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Welcome to the Good Earth Farm Community Page. In the coming months we will include articles and photos about our farm, gardening and the Good Earth Farm Community. If you have a story or photo that you'd like us to consider please let us know.
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| Schatze starts her Antrim garden with plants from Good Earth Farm. |
Friday, January 25, 2008 and 4 degrees as I contemplate the fields of snow behind my house. It is my day off and I am a free woman. I laugh as I write those words. "Free woman" only means I'm my own boss today. I can vacuum, do laundry, grocery shop, walk the dog, clean the cat litter boxes or take a hike in any order I choose. I can start my day a little more leisurely and if I do it is certain I will feel the need to hustle later as the day gets away from me.
Just come in the mail from our gardening friends Dave and Linda Trumble at the Good Earth Farm in Weare (certified organic) is their 2008 plant order. Peter and I have ordered garden plants from them since the winter of 2006. Even though my vegetable garden is mounded with snow, I can lose several hours contemplating the seven pages of flowers and vegetables that I might choose and grow in my garden. Different this year is that the Good Earth Farm has a website with links from each of the plant varieties to descriptions and pictures. I really like pictures.
I love to garden. I admit to a good amount of success with my vegetable garden though I don't consider myself to be a good garden planner or a particularly knowledgeable gardener, but I love to garden.
I happened to keep a copy of my 2007 plant order. I searched for it in the dark and freezing recesses of the garage and found it in my gardening basket. I'm looking it over as I am struggling to keep my order for this season reasonable. I want it all but when the time comes to put those plants in the ground I know I will feel very differently. Gardening is a lot of hard back breaking work and particularly hard on a back that was broken just eight years ago.
I always start the order process by thinking in the negative, in other words what I am not going to bother planting again. For instance, every year I say I'm not planting Eggplant again, but I always do. The last two years I have been plagued with both a red beetle and the potato beetle and they decimate those poor plants and if they survive that then there is always frost. Celery! There is nothing like it when fresh from the garden, but then I don't really know how to grow it, I wasn't sure the first time if it grew above or below the ground and besides I grow too much. Right now I have a store of it chopped and in the freezer. Great for use in soups.
I love to grow peppers and onions, the things I like to cook with. Garlic and Leeks get me pretty excited too. From the herb list I always get Arugula (love that peppery taste) but it matures fast and the leaves become bitter after about six inches. I like to plant with my tomatoes 3 types of Basil - purple, sweet and Thai. Put those together with some curly Parsley, Tarragon and Oregano and you have a really beautiful late summer bridal bouquet.
Kale is another one of those that I plant too much of but they start off so small. I forget how big they actually get.
A small apple-sized turnip just plucked from the ground (washed first) is like eating an apple. Surprising! Beets and potatoes from the grocery store are just beets and potatoes, but home grown and fresh out of the soil. Flavor! Amazing!
Not everybody likes Brussels Sprouts but my family does and they are best after a frost. I like to sauté them in olive oil with garlic and onion, fresh ground pepper, lightly salted.
I don't like my cucumbers much bigger than a finger, but they like lots of water otherwise they are bitter to the taste. My mom had to tell me that after one very dry season.
We also always plant the summer squash and again our preference for them is at the small and tender stage, don't like them when they get club size. Peter loves the winter squash, Acorn, Butternut, Buttercup and Delicata. By now I have pretty much maximized my space limits because I still need room for my green and yellow wax beans, for my peas and lettuce, spinach and the companion plants I like to use for pest control such as the Marigold and Nasturtium. And what about Sunflowers, the Mammoth Gray Stripe and all its' smaller shorter varieties with those breath stopping colors. Three varieties of Morning Glory brought glory to my garden last season. I had the Clarke's Heavenly Blue, the Cardinal Climber and President Tyler to tame before all was said and done. I simply must have some Bachelor Button, Snapdragon, Zinnia, Larkspur, Heliotrope, Alyssum, Calendula, Cosmos, Lobelia and .…