What To Do With Your Produce

So, you come pick fresh produce at a PYO farm.  And then you go home and have a wonderful stir fry and a refrigerator full of fresh fruits and veggies.  You suddenly ask yourself, "What on earth will I do with all of this before it spoils?"  Don't despair.  Home food preservation is easy and possible and there are lots of resources to learn how to do it.  I highly recommend taking a canning class.  I have been to one at a feed store and at an aquaponics farm.

For starters, the PYO website that we are listed with has lots of information for canning and preserving all of your fresh goodies.  Just think how great it will be this winter when you make a warm stew with vegetables that you picked and preserved this summer.  You can go to our PYO website Here.  For instance, we will have corn and you might want to preserve it.  Here are some links that will help you out:  How To Can Corn or Several Ways to Can Corn

I found this really great website for any kind of home preservation of food.  I am linking you to the tomato section but as you can see this is a fantastic resource National Center for Home Food Preservation.  I am putting this link on my list of links on this blog.  Great information!  I will be putting up other useful links for making jams and jellies soon so stay tuned!

We just got a wonderful rain.  We have the garden nearly planted and really wanted a good, soaking rain.  It came at just the right time.  You know you have become a farmer when you think this way :)  However, Ronny has been doing a lot of research on irrigation and is putting in a great system so that we don't have to totally rely on good weather.  We have strung hoses to all the blackberry plants and installed a tiny little plastic spigot at each plant.  The hoses are all connected and water simultaneously.  The spigots at the blackberries deliver one gallon of water per hour.  It was so easy to turn the water on and then off after a few hours the other night.  We found a great rain water cistern on the property that is full and over 20 feet deep.  It is fed continuously.  Ronny will be connecting the cistern water supply to the garden hose system and we will be able to water easily and efficiently any time.  You can get supplies for this type of irrigation at Home Depot or Lowe's but we found a good soure Here.

Efficient watering

As I have mentioned we will be hosting the children from our church preschool.  I found a great source for activities for kids in the garden.  It is called Kid's Garden by Witney Cohen, Life Lab Science Program.  It has a lot of wonderful activities.  It suggests a garden design called a pizza garden.  I will post pictures and updates once we get started.  The children will begin May 3 so stay tuned!

Blackberry rows

These are the blackberry rows before planting and the water hose before irrigation was put in.  All the plants are doing well and are 6-9 inches tall already.  We chose to leave grass paths between so your feet will stay clean when you come pick!  I will be putting some garden pictures up soon.  We have lots of little green babies poking through the ground.  The rain today and a warm week next week will really bring the garden on.

Please note that we have chosen to pinch all strawberry blossoms off this season to ensure a heavy berry production next year.

Happy Farming!

Tractors, Google, and Burner Phones

We have learned a few things as we continue on this very fun and wonderful journey of establishing a farm business.  First off, it is so important to have a plan.  Now we had a general plan, but the concept of having a PYO (Pick Your Own) farm was something "huger" than I ever thought (is huger a real word?)  Anyway, I initially listed us on a PYO website to start getting our name out there so that when crops came in, we would have a fan base built.  WELL, people are literally "hungry" for PYO farms and the fan base is built before the crops are in!  My phone has begun to ring off the hook!

I had my personal cell phone number listed at first but discovered that I needed a separate business phone.  I checked out some of the "burner; go; or disposable phones that are now available.  I basically need a simple phone to leave general messages on and to serve as an answering machine.  I highly recommend going this route instead of buying an expensive phone with a contract for your business.  I bought a PayLo phone yesterday and activated it. I also updated all the business listings with the new number.  I had five phone calls today! Not to mention, I feel very important carrying two phones :)

I also recommend setting up a business email separate from your personal or work email accounts.  This will make it more streamlined when you need to respond to emails.  If business emails are buried in your personal and work email, you may overlook messages that you should respond to.  Google is a great tool for starting a small business.  I set up our farm email account and this blog on Google.  The blog basically serves as our business website for the time being.  I also intend to figure out how to use Google for documents.  The recent economic conditions have spurred people on to try their hand at starting their own businesses and Google is a really great internet and digital source.  If you have any tips on how Google documents are used, please leave a comment.

The biggest demand that we see in our phone, email, and FB queries is for strawberries!  We initially planted 50 plants.  Well, needless to say 75 more are being shipped and will be planted ASAP because of the demand that is taking place.  We cannot guarantee a strawberry crop yet this year but that remains to be seen. 

A tractor will be one of your larger purchases in starting a farm. Ronny searched patiently and diligently to find a tractor that would do the things he wanted at a price we could afford without debt. That patience paid off and he found a great 1988 Massey Ferguson. It's red with a black smoke stack. It looks so "farmy."

I can't post this blog without mentioning how amazing the bluebonnets and wildflowers have been here in North Texas.  We have massive fields of blue bonnets in our area.  Check out the little patch on our property.  I took it with my cell phone.

And of course, there are the before and after pictures that folks keep asking for.  I plan to start painting the breakfast nook this weekend.  It is such a cute little room.  I can't wait to freshen it up.  I did finish that teeny tiny little powder room.  I don't have an after picture of it yet but it turned out so nice.  I was really glad to get it done!  The kitchen is finished for the most part.  Ronny did some custom cabinet work on the bottom cabinets.  Didn't it turn out cute?

One of my next projects coming up besides getting ready for kittens and chicks is preparing for our church preschool afterschool kids.  They will spend a few hours a week this spring and summer at the farm learning all about gardening, beneficial insects, butterflies & humming birds, and will be able to watch our baby chicks grow and develop.  I can't wait to work with the kids!

Well, like I said before, we absolutely love our new home.  We have awesome neighbors and a beautiful. peaceful place that takes us out of ourselves and reconnects us with nature and each other.  It is a healing place.  Ronny told me goodnight a little while ago and said, "Have I told you that I love this place (and my tractor)?"  I think you've heard me say that a time or two. 

Good Night and Happy Farming!



Events

We have had a wonderful response to listing our farm as a Pick Your Own Farm.  I do want to remind everyone that PYO days will be harvest-dependent and that we are a new farm with new seeds and seedlings in the ground.  We will list the PYO days on this blog and on our FaceBook page.  Like us on FaceBook at Scasta Farm so that you can keep up with the most current information.

We are going to double our strawberry plants as the requests for strawberries has been phenomenal.  The new blackberry plants are doing really well and we have lots of baby peaches! 

We will also host small groups for activities that bring the classroom to the farm.  We will be hosting the Angels of Faith Preschool from Living Hope Church of the Nazarene this summer.  They will have a plot of their own and will learn all about caring for a garden in a holistic manner.  We also have a little group of Girl Scouts that will be coming to the farm in June.  They are anxious to learn about chickens and eggs.

If you are interested in an activity at the farm, you can contact us at scastafarm@gmail.com.  Forms for activities will be emailed to you.  I am working on finding a way to put them on this blog.  If I find a way to do it I will put up a post to let you know how to access the forms.  In the meantime, just email me to schedule your event and the forms will be sent.

My next post should be very interesting.  I am reading a great book about raising chickens and it is called Chick Days by Jenna Woginrich.  It is a delightful book!  We get our baby chicks in May so be ready to learn right along with us as we raise our "little girls" to egg layin' mommas!

Hasn't this spring weather been lovely.  We pray that you and yours were safe during the recent tornadoes here in the Dallas area.

Enjoy these Easter tulips!  I am excited about taking a photography class this week and hope you enjoy even more beautiful pictures.  Happy Farming!