The Newfarm Forums

[Ed]

Thanks Andy:

Anybody out there ever made tomato wine. We are wallowing in toms right now, and there are plenty of recipes on the internet.

Is it worth trying?

Ed

[CP Knerr]

Ed, a friend made some tomato wine last year.

Cracked open a bottle a month or so ago. Very good. Better than the pear wine or pear melomel I made, at least at this point.

Of course, best served in a mason jar.

He added some basil to some wine too, which gave it a basil-y flavor. It has a slight hint of tomato so the basil really adds to it.

The recipe was in "Making wild wines and meads" :http://www.amazon.com/Making-Wild-Wines-Meads-Unusual/dp/1580171826

I will try to get you the recipe from the book.

CP

[Ed]

Thanks CP:

It just seemed too easy. All these tomatoes, have to be able to be turned into something usable. I'll give it a go. I wonder if I could freezed the tomatoes now when I have too many things to do, and then make wine later when things slow down. I have a couple of recipes already. Will get equipment we need this weekend. My cost on this wine would be about nothing. I never totally believed Steve when he said that his cost was 18 cents a pound for toms, but (once again) he's right.

Funny in the last two days, I've had two internet inquiries. One for something special at our market and another for quite a bit of produce to be supplied through the winter months.

Lots of foraging over the last day or so waiting for the fields to dry a bit. Picked up a ton of hickory nuts, and also found the honey tree. Still trying to decide if the black walnuts are worth it. Seems like it is an amazing year for them.

Back to work,

Ed

Live Simply So Others Can Simply Live

[singingpig]

[CP Knerr]

Ed,

I'm pretty sure you could freeze the tomatoes without problems with the wine. It would help break down the cell walls anyway for more juice.

CP

[singingpig]

As my grandma grew older, she stopped making big batches of sauce in summer/fall and just started freezing bags of tomatoes whole and then took out just enough tomatoes to make the sauce she needed when she needed it. Always tasted grandma great. Would probably work fine for your wine. Check out "icewine" a style of wine made in Canada where the grapes are allowed to freeze solid on the vines before harvest and pressing them. I believe the style is the late harvest dessert type wines.

Just came in from using my boom sprayer ver 2.0. It is fantastic. The suction hose that came with it was too flexible and soft for suction--it would kink and the pump would suck it flat. I thought I had too many nozzles for the pump and so the spray was marginal. I replaced that hose with some real suction hose--like night and day. I had also tried to be too clever when I built the booms and tried to only put nozzles over the beds and not over the tire tracks. Good in theory, probably good if my beds were seeded with a GPS guided tractor. I added 3 more nozzles on each boom today bringing the total up to 23 nozzles covering 37 feet.

It is just awesome--a solid wall of nutrient mix 37 feet wide traveling down the beds. The tank says 55 gal on the side, but if you fill it to the tope it is 60 gallons. Interesting number,60. The books on agronomy and soil science I recently purchased all agree that 20 gallons of water in the tank mix is sufficent to cover 1 acre. With my booms, I am cover .7 acres/pass. In 4th gear at 1600rpm, I use exactly 20 gallons of spray, so I am covering 2.1 acres/ tank load. I timed myself and that took 42 minutes to spray 2.1 acres, that includes the time at the end of the rows where I have to get offof the tractor and raise one boom up and tie it so I can turn the tractor. Of course, everytime I get off the tractor I need to get down on my knees and see how the spray is covering. I originally calculated my mix to cover 1 pass at .7 acres. I can now mix it 3 times hotter as I am covering 3 times more ground.

I'm STOKED!

BTW got my recent soil tests back today. Glad I had those pulled before I added more lime. Really made some improvements over the last year. This is like a report card. Ill go over ir in detail in my soil tes thread later.
_________________
"Fine produce for fine restaurants since 1989"

[Ed]

CP, yes we had some frost on Sunday morning when we got up. My book says last frost free day is 9/28. Very light and we saw it coming so everything was covered. Reemay is such a joy to work with. Also no rain in sight here. We have our second pond finished, and it is filling up nicely. It is positioned to receive the overflow from our original pond which is fed from springs. Next year we can easily water our fields from these two ponds.

Our business for the winter months is growing rapidly with about 50 people commited to buying our greens. Alot of word of mouth advertising. It's also working out well in that I can make two deliveries each week to a central location. With that type of volume, and with winter prices, we are breaking even or pretty close to it. That is after 7 months of doing what we do. Lots of bumps in the road to come.

Right now I have about a 2 week window to get temporary greenhouses over about 3,000 square feet outside which is doable. We are already planting inside our permanent greenhouse, so that gives us around 6-7,000 square feet of space to work with. Way more than necessary but I'm anticipating problems, and need the back up. Still have another 600 square feet of growing benches to finish up, and lots of filling to do, but at this point I'm on schedule.

Andy, I called to Sauder's Greenhouse Supply in Penn Yan and they have 6 mil poly for greenhouses. I'm driving up there this morning. Also I heard about a landscape company that is going out of business and the are going to auction everything off. If you want details e-mail me at

Steve, I'm growing basil under reemay in the greenhouse right now. The thought was that it is so bloody dry and the stuff seems to love humidity. Seems to be working, but was wondering if that is something you have tried before.

Trying to get a couple of new items before it gets too cold since growing the same thing over and over gets BORING. Deer tongue, Endive, Choy Sum, and Amaranth (in greenhouse) are going in the ground.

Best

Ed

CP: Shame on you, burdock root? You can only get away with that in NYC. We put wild purslane in our mix, and the locals always comment that it's a weed growing on their property.

Live Simply So Others Can Simply Live

[singingpig]

Ed

Haven't done that with the basil but it sounds like a good idea. It saved your behind from the frost you had-would've blackened that basil. My basil is outside. It is on the downhill side of life as the lows are in the 40s with a heavy dew now. Probably done in 2 weeks, but the market shrinks the 1st of Oct anyway. People still use it for garnish here and there but Caprese Salads and pesto pastas will be coming off of the menus.

This summer has really been cool. 1st 2 weeks of August felt like Sept. We had our longest hot stretch the 1st week of Sept. We have only had 9 days over 90 degrees this year. Last year we had 23. Yet my tomatoes and peppers have yielded like crazy and will continue for at least another month. The eggplant never got going and I am just now starting to harvest any significant amounts.

Spending some on that tomato money having some excavation work done. The guy I bought this place from hauled in HUNDREDS of truck loads of the nastiest fill--just subsoil from about 1 mile away where the county put in a wetlands. Just like my subsoil--full of river rock up to the size of a small watermelon with the spaces between the rocks filled with heavy, light brown/orange colored clay. He put is huge berms everywhere. It was impossible to do anything on them because of the slope and the rock so they were huge weed patches. Maybe 20,000 yards of material that needs to be moved. I am having a neighbor just push them over with the loader on his backhoe and flatten and grade them. I'll end up with well over an acre more of usable ground. At $10,000/acre for irrigated farm ground, a few hundred for excavation work pencils out nicely. Plus, it will just look so much nicer. The place already looks bigger without some of those piles. Probably flattened out at least 80 truck loads of material in 6 hours yesterday.

For your irrigation ponds, start researching filters and pumps now. You're going to need some very good filtration to pump from your ponds without gagging your sprinklers. Does your place already have 3 phase power to it? A 3-phase pump would be much more efficient, give you more power for less operating costs. If you have to bring in 3-phase it might not be worth it. I know that 12 years ago when the original owners of my place brought in 3-phase for the pump it cost them $10k to have the pole set, transformers installed and the wires run in from the street. Of course, that was just the power co's part then they had to pay an electrician to run the service drop from the pole to the control panel. It has really worked out well for me, though
_________________
"Fine produce for fine restaurants since 1989"

[Ed]

I don't know where to begin so this is going to be a bit of a ramble.

Andy there is an auction over in Trumansburg on this Friday. Landscaping company with two greehouses, and a bunch of stuff that may be of interest. Teitsworth is the auctioneer. I have market and cannot go, though it may be too well advertised. I was in Penn Yan buying greenhouse plastic from Adam Sauder and he knew all about it. Probably no good deals to be had.

The 6 mil wasn't cheap at 287 for a 36' x 110' but I'm going to try and do the ribbing with electrical conduit, which is alot cheaper than the 3/4" galvanized water pipe that we were going to use. I had Lance's hay wagon lined up to bend the pipe on, but it seems that any decent size electric company can roll the conduit to the radius that you need. Conduit seems to be 1/5 the price with similar tensile strength.

Haven't started the tomato wine yet, since we found this place here in the Fingerlakes that sells the juice only. Chardonnay at 12 dollars a gallon is the most expensive. The cheapest is around 5 dollars which works out to less than a dollar for a bottle of wine. One of my neighbor's hords 5 gallon glass and plastic water bottles, so beyond the cost of the juice, all there is, is yeast and sugar. Where am I missing something.

OK, we now have more potential customers than we can service. We are adamant about not over promising. As we look to next year the only way we can grow and service is to get more mechanized though what we do is not conducive to this process. For example: I hate the mesclun mixes supplied by Fedco or Johnny's. They get slimy very quickly. We use a mix of some tender greens like black seeded simpson or oak leaf and then we add alot of brassicas, and spinach and stuff that has some backbone to it. All of that has to be cut by hand. Steve you may have a solution, but a bok choy, tat soi, minutina going into a salad mix seems to have to be cut by hand. I can cut and come again any of those 4-5 times for salad mixes, but it is incredibly time consuming. When do add another harvester? This is micro-economics at its best or worst. Couldn't get any more interesting, and more difficult to come to grips with.

The whole pricing thing is very intriguing. Steve says he bumped his prices and no one batted an eye. We charge 8 dollars a pound for our mixed greens, and can't have enough of it, though at times we have romaine or red cherokee for 3 dollars per pound. I also sell Bok Choy for 3.50 a pound when I can include it in my mix and get 8. If you just have salad mix on your table you will retain your existing customers, but you won't attract new ones. Folks like to see cool stuff on your table not just big containers of salad mix. Try selling romaine on its own for 5 dollars a pound.

CP, I harvested oats tonight by hand. They are not hulless. What's your best process from here on out.

Putting in a seed starting room, and will include stacked areas for growing sprouted greens as well.

Never ending, but it doesn't get any better than this.

Best to all of you

Ed

Live Simply So Others Can Simply Live

[CP Knerr]

Ed, did you plant hullless oats? If so, you need to dry them more and thresh them more.

If not, you will need to construct a dehuller.

Some plans I've seen for a dehuller involve getting one of those mills with the 2 burr plates, like the corona mill.

You take the plate off which is fixed to the base.

You then buy some gum rubber or other natural rubber, and a piece of steel, aluminum, etc, which you cut a round out that is the same size as the burr plate you took off the mill, with the cutout in the center. Glue the gum rubber to the plate and trim.

You then drill holes in the gum rubber plate and screw it in, in place of the fixed burr plate.

Set the spinning plate with the augur so it feeds the oats through the rubber plate, without breaking them.

This is the theory I still have not built mine.

I have filled a 35 gallon tote bin with barley we harvested by hand. Half a bin of sunflower seeds (would have been alot more except some of the heads molded). I have harvested 1 40 gallon trash can full of oats which have to be threshed out yet. I found it easier just to hand pick them instead of scything them all.

Where the oats were I have ~55-60 pounds of seed garlic ready to go in. Plan is to rototill in the oats, then plant garlic immediately. There is a lot of grain in that field yet so the oats will grow and winter kill. This is the plan. I always sold out of garlic so I figure why not plant a lot.

Picked up another 4 pigs this weekend bringing the total to 12. Interestingly enough, I saw a sign at a farm on the way to work today: Pig Wanted.

Farmers are harvesting soybeans and planting wheat. Things look good.

I don't think you need sugar for your grape wine, although I'd not made grape wine before. Most of my books say just grapes you need. The farmer down the road makes 3, 55 gallon barrels of hard cider each year. He keeps adding sugar throughout the winter, then lets it rest all summer and drinks it next fall. he doesn't add yeast, just depends on the stuff still in the bottom of the barrels to start the fermentation for the next year.

Got 0.05" of rain last night, I was happy. 0.05" of rain and a high of 92. Highest temperature this late in the season, in 137 years. Normal high for this time of year is 68 and we're also supposedly past our first frost date I believe. We're supposed to get more rain today and tomorrow, so this is good.

[willing hands farm]

Ed,

Today at market I sold 1/4 # bags of lettuces mixed with mustards, arugala, minutina, kale and some other stuff for 3.00 a bag. I was not sure this would fly but I sold 13 bags within an hour. A new wild card, Red Grumolo Chicory was a sell out too. Never grew it before, it is a beautiful rather plain long shaped leaf with a riveting red rib. The rib has a soft hairy like surface. I think folks bought it on looks and my PR work.

They love the Italian Chard from Bavichi (sp) seeds. Russian White Kale and arugala are always gone quick too. No one at market is growing unusual greens. HA! I know why..............too labor intensive I pick everything by the leaf. Last week I cut the kale with scissors in one hand while I grasp the leaves with my other hand. The results are just not the same. I also used Johnny's greens harvester to cut kale. It worked great but just like scissors, it takes everything, cutting smaller inner leaves in half. When hand picked by the leaf, or a group of 3-4 stems, they can then be nicely bunched by a rubber band. The bunches are made up with large/medium leaves and medium/small leaves. The baby leaves are bagged. This way depending on what people want to use it for it is more "user friendly".

Did not dig carrots this morning-not enough time. If I don't leave the driveway by 5 am I'm already behind. Today was good even without them. The beans were not nice enough to sell, I'll cook them tomorrow.
I might have broke $200.00 if I had had them both.

CP

I have 100# of garlic sitting in my living room. Monday it took almost 4 hours to "pop" 42# into cloves. There was less than a sandwhich bag of small cloves I culled in that whole bunch. Stuff is gorgeous and huge!! I got it from HoneyHill Farm lovinia NY. The real test will be when it grows but I have to say this garlic far surpasses anything from Seed Savers or Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. He has grown many garlics over 15 years and has settled on German White only.

Could you please relate your experience scything. I found it to be wonderful for cutting oats and field peas, also use around the yard. BUT ya gotta have STAMINA and some biceps to do a field!

I am tired, long day, sleep well
Julie

[CP Knerr]

Julie,

As far as picking by the leaf, the one farmer at the Scottsville market harvests large-leaf things like chard, etc. whole, so he'll, for example, take chard and cut it so all the leaves stay together. Of course, that kills the plant, but he can harvest a lot faster. He makes a lot more money than I do as well. You can plant chard quick with an Earthway seeder too. Seed would get expensive though I suppose, but, if you are selling out of what you are able to harvest, maybe something to consider.

As far as garlic, I'm putting in my own saved Music seed, my own saved California Early White seed, then I got a bunch from Peaceful Valley out in California as they have had great seed in the past. 9 pounds each of Legacy, Purple Italian and Chesnok Red. My dad in in PA that they really adapt to your environment and selection after 3-4 years so I'm trying to do the same thing. It is a little hard to keep the CSA member's hands off the seed garlic though, as those are the biggest bulbs, so I have to hide the nice ones immediately.

One of the guys down the road sells pickled garlic scapes, $9 for a pint jar! I don't see people paying that for them around here but I think he ships a lot to New York City. I don't think he grows his own garlic though, so I think he buys the scapes from someone. He had some students at SUNY Morrisville (state college) do his research work for the recipe and getting it approved, and also had some marketing and graphic design work done by them, for his business. It was either free or very low cost. Something for us NY-ers to look into taking advantage of.

If your biceps hurt with the scythe, I think maybe you are not using your torso enough. I use my hips/stomach to do all the work, kind of like when you are paddling a canoe, you use your torso and weight to paddle. All my arms do is keep the scythe at cutting height. The patches of grain I'm growing are 100'x50', so I cut down one side, which deposits the grain to my left, then switch and go the other direction to deposit all the grain in a windrow.

I do the same in the orchard and vineyard, except deposit the grass/weeds in the rows the trees are in, then take a fork and bunch a little mulch donut around the tree. It takes a bit of time to learn to limit your power so you don't cut into the trees/vines. The orchard is roughly 50'x200' and takes me about 3 hours to mow, then 1 hour to mulch the trees. That would be > 12 hours/acre which is really slow, I think traditionally you should be able to mow an acre in a day. I have a European scythe from scythe supply in Maine, I believe with a 27" grass blade. I like the scythe a lot more than the string trimmer for trimming after mowing too, no flying rocks and it is a lot faster.

Got some more rain yesterday evening (0.02") and I see there is a system on the way again. My watering is so uneven, some radishes are ready to harvest, and others are only opening their first true leaves. I will need to spend more time moving the sprinkler I guess. I only paid $10 for it so you get what you pay for.

Ed, how are the oats coming? There is a illustrated web page with the description of the dehuller I wrote for you, but I cannot find it right now. If I come across it again I will post a link.

[willing hands farm]

Getting ready to head out. I've been checking the radar but pretty much zilch. We need a soaking rain! It might bypass the plot altogether

Scythe Supply is a wonderful company. Carol is very sweet and helpful. I bought the 24" ditch blade. They have an excellent video for people like me who were clueless. There is a segment on trimming arond objects. The string trimmer still gives me a cleaner, closer job on lumpy backyard tight spots and edging. However the scythe is hands down more pleasant to use. If you can find it there is a beautiful, almost breath taking, scene in I believe chapter 5 of Anna Karenina. It gives a vivid description of peasants mowing.
Scythe Supply use to have it on their site but for some reason I could not find it the other day.

Steve, Ed,

Have you grown leaf chicory? Red Grumolo is supposed to have red leaves but needs cold to color up. I know nothing about chicory, seems like there are 50+ varieties at least. Gourmet Seed International sells an extensive array of stuff, far more selection than I have seen elsewhere. The seed packets are original packets from the European companies.

Steve,

Update us on your cooking companion Still picking greens together?

[Ed]

Good Morning All:

Lots to talk about. Start now and finish tonight.

Had an epiphany (sp) yesterday. I had our first chef stop by our booth and start talking about what we did. That was fun. But then one of my regular customers came by and had brought a sample of the stir fry they had done with our kale and bok choy. It was such an amazing discussion with the two of them, and that's when it hit me. I have an MBA in marketing, and an undergrad in econ, and I've been in the corporate world. Jen works for a Fortune 100 company, and we all have read the books and heard the speeches about being passionate about your business and you will succeed. It has all been going through the motions in that other world because alot of times you don't control all the variables. But with what we are doing now you can. From IBM on down they talk about getting to know your customers face to face, and you will be successful, and here it was happening exactly like they said it would.
We know our customers names, if they have children, what some of them do for a living, whether their spouses like their salad spicy or not. It's not trivial when these people step and buy 12-15 dollars of produce at a shot.

We strive to supply a very consistant product every week, one that customers can depend on. We don't cut corners ever! This market is from 2-7, yesterday we sold out by 4 o'clock. I can't cut wash and dry more than we do now in the morning, and I don't have the walk in yet so I won't pick the day before. We'll change that next year. At times there were 4-5 people waiting in line. It's such basic business sense. Provide people with a consistant product that they can depend on to be there and they will become very loyal customers. Another lesson from that MBA stuff about how hard it is to get new customers so you better concentrate on keeping them.

Julie, we try very hard to present our greens in a manner similar to now people see them in the better grocery stores. We just purchased some rather expensive lexan storage containers from a restaurant supply store.
They are absolutely clear which means you can put your greens in there, everyone can see them, plus they stay umbelievable fresh. We put our basil in one with a little paper towel wrapped around the stems, and even after an hour in there they look as fresh as when they came out the ice chest. Other booths try to get by showing them in just sitting in bowls of water, and it looks so droopy, that nobody buys it. The little container for the basil which is about 18" x 12" x 3 inches deep was 19 dollars. Sold that much basil yesterday. We also take special orders for people either over the internet or in person for the next week. We have one customer that comes late but loves our beans. He takes 3 pints of green beans which I charge him 9 bucks for, and he doesn't blink an eye. Gets out of the car gets his beans and 1/2 pound of greens and drives off. We do all cut and come again greens. I don't think mesclun lasts at all doesn't look like a salad should. We love the dark greens of bok choy, and tatsoi, and the reds from raddichio and red amaranth. I can cut romaine 3 times and then clean off the old cutting stems and sell it as a head. 3 cuttings and then the head instead of just cutting the head.
Jen made a sign out of metal, glued little magnets to the back of tongue depressors. Each of the 25-30 possible salad ingredients has it's own little sign and we post the salad ingredients for that week. People love it. Come up study it, look through the clear lexan and usually buy. We always put a little ice pack in with the bulk salad mix which really helps to keep it fresh. We just use water in 1 liter pepsi bottles.

CP we have enough water now. They weren't hulless, cause Johnny's screwed up. I have harvested some. You'll love this. I bought electric conduit and I'm going to try and make the hoops for field house out of them. Bought a manual bender, and for each rib of the 20 foot wide greenhouse the material cost is 14 dollars. Lance is coming over later and we're going to screw around with the design trying to do something with a gothic shape to minimized problems with snow build up.

More later,

Ed

Live Simply So Others Can Simply Live.

[willing hands farm]

Ed,

That was some post! I may have to print it for reference Could you give us the restaurant supply place or the brand/name of the containers? I get the impression you are weighing your stuff at market? Are the greens in the lexan loose? What kind of scale do you have?

Today did not begin on the right foot. Last night picked, when I checked the stuff this morning the chicory was wilted. The lettuce not so much but enough that I would never sell it. Kale looked ok and perked up after I bunched them and put in water. What to do????? Really really frustrated. For every 5 steps forward I end up 4 back!!! What was the point in going to market with 20 bucks worth of kale The last 4 weeks have been spinning my wheels, not getting any real work done at my plot. There are a lot of family issues right now. Basically my "farming" gets fitted in around everything else. NOT the way to make money. I could be out there 8 hours a day and still be looking at a list. Blah, blah, blah. Anyway you guys already know that.

I decided to skip market and finally get a solid 7 hours of work in at the plot. What a wonderful feeling, to have a block of time to start and finish a job!!! Aaron helped me so much, he is becoming my right hand.

Last night, with only 3 hours of daylight to work with, I decided to let Aaron pick kale and chicory so I could flail mow the area to be planted to garlic. Every time I tried to engage the PTO the BCS stalled. It occured to me that maybe something was stuck. I think I have done a bad thing. When I flipped the mower over there was twine wrapped around each end of the roller. It was so deeply embedded that the roller would not budge, it is stuck fast. I tried to cut and unwrap the twine. At that point I realized this was going to take HOURS. So no mowing got done. The picking got shortchanged as I thought I would be done mowing in time to help Aaron, who still needs supervision.AARRRRGGGHHHH!! Always a day late and a dollar short I don't even know if I can get the twine off, I'm thinking I should take it to the shop that sold it to me. Does trying to run a piece of equipment in that situation damage it? The mower has its own gear box.

I sympathize with the walk-in dilemma. In hind sight I never should have signed up for a 10 am market. The cooler at the plot, not hooked up yet, is only 8 cubic feet. I have nothing at home. Our fridge doesn't have room. Even if I had a walk-in at the plot I still would have to drive back out the next morning to pick up the stuff then drive back to market. WHAT was I thinking?????? Right now trying to get a used fridge for the house, it would be too small but better than nothing. Course as the temperatures drop maybe I'll be able to leave the stuff in an unheated porch, don't have a garage.

Sorry, needed to vent
Julie