Cover Crops and First Harvest

In early October I returned from tour and tried to put myself straight to work. I spent two full days clearing what will become our garden plot next spring. The space we're using was a pasture for goats and sheep some 15+ years ago, but now it has become completely overgrown with weeds and and other underbrush. Once cleared, we had the soil tilled by a neighbor and found ourself with 2,800 sq. ft. of healthy soil eager for something to be planted in it. For now we've made a late planting of Winter Rye as a cover crop to help protect against erosion and feed the soil additional nutrients until we can start our real work in the spring whwn we will till it under again, adding more organic matter. We broadcast the seed over the soil and even in mid-November we can see a small sprouts coming up everywhere. Now I just need to send a soil sample off for soil testing over the winter.

We made a fall planting of 40+ cloves of garlic in one of the raised beds for harvesting late next summer. A few weeks later I covered the bed with a few inches of straw to insulate the garlic from the frigid temperatures quickly approaching.

Next we used salvaged pallets collected through Freecycle to built our future humanure compost site. We built a simple, three-bin compost container for easy storage of brown materials and easy rotation year-to-year.

We found some old wire fencing inside the old shed adjacent to our garden plot and used it to build two containers for leaf mold. Each container is about 3.5 ft. high and 3 ft. in diameter. We reused fiberglass stakes from an old fence to sturdy up the wire fencing, filled them with shredded leaves from the front yard, wet them down thoroughly, and covered each with a tarp held down by a few rocks. They will now "hibernate" for the winter, as the leaves slowly cook into a leaf mold that will make a great substitute for peat moss in the garden next spring, and also as a mulch to protect against weeds on top of the soil. We stuck our hands down into the leaves a few days later and could already feel the extreme heat building up, even as the cool fall winds blow.

About a week before Thanksgiving we harvested our first salad from the cold frame garden and it was quite tasty. We mixed together some baby romaine leaves, mustard greens, winter purslane and mache topped with apple slices from a local orchard, honeyed goat cheese, chopped pecans and a homemade apple cider vinaigrette (cider also from one of the many local orchards) for a delicious lunch salad.

As the cold moves in the outdoor work begins to wind down but there are still burn piles to tend, leaves to rake and wood to split. Soon we'll be spending more time inside, planning our beds for the spring and pouring over seed catalogs.

First Steps, First Seedlings.

Our first step was to build some cold frames. The idea with the cold frames is not to extend the growing season (as is the case with some greenhouses) but rather to give cold-hardy plants a semi-sheltered environment that protects them from the harshest temperatures and prevents the cold from killing them off, which will hopefully allow us to extend the harvesting season, with fresh greens all winter long. So, on Labor Day we built six cold frames, each made out of 3/4" plywood screwed together into a box and topped with lids made from old double-paned windows that Sadrah's dad brought home from work.

We started digging out 6 plots on the hill just above the pool and amended the soil by adding some organic compost and peat moss. Thankfully Sadrah completed all the digging, soil preparation, and planting after I left for Philadelphia and the three-week Giving Chase tour in Europe.

So far most of the plants are thriving even though we got them in the ground a few weeks late. The spot receives limited sun, usually only a few hours a day even on the sunniest days, but the frames have them well protected from the cold. I can't say the same for the slugs, who manage to slither through small gaps between the frames and lights. They've devoured our Asian greens and taken bites out of few other plants. They almost took out our radishes, but with a few preventative methods we managed to keep them at bay. Slugs are nothing but a bunch of lushes so we've been filling up-turned bottle lids with beer to drown the slimy little things a few times a week.  We've also covered some soil with coffee grounds and/or crushed egg shells to slow their slithering and spread ash around the outside edges of the frames. All together these methods seem to be helping, although I'm fairly certain we've lost the Asian greens for good.

Life is Short...and So is the Growing Season.

After a long break we're back and ready to blog! I say "we" because Sadrah and I (Mike) have decided to morph this blog into an account of our attempts to grow our own food here in Skaneateles, among the Finger Lakes in upstate NY. We'll both be contributing our thoughts and accounts as we move forward with our project. We hope to become more self-sustainable in other areas of our lives in the future, but for now we're starting with something we both love and feel passionate about: the food we eat.

I hope the blog will actually be much more than that--you can no doubt expect some mid-winter food porn from the head chef--but for now we're actually way behind on our blogging, so I'll try to start catching up.

While I was out on the road with Billy Squier in June, July & August, Sadrah spent the summer as an intern on Monarch Farm, not far from her parent's house in Skaneateles, NY.

All the food on Monarch is ecologically grown, which means they don't use any chemicals, pesticides or herbicides of any kind. It is essentially an organic farm, without the expensive, time consuming organic certification or signing a deal with the devil, er, government. The farm is run by Brendan on land that he has rented for the last six years and staffed by a few rotating interns throughout the season. I got a chance to spend three great weeks there with Sadrah--getting up at 6:30am or earlier, working hard harvesting and processing vegetables, swimming in a secluded pond and enjoying some of the tastiest vegetables I've ever had.

It might sound tough, and it was at times. There were definitely some ups and downs to the experience, but overall it was a invigorating three weeks and I learned a lot. I guess that's not saying much when I didn't even know what swiss chard looked like, but now I can recognize chard, kale, leeks, radicchio, 3 kinds of onions and more! I particularly enjoyed working the farmer's markets in and around Syracuse--it was great to see the smiles on people's faces as the fruits of our labor filled up their grocery bags.

As our time on the farm started to wind down, we both realized we wanted to devote our time to something we could call our own. We comtemplated returning to Philly, guerilla gardening the nearest vacant lot or begging for jobs at Greensgrow and making our own way in the city. But Sadrah's parent's offered us a great opportunity--the chance to use some of their land to garden. They used to keep animals and grow much of their own food when Sadrah was young, so they've been very supportive of our aspirations. It was a tough decision, but we decided to jump in sooner rather than later and see if we could make it out here in the country. Maybe this is where we want to settle, maybe it isn't. Long, cold, hard winter? We'll see! We wanted to go for it and find out.

4th of July weekend in Grand Rapids

On the 4th we walked 4 miles round trip to go to a restaurant called Brick Road Pizza. They offered lots of vegetarian and vegan options though i think the menu descriptions and the novelty of it was more interesting than the food itself which wasn't anything particularly memorable. After our meal we walked back to the hotel and changed into red to participate in what hoped to be the largest water balloon fight on record. It was a battle between the Americans and the Redcoats but by the time we arrived almost all of the water balloons had been claimed so we ended up standing back and watching. I don't know if it ended up breaking any world records as they had hoped, but it was interesting to see.

At night we sat on some rocks at the rivers edge and watched the fireworks display. Tons of people had gathered to watch the fireworks and with good reason. It was a long and entertaining display.


The next day the bus was headed to the Rothbury Music Festival. Rothbury is a huge hippie music fest. We got to catch Toots and the Maytals (a little disappointing to be honest), Ani (she was better when I saw her several years ago), The Hold Steady (I still don't get the fascination with this band), Willie Nelson (can do no wrong), and Bob Dylan (who doesn't even seem to try anymore but no one really cares). It was pretty sweet to be able to check out all these bands. We got a little sun and our feet were nice and dirty by the end of the day. We fit right in with the other hippies, minus the trust funds.


On Monday we walked another 4 mile RT to a restaurant called Marie Catrib's. This restaurant was much better than the one we had gone to the other day. Almost everything was made in-house or organically grown by local farmers. We started off with a goat cheese salad with toasted walnuts and roasted root vegetables with a balsamic vinagrette and a cup of tunisian vegetable soup (kind of a vegetable curried lentil) and some seasoned potatoes. We followed that with a roasted eggplant, provolone, spinach, and tomato with a homemade aioli on fresh baked whole wheat herb bread. I had a nut burger made from walnuts, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds and spices on rye bread with a cucumber yogurt sauce. The portions were enormous and we ended up taking a half of each sandwich to go, along with a vegan chai spice cookie for later. They were busy so there was a significant wait to be seated, but the service was welcoming and attentive. The restaurant itself is built on the site of a former gas station. Heavily polluted, the former owner paid (or was fined) $520,000 to rebuild on the site sustainably. They are now a LEED's certified property that houses businesses in addition to serving as an educational demonstration site. It features a green roof (dramatically reducing the energy needed to heat/cool the property), a storm water collection/filtration system, a 'rain' garden, and use only non-CFC air conditioning among other environmentally sound practices. The restaurant itself goes beyond offering a comfortable dining experience with homemade, whole, locally sourced food. They promote and help arrange tours to the farms where they source their vegetables and meats from, furthering the relationship between how we eat, what we eat, and where our food comes from. I asked the server about checking out the roof and she happily instructed us on how to get the key and check it out. We ended up having a guided tour of the roof where we walked barefoot on the vegetative covering while weeding out the dandelions. If you ever find yourself in Grand Rapids, do yourself a favor and visit this restaurant.

After filling our bellies to the brim we walked back to the hotel and pampered our sore feet and aching muscles. A quick trip to the steam room, following by a relaxing soak in the hot tub and a couple of laps around the pool and we were rejuvenated. We spent a few minutes basking in late afternoon sunlight over a crossword puzzle before walking to Founders Brewing Company. They have a special on pints on Monday nights and the place was swarming with people. We stepped in and were immediately disoriented and unsure of the protocol. We were seeking an outdoors table but couldn't find anyone to ask about it. Eventually I tracked down a server who rudely told me to grab whatever table I could grab where ever I could grab it. We decided to sit at the bar rather than have the rude and unhelpful server wait on us.

The bar wasn't much better. The first bartender who approached us gave some snarky response when I asked a question about one of their beers. Mike commented that perhaps they were trained to have bad attitudes. I played it safe with my first beer after trying to ask a question to the bartender and just ordered the Dirty Bastard, a medium bodied scotch ale. It had a slight nutty quality with a well balanced sweetness and dry finish despite the 10 different types of malt it is brewed with. Amber in color with a touch of spice this beer weighs in at about 8.5%ABV. Mike ordered the Imperial Stout, 10.5%ABV. The color and taste both evoke a nice shot of espresso, perfectly roasty without being overdone. It offered a full body and enough hops to give this imperial stout a nice punch without any cloying sweetness.

We ended up finding a helpful person behind the bar in the happy hippie with beads in his beard. For our next beer Mike ordered the Porter, which was nice, and offered a smooth mouthfeel and chocolate finish but wasn't particularly noteworthy otherwise. Upon our friendly bartenders suggestion I tried the Pepper Pale, which he described as packing some habanero like heat. This light-medium bodied orangy pale ale offered just a slight peppery finish at first tasting and was a little bit of a let down, however the lower the beer became in my glass the more I noticed the heat slowly creeping up on me. Though I did feel a little warm all over by the end of the pint it still wasn't as hot as I was hoping for. We also had a taste of the Cerise Cherry Ale, a seasonal brew from the cherry capital of the world (I write you now from the National Cherry Festival a few hours away from Grand Rapids). Light purpley-red in color, kind of like diluted grape juice, I found the flavor of this beer was too heavily concentrated cherry and not enough beer flavor going on. A little too syrupy with not enough pizazz, Mike said it reminded him of drinking a wine cooler. I'm not shocked that I didn't care for this beer though, as I have never been a fan of the fruited ale genre unless of course it's a delicious lambic that smells like horse blanket.

On the road again...

Most people would see a 15 hour Greyhound ride through the US as unbearable. But after traveling from the top to the bottom of South America, I don't see bus travel that way anymore. Granted, bus travel in SA is usually far more comfortable than it is in the US. There's more leg room and the chairs recline at a nice angle, there's on board entertainment - at least one movie and maybe even BINGO, there's food and beverage service, blankets and/or pillows, not to mention some of the most stunning scenery anywhere. Traveling by Greyhound is certainly not like traveling by bus in South America where eventually I stopped dreading a 22 hour bus ride and started to view it as a nice chance to rest and relax. Greyhound is almost always less comfortable, surprisingly dingier, certainly without the on board amenities, and without much more than a monotonous view of the interstate usually turns out to be a pretty boring and uneventful ride.

As I boarded the first leg of my trip from Syracuse to Cleveland, OH I was really surprised to see that almost every seat on the bus was full. I managed to find one empty seat and settled in next to the window. The problem with choosing an empty seat is that anyone who comes on the bus after you can sit next to you. That's how I ended up sitting next to Lt. Dan. He might have had both his legs but he was still just as mad. Even before his frail body sat next to me his agitated nature caught my eye. Hurling sarcastic comments to who knows who he fidgeted to who knows who. When the young woman across the aisle and one row in front of us kicked him by mistake while trying to adjust herself he grew even angrier yelling at the girl, "I wish they'd send me back to Iraq mama." This may not be South America, but it was sure to be interesting.

Eventually the bus left the station about 30 minutes behind schedule with Lt. Dan twitching at my side muttering periodically while I tried to relax by watching the sunset. It was one of those really beautiful sun sets that looks like embers cashing out in the sky. My calm didn't last for long. Hip hop started to encroach upon my thoughts. It was pumping so loudly from someones headphones that I could hear it clearly from 4 or so rows back. It's a wonder they're not half deaf... or maybe they are, as that would surely explain it. Lt. Dan eventually fell asleep though his head kept flopping into me until I made a barricade with my messenger bag and squished myself into the window. I was too afraid to wake him up to ask him to flop in the other direction.

Then the crying baby chimed in. Then the girl who had kicked Lt. Dan earlier began to have a nervous breakdown. From what I could tell she had gotten her period and was unprepared so she shoved a handful of napkins down her pants and changed into a pair of her boyfriends shorts which were 3 times too big for her and had to be wrapped around her and held up. In Rochester the bus stopped briefly just to pick up and let of passengers. The girl tried to get off the bus, presumably to use the bathroom, but was denied and when she returned the madness ensued. She returned to her seat upset and whining about how she didn't understand why everyone kept yelling at her and why couldn't people just be nice every once in a while. She got in a quick fight with her boyfriend who said she was embarrassing him and then proceeded to uncontrollably cry and bawl and sob and howl like a siren while talking to her dad on the phone and shouting something about lost luggage. We hadn't even made it to Buffalo yet and had 12 more hours to go. I was just thankful that Lt. Dan had remained asleep until we finally arrived in Buffalo.

Some people got off the bus so I took the opportunity to move up to an empty seat where a nice sane non-twitchy non-aggressive girl sat next to me and I was able to get a little bit of rest before changing buses in Cleveland around 3:30am. That's where I saw a black albino. He held my interest while we waiting to board the bus that would take us from Cleveland to Detroit. Arriving in Detroit at about 7am I lined up at our departing gate and stood next to Mr. Chatty Cathy. It was early and I was tired and my blatant disinterest in the conversation did not disengage him. He was perfectly nice, but I just wasn't in the mood. He told me all about how he was traveling in Lansing, MI from Harrisburg, PA and that he didn't take a plane because he needed to bring his weed with him. I ate some cherries as he talked while I fixated my gaze on a large man who had comically given up wearing a belt for the use of suspenders. He looked like a circus clown.

The last leg of the trip wasn't as full as the others and I was able to lay down in the seat and get some sleep. At around 11:30am the next day we finally rolled into Grand Rapids. Mike met me at the bus station, which was conveniently located across from Founders Brewing Company. We saved our visit to Founders for later and headed back to our fancy hotel instead.

Life After Facebook

A few days after visiting my farm I took off to MA for Katelyn's bachelorette party. We started the night off with dinner followed by an entertaining drag show (these are apparently really popular with bachelorette parties). After the drag show we headed to a dance club of Katelyn's choosing. This dance club out of all the others in Boston was particularly of interest to her because it had a mechanical bull and she was determined to ride it. I have to admit, the idea of riding a mechanical bull did sound pretty fun. Those of us who wanted to ride the bull did, with varying degrees of success. I think I did pretty well but I also didn't think it was very challenging. I hear that the bulls in bar that aren't dance clubs are a little harder to maneuver, someday I will have to try one of those out. You know, just to compare.

The week between the bachelorette party and the wedding was spent in MA at Katelyn and Sean's apartment. Sean had to work most of the week so I spent most of my time helping Kato with last minute wedding stuff and just hanging out with Esteban who came up from Colombia to attend the wedding. Somewhere during the week I tried to log into Facebook and found that my account had been deactivated for using a fake name. Apparently I jeopardized the integrity of their website. I responded with a scathing email and ultimately was told that my account would be reinstated, though I have yet to hear anything about it. Before we knew it the rehearsal dinner had come and went and the wedding had arrived. The weather held out just long enough for a beautiful ceremony which was followed by some curious downpours, hailstorms, and a brief power outage.

I drove back to my parents house from MA and had one day of much needed rest after what was basically a week of late nights and drinking. On the 30th I took my mom in for surgery on her wrist. After being in a cast following her dog attack in April she was still not healed so they decided surgery to screw the bone together was the next step. She came out of surgery fine but the following night had an adverse reaction to her pain meds which prompted a trip to the ER where we stayed for nearly 8 hours waiting to be seen by the doctor. We finally arrived home at 4:30am.

The Farmer's Wife gave me her kombucha mother so that I could start brewing kombucha for myself and my parents and I finally had a chance to make my first batch. Her mother had been sitting for a while and I'm not sure if it's alive or not. It's been 3 days since I started our batch and I think I should be able to see a new thin layer on top of the tea to indicate that a new mother is forming, but haven't seen anything yet. It's been cool here, so maybe the fermentation is going slower than usual. I'll give it a few more days to see what happens.



Only a week and a half to go before my farmer lifestyle begins... in the meantime I'm going to pretend I am a rock star. Tomorrow night I will be boarding a Greyhound Bus for a 15 hour ride to Grand Rapids, MI to meet up with Mike and the guys from Billy Squier. Mike's got a few days off in Grand Rapids where we plan on joining in on the city wide water balloon fight on the 4th of July. After that I'll get to spend a few days with him traveling to a couple different cities, sleeping in fancy hotels, and hanging out in the tour bus. Looks like I might even get to see Ani, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and Toots and the Maytals for free on Sunday. It's good to know people who know people.

Until Facebook gets tired of my periodic emails demanding the restoration of my account I will appreciate the extra time that not having Facebook provides me. I still find myself updating my 'status' in my head though, which I find to be a little troubling. I'm sure I'll get over that eventually.

Shenanigans is researching composting toilet regulations in NY State.

Meet the Farmers

Yesterday I went, accompanied with my mother, to visit the farm where I will be interning this summer. When we arrived we met The Farmer and The Farmer's Wife and The Farmer's Kids #1 and 2 (2 years and 3 months old). The Farmer seemed a little frazzled. He began to tell us about his day where everything that could go wrong did go wrong, starting with a mishap with his percolator in the morning, which led to his current state of coffee deficiency. Next The Farmer realized that his refrigerator containing around $500 worth of lettuce for the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) delivery the next day had broken.

While waiting for the repair man to arrive The Farmer took us around the back of his house where he haphazardly had his greenhouse and slightly run down animal yard. Chickens and ducks ran around freely scratching in the dirt and grass and a few goats nibbled some tall weeds on the side. He apologized for the state of his chicken coop explaining that it's not usually as unkempt and dirty as it was during our visit and mentioned that repairing the roosts was on his list of things to do. He took us through the greenhouse and even I could tell that it was being underutilized and could have been used more efficiently. He began to go over his evolving plan to fence the animals out of certain areas and I got my first glimpse into the mechanical workings of his mind.

Our tour was momentarily interrupted when the repair man arrived. My mom and I stood nearby while The Farmer described the problem with the fridge. He said something like, "I turned the thermostat too far and now I can't get it to turn back. I think it's broken." My mom and I looked at each other, knowing that in order to fix that it was as simple as removing the knob and turning it with a pair of pliers, which is exactly what the repair man suggested. "I never thought of that," marveled The Farmer. In the end the repair man found nothing wrong with his refrigerator and that all he needed was a new non-GFI outlet installed that would prevent the circuit breaker from tripping (or something like that, I'm no electrician myself). I don't have many electrical skills, but this was not such an advanced problem that my mom was unable to diagnose it.

While we waited for the repair man to install the new outlet we went inside to chat with The Farmer's Wife who makes all natural, mostly organic lip balms, moisturizers, body oils and other skin care products. She'd like to expand her line with homemade soap as well and I think I am going to be able to help her out. We sat around the kitchen and chatted while their 3 month old fell asleep in my moms arms and uncovered the root of the refrigerator problem. The Farmer had a cheap percolator that he rigged up to work by jamming a quarter somewhere to keep it from blowing the fuse or soemthing. This morning he forgot to put water in the percolator which caused the refrigerator to go down. My mom put two and two together and proposed it to The Farmer who was shocked at the chain of events but certain that she was right. Mechanically minded he is not. He may not be naturally business minded either. A little goofy and possibly absent minded, he reminds me of a farmer version of Amelia Bedelia. But he seems to know how to grow vegetables, is very friendly and generous, and able to live a simple and happy life.

About a 10 minute drive from the 'home site' is the 'garden site' where the actual gardening is done and where my housing was located as well. We checked out my new living space which is in a converted barn. There's a great 6 burner stove in the kitchen and a welcoming balcony on the 2nd floor. The bathroom is spacious with an elevated throne, there's a small common living space without much more than a couple of vinyl chairs in it, and a couple bedrooms. What will most likely be my room is less renovated and isn't much more than a barn stall. But it's got a window and 4-walls and a roof and when I look back at the different places I have been staying over the past 7 months I know I will be perfectly comfortable.

We strolled through the garden and sampled a couple fresh sugar snap peas that only had a few more days on the vine before they would be picked and processed for the CSA shares. More planting will happen in the next few weeks and the crops will really be in full swing when I start working there in July. There's no internet during the week and no traffic noise or artificial lights to bring me down, just resurrection of the soul starting with the soil.