Adventures of Links

Y'all, another short non adult video starring me has surfaced. This one is for the CFSA barnstorming tour. The folks that did that tour are awesome. And the folks that made the video were awesome as well.
N-Joy
http://vimeo.com/51751663
Ps- your awesome too. Don't feel left out. Here is a lilac/purple hyperlink for you as well. There now everyone has one.

I should be on every visitors must see list

Y'all, here's a little mention of yours truly on the Bon Appetit' blog:

http://www.bonappetit.com/blogsandforums/blogs/badaily/2012/10/durham-north-carolina.html

I know what your thinking already...
But this magazine seems to deal with food mostly. It is not french for "chimpanzee boobies".
Enjoy!

BuckWild

  I was halfway through turning in this droughted buckwheat cover crop when a light bulb went off in my brain. I bet the massive hordes of Lil'Farm fanatics who read this blog obsessively would be very interested in seeing this image, as well as knowing what a lovely and easy to raise pseudo cereal buckwheat is. I'm about to plant strawberries here in about three weeks. I planted it about a month or so ago, and it grew like a weed. A cultivated, fast growing, green manure providing weed. Buckwheat is pretty much the easiest cover crop to grow. Aside from needing a little water, it requires very little, and will grow in 4-8 weeks, and give you lots of biomass. It does best in low nitrogen crap soils. Lucky for it, I can provide said conditions. If it gets going quickly it does a nice job of smothering out other weeds. And if it was buckwheat pancake time it would be real easy to pull a crop off it, and still turn it in for some organic matter.  Also eat more buckwheat pancakes- even if your on the Carrboro-Diet. Because that stuff is gluten free. I soak the groats in water over night, then blend them up with egg milk and salt and cook em up. easy ass pancakes right there.
    I should have made an audio track for this post, because the bees are working it over. Buckwheat is a bangin beecrop in some places, it makes that honey dark. But it's also covered in all kinds of other pollinators. They seem to be working certain sections in crews, maybe as the flowers become more open.This harrow is about to make them sad.
    The only downside is that in bloom it smells a tiny little bit like cat pee, or rather cat pee that has been on a couch and some hippie couldn't be bothered to go get some Natures Miracle and get that smell out, so they rubbed it with a wet rag instead. Not overwhelming, just every now again your walking by thinking gross, smells kinda like old cat pee. Its not though, its just buckwheat smell.

Farm Dinner at Panzanella

We are having a joint farm dinner at Panazanella w/ EcoFarm on Saturday July 28th-
Y'all come get your grub on !
Also here is a little interview they did with yours truly last week to get you hyped for it. Only referenced drugs one time. A personal best.
http://www.panzanella.coop/about/our-local-commitment/a-visit-with-lil-farm/

Let the freakshow begin!

Y'all know we like to get our tomato on right? Last week we picked our record amount and this week is looking about that way as well. 39 varieties- 29 of those bread flats worth- that equals tomato overdose-- Have some, but what will your mouth do with options as fine as these?

Garlic growing

Harvested all the garlic over the last few days. This is is the latest in many attempts to get a good garlic seed stash together. And while cautiously optimistic I'm gonna say I did all right.Last fall I bought some of the fancy pants hard neck garlic's and a bit of elephant garlic as well. Garlic grows through the winter and spring. It comes in basically two types, Hardneck and Softneck. The Hardnecks are tastier and easier to harvest than the softnecks for the most part, Except, no braiding. The best part is you get like 5-8 big cloves and no little dinkies. you know what I'm talking, those little tiny ones in the center that by the time you get done peeling, you discover they were empty.     

     Garlic is one of those truly pleasurable plants to grow. It goes with damn near anything, looks beautiful and if you don't sell it, bring it back next week and try again, like a tomato that won't rot. Its also a pleasure to eat. Hippies believe that garlic will cure most anything, it is a truly amazing plant, but I don't think this is true, garlic will stink your breath, and probably has amazing properties healing and otherwise. However lots of things hippies say seem to be untrue, especially when it comes to plant magic, so cautiously apply to broken/missing limbs. It does work on treating bad vibes though. So that should come as no shock.
I grow a good bit of softneck, but end up selling lots of it for green garlic. This batch, well its gonna be my stock for planting this fall. Inchelium Red, Georgian Fire, and Music are the types. If things go right, then it will also be the start of a wonderful breathstankin vampire free relationship. But first I got to cure it. Which for me means tying a bunch together and hanging it from the rafters of the porch. After about three weeks it should be dry enough to clean up a little and store. Then come September I'm gonna plant it again and hope for a huge bounty, thus the circle is formed. only this time instead of harvesting hanging, ignoring and then rotting the garlic. I plan on replanting it, making garlic babies and having them repopulate the fields every year. eventually giving me a sellable bounty so copious that it would even make Elliot Coleman get excited "down there".  Holler

Peoples, Why the hell have I been cutting tomato stakes on a table saw for the last few years? It works sort of, but you will probably ruin your tablesaw/s especially if you borrowed it from your friend Ryan, then got a replacement one for him. borrowed it and yes broke it as well, but played it off like it was all good. Well to H E double toothpaste with that nonsense....
. We had a brilly-ant idea today. Well that's not true, the idea was a few weeks ago but the execution was today. Here's the recipe- Please do not follow it, I'm sure danger is involved in many steps.

New stakes:
First Step- Get lots of oak boards from the saw mill.
Second Step- Borrow the use of your awesome friends smaller sawmill.
Step the Third- Stack the boards topwise and cut twenty at a time.

Fourth Step- Repeat

Step by Step- NKOTB's hot shit

The Red Menace

Red Berries call for red puns! the problem is I'm just not inspired by the ones I have so far, they mostly are crude, involve song lyrics and obscure references to the Chinese gubment. I have my reasons for this lack of excitement of course. Reason the first- I spent almost 8 hours yesterday picking 4000 plants by myself. (Well technically my friends Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, were with me. They so often are, when they can be bothered to put out a new damn episode.) And that makes your back sad. Reason the second- The early late frost that swept through last week nipped a bunch of the blossoms despite my covering in the heavy wind antics. and finally its looking like they are all gonna come on fast and furious because of the strange weather. They aren't setting new blooms like we would hope, which means no new berries. Whats up with that?

Its not all grim though. We sold a shitton of them today, they were so sweet and tasty, and they do seem to make people genuinely happy. Its like they can't seem to accept Springs arrival without the little goodies. Probably because fresh out the grocery store they taste mostly of water mixed with some astringent scented body cleaning product, and just a hint of dog shit that was drug thru something slightly sweet. But fresh from the field, before long hours of shipping and refrigeration work their magic, they taste sweet and tart, they have a complex flavor that is purely unique and rarely can be correctly described,. well maybe that's it. They have a flavor. People always say things like that's what they tasted like when I was a kid. Usually this kind of thing would be obnoxious, cuz come on everything's better when your a kid(Adam Sandler movies etc.) But I get it. strawberries just might have to go with tomatoes and melons into that special box. the one that says " Eat these at appropriate times and they wont be shitty. They will be awesome and amazing. They might even give your mouth O's. Otherwise enjoy your papery tasting water"

Strawbabies

Alright y'all, even though I've had to spend lots of time covering them for our cold night tonight. I'm still gonna tell you that its gonna get all kinds of sticky and red and sweet around here soon. Looks like two weeks and we will be knee deep in berries. (straw) not (dingle)! Holler at us, But don't dally, with the crazy weather it looks like all the berries are gonna come on a rush. Or do dally, if you want to be that herb who shows up to market after they're gone. If that's you by all means take your sweet sweet time.

Taters start your engines.

The potatoes have all been sliced and placed in their (freshly tilled) beds. Around St. Patricks Day is a good marker for our area if your trying to time your planting just so. Figures, cuz you know those Irish folks do love their Irish potatoes. But for reals, you know the Peruvians have those spuds on lock down. They have over 800 different varieties. Yes variety is the spice of life, and that's some serious spice. I always like potato planting time. I'll even make your lives easier and give you a little instruction on how we do.
First things first. When your seed potatoes arrive you need to green sprout them. as in wake them up. Or abren those ojos if you will. You want to keep them warm and dark for about two weeks. I do this in the living room nearish to the wood stove with blankets covering them.Although this week you could have done it anywhere, its been freaky hot. When they are sprouted we haul them to the field and start chopping. You have to chop your potatoes so that you get about a 2 inch x 2 inch or more piece with two active eyes on it. The plant grows from the eyes so I'll put it like this, if you don't see eyes when you plant you ain't gonna see shit when you go to dig, ya dig? This will give you some funny shaped seed pieces for planting. We put these GENTLY! into buckets and then put them in rows. Each piece goes down in inch or three in the ground and we do about 14 inches between each piece. Every body differs on this, I've seen from 10 to 24 inches and yes they have all grown potatoes, so do what makes sense space wise for you and get on with it then. Then you gots to cover them! They will dry out pretty quick so make sure you have good soil contact all around. In a week or two you'll start seeing little shoots sticking up. After you get some growth on, potatoes need to be hilled. Which just means throwing some dirt up against the plants. Not too much, you don't want to smother. But every time you hill, you get another layer of potatoes forming. And you know what that means...
work, and also fries.
And just to show you what a stand up guy I am, I'll give you this link. It has correct growing info, so you can promptly disregard everything thing I said on the matter. http://www.woodprairie.com

A line in the clay

Sometimes soil changes in a field. You'll have clay at one end and sand at another. Sometimes two different soils will run up next to each other and you can tell where they transition. Occasionally its really freakin obvious.

New shirt idea From my friend Emily...amazing

Get swole

We just had a winter harvest of this "swole" ass root. This is ginger we over wintered in the house to hold over as some of our seed for the spring. It started as a little piece last spring and had quite the lovely canopy of leaves throughout the season. When it started to get cold out we moved it to a sunny spot inside and promptly ignored it.Slowly but suerly those leaves started dying off We thought we were doing a bad job, but it turns out that was not the case. When you over Winter it like that, it has a period where its leaves get their senescence on. Its marking down a birthday on the plant calender if you will, where it basically goes to sleep, and thickens its skin a bit. It has no thirst nor hunger. Just wanting a nice long slumber.
Now we just rudely awoke this sleeping beauty, and we'll cut it into to tiny pieces to let the process start all over.
Wake up yo- spring is upon you.

Throw some dirt on it.

Threw them beds up. Getting potato ready.
Also got clay for days. Don't be jealous all you sand farmers.
If it won't make veggies I can always make vessels, or tiles, or mud masks.

Gingerly, I approach

Ginger came in the mail yesterday. Along with a few friends- Galangal and Turmeric. Pretty hyped to try these out this year. They grow real similarly, so you can pretty much handle them the same. New things can so often be quite exciting, and If I'm not mistaken (I so rarely am) turmeric is one of those foods the NYTimes is always trying to make you eat because it has some magical powers. Galangal is pretty much the shizznit too, its like a spicier white ginger, most common in Thai food, and alot of times the base of green curry paste. So get ready for that. If you need to start saving money so that I can have your money than please plan accordingly.
These crazy looking sea creature tentacle looking root things show up the first week of March. They immediately go into a presprouting phase on heat mats that we made. I start them in open cell greenhouse trays, cover with soil and put them directly on my little heat cable mats. It holds them between 70 and 80 F. Too much more then that and you'll anger the ginger spirits. But lower temps keep it from going all crazy. The point is to keep it warm for a few weeks, to get the sprouting on. Then it will get transferred to grow bags, still kept warm, but given a little room to stretch them legs as it were. As it grows it gets hilled like a potato, a little grow a little dirt reward repeat. From there hopefully it sends up enough stem to create a canopy to shade itself. It prefers around 80% if you can get it. If your lucky things continue on like this for several months, and then around middle September you get to start breaking into the stash. You'll know its time because the grow bags start to look like the Incredible Hulk's pants. Except black not purple. At that point you can start picking that fresh baby ginger. Selling it to everyone, making ginger beer, and candying that shit. Prepare yourselves for the gingersplosion. wait that's not a word. Word

Frost Blanket

Double up- UGGh




Uggh

Skunky

So my loyal companion was senselessly assaulted in the ole factory by a most vicious attacker. Luckily I had my camera on the ready and captured this image of the event.
Here is a recipe I found on the interweb that slightly works for taking the skunk off a dog- !However! do not get it in your dogs eyes ears or mouth! also don't make it in a closed container- cuz it fizzes and don't try and store it or it will splode.! that said:
1 quart of hydrogen peroxide
1/4 cup of baking soda
one tablespoon of dish soap.
wipe of as much of the oil off as you can,(paper towels, or cloth, not a good one that you plan on keeping) then use this mix , let it sit for a few and rinse and repeat. then wash several times with some dish soap or shampoo.
After that look disapprovingly at the dog, and make snide sarcastic comments about how uncool that shit is. Here is the website with this recipe and helpful other stuff. http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/skunk.htm
Also skunk smell is worse than I ever imagined, never again will I doubt that as an awesome defense. I actually got dizzy and disoriented, and my sorry mutt was a bit blinded(temporarily). Needless to say we fled. Before this I thought it a bit weak, like the kid that had heart as his power on capt. planet.What is heart gonna do against serious polluters? not shit, thats what. Also here is video for that as well.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/5876f2aced/don-cheadle-is-captain-planet

We Got you covered

Wells wells wells.
Its that time when I start breaking ground. Getting the cover crop turned in, and getting ready to plant potatoes(so many tatoes) and all of the lovely Brassicas aka crucifers that we know and love ( Kale Collards Cabbage Broccoli Cauliflower, and other things that smell funky, yet tasty).
My cover crops are quite lush this year because of the mild freaky winter, and are gonna feed the soil for me, as well as hold in all those sweet sweet nutrients. I planted Crimson Clover and Winter Rye, because the clover fixes nitrogen, or rather steals it from the air and stores it in little nitrogen sacks on its roots- when I till it I spill it if you will. And the Rye gives me a metric shit ton of biomass, not to mention it takes up lots of nutrients and then gives them back as it breaks down, otherwise that stuff would just wash away. So I guess what it breaks down to is cover cropping helps me outwardly be the cheapskate I know I am on the inside. Nah just playin. it cost a lot more to cover crop, but building biomass is the best way to improve your soil. Especially if you have poor soil to begin with.(Not to mention all the spilling of seed jokes that you can wow co-workers and neighbors with as they wonder what yer doing)
There are all types of soil sandy, clay etc. Mine was classified as "shitty" or sickly clay so I am always thrilled when I can add to it. otherwise everything you harvest, as in take things away, your taking without giving back. That can only fly for so long before you've got a dust bowl on your hands.
Here are the same spots a day later, after tilling in that clover and rye. In about three weeks it will get amended and planted in. All them new little plants are gonna ravenously consume those sweet little cover crop plants and just like the one lion said to the smaller one- something something the circle of life etc.. Cue Elton John- holler

Fat stacks

Its that time of year when the mysterious boxes start showing up at the house.Every couple days another one shows up on the stoop. They are packed with all those envelopes from the full color spreads of many a magazine. I wish it were a little more glamorous than it sounds. Instead of food porn catalogues, if they were regular porn magazines I'd have lots of sexual aid pills( Viagra Rich as they say), If they were Highlights Magazines my dinosaur sticker collection would be mighty , but really if they were out of Boy's Life I would have spent enough to get that Hovercraft.

Instead they are many a seed, all sorts of varieties that I can't wait to try, old standbys some that I'm luke warm too, and a bunch that I swore off and in a December moment of weakness found myself ordering only to regret it upon arrival- Does the world really need Kiwano Jelly melons?(answer,no) and why the mother F did I order 48 types of tomatoes...yes really. That was a scaled back number. I tried to get crazier, but luckily my lumbar spoke up.
The real exciting part is laying them all out, and pretending that they are trading cards, huge stacks of them. Except these do actually come to life and if you play them right they increase their value, but then you have to try and trade them for the green and white cards with the old guys on them. The bad part is that all my friends are hesitant to trade with me. Most of them always want to take their cards and go home. Sometimes if I'm lucky I can trade a German Johnson rookie card or an autographed Cherokee Purple for a tattered George Washington. Once I even finagled a trade for a fat stack of Abraham Lincoln copper Pogs.

I am now LESS full of hot air!

I've been busy on this overcast day, it was well spent in the greenhouse pretending that I know the basic principles of electricity and how it works, and then tripping breakers and admitting I don't.
I did however frame and wire in two end wall fans that amazingly still work. One of which I pulled straight from the trash. Its such a satisfying feeling to put all to use with the hopeful end goal of keeping the greenhouse air flowing. It doesn't take much to excite you when you spend all day under a strange plastic bubble, house thingy.


Its awesome to see all those little baby plants crack the soil line and stick their little leaves up.
They are getting ready to consume all my time. Allowing for only faint glimmers of social interaction and imbibings between waterings and weedings.

Its too errrlay for this nonsense..

Howdy yallz,
Hope 2012 is off to a grand start. I'm sure it is, especially for those of you following the ole Mayan calender. Wait, sorry if your following that one its not good. I was meaning the other other calender. You know the one that says its the year of the water Dragon. I just saw this last night and feel like its sort of like a dragon sighting, only more common,less dangerous, and smaller.
Its some old Salamander, who is going to be really confused if winter does in fact show up for a few more weeks. Although it will not be alone. Its too soon for climate change to be full on like this, we still need like 22 years to convince people it might possibly, maybe exist, as a theory that's partially fact based. holler

ps. we are now becoming twitterversed @lilfarmnc