June 2022 Review

It’s crazy to think that we’ve been doing this for over a month! Time flies when you’re having fun and when you are very, very busy too!

The House

So far we’ve knocked out quite a bit of renovation work on the house and are very close to actually moving in. Huzzah! Most of the individual repairs have been fairly mundane and too uninteresting to itemize. The biggest and apparent task has been the floors. I (Jake) had quite the trial in doing demo for the floors, but after removing carpet and three layers of linoleum, the floors are less of a frustration. The last bit of prep work was to level half of the living room with 1/8” board and fix all. Hopefully by the time of reading, the vinyl flooring is being or has been installed.

Since the flooring was being torn out, we decided to remove the kitchen island and update the range/stove and remove a low hanging cabinet and range hood. Once the flooring is installed, the new stove is going into place followed by a new range hood and a yet to be constructed island in the not too distant and not too hectic future.

Crop Selection and Starting

We’ve focused our attention on crops where the grocery store can’t even come close to farm fresh in quality and variety. Anyone who has had a fresh tomato from their own garden, farmstand, or farmers market knows what I’m talking about! We’ve decided to grow a large number of varieties for two primary purposes: 1) Variety is the spice of life – it makes food and cooking fun 2) casting an especially wide net on our first year of growing. That way, next year, when we know more about what varieties grow the best here and what your favorite varieties are we can adjust accordingly.

Here is what we are planning for late summer:

Tomatoes: From the robust large and luscious Costoluto Genovese to the sweet and small Super Sweet 100.
Tomatillos: Green, purple, and yellow varieties.
Eggplants: Purple, black, white, and the unique orange and green Melanzana Rossa di Rotonda variety.
Basil: Thai, lemon, and my favorite, Emily Basil – it already has an aroma that is out of this world.
Peppers: Too many varieties to list. Everything from the sweet Pimento and Banana, to the mild Anaheim, to the Hotter Jalapeno, to the very hot Manzano, to the hottest Trinidad Scorpion.
Okra: Green, pink, red orange, and burgundy varieties.
Sunflowers: Smaller varieties for cutting and Mammoth and Titan varieties for seeds.
Beans: From the crazy long Chinese Long Beans, to the gorgeous purple speckled Dragon’s Tongue, to the classic Black Eyed Pea.
Cucumbers: Varieties of deliciously crisp pickling cucumbers.

Likely in early fall we will have:

Flint “Indian” Corn: Gem, Turquoise, Purple, Strawberry, and the purplish almost black Morado – these kinds of corn are beautiful and can be used for aesthetic appeal in décor, for popping, for beverages (Chicha Morada) and nixtamalized for tortillas, tamales, and more.
PUMPKINS galore: We are dedicating a lot of space on our farm for pumpkins. We’ll have jack-o-lantern varieties and so so so much more! - From the supersized Big Max to the fairytale-eque White Flat Boer and Rouge Vif D’Etampes varieties to the miniature Jack-Be-Little.
Winter Squash: Is there anything better than a delicious maple roasted winter squash as fall approaches? We’ll have many varieties including Honeynut, Hubbard, and Banana.
Gourds: From birdhouse gourds to luffa gourds (great for body exfoliation and making compostable dish sponges)

So far we have tomatoes, basil, and eggplants started and we will start the rest of the summer plants within the week. We are waiting for our irrigation plans to firm up so that we don’t have too many plants with no where to plant them!

Small disclaimer on the varieties: This is what we are planning to grow. Part of the fun and frustration of farming is finding out what does and does not do well in your particular environment. Also, user errors and mistakes happen! This means that some of the varieties listed above may not do as well, or, while we hope this isn’t the case, they may fail entirely. All we can guarantee is that we will certainly have a variety of delicious and unique produce!

In addition to providing you with farm fresh produce and eggs, we look forward to sharing lots of recipes ideas using what is growing on our farm and what will be available at our market.

Compost

One of the very first projects was to construct and establish a functional compost system. We started off with a pallet of CMUs, stacked ‘em, added green waste with water and that’s about all there is to say about that for now.

Birds

Oh boy do we have birds! Farmstead 248 is lousy with feathered friends. Our first priority after the move was to reassemble and retrofit one of our old coops. The Queen Judy’s Revenge sails once more as a chicken brooder. No sooner had she been rigged when our chicks arrived. The roster of said birds includes:

Black Jersey Giant cockerels
Bielefelder cockerels
Buff Brahma cockerel
Black Copper Maran cockerel
Buff Polish pullet
Easter Egger pullets
Olive Egger pullets
Black Star pullets
Red Star pullets
A Jersey Giantess
White Plymouth Rock pullets
Black Copper Maran pullets

Before we know it, the ladies will be producing a rainbow of pretty eggs for you: various light browns (Black + Red Star, Jersey Giant, and Plymouth Rock), deep chocolate brown (the Marans), blue (the Easter Eggers), earthy olive green (the Olive Eggers), and a few white eggs (produced by our single Polish hen!).

These pretty little dinosaurs are visibly growing every day! So far the permanent coop is yet to be realized, although the pad has been poured and shade/feed trees have been planted within the confines of the eventual run. Stay tuned on what comes next with this ongoing project.

Jake’s Roses and Thorns

Roses: My highlights have definitely been the birds and being around family.
Thorns: The greatest difficulty has been various delays with irrigation.

Kelsey’s Roses and Thorns

Roses: Space (I am not missing having lots of nosey neighbors), the clear stary nights, and watching the birds and plants grow and develop.
Thorns: Starting a farmstead in the middle of a Central Valley summer is hot and sweaty work. Who woulda thunk!

Thank You + Our Request To You

Thank you so much for being here from the very beginning with us. We love you all, and can’t wait to share more with you in the months to come.

If you feel compelled, please share our website and Instagram with your friends, family, and others you think might be interested. Word of mouth or a link on social media goes a long way! Next month, we’ll have a better estimate of when our corner market will be open, but for now, we are thinking sometime in September or early October.

P.S. Our ducks arrived as of writing this, however since they came July 1st we’ll share more about those quacks and their home next month.