The Wednesday afternoon market at Yorkmont took us by surprise. We got there at 1 pm and were sold out by 2 pm. We brought 50 bunches of collards, two 18 gallon tubs of Tuscan kale, and 22 dozen eggs. All we had left on the table at 2 pm was this giant turnip . We hung around till 3 pm, and then came home.

We apologize to any of you that showed up later only to find us no longer there.

We could of picked more collards if we had only known. The proper term is “cropping” collards, or so I have been told repeatably by Kevin, who was one of my college roommates at WCU and grew up on a truck farm near Orlando “cropping” collards and other greens. He could be right, but I found it hard to take anyone seriously that would break out their fake goose down Florida Gators puffy coat when the night time temps. started hovering in the mid 50’s…

Since I had only been selling 8-12 bunches of collards Saturday mornings at the market, we agreed that 30 bunches would be a good number to pick for Wednesday. Then we picked 10 more. Jenifer started on the Tuscan kale and I picked 10 more bunches collards.

The last 4-5 bunches were hard. It was getting dark, the temp. had dropped into the upper 30’s and my fingers were numb and I was having trouble getting rubber bands around the bunches. What a whiner…

The Great Turnip

The giant turnip showed up in a bed of collards. I don’t know if the turnip seed was in the collard seeds or if it had been hiding out in the hopper on our push seeder.When I saw the turnip, I yelled at Levi to come down where we were. He was up hanging out with the chickens and geese. I showed him the turnip and told him to pull it up. He was like “Whoa!!!” It was almost as big as his head! Not quite, but close.

I don’t know what we are going to do with the turnip. Something weird and odd for sure. Jenifer makes a mean grated turnip salad with, I think, basically garlic, lemon juice, sea salt and freshly ground pepper. It sounds funky and it is. But there is something about the taste. It is not really a side meal dish. Jenifer makes a small bowl of it and it sits in the kitchen and we eat a forkful at a time as we pass by it. But that only requires one medium turnip.

I am thinking turnip steaks, maybe marinated in wine and smoked and slow-cooked on the grill…

Now that we have three pigs, our culinary failures are just a 75 yard walk up the driveway to the pigpen to become swine treats.

Well, yeah… eating collards, black-eyed peas, cornbread and pork on New Year’s is a southern tradition and what better day of the year to sell our fresh, organic, just picked collards than New Year’s eve.

I contacted Maria at Fisher Farms and she said they would also be there Wednesday with collards, kale, and jars of their excellent tomato sauce that they actually make themselves.

Besides collards, we will have about 25 dozen eggs, some Tuscan kale, and some arugula.

Black-eyed peas represent coins, collards folding money, cornbread = gold, and pork, wealth in general.

I ran across an an interesting reason why pork, rather than chicken or beef, is the preferred meat for New Year’s.

Chickens scratch backwards, then back up to eat what they scratched up. Cows basically stand still most of the day. Pigs on the other hand, are always rooting forward. Seeking out new opportunities.

Cooking Collards

First thing, rinse them off. Since our farm has clay soils rather than sand, grit is not much of a problem. We rinse our collards in a couple of inches of water in the sink. If there is still some soil attached, I call that a natural nutritional supplement because we know how it grew and what we amended the soil with. If you don’t know the source of your collards or who grew them, I would suggest rinsing them 3-4 times in cold water.

REMOVE THE RIBS – Even on the small leaves. I have tried stacking leaves 5-6 leaves deep and cutting out an upside down V to remove the ribs but the fastest way I have found is to just fold them in half and make one cut to remove the rib.

Use a knife bigger than a paring knife and smaller than a chef’s knife. I use a rabbit knife.

Don’t discard the ribs. They will go to your pigs, chickens, worm bin, or compost pile. If you have none of the above, discard them around the closest tree. Don’t InSinkErate or put them in a plastic bag destined for the landfill.

You can stir-fry / saute collards in 10-15 minutes or simmer them for an hour or so. Minced garlic and onion work well starting out on both methods, your favorite hot sauce, if that trips your trigger, can be applied anywhere along the way. Finish them off with apple cider vinegar and a sparse grinding of black pepper.

Splurging

We are going to eat our collards and black-eyed peas with some oven cooked ribs finished on the grill from the Grateful Growers. We are going to dump a small jar of Fisher Farms tomato sauce into our pot of peas.

You can get dried black-eyed peas at the market as well as local cornmeal from Linneys Water Mill in Union Grove.

Good-bye 2009

It has been a good year for us. We have had our share of up’s and down’s, but we ain’t complaining.

Happy Music

Happy New Year!

We started getting the garlic area ready last Thursday with the help of Taylor and Marc who came out to help.

You may of met Taylor and Marc if you go to the Yorkmont market. They are sometimes selling pork for the Grateful Growers.

Last Thursday morning, the intended garlic planting area contained our late tomatoes, 200 feet of trellised rattlesnake pole beans, 200 feet of trellised suyo long cumumbers, and plenty of weeds.

We picked the cucumbers and beans for the last time and and took down the nylon trellis’s and the bamboo stakes holding them up, pulled up all the tomato stakes, and I tilled the area with the rotavator to incorporate the the weeds and crop residue into the top 4-5 inches.

We are very proud of Ellie but my opinion of youth ball is checked with a frequently bitten tongue. It is madness. Growing up playing Little League, there were few if any parents at the games, just boys playing baseball and having fun. Yeah, we wanted to win but it was understood when two team met, one would win and one would lose. No need to cry about it and you still had chores to do when you got home regardless if you won or lost.

Now there are parents and grandparents micro-managing their kids, what is supposed to be play time, as a focus of their existence.

We actually had to sign a form this year that we would not verbally harass coaches , players, or umpires during the course of a game. Apparently that has become a problem.

My point of view is that playing ball is not fair, school is not fair, the workplace is not fair, growing orgainc vegetables on a small scale and competing with the industrial food complex is not fair either.

My answer is to the above “problems” is quit whining, accept the challenge and change what you think needs changing. Just shut up about how unfair stuff is.

Limited eggs, tons of Lettuce, the last of Levi’s onions, garlic, and arugula and maybe some Zephyer squash.

We agreed to attend the Charlotte Clean and Green thing at CPCC on Saturday so I won’t be at the Charlotte Market but Kevin, one of our CSA members will be cheerfully running our table. Go easy on him….

Amongst all that, another CSA member, CJ, is getting married on Saturday at 1 pm and Jenifer and I are somehow going to be there to see that happen.

With eggs, probably the last of the collard raab, and some spring green onions. We stuck a fork in our collards and red Russian Kale and they are done.

I will have arugula and our spicy greens mix from the green house. Our spicy greens mix consists of red and green mustards, mizuna, which is a mild Japanese mustard, and arugula.

We usually sow arugula and spicy greens mix directly into the garden beds with a one-row push planter.

This year, we were antsy to get going and sowed a bunch of flats with arugula and spicy greens with the intention of transplanting them into the garden. Wet weather prevented that and they needed to go somewhere so we stuck them in the three prepared beds in the green house.

The growth has been amazing! I hated to start cutting it last Friday, it all looked so pretty but Jenifer reminded me that we were not running a vegetable fashion show..

Field-grown arugula and spicy greens will provide one good cutting followed by 1-2 fair-good cuttings. Green house stuff will yield 4-5 excellent cuttings because of the protected environment.

A new local small family farm showed up last Saturday with eggs. Carricker Farm from Peachland, NC. Give them your support.

Levi has Saturday morning basketball games, so Jenifer and I will be taking turns coming to the markets through February.

Will we have plenty of eggs and 2 tubs of collards. Jenifer and I picked the collards on Wednesday. We Looked at the forecast and picking collards leaf by leaf at 43 degrees sounded a lot better than picking at the forecasted high of 29 degrees on Friday.

So come see us and the other growers Saturday for the rare treat of buying fresh local produce on a brisk 12 degree morning.

What fun!