Russo Family Farms

Two varieties of garlic did not make it into the ground in the fall, Broadleaf Czech and Inchelium Red. The softneck varietals, which do not form a scape, or flower stalk, store longer than hardneck varietals and can be braided. Last year I had success with spring-planted garlic and here we are again.

I also had some 40 hardneck bulbs that did not get planted, which when opened, exposed beautiful large cloves, sprouting happily.  Though these were a mix and I can’t tell which is which, my bet would be that several are the German Extra Hardy, with 3 to 4 very large cloves surrounding the stem.

Garlicking in 2015

The farm is waking up from the depths of single-digit temperatures. The crates of winter squashes stored in the cabin had definitely frozen rock hard, and then thawed and deflated. There was squash juice everywhere. It was not a pretty sight. We never got around to doing any machine maintenance in the winter. When the tractor roared back to life, Dan said “That’s one amazing piece of equipment there.”

The first sprouting of garlic tells me the race is about to begin. We are not anywhere near ready for this season. This winter we made an unexpected move out of NYC to CT. It was shocking how quickly we decided, packed, moved, unpacked, and adapted to new town new school, new job, and new commutes.

But nevermind all that. As the last frost date for Warwick edges closer, it is time to focus on the dirt, seeds and weeds. Are you ready?

Farm in Winter

The pre-thanksgiving storm system that swept up the East Coast blanketed the farm in a fluffy, drifty snow.

• Remaining garlic that needs to be planted – not happening this time
• Blue hubbards in front of the cabin – covered by snow
• Squash inside the cabin – keeping fingers crossed they are ok
• Brussels sprouts – still in the field, enjoying insulation from low nighttime temperatures by domes of snow

November Squash Share

• Winter Luxury pumpkin
• Blue hubbard squash
• Acorn Squash “Tuffy”
• Sunflower seeds
• Garlic
• Parsley, Sage, Thyme

The winter luxury pumpkin is an heirloom eating pumpkin. I cut the pumpkin into 12 slices and steam for 30 minutes. Scoop it out and make soup, puree to make pie, or freeze for future use. They are velvety smooth, with a true pumpkin flavor. The seeds can be roasted.

The blue hubbard squash has a really hard and thick shell. People have been known to bring out hacksaws when the butcher knife gets stuck. They are great storage squashes and can last well into the spring, if not for the hard freeze at night and our lack of controlled temperature storage operation.  So alas, the cold has frozen them lightly, and a few projected days of 50 degree weather will allow them to thaw. These are best processed, and eaten or frozen immediately.

The “Tuffy” acorn squash does indeed have a tough shell. Be careful when cutting open!! They start out dark green and turn orange over time.

Sunflower seeds are Dan’s experiment, quite successful at that. Each flower head was bigger than my head and gave about 1/2 lb seeds (each bag is about 1 lb, even though the label is for 1/2 lb). We have 3 65-gallon containers of sunflower seed, and mowed down the last 50 flower heads. Early on, we cut some flowers to dry hanging upside down in the barn. The mice loved them. So we left the rest in the field through Oct to dry naturally on the stalk. It was much less work that way. There’s dust and petals mixed in. You can rinse and dry in the oven, or soak overnight in salt water for salted seeds. Finally, they can be sprouted and eaten, or grown for an 8-foot stalk of a flower.

Polar Vortex in November

As quickly as I patted myself on the back for a decent season, a burst of cold plunged the nighttime temperature to below freezing and put our squashes in danger. 8 degrees below freezing, which drove me to google how to calculate the rate of freezing water. (Answer still elusive on google, chemical engineers or physicists please send me the equation.)

We arrived to find some snow on the blue hubbard squashes outside, with light frozen spots. I left them outside, better they stay semi-frozen than thaw out. Then I went inside the storage cabin to check the other squashes. Some of the tan-colored squashes in a far corner might have chilling injury too.  This includes the Long Island Cheese Pumpkin, Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck, and butternut squash. There were few to begin with, and this freeze is claiming additional squashes.

It is just a bit colder inland than in the city. Coupled with the breeze, wind-chill starts to make itself known. Most of the farm has turned to an amber golden tone, with just the herbs and brussels sprouts announcing themselves in green. The goal from here til the ground freezes is to break up the plant residue, and maybe put on a cover crop of winter wheat to prevent erosion.

The drainage ditches were left untamed over the summer, and now the withered weeds provide a sort of windbreak. As I walked along the outermost ditch, I spotted 2 stakes marking potato rows.  My heart skipped a beat. I had completely given up when the weeds overtook the plants in late May. It was on my list of to-weed, but something else always had higher priority. I thought the entire field was already broken up, and yet the stakes stood.  We grabbed a pitchfork and a shovel, and eyeballed where the first line of potato would have been. Voila!

Potato

They measured no more than 2 inches, but we dug up about 40 of them! The white ones came from the Hawthorne valley CSA from the end of last summer and overwintered in my kitchen. We found a couple red ones, but no blue ones. Next year, we plant and weed properly, for digging potatoes is indeed fun.

Dig, dig

Over the past month, we had ideas of harvesting sunflower seeds. Some were cut down, bundled up, and hung in the barn. Some came home, only to stink a few days later. Some that had been drying inside the barn since late august were pillaged by mice. We realized there are 3 ways to harvest sunflowers 1) pay someone else to do it 2) by specialized equipment or 3) let it dry on the stalk. Because of the sheer number of stalks and the failure of hang-drying, we left it on the stalk until now. This is what resulted from about 30 flowers. There’s more, but we have no more storage and no more desire to battle critters. They can have what’s in the field. Next year, maybe some seeds will sprout by itself. Or, we may feed some african swallows migrating north carrying coconuts.

Sunflower Seeds

World Wide Garlic

Planting Session

For me, garlic marks the beginning of the next season. It is planted in the fall, allowed to winter in the ground, and spring up through the April chill. Battling weeds in the garlic rows was disagreeable in May, discouraging in June, and a definite debacle in July. So this time the rows are spaced 4.5 feet apart. We modified a disk harrow so we can drive a tractor over the small young plants in the spring. I’m trying to find some clever way of sowing a low-growing cover which won’t compete with garlic and helps to deter other weeds.  There’s always straw or plastic mulch, and I could be overthinking the problem.

In addition to our own garlic stock this year, here are additional varieties for next year. Each type is a modest half pound, and we have 17 types originating from various areas across the globe.

All of the hundreds of sub-varieties of garlic grown all over the world came from the ten groups of hardnecks that evolved in the Caucasus Mountains between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Garlic (Allium Sativum) has two subspecies, hardneck and softneck. Hardneck refers to the flower stalk that forms bulbils. There are eight types of hardneck varieties: Porcelain, Purple Stripe, Marbled Purple Stripe, Glazed Purple Stripe, Asiatic, Turban, Creole and Rocambole.

Softneck garlic do not form scapes, and can be stored longer than hardneck varieties. They can be braided (think rustic Italian countryside). They form smaller cloves and grow well in milder climates. Most supermarket varieties are softneck and imported from overseas industrial farms.

The drying golden hues of grass has settled over the farm. While neighboring farmers have cleared their land and planted a cover crop for the winter, we are on the relaxed schedule. There are still many tomatillos to be collected here and there. Funny thing about the tomatillo husks, they smell bad. When you remove the husks, the tomatillos are slightly sticky. I dunk everything into a bowl of water with a little soap, and pull off the husks.

Nest of Tomatillo

With a bit of rain last week, the dill seeds sprouted and are attempting to carpet a portion of the herb row. I didn’t manage the dill properly this season, letting them flower and go to seed very early in July. But nature performed beautifully, shed seeds, and waited for the proper time to bring forth more.

Dill

A nice fall crop of brussels sprouts, which can survive some cold. These stalks are like the leaning tower of pisa. The top layer of bud growth is amazing, flowering into additional buds and shoots.

Brussel Sprouts

Sowing flowers in a row, truly a novice thing to do. The weeds towered 5 feet over them for the majority of the summer. Now the weeds have yellowed and dried, these flowers are getting its second breath of life. When alive, these plants are resinous and sticky. It is no fun to pick the flower without gloves.

Calendula

With night time temperatures dipping right to about freezing, we walked through the rest of the squash field to retrieve the remaining winter squashes. Surprising to find this many more spaghetti squash left in the field. When cooked, they are stringing and separate like spaghetti. They can be topped with sauce and cheese, as if you were having a plate of flour-based pasta! Believe it or not, this was originally cultivated in China in 1890’s and was imported to the US in the 1930’s. During world war II era, the squash gained popularity as an inexpensive replacement for Italian spaghetti.

More Spaghetti Squash, Anna Swartz Hubbard

Hubbard squashes are usually very large with a hard skin. Anna Swartz hubbard is an heirloom from Massachusettes. We cut an 100 foot row and packed it into the SUV.

Workout for the SUV

Last year a farmer had rented one of the fields and grew corn, pumpkins, and squash. A few of the seeds generated some large pumpkins, which we found hanging near the ditches. If you look closely there are some serious teethmarks from woodchucks.

Extra Pumpkin

There were only 4 of these heirloom French pumpkins this year. At maturity, they turn an orangey tan. Tall weeds in the squash patch blocked the sunlight this season. Next season, we’ll put in a different growing grid, so that we can weed more frequently with the tractor.

Musquee de Provence

Looking at the droopy squash leaves with a black-green color tells you that the temperature dipped low enough to form ice crystals. We are approaching the “first frost date”, mid-October, for our zone and region. So we set about clearing the squash patches.

These three orange squashes had been woodchuck favorites.

• Potimarron (French heirloom squash that has a hard skin and of the hubbard group) – small yield, 10 for us and 10 for the woodchucks.
• Orange Dawn – 50 for us!
• Boston Marrow (Originated in upstate NY with 200 years of history, now only grown by a very few. Listed in the Slow Food Ark of Taste) – small yield, 5 for us and 5 for the woodchucks. There are several immature fruits in shades of yellow still on the vine.

Potimarron, Orange Dawn, Boston Marrow

Blue hubbards curing in the field since last week, with newly collected pumpkins other orange squashes. The dark green are a hubbard-type squash called Anna Swartz. Leaving them outside to cure is a bit of field roulette, maybe the woodchucks will come for them, maybe the frost will descend upon us.

Field Roulette

A butternut with lots of neck? Yes please, presenting the Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck squash. Critters seem to love seeds and I found a few with the seeds eaten out of the bulbous part.

Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck

Long Island Cheese pumpkin – 8 for us, 2 for the woodchucks.

Long Island Cheese Pumpkin

The one and only Marina di Chioggia pumpkin. The plants did not do well.

Marina di Chioggia Pumpkin

The one and only Amish Pie pumpkin. There were a few immature fruits that set recently, and the plant is still flowering.

Amish Pie Pumpkin

Closing out the summer vegetables, a surprise round of sweet bell peppers. After the first round of harvesting, I did not think the small fruits would size up. How wrong was I?

Peppers, round 2

Last call for cucumbers. The leaves and vines are drying out.

Last Call for Cucumbers

I had no energy to plan a fall rotation, except these brussels sprouts. Taking off the top allows the plant to focus on developing the sprouts along the stem. The top ring of sprouts burgeoned to this size within 2 weeks.

Topped Out

While the fall snap peas I planted are spotty, and deer-munched, these volunteer seedlings came up all by itself from the spring planting. Although they will not have enough time to form pods, I do anticipate having some snap pea shoots in the next few weeks!

Again Snap Pea?