Earth Day Was a HUGE Success

Thanks to all who made earth day such a success. It was a great day! The weather was perfect! We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful setting. It was wonderful to see so many of our usual customers and to meet so many new people.

We hope you were able to attend, and we hope to see you again at the Tower Grove Farmer's Market. We'll be there all summer long, beginning May 10th for the big kick off.

Now it's time for us to concertrate on planting. I have 240 tomato plants to try to get into the garden in the next week. Danny got the garden plowed & hilled & mulched last week & started putting in the t-posts. This week he & the boys need to finish the job.

Earth Day is Sunday!

Hi everyone! Thanks for a great market on Saturday. I'm so glad the weather cooperated & so many were able to attend.

Now I'm busy getting ready for Earth Day this Sunday, April 20th. We're excited! I've been told there were about 20,000 people there last year. I've also heard there is even more to see & do this year.

I'll be sampling some of my products, so if you haven't had an opportunity to try them, here's your chance.

I'm also bringing pepper plants to sell, both sweet & hot varieties. Last year it was difficult to find hot pepper plants, so I decided to start them myself. I have the old standards, as well as varieties I've never grown before. The plants look beautiful, especially the variegata peppers. Last year we planted them in big planters in the front of the house. This year we will again, but we're also putting them in the front flower bed, they're so pretty.

There's so much going on this week at the farm. Danny's on vacation from his off-farm job, so he's tackling all kinds of projects. Today he's going to try to plow the tomato garden so we can start planting next week. I'll be glad to get them in the garden, the plants are huge, they're too tall for the plant stand.

I'm planning to get the rest of the potatoes planted today...it's supposed to be 70 degrees. We're all going to work outside together.

Well, I'd better go join the rest of the family, they're already busy.

Good Morning! Reminder about tomorrow's market.

Good morning! Just a reminder that tomorrow we'll be at the St. Louis Community Farmer's Market in Tower Grove across from the park on Arsenal off of Grand. The market runs from 8:30am to 12:30 pm. Just look for the signs posted nearby & in front of the building.

Well back to work, I still have 4 kinds of flour to grind, muffins & muffin mixes to make.

Hope to see you there!

The New Vineyard

Well the weather broke a little Wednesday so I got a helper and finished up the trellises for the new vineyard (at least phase 1 anyway). So far I have 98 feet of trellis installed and ready. That should support about 12 vines. It's a simple 2 wire Kniffen system. I plan on starting with several varieties of table grapes and graduate into more of the wine grape varieties. We want to have grapes to sell at the markets and I really want to try my hand at home wine making!

It feels like spring!

Finally, it's a warm, sunny day!

Since my last post, Danny managed to plant 2 peach trees, despite all the rain. Now today, he's working on grape arbors. Before long, we'll have several varieties of grapes planted. Of course that means I get to practice patience, since we won't get a good crop for a couple years. But at least we've gotten started!

Oh yeah, we also got 6 rows of potatoes planted. This is our first try at potatoes, we're hoping it's not too wet for them. We're using the Ruth Stout method. We'll let you know how it turns out.

I'm working on getting ready for the last winter market this weekend at Tower Grove. Hope you can join me. Check out the listing on the side for the address if you haven't been there yet. It looks like I'll have herbs, swiss chard & even turnip greens ready to pick by Saturday. I'll have free-range eggs, too. And, of course, I'll have all the usuals; muffins, grains, flours, beans, peas, mixes, salsas, pickles, relishes, dried pineapple & mango.

Zachary's working on getting more pictures posted soon!

Have a great day!

Some More Pictures

Here are some more pictures of our farm. Please tell me if you like them.


Zachary, Chief Designer/Author

Great news!

Danny built me a new, larger plant stand for the basement & I spent most of the day yesterday transplanting & watering & moving the tomato plants to it. I can hardly believe it, but it is completely full & I still have more plants to transplant!

I wish it would stop raining for a while. Even the hoophouse is waterlogged. I was hoping to start planting in there this week, but I can't even walk in.

Denise's Mixed Bean Soup Recipe

After many requests at the market, I finally put up the recipe for Denise's Mixed Bean Soup. It's located beside the blogs on this page. Try it out for yourself, if you haven't already. If you need the mix, let me know or come see me at the market.

Thanks For a Great Market

Thanks to all who helped make the market a success on Saturday. I hope everyone is happy with what they got. I'd love to hear your comments on my products. What do you like best? How do you fix it? I'm working on getting some of my recipes listed on the blog, but I'd love to hear about yours.

If you missed the market, you can still get some of my products everyday at Local Harvest Grocery & I'll be at the St. Louis Community Market on April 12th.

Is there something you'd like to have me hold for you? You can e-mail me at drwissman@sbcglobal.net & I can have your order ready in advance.

I've also had a lot of questions about buying from us locally. At this time we don't have an on-farm stand, but I do occassionally make special arrangements if you want to buy directly.

Joy, thank you for your comment. It was nice to meet you at the market!

Have a great day!

Just for FUN

Just playing around with posting some pictures from last year. We'll put up some current ones soon but right now all there is to look at around here is MUD!

This is a picture of one of the mobile chicken coops (called tractors). The electric poultry fence keeps them safe from predators. The fence is large yet very portable. It and the coop are moved every few days so that they always have fresh pasture to scratch on. Makes for HAPPY, HEALTHY chickens!

That's King the rooster and some of his girls. Most people don't realize it, but you don't have to have a rooster in your flock to get eggs! The hens lay just fine without him (although the eggs will not be fertile). But they seem to like having a man around anyway.
We have LOTS of pics to share! We'll post more as we have time.
PLEASE leave comments!

Market This Week!

Well, our new fence for the chickens has arrived. Yesterday we moved the chickens pen again & put up the new fence & put the charger on. It's time to be sure they don't escape, the peas are sprouting & they won't stand a chance if the chickens see them.

We have so many little plants in the basement, I've run out of room to transplant them. I need more grow lights again!

Now it's time to begin to prepare for this week's market. This Saturday, March 29th, will be the last winter market at Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood for this season. We'll be there with all the usuals, a whole assortment of Certified Organic Grains, Freshly Ground Flours (whole wheat, spelt, buckwheat, quinoa, rye, ... & of course, my Combo Flour (wheat & flaxseed) & my new 10-Grain Flour that was an instant hit!). Plus, I'll have all my Healthy mixes: Pancake Mix-Regular or Milk-free, Waffle Mix, Pizza Dough Mix, Cornbread Mix, Banana Muffin Mix & Zucchini Spice Muffin Mix. I'll also have lots of Certified Organic beans, peas, lentils, popcorn & whole wheat couscous; plus the various mixtures of them: Chili Bean Medley, Mixed Beans & Peas & the newest one, Split Pea Soup Mix. Oh yeah, dried pineapple & mango, too.

Want more...we now have our Dealers Egg license & I'll have quite a few dozen eggs from our free-range (within reason) chickens.

If you get there early, you may even manage to get some fresh-picked Rainbow Lights Swiss Chard. It's finally recovering from the chicken raid in February!. The snow storm detached just enough of the plastic on the hoophouse for them to squeeze in & they devoured everything. It was great for the egg production, but not the vegetables.

Hope you can join us on Saturday! I'd better get busy!!!

It's a sunny day finally!

Yeah! The sun is finally out! We have had so much rain this past week. We are very happy we live on top of a hill. There is so much flooding going on near-by. The sunshine is putting us all in a better mood. The cats, dogs and chickens are all busy running around. I'm hoping the peas will pop out of the ground today, I'm ready to see green in the garden again!

Progress!

We now have several hundred pepper and tomato plants growing. Yesterday, I started kohlrabi, eggplant and swiss chard. It's very exciting to watch everything growing and imagining what they'll look like in the garden. Even more exciting, I just found 9 green tomatoes on the plants in our kitchen picture window!

Getting Busy

Well, we're off and running for the year. We are getting a head start in the basement. We have little sprouts popping up every day. So far, we have tomato, tomatillo and pepper plants getting bigger all the time, and our peas finally sprouted yesterday.