamin C.

Though the stalks can be harvested all throughout the growing season, it is in May and June, when strawberries (rhubarb’s favorite desert companion) are in season, that rhubarb appears at the markets in abundance. So let yourself be tempted and take home a pound or two.  After 10 minutes of prep and 15  minutes of cooking, you'll be on your way to rhubarb heaven! 

Preparing rhubarb:

Harvesting rhubarb is as simple as grasping a stalk as low as possible and giving a twist to release it.

It is recommended that several stalks be left untouched on each plant.  This way the plant can continue growing and photosynthesizing enough to nourish the plant for next year’s growth.

Cut off the poisonous leaves and store the stalks in the fridge until you are ready to use them. If you can’t get to it right away, rhubarb is easily frozen.  Trim the root end a bit, then wash and dry the stalks, stripping off any loose stringy fibers.  Cut the stalks into one or two inch sections and pack these into freezer bags or boxes.  That’s it!

Cooking rhubarb is almost as simple. Either stew freshly cut, trimmed, and washed rhubarb with a bit of sugar until it is soft (about 8 to 10 minutes), or roast it with sugar in a foil covered baking dish at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes.  For either method we use about ½ cup of sugar for a pound of rhubarb, which is about 3 to 4 cups. 

Rhubarb is complemented by so many things - strawberries, of course, but you can combine it with or apples, or orange zest, or with ginger as the British do.  Once you start riffing on rhubarb, in pies, cakes, trifles, and tarts, sauces, smoothies or cocktails, you'll be singing the old Monty Python tune - read all the existential philosophers, like Schopenhauer and Jean-Paul Sartre, even Martin Heidegger agreed on one thing - eternal happiness is rhubarb tart!

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Great rhubarb links:

http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/rhubarb

http://www.saveur.com/gallery/Best-Rhubarb-Recipes

 http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/recipes 

Images thanks to wikimedia commons.

The Season of the Ramp

If you’re not having ramps for supper tonight, you’re probably not in West Virginia!

Here between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Alleghenies late April and early May is the season for ramps.  This simple twin leaved member of the onion family creates a big stir this time of year.  Called wild garlic or wild leeks, Allium Tricoccum is an Appalachian delicacy.  Its garlicky odor is famously pungent, but its bright spring flavors are prized.  Cooked, the little bulbs taste sweet and oniony, while the leaves are like scallions or chives.

Like a fisherman who doesn’t care to share his favorite trout pool, or a morel hunter who keeps secret that special spot under the oaks, anyone who discovers a colony of ramps holds that knowledge very close, divulging the precise location to only a trusted few. 

Ramps require a very particular habitat, the moist rich soils of the Appalachian hardwood forests.  From Georgia all the way up through Maine, ramps can be found, usually at altitudes of at least 3,000 feet, though in colder climates it can be lower.  Where the environment is just right, ramps thrive and can spread into substantial colonies.

The trick with ramps is that the best environments tend to be the least accessible.  And the growing season is a brief four or five weeks.   So foraging for ramps requires dedication and timing.  Collecting ramps in the wild also calls for moderation.  Conservation groups urge foragers to take only 5 to 10 percent of the ramps in a colony.  The best rule of thumb may be to harvest only the largest ramps in a clump, since for the colony to remain vigorous most of the plants should be allowed to mature and go to seed.

For most of us, enjoying the culinary delights of ramps requires foraging at a local farmer’s market or seeking out one of the many regional ramps festivals.  But don’t delay, the season of the ramp is here!

More about ramps:
http://www.wildedible.com/wild-food-guide/ramps

http://wellpreserved.ca/preserving-spring-wild-leeks-or-ramps/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/20/dining/20forage.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

West Virginia Ramp Feasts and festivals:
http://wvexplorer.com/recreation/agritourism/ramp-feasts-festivals/

http://www.kingofstink.com/

Monarch Butterflies - Orange and Black Signals Danger

The Monarch Butterfly, a species so widespread and beloved that it is the state insect of seven states, West Virginia, as well as Alabama, Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, Texas and Vermont, is severely threatened.
   

Bear with me here.  Much of this post may remind you of your fourth grade science fair poster on the life cycle of butterflies.  Though the information may not be new, perhaps it will provide a little refresher course in the extraordinarily complex life of this lovely and fragile insect, and make clear why we all should be watching out for the Monarchs.

Adult butterflies live but a few weeks. Consuming only nectar from flowers, they search meadows, roadsides and gardens for the best sources.  Before they die, they seek out the proper food source for the next generation and lay their eggs on those plants. With luck, the caterpillars hatching from these eggs will emerge at just the right time, when the temperature and food supply are optimum. Caterpillars eat only leaves, each species favoring a common plant or tree of the region.  When cold weather comes, the caterpillars of most butterflies begin to change, becoming pupae which will live in a kind of state of suspended animation until they come forth as adults in the spring.
 

But what if the optimum environment begins to change? What if the temperatures become less predictable?  What if food sources disappear?   

One butterfly species, the familiar orange and black Monarch, faces all these challenges, partly because it has a very different strategy for survival.  This butterfly responds to the onset of cold weather by migrating.  Each October millions of Monarchs begin their trip south across the Eastern and Midwestern states following a very specific migratory pattern.   A smaller population on the west coast of North America travels a separate route down through southern California.  All are headed to Mexico, to a region high in the Sierra Madre Mountains.  There, the overwintering insects congregate in the Oyamel Fir forests.  They hang in great clusters, with perhaps 100,000 individuals per tree.  These colonies blanket the mountaintops, an extraordinary sight which has generated a steady tourist industry for the region.  In March, warmer weather triggers a reverse migration.  The Monarchs, in their millions, gradually drift up from the trees and head north, following the same routes traveled by countless previous generations.

These age old flight paths are based on where the necessary food sources will be found.  Monarch caterpillars can eat only plants from the milkweed family.  A wildflower, this tall, fuzzy-leafed plant with umbels of fragrant flowers is native throughout North America.  Common along roadsides and in fields, the plant self-sows easily.  Each plant produces a multitude of delicate seeds equipped with a silky tendrils which allow them to float far on the slightest breeze.  Hardy and adaptable, milkweed thrives in dry or wet conditions, at various latitudes and altitudes, and competes quite successfully with all the other plants in its vicinity.  It grows everywhere, providing a dependable food source for the Monarch  all along its migratory routes.

The Monarch’s very specialized reproduction pattern is attuned to its migratory habit.  The generation of overwintering Monarchs that leaves Mexico in March is called the first generation.  These butterflies fly north, and when attracted by a place with plenty of milkweed, stop to lay their eggs before they die.  The second generation matures and continues to migrate north, following the milkweed as it blooms.  Then the third generation caterpillars hatch, mature and head out for the milkweed buffet even further north.

In a single summer there may be as many as four generations heading steadily north, following the milkweed, all the way into southern Canada.  But at the end of summer, as the cold weather approaches, the final generation develops very differently.  Though these orange and black beauties look just like their parents and grandparents, the do not mate or develop eggs.  Their bodies become extremely efficient at converting and storing fat.  They’ll need it, because this is the generation that will make the entire return trip, 2,500 miles, all the way back to Mexico.

It is a complex and beautiful system for survival, one that has allowed the species to flourish even when a change in climate or habitat occured in some part of its expansive range.  But about 20 years ago scientists began to notice a significant disruption of the Monarch’s migrating patterns followed by an alarming decrease in its population.  It finally became evident that the problem was milkweed, or the lack of it.  The Monarch’s food source was disappearing.  Areas where once the plant was abundant were now free of all weeds, including the milkweed.

The fields and roadsides of America’s agricultural lands were now being chemically groomed to allow only specific crops to survive, and the agent was the herbicide Roundup.  Though Roundup had been around for a while, it was in the 1990s that crop plants were developed to be resistant to the effects of glysophate, the principal chemical in Roundup. ‘Roundup Ready’ corn, cotton, and soybeans were genetically modified to withstand the effects of the herbicide.  So a farmer could spray his fields and the chemical would eradicate all plants except the genetically modified crop plants.   It seemed a terrific tool for farmers to save time and labor and better ensure good crop survival.  But every year millions of acres received the treatment, eradicating milkweed all along the Monarch’s migration routes.

In 2013-2014 the Monarch population has reached a new low of 30 million butterflies, half of the number recorded for 2012-2013, and a drastic decline from the long term average of 350 million.  Scientists estimate the population by determining the total area, in hectares, covered by the overwintering colonies.  This number is then multiplied by the number of individuals typically found clustered in a hectare.   Last winter the overwintering population covered less than 1 hectare (about 2.5 aces) compared to over 20 hectares a scant twenty years ago.

Severe weather across North America in recent decades has certainly been a factor in the Monarch’s struggles.  Deforestation of habitat in Mexico has also played a part.  Scientific teams and environmental groups have long been working to preserve the areas in Mexico where Monarchs gather.  But it is the lack of food throughout the entire migration route that has caused the Monarchs’ numbers to plunge to dangerous levels.  The only way to limit the Monarch Butterfly's decline is to return milkweed to its habitat.

Below are links to connect you with information about how we all can help.  Consider participating in one of the citizen scientist programs and help collect important data on Monarch migration. Or find out about conservation organizations which can get you set up to hand rear Monarch caterpillars until they can be released as adults. Learn out about legislation to restrict use of  glysophate along roadsides and highways or other non-agricultural lands.  Above all, plant milkweed!  Plant milkweed in masses if possible.  Anyone with a bit of yard, or even a balcony container garden, can encourage the growth of milkweed and begin watching out for the Monarchs.        

Find out more about Monarchs:

http://www.monarchbutterflyfund.org/node/148

http://monarchjointventure.org/

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/citscitoolkit/projects/journeynorth/monarchs/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/29/the-monarch-butterfly-population-just-hit-a-record-low-heres-why/

Monarch rearing:
http://www.monarchlab.org/Lab/Rearing/GrowingMilkweed.aspx

Growing milkweed: 
http://www.monarchwatch.org/milkweed/prop.htm

Legislation concerning Monarchs:
http://www.nrdc.org/media/2014/140224a.asp

Which came first . . . the chicken tractor or the egg-mobile?

Chicken tractor?  A mobile chicken house, sometimes called a chicken tractor, can take various forms.  Our tractors for broiler chickens raised on pasture are low, broad chicken wire covered boxes.  They are roofed for protection from sun and rain, but the structure is very simple and lightweight, since the birds need to be moved onto new grass every day.  With the aid of a dolly just one person can slide this kind of hutch to a fresh patch of pasture, and the chickens, if they are in a cooperative mood, just trot along with their house.  The broiler chickens will be out on pasture in this shelter for about six weeks, until they have grown to weigh 3 to 5 pounds and are ready to be processed.

                                                   

Tractors for laying hens, however, must be much more permanent and well-furnished accommodations.

A layer tractor, or egg-mobile, is a coop on wheels.  Lars and Leslie built our egg-mobile on an old silage wagon which makes it large enough for a flock of 100 birds.  Imagine a peak-roofed gypsy wagon all fitted out with nesting boxes, waterers and roosts.

This egg-mobile needn’t be moved as frequently since a generous section of pasture around the wagon is safely enclosed by electric poultry fence.  The ladies descend from their roost each morning, eager to get outside onto the dewy grass and get down to the business of foraging.  Chickens are omnivorous, thriving on a diet of grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, and for protein – the choicest worms, beetles and grubs on offer in the pasture. In addition, laying hens need access to calcium.  We offer chicken ‘grit’, crushed limestone or oyster shells, to help with digestion and to provide the birds with the extra calcium they need to produce sturdy eggshells.

  When it is time for the hens to be on fresh pasture the whole assemblage, wagon and fencing, is moved to a new area.  Why go to all the trouble of raising chickens in what seems to be an elaborate and labor intensive way?  Because a fresh egg from a pastured chicken is such a marvel.

Strong eggshells, requiring a decisive crack to open, are your first clue that your eggs are from active, well-fed pastured hens.  The contents of a fresh egg should slide out as a unit and spread out very little on contact with the pan.  Here’s a beautiful example:

The yolk is large, high and rounded, and is a vivid dark yellow or orange.  That lovely color comes only from pastured chickens which are out in the sunlight consuming lots of green plants and insects.  The albumen of a fresh eggs is cohesive, thick and translucent, sometimes described as opalescent.  Also often noticeable in fresh eggs are the two little white twists, the chalazae, which attach the yolk to the egg membrane. And of course, the lively flavor of a fresh egg from a small farm pastured flock is unsurpassed.  

It's a marvel of engineering, this compact little package of Omega 3s, beta carotenes, and Vitamin E all wrapped up in lovely shades of brown, blue, green or white.  Beautiful in an Easter basket, beautiful on a Passover Seder plate, beautiful any way you fix them, if your eggs didn't start out in an egg-mobile, the yolks on you!
                                               

                    The many colored eggs of our mixed breed hens in a traditional Heirloom Egg Basket by Anne Bowers.

Got GMOs?

Is your food non-GMO?  That’s one of the first questions a farmers market customer or potential CSA member is likely to ask. For farms like ours, based on organic principles, the answer is easy - no GMOs.  But the reasons we avoid GMOs and the reasons people are concerned enough about them to ask are more complex.   

GMOs, genetically modified organisms, have become a very big factor in American industrial farming, and their continued use sparks vigorous debate.  In the scientific community, as well as among the public, there seems to be very little middle ground.  GMOs are perceived as either a grave danger to the environment and sustainable agriculture, or a gratefully-received solution to the challenge of feeding everyone on the planet.   

Hunger is a very real issue in our world, and the growing global population continues to put more and more pressure on our resources. That we must create strategies for future adequate food production is crucial.  It has always been so.  From the very beginnings of civilization, one of the principle concerns of a society, surely the primary task of a society, has been to ensure a steady supply of food.  There were many strategies – migrating to areas with better resources, domesticating animals for food and work, and learning to cultivate desirable food plants.  People have always bent their minds and their backs to the challenges of finding, growing, storing and improving food.

Today, we are even more compelled to find ways to increase food production.  It might even be considered an ethical imperative that agricultural experts should constantly seek ways to improve disease and pest resistance, increase tolerance to extremes of climate, and extend growing seasons.  If our society is able to develop the expertise and the technology to solve these problems, why question their use?  Why be worried about GMO foods?

GMOs are created by fundamentally altering the DNA of an animal or plant, thus engineering a radical and almost immediate development of specific desired traits, traits which help the organism compete and flourish.  Setting aside the issue of whether or not we should be tinkering with one of the most intimate parts of any organism, its genes, there are other ethical considerations at stake. 

Surprisingly, the least debated aspect of the issue is whether GMO foods can be safe and nutritious for humans to eat.  Many medical and scientific groups, including the American Medical Association, the World Health Organization, and the Union for Concerned Scientists have concluded that the safety risks to ingesting GMO food seem minimal.  But all also acknowledge that there are a great many unknowns about the impact of GMOs in our food system.  The real debate centers on those unknowns.

Consumers are concerned about transparency in food production and the proper labeling of food containing GMOs.  Scientists fear the side effects of altering plants so that they are toxic to insect pests.  How might beneficial insects be affected, and in what ways might the altered genetic material travel up the food chain?  Many experts also fear that engineered genes may wind up being transferred to other food crops or to native plants, causing unintended and problematic modifications.  Some of the biggest GMO news stories of the past five years concern the inadvertent emergence of plants containing engineered genes among nearby traditional non-GMO crops.
  

                                                 

This brings up the hottest topic in the GMO debate - the ownership of engineered genes.  GMO seeds and the engineered genes themselves are patented and forever owned by the agritech corporations which develop them.  High tech GMO seeds come with a higher price tag than conventional seeds.  And farmers who plant these patented GMO seeds must sign a contract promising that they will not save and reuse any seeds, an economical practice farmers have always depended upon.  How can smaller farms hope to compete when big agribusiness controls the market?  How can the smaller economies of developing nations hope to achieve food security when the monopoly which controls global agriculture, fiercely protecting its intellectual properties as well as its profit margins, determines who will have access to its products and how its technologies are to be implemented? 

Consider this: almost 70% of the world’s seed development and sales is controlled by only ten companies.  All are actively invested in creating and promoting GMOs.  In the U.S., the biotech giants Monsanto, Cargill, and DuPont lead the pack, with Monsanto alone accounting for nearly 25% of the global seed market.   In 2013, about half of U.S. cropland, 169 million acres, was planted in GMO crops, and forty percent of those crops were engineered in Monsanto’s laboratories.  If we are looking to GMO technology to improve global food supplies, then we have put our faith in a handful of private corporate entities and their shareholders.  It is pretty clear who is controlling our food supply.  

Try these links to learn various points of view about GMOs and the future of our food supply:

http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-system/genetic-engineering/risks-of-genetic-engineering.html

http://sustainability.thomsonreuters.com/2013/12/20/executive-perspective-changing-global-food-narrative/

http://grist.org/food/why-gmos-do-matter-and-even-more-to-the-developing-world/

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140111-genetically-modified-organisms-gmo-food-label-cheerios-nutrition-science/

Bacon

The kitchen is crowded and the pan is hot.

Everyone clattering, chopping, mixing,

Until the bacon, sizzling,

Calls us to a halt   

And brings us to our senses.

The sound and smell of cooking bacon is so evocative that even folks who do not eat meat begin to salivate, stirred by some deep sensory memory.  Called the ‘gateway’ food by vegetarians who find themselves reconsidering the diet of omnivores, bacon has that certain something that we all find irresistible.  Food scientists call that certain something the Maillard Reaction.  It occurs when simple sugars react with amino acids under heat.  It has to be high heat, at least 300 degrees, to get the reaction started.  Then meat on the grill, or in the sizzling frying pan, begins its chemical change.  The aroma expands and the food begins to brown and crisp, moving toward that magical stage when flavor becomes most intense.  
                                 
Now there is bacon, and there is life-changing bacon.  Such bacon begins with terrific pigs - pigs that have been pasture raised and get lots of sunshine and exercise, pigs whose diet is organic and varied, mostly green plants, fresh fruits and veggies.  And the meat from these excellent pigs will be processed into all the recognizable cuts of pork, ham from the hind leg and chops from along the ribs, etc.  And bacon.  Bacon, fortunately, can come from several areas.  Pork belly, with its substantial layer of fat, is the classic choice, but other cuts make beautiful bacon.

Here at Green Gate Farm we favor the part that is called hog jowls in the American South and guanciale in Italy.  Richly flavorful, the cheeks (or jowls) make superior bacon, having a perfect balance of tender flesh and fat.  Think of them as cheeky bacon - bacon with an attitude!  All of our Green Gate Farm bacon is ‘fresh’ bacon hand cut by an artisan butcher.  We have it packaged fresh, straight from pig to freezer, with no brining or smoking, no curing with chemical salts, and no injections of smoky flavored liquid additives.  This thick-cut bacon retains its meaty texture, cooks and crisps just the same as any bacon, and smells just as tantalizing.  And the seasoning of fresh bacon is up to you.  Sprinkle with salt, grind some pepper, or drizzle your bacon with real maple syrup as it cooks.    

The discovery of life-changing bacon is bound to transform your bacon and eggs at breakfast or your BLT at lunch.  But it can be so much more than realizing that you will never again be satisfied with overly salty, routine, wimpy bacon.  You will want to use it in as many ways as possible, and you will want to use every single scrap.  Be ready to save all the drippings and crumbly bits left in the pan.  Not so long ago, on the back of the stove in most kitchens, sat a container (usually an old coffee can) to collect the bacon drippings and keep them handy for use.  You don’t need an old can, just plan on using those drippings for your next meal.  Fix roasted vegetables, baked potatoes, sautéed kale or cabbage, even leftover take-out rice,  adding a spoonful or so of the precious drippings for a savory depth of flavor and that certain something that is bacon.  It will bring you to your senses.

For more about amazing bacon try these links:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/naughty-nutrition/201207/bacon-the-feel-good-food

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/collections/slideshow/15-bacon-fat-recipes-cornbread-cabbage-cookies/?slide=1

Who's Your Cook?

Americans, it seems, are crazy about the idea of cooking.  We have TV channels devoted entirely to food shows, we own designer cookware and shelves full of gorgeously photographed cookbooks (food porn).  We idolize hip young chefs as much as we revere old family recipes.  And while we watch or read about the preparation of some amazing dish, we are happily munching away on take-out broiled chicken or microwaveable pizza bites.  We love the idea of cooking, but we haven’t quite figured out how to include the activity of cooking in our daily lives.  We love the idea of cooking, but we embrace the reality of convenience.

A lot has been written about American’s decades-long love affair with convenience food.  Laura Shapiro, in Something from the Oven, chronicles how the prepared food industries gradually won over the hearts and minds (and tastebuds) of American families.  In Salt, Sugar, Fat Michael Moss explores the complicated relationship between the technology of developing prepared foods and the science of consumer marketing which convinces us that we really must have these products to make our lives better. 

Gradually more and more of the selection of recipes, the preparation, and the cooking of America’s food  took place in industrial kitchens, and the skills of many home cooks began to devolve into ‘just heat and eat.’  A farmer friend, who for more than 20 years has sold meats and produce at his local farmstand,  says that it’s the folks between the ages of 30 and 60 who just don’t seem to know much about cooking.  Those generations, the late Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials, are clueless about most cuts of meat and puzzled that different kinds of potatoes or apples have different uses.

It’s no surprise really.  Most of us grew up in a world where home cooked meals involved taking something out of a package and following the directions on the back.  Cooking from scratch seemed a kind of alchemy from another age, full of mysterious practices: mincing, filleting, sautéing, braising, reducing, deglazing.  Julia Child may have finessed these skills for us in her television studio kitchen, but except for special holiday meals, they were not a part of the average American family’s supper preparations.

There are some hopeful signs that the supremacy of convenience foods may be waning.  Sales of fresh food have increased, up 5.4% according to a recent article in Business Week.  Organic food sales, according to the USDA, show an even greater increase, up 11%.  Farmers markets are booming and the numbers just keep climbing.  So somebody out there must be in the kitchen at the ready with well sharpened knives, extra virgin olive oil, and a good heavy-bottomed sauté pan.  Bon appetit! 

Eating is an Agricultural Act

Whatever morsel you are putting in your mouth, whether packaged ramen noodles or organic sweet potato, powdered ‘lemonade’ drink or yogurt smoothie, you are eating from the farm.  Granted the foodstuffs may be processed, amended and altered beyond recognition, but the raw materials are plants, or from animals that eat plants.  Everything we incorporate into our meals and our snacks, all  the good stuff and most of the bad stuff, was once upon a time truly ‘farm fresh.’

‘Eating,’ proposes farmer, writer, and environmental legend Wendell Berry’ is an agricultural act.’ The relationship of humans to farming is basic. Wherever you live and work, though it may be far removed from any landscape resembling a farm, you are as tied to agriculture as any dairyman, market gardener, or Midwestern corn grower. Choosing what we eat is at the heart of Berry’s concept of the ‘agricultural act.’  Farmers raise what consumers choose, and our preferences determine what it is profitable to grow.

We may choose to eat what is familiar, convenient, or affordable.  We often choose the tempting - the salty, starchy, fatty, and sweet foods we seem hardwired to crave.  In the U.S. our choices probably are determined by what we find attractive on the supermarket shelves, or listed on the menu marquee of a fast food restaurant.  The food industry has been more than happy to cater to our desires, especially for products that are quick and convenient to get on the table. For a long time now, it seems, many of us have made our selections about what to eat based pretty much on the enticing full color photographs on the boxes of microwaveable meals.  

But American consumers are changing, and we are increasingly choosing food that looks and tastes like what it is, food straight from the farm.  We are discovering that the pleasures of eating are not limited to the faculty of taste.  We seek out foods that are organic and locally grown.  We show a preference for foods that are fresh and high in nutrition.  We are trying out foods that probably never graced our childhood plates, kale? edemame? chorizo? and we take these fresh foods into the kitchen and experiment with how to cook them.  Then we recommit ourselves to the agricultural act when at last we sit down to eat.

When writing about agriculture and the food industry in his essay The Pleasures of Eating, Wendell Berry reminds us that through our choices in the marketplace, we, the consumers, are driving the agricultural machine.  The foods we value and place in high demand are the foods that producers will scramble to provide.  We are the motivators and the moderators of our agricultural system.  Chew on that.

For more from teacher, poet, novelist, and essayist Wendell Berry, you might begin with Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food or It All Turns on Affection: The Jefferson Lecture and Other Essays.  

Or follow these links:

http://www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/pleasures-eating

http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-wendell-berry-poet-prophet/


                                      

                                     Photo of Wendell Berry thanks to www.neh.gov

Wineberries

How is it that here in West Virginia, with snow still on the ground, we’re in our shirtsleeves and searching for berries?  The brambly thicket behind the greenhouse has needed attention since last autumn when the biomass had diminished enough to see what was really growing in there.  To be honest, it has needed attention since last spring, when it seemed that one day everything was just starting to green up and the next it was burgeoning into a verdant mass worthy of a painting by Jean Jacques Rousseau.  But today, a rare winter day of blue skies and mild breezes, is really the perfect day to find the wineberries.

On our place and the surrounding acres there are several patches of bramble fruits - black raspberries, blackberries and wineberries.  They stretch along old fence lines and tumbled fieldstone walls, and spread into the dappled light under medium growth hackberries, poplars, black walnuts and pignuts (a sort of hickory).  Most are out in the far fields, away from the activities near house and barn, and so are frequented by all the wild berry pickers.  Deer and raccoons, rabbits and possums, field mice and all the wild birds from titmouse to crow, love the berry buffet.

But the thicket we are tackling grew up around a section of old board fence, the boundary between the farm buildings and an area of open woodland known as ‘the chicken woods.’  It has been protected a bit by its proximity to buildings busy with humans, barn cats and farm dogs.  In berry season it is shaded during the hottest part of the day, and after a rain it catches a bit of additional runoff from nearby roofs.  It is the perfect spot for a wineberry patch.  

  

We wade into the tangle with loppers and saw, removing ancient gnarled grapevines and wiry greenbrier.  Most of the multiflora rose (a rampant invasive species around here) is ousted, though we leave a few selected canes to grow and bloom and perfume the first warm nights of summer.  What we are most carefully avoiding are the fiercely bristling red canes of the wineberries.  Their arches are long, eight or nine feet, and covered in insidiously fine thorns. Though we are in our shirtsleeves, we are also outfitted with thick leather gloves. We probably should be wearing face protectors too.

Like other brambles, wineberries are perennials, with new fruit coming on last year’s canes.  The problem is, we didn’t tackle the thicket last year to cut back the canes that had finished fruiting.  So we have to leave as many as we can if we hope to see fruit this summer.  We’re trying to make up for our year of neglect, clearing away the strangling vines and the competition of the small maple and locust trees  that have  already made some headway under the shelter of the thicket.  On this unwintry day we’re braving the thicket and thorns. We’re trying to give this special patch every advantage, so come June there will be wineberries for cobblers and tarts, wineberries for sauces and jams, and wineberries to eat by the handful standing in the summer sun.    

             

Image thanks to Somers Pioneer History

Farm Bill

Last month the 2014 Farm Bill passed both House and Senate.  After lengthy bipartisan wrangling, our legislators finally signed on to a bill which might just begin to take food production in the US in some new directions.  Since we are consumers and taxpayers, as well as farmers, we’re trying to gauge what to expect from this legislation.

Farm bills are reviewed, revised and reauthorized about every five years.  A farm bill as defined by the USDA is a ‘large-scale reauthorization of diverse Federal agriculture and food programs.’  The first farm bill, a product of the depression, addressed two of the gravest issues of the time.  It gave direct help to struggling farmers and set up a system which sought to ensure that the nation could maintain an adequate food supply.

                                  

This newest farm bill, the Agriculture Act of 2014, projects spending of about $956 billion over the next ten years, and it covers a whole lot of territory.  Its many provisions will affect the future of conservation and energy, price supports, crop insurance and risk management, organic and sustainable agriculture, farmers markets, food labeling, school lunches, local and regional food systems, rural development, urban farming and much more.   

Sorting out what this farm bill is expected to accomplish is daunting.  There are so many factions, so much debate.  The news media in all its diversity, from The Washington Post to Ag Week, from heritage.org to the Huffington Post, have weighed in on various aspects of the bill.  But there seems to be general agreement as to the two major issues addressed by the 2014 version. The first is how farmers, from small family farms to large corporate agribusinesses, can expect the federal system to support the risky business of raising and selling food.  The second, almost overwhelming in its scope, is nutrition.  For more than a decade the bulk of any farm bill’s funding is steered toward programs intended to protect public health and nutrition. That is true of this year’s bill, but it is also the area of the bill to suffer significant cuts. 

So now that the Farm Bill is law will the appropriated funding be enough to support so many and such far reaching programs?  We’ve got to hope that as a country we can ‘put your money where your mouth is.’  Will funding be adequate to help keep farmers on the farm and keep agricultural land available for continued food production? Will it truly support small farm enterprises and programs to help new farmers enter the field?

Will funding allow the expansion of current organic and sustainable agriculture programs, and support the development of local food marketplaces?  Most of all, despite the cut-backs in the supplemental nutrition program, will funding ensure that all Americans, wherever they live and whatever their income, have access to the best of nutrition -- foods fresh from America’s farms?  

Interesting and useful links for keeping an eye on how the 2014 Farm Bill is doing:

FarmPolicy.com                                                            http://farmpolicy.com

Rural Advancement Foundation International               http://rafiusa.org

Farm Aid                                                                      http://www.farmaid.orgT

The Equation - Union of Concerned Scientists             http://www.ucsusa.org

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition                 http://sustainableagriculture.net/

Image thanks to Agrarian Nation                             http://agrariannation.blogspot.com