Farms & Gardens

It’s been quite a hot and rainy summer so far this year. But rather than complain about it, I have chosen to focus on the many benefits of all this heat and moisture. So I share with you my list of happy thoughts about what this hot, humid summer has given me on the farm this year.

Happy thought #1: No need to water. In the early spring we set up the sprinkling system in the gardens and orchard, but so far, have only had it on just once – and the moment we turned it off, a robust thunderstorm swept through, depositing more than two inches of rain.  It’s been raining like that all summer long: thunder storms with one to two inches of rain every few days – our own reliable, natural, automated watering system.

In 2006, the Midtown Farmers Market became the first Twin Cities market to accept the SNAP/EBT (supplemental nutrition benefit program via electronic benefit transfer) program (more commonly known as food stamps), thus ushering in a new wave of accessibility for more local food lovers. And earlier this summer, they partnered with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota to make local, healthful food more affordable with a program called Market Bucks. The first $5 of EBT dollars used at the market on any given day is matched – with another $5. And that means $5 more local, farm-direct summer goodies to savor. 

While you sleep, they’re coming for you. These vile creatures of the night live for one thing only: to crawl into your slumbering ear, lay their eggs in your brain, and destroy humanity itself!

OK, OK, not really. Earwigs may be creepy and they are definitely crawly. Earwigs are on my top three “most hated” list because they are fast, they have working pincers, and they get in the house sometimes.  But they do not actually seek out human ears, as was widely thought a century ago. (This notion was so prevalent that in 1910, when children’s author/illustrator Beatrix Potter proposed including one in The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse, her publishers forbade it.)

Opportunities to escape the concrete jungle and get a taste of small-farm life abound in the Minnesota summertime. Whether you’d like to do a basic farm tour, enjoy dinner served up right on the pastures where the food was raised, or even help out with farm chores for a day as part of a “crop mob,” you can find an option that gets your city-slicker self out in the fields for at least a few hours.

As the coordinator for the Minnesota Cooks™ program at the Minnesota State Fair, I'm writing today's post to give you a preview of this event, which features Minnesota chefs and cooks, local farmers, and consumers with a full day of cooking demonstrations, discussions, and sampling of delicious cuisine.

The big day begins at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, August 31, (with samples of scones and French toast!) and will continue with eight hourly presentations, featuring 16 restaurants and 16 farms. The Minnesota Cooks Stage proudly sits in Carousel Park, just south of the Grandstand, and is the place to be on the Tuesday of the Great Minnesota Get Together for one of Minnesota’s most admired and longstanding sustainable foods events.

This year my husband and I celebrate 10 years of farming. In 2000, we transplanted ourselves from the Twin Cities to our farm in East Central Minnesota and over the past decade, have gradually expanded our agricultural output. Our primary focus has been growing produce, beekeeping and honey, and making maple syrup. But the one thing that everyone we know has asked us is why do we not have any farm animals?

On Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, a common complaint about eating healthfully was that people didn't want to eat “rabbit food” all the time. But, as Oliver demonstrated on the series, there's more to eating well than munching on lettuce and carrots. So with the ingredients from this week's CSA (community supported agriculture) box, I will showcase salads made without lettuce.

My last in a series of four livestock workshops at the University of Minnesota took place on the Rosemount campus, a 7,000-acre spread given to the university by the U.S. Department of Defense. Originally used for manufacturing smokeless gunpowder during World War II, the site now hosts experiments in both produce and livestock run by the U of M’s farm extension program. Its broad expanses of wild grasslands made the perfect setting to discuss those pasture-loving fixtures of livestock farms, cows.

Earlier this week, Alicia Jabbar wrote an illuminating post about farmer's markets from the farmer's point of view. You get up at the crack of dawn, work in the dirt -- in the blistering sun and the pelting rain -- picking and cleaning vegetables, all to just pack it all up the next morning. Then you drive, unpack, sell, talk endlessly, offer samples, re-pack and drive again. This is the process that brings snap peas for $4 a quart to a farmer's market near you. This is fresh food grown by real people. I don't know about you, but I usually take it for granted.

I thought I would begin my third of a series of four livestock workshops at the University of Minnesota petting cute, cuddly lambs and kids (as in baby goats), but instead we started out sifting through a box of what looked like medieval torture instruments. The all-in-one castrator and tail docker, a clever little gizmo, was designed to cut off the relevant body part and simultaneously crimp the ends of the wound shut to prevent excessive bleeding. The hand shears, for clipping sheep destined for competitive shows, were more or less giant, extremely sharp scissors. My personal favorite was the hot-iron tail docker, most notable perhaps for its very low-tech-ness.