Missing Willow Farm

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October is planting time for garlic in our zone, and July is harvest time.  You know it’s ready to harvest when a few leaves start going brown and it looks like it wants to lie down.  Don’t wait until it’s fully brown and on the ground.  Take a trowel and lift the bulb from the side.  We harvested hundreds of heads from our raised beds.  We brush the soil off and hang it for a few weeks in our lawnmower shed, which is basically an old dog lot with a roof on it.  It’s under cover and gets good ventilation that way.  I needed garlic and refused to buy any with all of this fabulous stuff hanging so have been using some of the fresh in cooking.  It’s a little hard to peel but still tasty.   We’ll hold onto some of this harvest to plant in October… just three months away (!)

Fearrington Village in Pittsboro, NC has Belted Galloway cattle as their mascot.  We used to take out of town company there just to see the beltie cows.  The Village restaurant serves beef from their herd and it’s delicious.  They are listed with the American Livestock Breeds Conservacy as a “watched” breed and are known for their quality marbled beef.  Guess who has their own beltie cow now?  That would be us!  For all of you True Blood fans out there, she was purchased from a Mr. Bill Compton who lives on Bill Compton Road.  I asked him if he has HBO (he doesn’t) and if he knew he has the same name as a popular vampire character (he does).  He said people keep stealing his road sign!  We named her Jessica.  Don’t get too attached, she’s destined for the freezer some time next year.  In the meantime, we’re going to take good care of her and enjoy having her around!

Shallots, heirloom tomatoes, zucchini and greenhouse cucumbers on an early July morning.   I’ve been babying the very best tomatoes of each variety on the vine, they’ll be saved for next year’s garden.  Seed saving is the second best thing about heirloom tomatoes, the best is the taste!

Although, I wish.  A few of our friends have donkeys and they are the sweetest creatures.  Caring for one is similar to owning a horse, which is time consuming and expensive.  I know this because we own the book  ‘Looking After a Donkey’.  We considered getting one as a guard animal way back when (thus, the book) but we’ve got the dogs.  So basically, we can’t come up with a good enough reason to get one so I admire them from afar.  It’s the only animal I want but don’t have.  Oh.. and a peacock.  And a flock of guinea hens (but we’re working on that).

Doelings and bucklings have all gone to their new home so I am now milking three goats twice a day.  Mina was added to the milking roster on Sunday, but she’s been recently treated for internal parasites so we’re waiting for the medicine to  leave her system before we use her milk.  It’s called milk withdrawal and we always wait a few days longer than the label recommends.  That means Mina’s milk is up for grabs in our canine world, and FiFi has claimed it as her own.  She asks so very nicely!

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Considerable change, eh?

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About every two or three days we get one of these honkin’ ginormous brown eggs from one of our Rhode Island Reds.  Have you seriously ever seen one this size?  They are double yolked inside, what a treasure!

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Construction is going on in our front yard, we’re having the driveway paved.  Every time I come in from running errands, I think I’m going to be greeted by one of those guys in an orange vest holding a Stop/Slow sign.   What’s cool is the material they removed by scraping the driveway in preparation for paving was used to fill in a large crevice near the output edge of our manmade pond.  We’d had some concerns about it widening over time and eventually blowing our pond out but no more worries as it’s now completely filled in.  We saved money by providing our own landfill for the construction waste.   It’s been tedious schlepping groceries in while they’re working on it but will be so worth it when it’s done.

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Zucchini is starting to come in.  So are the shallots and edamame.  I’ve been the only vendor with tomatoes at the Farmer’s Market for two weeks in a row now.  That will change soon.  Isn’t that cabbage gorgeous?  It doesn’t have a single blemish on it.  Our cabbage did NOT look like that last year!  I think it’s because it’s in the greenhouse.  We’ve started harvesting garlic, so much of it.  It’s a good problem to have!  I’m serving it in corn salsa, baked beans and roasted fingerling potatoes tonight.  I sailed right through two whole heads of it.  I love having an abundance.

Roasting enhances the flavor of beets and takes away the bright color.  These are on their way into the oven after seasoning, but they called my name with their beauty asking for a photo op.   So pretty!  If you don’t like pickled beets, and lots of folks don’t, try roasting them.