"Five Apple Farm: Growing It Larrapin"
Geek adventures with honey bees, gardens & more on a Blue Ridge homestead
Chickens: Hardest Working Garden Buddy Award
Some friends and I were standing in the ramshackle remnants of the November garden at Larrapin after an arduous 2012 summer season. There wasn’t much to crow about once you got past the glorious stand of collard greens. Perhaps as a kindness, my friends remarked instead on how handy it must be that my chicken paddock is right beside the garden. The hens were casually pecking away at piles of end-of-season garden residue tossed over the fence to them. Yes it is! I nearly shouted, relieved to turn the attention away from all the things I didn’t do right in the garden this year.
Read MoreGot in All Our Garden
Back in late August I spent a week exploring in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Those folks and places (and many others) have been on my mind while listening to all the wind, damage and flooding from Hurricane Sandy this week. I was lucky enough to be in New England during exquisite warm fall weather and I hope to share some of the trip with you over the next several posts. I’ll begin though, at the end.
Flying home out of the Burlington International airport I was mesmerized by the art near my departure gate. Tiny wooden blocks fixed like rows of mosaic tiles were printed with words from two women, one writing in her diary in the mid-1800’s and one writing poems (like the one above) that brought tears to my eyes. This despite standing in an airport hallway among busy travelers reading their so-called smartphones and walking forward without looking ahead at all for navigational cues like other people, etc. Don’t get me started on that! Back to the artwork.
I love it that these two women so enmeshed in their relationship with the land are featured in the most manmade of places, an airport. I love it that the Burlington airport features art and poetry. Vermont is a mecca for in-love-with-the-land worldview. There is a huge emphasis on local farms, food and farmers everywhere you go, not just the usual foodie hangouts. There are farmers markets—all locally grown and overwhelmingly organic—in every city and most tiny villages. The one I attended on a Thursday in Waterbury was like a town celebration with whole families picnicking with hot food and treats purchased from vendors. If not for the winters and property values, Vermont would no doubt be overwhelmed with those of us who love the land crowding in to be near others who understand this feeling.
What struck me about the diary from the mid-1800s was how similar it might be to notes in my own in 2012, with the notable exception of “washed the sheep.” The diarist noted comets and geese passing overhead, fair weather, harvest dates. My favorite was from October 1858, “Got in all our garden.” Oh sister, the joy. That’s exactly what has been happening at Larrapin in October. Fall finally arrived with cool days, crisp air and endless blue skies. After an early hot June, severe drought that burned till Mid-August, then unusual and oppressive humidity till September, FINALLY the fall garden season is back. I feel resurrected.
In this frenetic world, so overfilled with busyness that barely looks up from the screen, much less look around at the green world, there is a sense of connection, even relief, to read a woman’s words from a century and a half ago. I can easily imagine a conversation with her that we would both understand. I understand the bittersweet beauty of watching the geese fly over in the Fall. I understand relishing bright weather and apple harvests. I would ask her about why sheep need washing, and I bet I’d understand her answer. There is such joy in being a part of the lineage of soil, not just by virtue of living in a biological body that is built of and will return to soil, but in sharing it with others. Today, lucky enough to be standing in a day of perfect Autumn, I’m sending out a thought to a woman working her farm in 1858. And I’m going out to get in all our garden.
Read MoreBeginnings & Transitions
Artists avoiding the studio. Gardeners avoiding their gardens. Songwriters writing no songs. Writers willing to wash every dish in the house rather than sit down with the empty page. Photographers who have let their camera sit in a drawer so long the batteries run down. Bloggers who haven’t posted in they don’t remember when.
When I’m shying away from my long-time creative passions, that’s a pretty good sign something is up. Or down. Maybe there’s something troubling me just enough to keep me from starting on that new idea. Maybe I’ve allowed myself to get so busy there’s no time—there’s a classic trick to avoid all kinds of realizations, temporarily. I may be sounding a bit like Mendy’s creativity blog, but over and over I see that when I’m avoiding time with my favorite muses—the garden, writing & photography—it’s as good as a blazing neon sign over the psyche that says, “Dig Here!” Not that I still don’t busily manage to put that all out of my mind for long expanses of time! But in my experience, creativity practiced regularly and with an open heart will keep you honest in a way that nothing else does—short of a really challenging therapist perhaps…or AA I’m told.
For many months now, I’ve known that we will probably be leaving these Ozarks in a couple of years and moving back home to the Appalachians. Health issues worsened by dry heat, family members transitioning to different states, and just a strong missing for those blue hills of home have all played a part in the decision. The decision has made it difficult for me to face the page, and the garden, for some time. (Oh and an oppressive heat wave most of the summer compounded by severe drought didn’t exactly have me rarin’ to go either, I must confess.)
We want to go slow and plan for moving—lord willin’ etc—in early 2014. We recently returned from an exploratory trip to check out the lay of the land in Southwest Virginia, which has the mountains we love, but also has a bit more open sky and rolling land than our previous home in the steep Black Mountains of North Carolina. Living on the edge of Oklahoma for seven years will give you an unexpected taste for open sky after all. It’s close to old friends but less crowded than Western North Carolina. Washington County, Virginia seems to have most of what we need—nice people but not too-too many, great farmers markets, some arts and cultural venues and goings-on, a local-foods group, decent topsoil and good rainfall. What they don’t seem to have is people moving away and freeing up a house for us! 🙂 But that could be a good sign overall, even though it could take us a long while to find a new little farm.
The thought of leaving this home and the incredible friends we’ve both made here in the Ozarks is nearly enough to make you forswear moving-boxes for the rest of your life. But the reasons to head back home are real. There is sadness in a leaving mixed with the excitement of a new beginning. Wherever we end up, I’ve warned Mendy that I’m going to be looking for a trophy-wife caliber stretch of topsoil without a blade of bermuda grass or a rock to be seen!
Honestly though, as much as I’ve fussed about the rocks here at Larrapin Garden, taking this hillside from then to now has been one of the greatest joys of my life so far. I’ve learned things I never would have known in rich bottomland. We took a somewhat barren expanse and spent years cultivating and growing and creating and cajoling it into this amazing landscape filled with songbirds, woodpeckers, raptors, butterflies, bees, toads, tree frogs, salamanders, lizards, and more. Yes there are snakes and wasps too, but you’d be hard pressed to find three-acres as bustling with beautiful life as these. There are flowers, herbs, fruit trees, shade trees, blooming shrubs for medicine and for pollinators that will grow on even after we leave. There is a large garden with soil rich enough for a family to grow most of their own food where before there was only bermuda grass on compacted dirt. For me, it’s a legacy to pass on to the next gardeners who live, dream and grow here as we have.
In upcoming posts I will share what comes up as this idea moves forward. We’ll see what happen! Thank you so much for being a reader, even when I haven’t always been reliable about my end of the conversation. As always, I’d love to read your comments and hear what’s going on in all your creative gardens!
First Frost at Larrapin. And Basil.
The mound of basil spread on a magenta towel on top of the washing-machine is starting to wilt. Last night leaves stood up from the stems, crisp and fleshy at the same time, like a cat’s ear. This morning it is a soft, pungent pile. I pick up the bundle and turn the whole thing over, fluffing the leaves apart. A cloud of verdant scent rises as if summer exhaled. My hands now carry the spicy odor, even typing this later, sharp and earthy at the same time. The leaves need to lose a little more water to the room air before I put them in the herb dehydrator. Otherwise it will take days to dry completely—as it must be to get crumbled and funneled into the bottle labeled Basil.
October 7th, last night, was first frost. Just more odd timing in a year filled with weather oddities here in the Ozarks. Halloween has been a more common frost date in the seven winters I’ve lived here. But this is the year no winter to amount to anything ever came in late 2011. I kept thinking the cold would catch us off-guard the following spring. But it never bothered. The figs that usually freeze to the ground and must regrow from there had green buds high on living branches in early April. Peach blossoms so often nipped by late frosts were untouched and lit up the branches like pink birthday candles. Those same branches would be stressed by severe drought a few short months later. The new queen of weather is bipolar compared to the more reliable ruler she overthrew. A coup d’état by carbon apparently.
The winter we missed last year acts in a hurry to catch up. At least for a night. The surprise low of 27 predicted only reached 32 at our house, set on a slope in the “sun bowl” as we call it. But 32 is more than enough to brown or blacken basil. So last night had me once again gardening by headlamp. I located and cut the huge basil plants I’d put in late that had not flowered yet. This means peak flavor. Today I will pluck the leaves off the stems and arrange them like puzzle pieces on the racks of the dehydrator. Then set the thermostat only at 95 so the most scent and color will be retained. Though it will take them two or three days at least to get fully dry this way, it’s the only way to keep the full flavor. I want the taste of this basil to be strong enough to cut through a winter day. I want the scent sharp as a green blade, smelling as if it were plucked right from the perfumed hands of Summer herself.
—A Larrapin Garden, where the basket of basil picture shown at the top was—full disclosure—actually the September batch I used to make a winter’s worth of pesto. I *love* basil so I grow a lot, as you can see and read. It takes at least half as much as you see in the picture, after drying and milling, to fill a full-sized container for the spice cabinet. Lotta summer in that little bottle! Like Larrapin Blog? Please subscribe to get blog posts in one weekly email. You can also get bonus links, giveaways and recipes by “liking” the Facebook page or following on Twitter. Thanks! Leigh
Read MoreRecipe: Fresh Heirloom Tomatoes with Basil, Capers and Olives, Larrapin Style
Turns out that extended heat and drought will put me into a kind of hibernation as certainly as a rainy winter. Luckily this cool week of stunningly beautiful weather and even a couple of small rains has me coming back to my senses, puttering out in the garden and speaking in full sentences again! How better to celebrate the senses than a recipe that really shows off the fresh flavors of your heirloom tomatoes? I love that the tomatoes are uncooked in this, so it showcases the taste of summer sunshine in the tomatoes.
I took a recipe found in the most excellent cookbook Mediterranean Harvest: Vegetarian Recipes from the World’s Healthiest Cuisine by Martha Rose Shulman and adapted it a bit…by adding some of sliced grilled sausage and putting it all over gluten-free pasta. I didn’t have any parsley, thanks to ravenous grasshopper plague…but it was yummy without it. Also, since I used sausage, I skipped the feta and just sprinkled parmesean slivers over the top. This is an easy to adapt recipe perfect for summer garden bounty….but be sure you have capers on hand!! I knew I’d entered a new phase in cooking life when capers moved over to the “kitchen staples” list…haha.
P.S. If you don’t have your own tomatoes growing, or a supply of delicious and humanely-raised beef or pork sausages, or you need some fresh basil or amazing kalamata olives, you’ll find plenty for pre-order down at the Green Fork Farmers Market on Wednesdays 4-7 in the breezeway of Nightbird Books on Dickson Street in Fayetteville….WHICH is where I happened also to buy this cookbook! <end of shameless plug for my favorite farmers & bookstores> 🙂
Fresh Heirloom Tomatoes with Basil, Capers and Olives, Larrapin Style
2 Tbsp Olive Oil 3 cups chopped heirloom tomatoes or cherry tomatoes cut into bite sized pieces or with cherry tomatoes, halved. See tomato note below. 2 Tbsp capers, drained 2/3 cup halved or chopped black or kalamata olives 1/2 cup slivered fresh basil Salt and pepper to taste Pasta of your choice (I used gluten free noodles) Grated fresh parmesean slivers (or feta, per the original recipe) Optional: 3 TBSP minced fresh flat-leaved parsley Grilled or browned mild sausage or brautwurst links, cut into bite-sided coins Directions: Combine olive oil, chopped tomatoes*, capers, olives, basil, parsley if are using, salt/pepper in a large bowl and let sit 30 minutes or longer.*Note: my large tomatoes were pretty juicy, so I sliced them in half—where their ‘equator’ would be—and gave each a good squeeze over the sink before chopping into bite-sized pieces. This will remove quite a bit of juice and this turned out to be a great idea. Cherry tomatoes work great unsqueezed!) Grill sausage if you are using (or brown in a skillet). Prepare your pasta al dente, drain. You have two options from here: Top the pasta on each plate with the beautiful sauce. Top with parmesean (or feta) to taste. Serve hot or room temp. Or, per the original recipe, you toss it all at once as soon as you drain the pasta, and then serve hot or at room temp. Either way you do it, the room temp version is delicious and refreshing on a hot afternoon. The next day, the leftovers were quite yummy after microwaving, so there you go!
Mendy gave this recipe the official “keeper” stamp of approval, meaning it goes in my keeper-list of experimental recipes. That means it’s real good…which means it’s Larrapin!! But you already knew that if you are reading this blog. Have a wonderful week (but keep praying for rain too). Thanks for stopping by.
—A Larrapin Garden. Please subscribe to get blog posts by email (once a week, max). You can also get bonus links, giveaways and recipes by “liking” the Facebook page or following on Twitter. And if you are in the Fayetteville, Arkansas area, you can share the garden’s bounty via Green Fork Farmers Market—an online & drop-by market on Wednesdays featuring all naturally-grown products.
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Arkansas Drought Continues…
When I look at the vegetable garden in this photo, it doesn’t seem like we’re in a severe drought. Walk out there and clouds of grasshoppers (who thrive in parched conditions) fly away like those horrid flying monkeys in Wizard of Oz. I try to walk in a direction that sends them into the chicken pasture, to the delight of the hens as they scramble to catch them with moderate success. Mendy prefers to catch them with a minnow net and using them to fish for catfish with great success. In the garden, the wonderful t-tape irrigation system seems to be keeping most things going. We’ve even had a bumper crop of tomatoes this week and already the freezer is filling up with tomato sauce for winter.
But any drive out in the countryside these days—like the one I took in Madison County this week—will show the drought very clearly. The fields that have tall grass are pure gold at a time the fields are usually still green. With the lone oaks in all that golden grass it looks just like parts of California I once visited, not Arkansas in midsummer. Many fields have been grazed down completely (and probably finished off by grasshoppers) and the farmers are having to feed cattle hay already. In midsummer. That’s not good.
This map puts Northwest Arkansas in the best portions of the state, and Fayetteville and eastward seemed to get some rain this week. But Larrapin Garden is on the Oklahoma side of town and not a drop has fallen. I think we’ve had one good rain of about an inch here back in May, and a couple of days with a less-than-half-inch shower that didn’t even wet the dust under the trees. I have a feeling this particular microclimate, a rocky high plateau, is a deeper shade of orange than most of NWA. And if this is merely “severe,” I really hope I don’t have to see “extreme” or “exceptional.”
Drought is obvious stress to the land, trees and wildlife. Less obvious maybe, but it’s a wearing stress on people who love the land, trees and wildlife. I’ve been feeling a lot of that lately. I’ve been reading about the projected climate for our region in the upcoming years, and frankly, the news isn’t good: more heat, droughts more frequent, and when it does rain, more heavy rainfall events more associated with flooding rather than those long slow soaking rains that get deep into the ground. The projections sound a lot like what I’m reading so often in the paper now. This week it was drought in the midsection of the country, flooding in Houston, or was it Florida..no that was last week.
It’s sobering, to say the least. Then I started reading Bill McKibben’s latest book Eaarth—trying to really educate myself on the changes I’m seeing in the land —and well, the first half of the book can certainly make a person wish to be much, much less sober. As in, eat, drink and be merry because… well, you know. I’m pushing on through, because he says that creating hopelessness and apathy is exactly what he’s trying NOT to do. No Bill, the depressingly well-documented facts you quote will do that on their own! As in current facts, not future projections. Still, I really want to get to the ‘what to do’ portion of the book —which sounds akin to the Transition Town movement — and past the current climate-facts portion. Yikes.
Meanwhile, I’m spending time studying on techniques for resiliency for the land and gardens here at Larrapin, mostly found in permaculture books and websites. The small applications of permaculture I’ve tried here at Larrapin have been quite convincing. On a grander scale, this set of before/after photos of these permaculture techniques in action in climates far more inhospitable than ours is grounds for realistic inspiration in my opinion. I’m particularly amazed at the size of some of these successful projects…the kind of news I only wish I could get via mainstream news instead of still-obscure Australian internet sites.
So it seems the challenge of climate change for me is this: how to stay grounded in both gratitude and reality. As usual, I’m finding lessons—both somber and hopeful—on both in the garden.
Thanks for stopping by Larrapin Garden. If you are reading via email, please check out the website for recent posts on garden spiders, how “nurse” gloves are handy in beekeeping, how to cool off with a stock tank, and hints for keeping wildlife and trees alive in dry summer heat.
Read MoreGarden Spider Signage
We’ve had more garden spiders this year than ever. They are so beautiful in a predator kind of way. I do appreciate how they put signage up for the birds — that zigzag weave down the middle — so the birds won’t run into their webs. While I know this isn’t just kindly thoughtfulness but rather it must be a lot of trouble to rebuild a bird-smashed web. Still, it seems like a nice deal between the spiders and the birds. It also helps the gardener not run into the web one large spider like this one has built all the way across the path between the tomato beds. The gardeners, like the birds, take the detour.
Thanks for stopping by Larrapin Garden, where praying for rain accompanies breakfast, lunch and dinner too.
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Beekeeping Hint: “Nurse” gloves
Now that it’s hot summer, beekeeping enters a quiet season again. The spring swarm frenzy is over, honey is bottled and sitting like treasure in the pantry. Hive inspections can be on an as-needed basis instead of every week as in the Spring.
Now the bees are just busy keeping the hive cool and looking for nectar in this dry, dry weather. Meanwhile, I’m watching what trees and shrubs are still producing nectar in the hot summer months, because I want to add more of those to my landscape. At the moment, I’m interested in the Chinese Golden Rain tree, which has bloom I’ve read are full of nectar during the hot summer months….still researching all that. I wish I had the site and the soil to plant basswood, seeing the bees on those flowers earlier this year on an ENORMOUS tree in front of the E.R. of the Fayetteville V.A. Hospital was amazing. If you do have bottomland, plant basswood!
Anyway, speaking of hospitals, one of the tools of my nursing career —the ubiquitous blue non-latex gloves that you can also buy at any big-box store — have turned out to be a wonderful beekeeping tool as well. The heavy leather gloves they sell in the beekeeping catalogs are just crazy to me. I couldn’t pick up firewood in those honkers, much less sticky heavy frames. Not without crushing a bunch of girls, and that’s not ok with them or me.
I’ve worked gloveless, which is a kind of badge of honor among the crunchy beekeeping set, but I’m easily distracted by the aversion of getting stung. Yes I have tender hands despite all the gardening, but I wear garden gloves! I only got stung once during my gloveless phase…and that was because I accidentally pinned a bee while moving a frame, still those little pokey bee feet constantly trotting over my hands as they investigated skin pulled my attention from the inspection. Not to mention I got the sticky, dark propolis on my hands then left brownish fingerprints all over the handholds of the bee boxes. Not so great.
Enter nurse gloves. The bees don’t seem to count the glove as skin, so are disinterested and stay out of the way a bit more. They probably could sting through a single glove, but none have so far. The gloves are very thin so there’s no cumbersome feel. I put on two layers of gloves just so I can strip off the top pair if they get too covered in propolis, start getting messy or sticky or get alarm phermone on them and begin to attract unpleasant attention from the guard girls. Yes, they are sweaty if you have to work in the heat, but I change gloves between hives if I’m sweaty, cool off my hands and start with a fresh pair. (Note: you CANNOT get fitted gloves on sweaty hands…this is why I take off a pair vs putting another on in mid-inspection.) It’s not perfect, but better than any other solution I’ve found so far, even if they look kinda weird in pictures. (Thanks to Marianne for the photo from early May, 2012.)
Thanks for stopping by Larrapin Garden, even in the July heat.
Read MoreThe Cowboy & Farmer Tank
With the heat and drought beginning to take a toll we’ve been busy watering the garden, young trees and the wildlife. Thank goodness the garden has a t-tape irrigation system in its second year that is simply wonderful. Especially after discovering that the minerals in our well water will clog a soaker hose in one season, making them quite a waste around here.
It’s not just the land that needs water in Arkansas these day. As you can see from the pic above, a good dunk in the stock tank that is filled with icy well water can put your day going in the right direction after hot and sweaty hours in the garden. We use it as a dunk-&-relax tank for several days, then hook a hose to the clean out drain and water trees and shrubs with the water. Refill and repeat as necessary to keep the mood cool and the outlook hopeful, regardless of the weather.
Read MoreBuckeye Pullets at 5 months [Flashback Post]
![Buckeye Pullets at 5 months [Flashback Post]](https://fiveapple.farm/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/buckeye-pullets-186x186.jpg)
Was just thinking today of starting a new batch of wonderful Buckeye chickens. I’ve been so busy with other projects, my girls have gotten quite “mature” in chicken years…though they are still busy eating garden weeds and any bug they can catch, shredding compost and laying the occasional egg. Haven’t heard of the wonderful Buckeye? Buckeyes are a heritage breed that would have probably been lost if not for the efforts of the wonderful American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. Here’s what their website says about Buckeyes:
Buckeye Chicken
The Buckeye is a dual-purpose breed of chicken with a deep, lustrous red color of plumage. They have yellow legs and skin, and, thanks to their pea comb, are very cold-weather hardy. While Buckeyes adapt readily to a variety of living conditions, they do best under free-range conditions, or conditions where they have room to move around. Because of their active nature they do not do especially well in small confined spaces. Roosters weigh approximately nine pounds; hens weigh approximately six and a half pounds and lay medium-sized, brown eggs. Buckeyes were developed by Mrs. Nettie Metcalf of Warren, Ohio, and appropriately named after the “Buckeye State.” Buckeyes are unique in the American Class of chickens in that it is the only breed created entirely by a woman.
Now that’s pretty cool! They also have made it into Slow Food’s Ark of Taste for their rich meat.
So please enjoy this flashback post from 2009, when the girls were just five months old:
Buckeye Pullets at 5 months—Winter 2009
Is that a handsome gal or what? The Buckeye pullets are 5 months old now and beginning to look like real grown-up hens. (You can find out more about Buckeyes by clicking here to go to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy page on the breed.) I’ve raised this batch of Buckeyes and Australorps from day-old chicks. We only had one chick lost out of two-dozen, and that was on New Year’s Eve to a huge owl who went inside the open door of the chicken shed at dusk and got an Australorp…
Here are the girls at scratch-time – their favorite time of the day!
The Buckeyes are almost as big as the Australorps, but the Australorps are heavier. I still love those big yellow feet on the Buckeyes.
So once I tossed out the scratch, I couldn’t get them to pay me and the camera any more attention.
Thanks for stopping by Larrapin Garden!
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