Halloween and we have pumpkins!

Here are some of the pumpkins I carved for the Flat Rock Market today. The super-happy one sold, but the other three will be haunting the Saturday Columbus tailgate market in two days!

We will have carved and not-yet carved pumpkins, pumpkins for pie, and pumpkins for painting, little, medium, and large pumpkins! So catch us at the Saturday at the Columbus farmer's market 8:00-11:30 on Halloween. If you miss us then, we'll still have some for Thanksgiving pies. Give me a holler and I'll set one (or more) aside for you.

We also still have lots of butternuts and acorn squash as well. We'll be bringing our butternut pie to the Columbus market to taste and I'll bring the recipes to share too. Discounts on orders over 20#!

Fall greens are still in season: turnips, white salad turnips, baby collards and kale, and my tasty fall salad mix. Next week (the 5th) is the last Thursday market in Flat Rock for the fall. We hope to see you there for the Market's Fall Festival that afternoon! We will be at the West Asheville Tailgate Market this Tuesday 3:30-6:30.

We will still have greens, pumpkins, and squash available for a while, so let me know if you need any. After the market ends, I would be happy to meet you for deliveries.

weeding...aggg!

Just reading about the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group conference to be held in January http://www.ssawg.org/conference-program.html

Reading up on the offerings there, including some on weeding. Finally beginning to understand...Weeding is like dieting. there's always a new technique, you promise yourself to stick with it, but somehow, you never seem to get ahead of it.

what a long time since the last post!

Wow! So much has changed since mid-August!

We are firmly in the fall season now. We're bringing pumpkins, acorns, and butternuts, and a few shiitake mushrooms to the market every week. Still have some peppers, and have just started bringing mixed salad greens too - Elizabeth's late fall salad mix is back! This is my own mix of chinese cabbage, asian greens, red mustard greens, and as soon as they are ready, swiss chard and arugula. A little spicy, but you can take the dark purple mustard greens out for a milder flavor. Mostly it's just a very good mix of flavors. Our turnips, carrots, and beets are all coming along well, and will be ready a bit later.

We are having trouble with disease in our basil (never had this problem before), so we're not bringing any to market right now. It's possible we won't be able to solve the problem before frost, when it all dies back, so, sadly, we can't count on more basil this season.

If you are intersted in bulk quantities (20lbs or more) of winter squashes, I can sell them to you at 75c/pound (a 25% price break). let me know and I'll set some aside for you at market or we can meet somewhere.

For local businesses, we would be happy to deliver pumpkins and corn shocks for decorations!

I've been a little busier lately - In September, the opportunity arose for me to begin teaching at Blue Ridge Community College in Brevard. So now my Mon, Wed, Fri are spent on Environmental Biology! I am really enjoying the chance to teach, but I am feeling the change in how much time I get to spend on the farm! Unfortunately, the teaching has also made it difficult to get to the Monday market at the Hendersonville Co-op market for the rest of the semester. We should be back there in the spring though.

Thank goodness it's fall and the farmwork is "slowing down." I have really got to catch up on some weeding and...everything else!

It's definitely getting cooler out there! Stay warm!
-Mollie

butternut and acorn squash now ready

Yes, it's a little early, but the first crop of butternut and acorn squash are now in the barn, and they are quite tasty! The second crop of butternuts are still in the field, but will be harvested soon. All these squash were grown completely pesticide- and herbicide-free. We grew them at my neighbor's across the street, so conventional lime and fertilizer were applied back in May.

These squash store well in a cool dry place, or can be cooked and frozen. I went with the latter option last fall, due to storage limitations. The other day at the Flat Rock Market, one customer told me she still had some that she bought from me last year, and that it's still looking great! For myself, I'm almost through with what I had frozen back--just one more bag left, so this harvest is just in time.

Starting in September, look for us to bring recipes and samples to the tailgate markets! Plan on getting your winter squash from us!

We're selling them $1/lb. Discounts on half-bushel quantities and larger, and on blemished squash. Pick up at the farm in Saluda by appointment. Or meet us at the Tailgates: Hendersonville Community Co-op on Mondays (3-6) or Flat Rock on Thursdays (3-6). I can deliver quantities to individuals and restaurants in Saluda, Columbus/Tryon, and Hendersonville/Flat Rock. Last year we continued deliveries to restaurants into December, and easily expect to do at least as much this year - we'll have about twice as much squash.

Contact us if you're interested, we'll set some aside for you! Spread the word!

-Mollie

fresh fields

it's been a long day, but...

yay! my neighbor Tony tilled the late spring and early summer sections of the field that we're done with. We had hoped to get it turned over last week, but a surprise storm the day before the field was just right meant we had to wait for it to dry back out again -- till when it's too wet, and you end up with huge clods and soil tough as bricks!

I was also able to get the cover crops spread and have my neighbor lightly till them in with his tractor as well. In the sections that are ready for fall/winter veggie planting, we put 1) buckwheat that will flower, set seed for next spring, and die off in frost, and 2) crimson and ladino clover, which are easy varieties to kill in the spring with a good tilling. In the sections of the field that we'll let rest now overwinter, I spread a little of everything 1) buckwheat (not a wheat), 2) annual ryegrass (not a rye), 3) crimson and ladino clovers, 4) austrian winter peas, and 5) hairy vetch; the first two work well as smother crops for other weeds, and the last 3 help add nitrogen back into the soil.

This week in my new field (can you tell I'm excited?), I'll be planting spinach, lettuce, collards, kale, beets, turnips, and other fall crops I may be forgetting as I write here. I'll start onions, scallions, and leeks in trays up by the house. I'm learning more about seed corn maggots that'll infest onion crops too. I'm reading and finding out, it's very important to wait 4-6 weeks after tilling before planting onions, and it's important to avoid tilling or disturbing the soil near the onions while they're growing. Those tiny, nasty flies like to lay their eggs in freshly tilled soil.

I brought the last of the second crop of corn to market today, still have some left over for Tuesday deliveries. We'll start harvesting from the third and final crop for the year in a couple weeks. Shiitake mushrooms doing well! Harvested one this evening after market that's 8" across! That doesn't beat the 9-1/2" shiitake measured and documented on a friend's camera earlier this season though!

Tomatoes vines are looking pretty sad from the constant raining earlier this season, but I'm trying to get a little more out of them. Basil, shiitakes, blueberries, and tomatoes are all in season. Plus, guess what, we harvested our first crop of winter squash for the year, so we again have a huge pile of butternuts, and we've added a big pile of acorn this year in Tony's barn this year. Spread the word to your friends that I'm willing to give a good price on these, and get your recipes ready! I'll be posting my recipes again this year that I found up.

By the way, I built a chicken tractor a couple weeks ago, and got 4 Golden Comet roosters for it from Phillip and Amanda. They are all doing well. I think I've pretty much figured out the

pecking order. Brownie's getting used to them too. today, I caught her napping in the tractor's shade, right next to them all. She only rarely barks at them, mostly just to show off when other folks come over.

We've been to a couple farm tours in the last few weeks as part of CRAFT (Collaborative Regional Alliance? for Farmer Training). Sort of a farmer-to-farmer information exchange and tour. We got some great pictures from Full Sun Farm in Sandy Mush, and Mountain Harvest Organics in Spring Creek. I'll see if I can't get some of them up soon.

Have a great week!

-Mollie