The South Estes Farmers' Market was closed this morning due to the weather. We cleared the snow from the tops of the hoop houses twice during the night...10:30p.m. and again at 3 a.m. this morning. It takes the two of us about a half hour to do both houses. We cleared them again around 9 a.m. It had accumulated to the point where the plastic was sagging between the bows by that time.

In the photo to the right, Bill is sweeping snow from the top of the big hoop house.

We've had 7+" here so far....

Please forgive the apparent silence! For those interested in what is going on at Dancing Pines Farm, I do send out a weekly 'blog-like' e-newsletter. In that news I list what we plan to have at market as well as what we've been doing on the farm for the week. I hope to better coordinate that with the blog in the future, but for now, if you would like more frequent updates on products and farm news, please email me to request addition to my e-news mailing list - dragonfly3 at mebtel dot net.

my Prismacolor colored pencil set, from the Apple Green of the Romaine lettuce, to the Grass Green of the Collards, to the nearly Peacock Green of the Dino kale, and the True Green of the arugula and turnips. Then the red cabbage is a purplish-green, the beets and the red-leaf lettuce are green with touches of red. So, the field went from a sea of white (row covers) to a field of intense color in a matter of minutes!

Unfortunately, within hours of this observation, deer made it into the garden and munched down some of the lovely Grass Green Romaine lettuce and red leaf lettuce. We think we have them under control again, but this still means more fencing work in the near future! The diversity of tasks on the farm is one of the things we love about what we do here…never a dull moment for certain.

Ingredients:
¾ - 1 pound of fresh okra
2 cloves of garlic (or one if you prefer less garlic flavor) - chopped
1 medium sweet onion - chopped
3 small bell peppers (colored or green) - chopped

Preparation:
Cut the tops off the okra and cut horizontally into ¼ to ½ inch medallions. Heat 1.5 - 2 tablespoons of oil in a skillet on a nearly high setting. Once the pan is good and hot, dump the okra in (be extra careful here to avoid any burning splatter!). Stir it fairly frequently so it doesn’t burn but allow it to brown. Once you are seeing browning on a fair number of pieces of okra, and you feel you have stirred enough to have pan contact with most cut sides of the okra, turn the heat back down to less than medium. Wait for the pan to cool a bit (it may help to take it off the heat briefly), clear a spot in the center of the pan and add a bit more oil. Now add the rest of the ingredients and mix in with the okra. Cook until the onions and peppers are softened. Serves 3-4 depending on portion size.

Note: I have had die-hard ‘okra haters’ try okra this way and love it because the okra does not develop its stereotypical stickiness by use of the high heat. Grilling okra whole (with the cap on – ‘to use as a handle’ to quote my sister) on a very hot grill also has the same result from my experience. Just brush with a bit of olive oil and grill! Once removed from the grill, add a bit of sea salt, and you have a wonderful finger food to add to your grilled corn and chicken (if you eat meat).

We will have the following produce at the market this week:

Baby Arugula
Okra
Garlic
Potatoes
Sweet Onions

And limited quantities of:
Baby Chioggia Beets
Sungold Tomatoes
Green Beans
Eggplant (Japanese and Striped Fairy)

We’ve continued to work to get seedlings in the ground for fall. We have more lettuce, collards, kale and scallions planted. Our second bed of arugula is producing now, and we hope to start bringing radishes to the market next week.

Around the farm right now, there are lots of signs that fall is coming. Let me name a few: the goldenrod is blooming, the black gum tree leaves are turning red, the field tomatoes (except the Sungolds) are finished, the arugula is coming in, and most notably we are eating our supper before 9 p.m. at night! Well, that last one really means the ‘days are getting shorter’.

As I harvested the arugula this morning, I realized that there are not as many tiny holes in it this week. I also noted as I harvested, that a number of tiny toads hopped out from underneath to avoid my trimming. My personal gardening philosophy revolves around the ecological balance that can arise in a healthy garden between garden pests and garden beneficials. I notice these little toads all the time in the garden, and only this morning put two and two together of how helpful these little critters are to us! My deduction…these little guys (and girls – or are they both? I’ll research that one another time) have swarmed in to this little arugula patch and found some meals here of tiny insects that were nibbling on our arugula. I’ve seen this in other instances around the garden (in particular the potato plants earlier this summer) where early on, the garden pests are in large numbers, but slowly, as the beneficials (be they toads, other insects, birds, etc.) find them, their numbers decline to a point where they are only sharing in the bounty of the garden, not destroying the garden.

Interesting to me as well, because I don’t recollect seeing this before, the sweet potatoes in the field are blooming! The plants appear extremely healthy and have lovely pink blooms on them. Sweet potatoes are related to the morning glory that most would recognize, so the bloom looks familiar.

Welcome to the new Dancing Pines Farm website! We plan to keep you up to date on happenings of the farm through this blog and the website.

We were excited to participate in our first ever mid-week farmers market on Tuesday! Thanks to all of you who came out to see us! We hope to make a habit of this mid-week market and will keep you posted in our Friday emails of our intentions for attending.

The last couple of weeks have been filled with bed prep, seeding, and starting seeds in the cold frame….all in preparation for fall crops. So far, we’ve started a lot of greens including Lacinato Kale, Collards, Arugula (some should be ready next Saturday!), Broccoli Raab, Chard, Red Leaf Lettuce, and Romaine Lettuce (I’m sure I’m forgetting some, too). We’ve also started Radishes, Chioggia and Red Beets, Purple-Top Turnips, and Red Cabbage. The view of the garden below shows many of the newly planted beds. Bill has enjoyed our new walk behind tractor’s capabilities in prepping these beds.

In the first image below, the bed in the front is the arugula I’m hoping to bring to market next week. You can see the stubble of cover crop that was incorporated into the soil as a green manure to help build the organic matter (and the biology) in the soil. In 2nd image below, you can see this area of the garden in July with the cover crop in full growth (the red dot shows where I was standing in the more recent photo). So, this sorghum-sudangrass added a lot of organic matter to our soil!