Earth Building

New Moon Earth Building Workshop

July 19-20th

4-7pm


Summer Projects

  Strawbale Greenhouses, Earth Ovens, Living Roofs and Rocket Stove Benches
Learn about Materials and Building Methods

$10 dollars per person/day enjoyable for all ages

Bring a Tarp, 5 gallon bucket and Vegan Dish to Share

Reach us @ 730.2441 for Directions

Squash Blossom Farm
Agroecology ~ Heirlooms ~ Earth Building ~ Sustainability

Whitefish,MT

 

Cob Garden-Week 16

We finished our first batch of Red Marble Cippolini Tomato Sauce. We reduced several pounds of skinned tomatoes with 4 bulbs of garlic last night. Today we added diced up red marble cippolini onions with fresh parsley and flowering marjoram reheated and pureed. Nearly all of it was devoured through the "sampling while cooking" process and I'll have to make an additional batch for canning. Cippolini's are incredibly sweet so next season we'll try to stay dedicated to accurate spacing.

Excavating the Cob Oven

The sauce compliments this divine Raw Ricotta Cheese over a bed of rice penne noodle. This cashew cheese also makes a great stuffing for whole tomatoes.

What you'll need for the cheese

1 Raw Tokyo long onion(or any white finger size onion)

1.5 cups soaked cashews

a handful of cilantro

1/4 cup of volcanic lemon juice

a splash of sunflower oil and enough water to get things going in the blender

Add all ingredients to the blender and serve between the warm sauce and noodles

Applying the Discovery Coat

The Queen of Slip

We've been busy busy transferring the discovery coat of natural plaster to the straw bales. The outside wall has the first coat complete and we're a 1/3 of the way through on the inside. It looks like it takes a few days to fully dry down before the infill coat can be added. That's when the playing and building with clay gets really fun.

Making the Mix

Week 12 Garlic Braids and Potatoes

Our purple stripe soft neck garlic braids are hanging in a prominent place in our kitchen and we hope they'll be happy in yours too. We washed the french fingerlings and blue adirondack potatoes so keep them refrigerated. And the heirloom tomatoes are starting to show their true colors. We thought we'd have to pull all of them Saturday before the freeze. The weather changed it's forecast thursday to no chance of freeze and not even frost to an abrupt turn this evening for clear starry skies - perfect for meteors dropping into the big dipper, a clear view of a northeast southwest oriented milky way and.....frosty temps. So down to the garden we go to harvest flowers, tender herbs, ripe tomatoes, mustard greens and chard. Hoping the cold doesn't settle to hard "down" in the garden. The cold air likes to ride right over our hillside and settle in the garden. In fall I've watched, with hose in hand, frost clouds start pumping to the edge of our only slightly elevated sight compared to the wetland.

The beauty in all these weather patterns taking ups and really low downs is the flower arrangements in the house. There's not much we can do other than cut the blooms and enjoy the fragrant sweet peas inside and prepare to start watering before dawn.

Next week, we'll get back into mixing in some greens, hopefully a cucumber or two and more tomatoes. If you want extra garlic or tomatoes let us know and we can add them to your remaining weeks. There is just 6 more extra large shares that might downsize to 4 even larger shares if the weather dives down too much in the evenings.

True Signs of Spring with Some Created

The very beginnings of the steel rainbow high tunnel. We're putting up our 20ftx48ft High Tunnel this weekend. This is the first of 13 steel arcs I built yesterday. The metals been patiently waiting to go up since last fall when winter snuck in early and all material was covered with tarps.

We're really looking forward to about a 1000 sqft. of additional growing space. This is where the Heirloom Tomatoes, Peppers and Squashes will be living this summer.

Oohs and Aahs for the little garlic shoots pushing up. We have 500 plants of organic soft and hardneck garlic growing!

Sort of - "volunteer" - 5 sprouting garlic from bulbs we left in during our bulbil trial

Shallots!

And are mostly bantam chickens are in too. Depending on the mystery bag of roosters to hens we should have some organic eggs in early fall for those interested in supplementing their vegetables this season-and probably a rooster or two to give away for those looking to expand their fowl production. Their new residence will be the newly planted heirloom fruit tree orchard. Jobs description includes eating some grasshoppers, egg production and absolutely loving slugs (the slimy's seems unlikely)

Squash Blossom Farm CSA

Garlic Harvest

Uncurling

this is the last week of the garlic dry down in the ground. we've had some rain but all seems well. the scapes we're testing have nearly gone vertical and are very firm and Salty built some racks to dry them on. We'll give them at least another month to dry in the air.

The music garlic oils were rich after being pulled and dried 3 weeks ago. We mixed it in some homemade

Honey Mustard Vinaigrette
1/4c spicy mustard
1-1/2 cup olive oil
splash or two of apple cider vinegar
3 tblsp local honey
2 garlic cloves
pinch of sea salt
combine and shake

Tastes delicious on salad in homemade coleslaw or for marinating veggies and chicken.

Sharing the Harvest

This season we have some infrastructure projects to fine tune and build. Our hoop houses need some mending and strengthening from the beating they've sustained since 2007. The wind can be severe but will be useful for our turbine. We also have a reclaimed glass/strawbale greenhouse we're building and fence to finish.

We're really close to completing the fence. The 73rd and last fence post was set on Sunday! We have a few gates to make and wire to tack up and the half acre is enclosed. I have never been one for play pens but this one rocks. Our farm is machine free so all our post were hand dug and set by Salty over the last few seasons with some assistance by J-Bird and Papa P. I of course provided the morale boosting and beverage support, which did include some homemade hot cocoa, plus I did swing a hammer and marked out the property to get things going.

Even though we're not selling this year- we're still working the rows and testing out some more heirloom and short season vegetables while providing enough food for us. Our plan is to offer a CSA next season and will then have a strong structure support to make it easier.

The CSA will be a mix of about six Shares for 20 weeks and options include

Traditional Veggie Share-$25 per week

Veggie/Spelt Bread Share-$30 per week

Harvest Shares-sponsored

The handful of Harvest Shares is for families limited on fresh food purchases that is growing in the Flathead Valley. The number of shares we can support is dependent on donations and our growing space. We hope several small contributions even as little as 1$ will add up to share food with 3 to 5 families for the 2011 season. The families will pay what they can afford and in return receive seasonal harvests for 20 weeks.

We have been exploring this option over the past year in an attempt to really open the fresh market to a diverse mix of age groups. Especially children who constitute the majority of Food Stamp recipients and are dramatically affected by their early food choices.

As of March 2010 Flathead county currently supplements 11,744 people with their Food Stamp Program. I found this to be a substantial increase from previous years

2009 ::8383 people

2008 :: 6007 people

2007 :: 5581 people

Based on information I found in the US Census Quick Facts and Montana Department of Health- I calculated the number of people on Food Stamps in the Flathead Valley was at an alarming 10.69% in 2009. I then compared the March Statistics for the number of families in the county on Food Stamps from 2007-2010.

This year was up by over 3361 people compared to 2009 and you'll notice from 2007-2010 the number of people more than doubled. The economy is faltering and it shows in the number of people requiring food assistance. More than likely this number is higher as some families try to go it alone without government help.

We believe in "Feeding All Regardless of Means" which was coined by my sustainable agriculture mentor, Christof den Biggelaar. Besides guiding me on companion planting, crop rotation and cultivation he really emphasized food that is community supported and based. His recent project on the "FARM Cafe" provides meals exclusively from locally grown food donations and without a price tag. Individuals pay what they can afford or trade their skills for food. This is what our Harvest Shares are about on a Community Supported Agriculture Scale where the Farm Gives Back to the Community.

So spread the word as your garden grows and if you have families in mind for our Traditional or Harvest Shares let us know.

Dethawed

It's Grow Time!