One More Flint planting

It's still terribly hot and humid.  It's been like this for a few days.  Due to the rain and moisture, the mosquitoes are as bad as they get!  However, I've managed to get out every day and the garden is mostly under control.  The main issue is an extraordinary bloom of purslane.  Even though Mother Earth News says it's a great source of nutrition, for me it's a nasty nasty weed.  And it really took hold this year!

Anyhow, I had wanted to put more flint corn in the West end, but that area is so wet that it is still not worked up yet.  So I stuck a little more flint on the high ground.  It's on ground that had sweet corn last year, which is not a very good idea.  But I'd like to have more corn at harvest time, so it will have to do.  This planting will be very interesting, since the rain I was expecting today never came.  There is dry weather forecast for a week or more now.

Four rows of flint, about 30' long I'd say.  In the Southeast corner of the garden.

Not sure why these onions matured so early.  The two other varieties are still growing strong, but these guys are telling me they need to be dug up.

The Marquis field on Newman Rd looks good.  Great, actually, which is nice since the rest of that field has been such a challenge.

Here is the Newman field looking south from the Marquis planting.  The field is still (STILL!) very wet, but it should dry out next week.  I'll finally get to finish discing it, three months after I started.

Corn Harvest

This year was my most ambitious corn planting to date.  I grew two varieties of sweet corn, planted four full rows of popcorn, and also had two plots of composite flint corn.  I probably had 75 distinct varieties this year!

Here is the composite flint corn from Bill Davison at the University of Illinois.  I believe he said there were 50 varieties represented in the colored seed stock.  He also sent me a smaller sample labeled "white composite."  The white was planted last and it's still growing.  The colored flint is spectacular.  I have no idea yet what I will use for seed.

Cassie on one of the first days harvesting popcorn.  I was disappointed with the yield--there were a lot of stalks with nothing on them.

My seed stock.  I look for full ears on stalks that are strong and still standing.  If there is any mold or rot I definitely don't use it for seed.

Cassie working the flint corn.  Some ears were 7' in the air--wow!  Cassie did pretty well.  The new cart is not as handy as the old one in tight spaces.

Another view of some of the flint corn.

June Overview

Lodging in the winter wheat is pretty bad, at least in this one section.  I think some of it may even die.

The East strip is doing OK.  This land was opened up just 14 months ago, so that's actually pretty good.  There is quite a bit of buckwheat coming up as weeds, but in general the fertility is adequate to grow things.  The beets are doing the best.  I am thinning them every day and eating the thinnings.

Facing North.  From right to left, spring wheat, potatoes, a few celeriac, tomatoes, beans, basil (unseen), corn, and garlic.

Facing South.  From left to right, garlic, popcorn, flint corn, red clover.

The cucurbits are coming along, and the sunflowers and flint corn I planted last week are coming up.  Today I hand planted Kentucky Wonder pole beans to make a three sisters planting.

Corn up, Mostly

Sweet corn, planted in May, is coming up very nicely.  The replanted sweet corn is also starting to poke through.

The popcorn and Roy's Calais is coming up nicely.  The popcorn may need thinning--the small kernels sometimes doubled up.

The Floriani Red has not budged, which is unexpected.  It's been 12 days, and this soil is really pretty decent.  Very interesting!

This is how we compost at the farm.  I shovel the loose stuff on top, and this crew comes along and digs it all up.  It works pretty well.

This is some of the Turkey on Spring street, which was knocked down in a relatively brief squall a couple of days ago.  I'm surprised that it lodged at all.

Sloooow Summer Morning

Around this time of year the donkeys can get into a mode where they just do not want to get out of bed.  I go down around 5:30 am, open all the gates to the pasture, and the three donks just stare at me from their stall.  This morning was an extreme case.  Sebastian was sitting down, so I knelt down and just rubbed on him a bit. Then Rosie came over and rested her chin on my shoulder.  We hung out like this for a few minutes, and I reflected on how lucky I was to have this wonderful farm with such great animals.  I went inside to eat my breakfast, but they did not rouse themselves to go eat anything for another 30-40 minutes.

Rooster drama.  Rodrigo has been beating up on Woodstock.  They can be so cruel.  Two months ago it was the other way around, but Woodstock injured his leg and now Rodgrigo is just going to town on him.  It's really awful to watch sometimes.

We had a 1/4" downpour last night as part of a very quick squall.  Now the wheat in the garden is really laying down!  I hope some of it stands back up.  

The popcorn and Roy's Calais flint corn is coming up nicely.

Rosie can hang her tongue out for what seems like hours.  I take it as a sign of extreme contentment.

Corn and squash planted

So just to recap, I did not remove all the red clover, settling on just a 14' wide strip next to the garlic.  The rest of the clover will be harvested for fodder, and I hope to plow it up this Fall.  The strip to the West of the clover was planted to winter wheat last year.  It also is not working up very well, so I just focused on a 6' strip down the middle, enough for the squash plus two rows of floriani red flint corn.  A few live wheat stalks will not bother anything.

Here is the upper corn strip.  It's 4 rows of black jack popcorn, saved from the 2015 harvest, and two rows of Roy's Calais flint corn, also saved from last year.

For most of my drilling, I stretch out a rope, then run up and down with the wheel hoe.  After that I run the Earthway down.  All corn is set to 1" depth.

Roy's Calais corn is red and yellow.  I used one yellow cob and three red cobs to make the seed mix.  The red gene is recessive (or something like that) and you're supposed to use more red than yellow.  The whole harvest came from a single red cob harvested in 2014.

Best seedlings yet!  I've never had plugs that popped out like this so nicely.

So the squash went straight down the middle of the strip.  Sebastian & I also added 4 loads of compost prior to working up the field.  There is greek heirloom squash, butternut squash (saved), and cantaloupe (saved).  One each side, 2' rows, is floriani red flint corn.

Under Control

After getting back from my break up North I work non-stop in the garden.  Hardest hit is the team--we have to get this red clover dug out!  Wow is it hard work.  The clover will just not give up, and the team needs to rest often.

Here is a view of the three USDA wheat seed tests.  From left to right is Turkey Red, Wisconsin Pedigree No. 2, and Bacska.  The Bacska looks very good, and it is distinct from all the other winter wheat in the garden.  It's going to be fun to try baking with this wheat in a couple of  years.

Here is the lettuce that I planted last August, for winter harvest.  Now it's growing quite nicely in the oats.  Go figure.  BTW, the oats came up very spotty and I think I need to double drill next time.

More lettuce woes.  I drilled in a triple row about a month ago, and maybe three survived.  Lettuce is not my forte.

Here is my 2016 attempt at a pea trellis.

Here is how the strip West of the garlic looked before I drilled in popcorn and flint corn.  So that damned red clover finally gave up!  I fully expect that there are a few live crowns still down there, but overall I am pretty pleased.  At any rate, a couple of red clover plants will not bother the corn.  At the South end where it gets wetter the seed bed is not as good.  But the team pulled there hearts out.  The drag was set up with 3 x 9" sweeps, set pretty close together.

Flint Corn Tacos

I have been muddling my way through what to do with all the flint corn I grew last year.  This crop is very alluring to me and I want to make it a staple part of my diet, somehow.  Experiments with polenta/grits have been so-so, but tacos and tortillas are showing some promise.  Here is where I'm at today.

Flint corn taco with dried beans from the farm.  A nutritiuous meal that is 100% off the farm.

Start with 1 lb of hard corn, in this case, Roy Calais flint corn.  I have selected only the red ears for this meal.  Roy Calais produces about 60% yellow ears and 40% red ears.  We're going to boil it in water with 2 T of slaked lime added.  You can get the lime from a little package in the Mexican section of the grocery, or from the lumber yard in 50# bags.  Slaked lime is a common additive to concrete to improve work-ability.  I have a lifetime supply left over from making the last brick oven.

The recipes I found for making masa recommended 10-15 minutes of simmering, but for my flint corn I am finding at least 30 minutes is needed, and I think it could go even longer.  Stir it several times while simmering, then turn off the heat, cover, and let sit over night.

It's ready if some of the skins can be rubbed off.  I have been rubbing some of the skins off, but not all of them, and rinsing the corn well.  Some of the original liquid should be reserved to hydrate the dough after grinding.

I'm still looking for a good masa grinder. This time I used my old Lehman's grinder with stones, but the auger had trouble feeding the wet corn.  I ended up pushing most of through with a dowel.  However, the stones made a very nice dough in a single pass.  The hand grinder available online feeds the corn very well, but the plates are so poorly made that you have to grind the dough several times.  And the dough feeds though the auger very poorly.  I have tried dressing the plates on the mexican grinder (using a belt sander) and next time I will test it out.

The dough may need hydrating to get the proper consistency.  The hotter the frying pan, the better for cooking.

Fall prep

The buckwheat was harvested and shocked.  It went pretty fast with the cradle, only the straw is so weak that it can be tricky to tie the shocks.  Interestingly, after seeing all the buckwheat re-seed itself two weeks later it almost seems like hand harvesting caused more shattering than the cradle.

This is how it looked after pulling the drag through a few times.  Frustrating with all the trash clogging the tines, but the team and I are getting better at this.

Flint corn looks great.  I harvest the ears and then toss the stock to the herd.