Month: July 2014

  • First Garlic

    It’s the start of garlic season. We’re used to buying garlic in the store, but what does it look like when you go harvest some fresh? Follow the pictures below to see what it looks like coming out of the ground, getting cleaned, peeled and chopped for super.

    The garlic sold in stores is first cured (dried) for several weeks to dry the wrappers. And yet garlic is very good fresh out of ground. Garlic which is fresh out of the ground is called wet garlic and difficult to find in stores. If you’d like to purchase some fresh garlic, grown without any herbicides or pesticides, feel free to let me know by filling out the form below or by calling 360-202-0386. I’m selling it for $5 a pound.
    [contact-form to=’theman@amanandhishoe.com’ subject=’Garlic Request’][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Garlic Request’ type=’textarea’ required=’1’/][/contact-form]
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  • Making Lunch in the Summer

    No matter what time of the year, making lunch starts with going out into the garden and vegetable beds to see what looks good today. Invariably, these ventures include a foray by the pond. What’s the point of going out to the garden if I’m not going to enjoy the pond? The cattails are forming their thick, bushy tails. By the end of summer they will turn to fluff. Come next spring, birds will use this fluff to line their nests.

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    SummerSnake

    Along the way I spot a welcome garden snake. They are plentiful this year and do a great service keeping the rodent populations down.

    SummerLunchPreparation

    And I’m back in the kitchen with a bowel of fresh greens and eggs to make a simple, summer lunch. Gathering your lunch ingredients is stressless compared to going grocery shopping.

  • Off to Bed

    OffToBedA

    The hen above has four chicks. Two of them are completely hidden underneath her warm feathers. You can just make out the gray and white tail feathers of a third chick to the left of the one chick who isn’t quite ready to snuggle underneath her mother.

    The seven chicks below are too big to snuggle under their mother anymore. She’s on the roost behind them, making sure they are safe on their roost. From late afternoon onward, the entire flock comes home to roost. The oldest ones are the first to bed. The mothers and chicks are next. The last to come in for the night are the young juveniles. Not much different than many people.

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  • Busy Mothers

    Summer is a busy season for mother hens. Every week, there are new hens sitting on eggs. Those with chicks are taking their chicks out into the brush to find good hunting grounds. Each week they take them further and further.
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    The chicks below are a five weeks old. They are already sleeping on the roost at night next to their mother. A few more weeks and they will probably be on their own. Until then, they spend twenty-four hours a day by her side, learning new things every day.

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  • Today’s Waste

    PollutionWaste

    This is the waste that is left over from processing salad greens. These greens are very edible. The stems may be a bit too twiggy for a raw salad, but they would work well steamed a bit. They’d also be good for soup or to make broth. The chickens will eat them. Tossed into a compost pile, all sorts of organisms will convert it into rich compost. Then it will grow more wonderful salad greens.

    There really is no such thing as waste on a produce farm. Everything is part of a continuous process, going from one state to another.