August – Ground Cherries

August 21, 2017 Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm After, Before, Canning and Freezing, Chester County, Ground Cherry, Uncategorized

My tomatoes are growing like trees, and my cherries are growing on the ground. It’s like we live on an upside down farm.

A couple of years ago we were enjoying a wonderful evening on a lake in Switzerland with Chris’ family where my dinner was served with a garnish of a tiny fruit peeking out of a papery husk. It looked a little like a miniature orange tomatillo. I eyed it skeptically and asked what it was. Finding an English translation for this phenomenon escaped us –

but I tasted it and it was…indescribable. I think I ate the garnish off of everyone’s plate that night while I tried to place what the exotic flavor was – something tropical, or maybe apricot? Kind of sweet, but a little tart? Sort of like a grape or a cherry or a tomato. It was a mystery.

This spring I went to the Philadelphia Farm and Food Festival and I spent a lot of time at the “unusual garden seed booth” sorting through all the tiny packets of seeds for something that I could still wedge into garden. And there it was! Seeds for that mystery fruit. They called it a ground cherry.

I brought home a packet, started them in my greenhouse and transplanted them to the garden. I’ve been watching as these little bushes developed little green “lanterns” that hang from under the leaves. And then I forgot about them – because I’ve been busy canning tomatoes and fighting back the squash vines and freezing green beans. The other day I was in the garden and there were all these little papery shells laying on the ground. Oh NO! They’re dead, I thought. I gathered them up into a bowl and

brought them in the house where I simultaneously peeled back the paper husk and googled what to do with them now.

Apparently this is how they grow. When they drop to the ground – they are ready to eat –

hence the name ground cherry. When I peeled back the husk, there was the bright orange tiny little cherry bursting with a flavor that is still a mystery.

I guess I’ll just keep eating them until I can explain what they taste like.

DSCN7977 — Little green pods that hang like lanterns.

DSCN7978 — Until the fall on the ground and look dead.

DSCN7996 — Peel the husks back and look at those sweet little gems!

August – The Tomato Tree

August 16, 2017 Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm After, Before, Chester County, Garden, Tomatoes, Uncategorized

Tomatoes are supposed to grow on small bush-like plants, but our tomato plants are some sort of mutants. The plants are so far over my head, I’ll need a ladder to pick

them. Maybe it’s because we mixed in well-composted manure, or because I planted the tomatoes with my Grandfather’s secret fertilizer formula – but whatever the cause – our plants are out of control. They are taking over, and I’ve given up on chopping them back.

The tomatoes ripen from the bottom of the plant, moving higher each week with more ripening fruit. Right now, I can comfortably pick the produce of the week – but in another week or so, they will be out of my reach. And maybe that’s a good thing.

I’m about at the point that we have enough jars of tomato sauce for a weekly spaghetti supper, enough dried cherry tomatoes to toss into many a pot of stew or soup, and enough roasted tomatoes with olive oil, oregano and basil to use for Friday night pizzas. So, other than those delicious summer-time bacon and tomato sandwiches – I’m about done with tomatoes.

DSCN7982 — The fence is six feet tall — that makes this tomato plant a TREE!

DSCN7999 — I pick this much almost every day.

DSCN8007 — And we have a great variety — yellow pear tomatoes, red cherry tomatoes, green-purple zebra tomatoes, San Marzano tomatoes, Amish paste tomatoes and nice big slicing tomatoes.

August – The Bunny Trail

August 8, 2017August 7, 2017 Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm After, Before, Chester County, Garden, Rabbits, Uncategorized

The bunny trail is closed. Permanently. I hope.

After spending a minor fortune on a six-foot high fence to keep the deer out, with the added expense of small gauge fencing trenched in at the bottom of the perimeter to keep the ground hogs out – you’d think we would have an impenetrable garden. But the baby rabbits managed to jump through the fence just above the small gauge fencing, squeezing themselves through the 2” x 4” squares and helping themselves to

my garden’s bounty.

When we first became aware of the problem, Chris put bird netting around the entire garden to keep Peter Rabbit and all his cousins out. That worked for a while, until they chewed through the bird netting and I started noticing half-eaten beans and nibbled broccoli. Then Chris used zip-ties to fasten the netting where the holes had been chewed, turning each 2” x 4” space into just 2” x 2” spaces. Then those buck-toothed rabbits chewed their way through the zip ties. Chris took down the tattered bird netting and fastened a layer of chicken wire around the garden. Now we have a reinforced metal fence with more metal fencing wrapped around it. Anything to protect my

tomatoes, cucumbers and squash!

Now it is impenetrable (I hope) – and if I see any rabbits running around looking like they are wearing metal braces on their front teeth, I’ll know to go check on the

fencing again!

DSCN7963 — They chewed right through the mesh.

DSCN7965 — We used zip-ties to patch it, and they chewed through the zip-ties.

DSCN7969 — So now it has metal chicken wire.

DSCN7971 — Just let them try to chew through this.

DSCN7993 — On the outside looking in — let’s keep it that way!

July — Pickles and Jam

July 25, 2017 Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm After, Before, Canning and Freezing, Chester County, Farm, Uncategorized

I have a favorite pickle recipe. I’ve been making it for years. This year I started with 24 cucumbers, 12 cups of vinegar and 12 cups of sugar, some peppers and onions along with some pickle spices (mustard seed, celery seed and a little cayenne pepper to give it a tiny bit of a kick) and a huge galvanized canning pot. Everything was going well until I realized that this is a lot of pickles and I didn’t have enough canning jars ready. In the middle of the preparations, I had to put things on hold and run out for more jars!

Now we have four cases of bread and butter pickles!

But that’s not all.

We also have wild blackberries growing all over the place — and now we have three cases of blackberry jam. And I accidentally bought 30 pounds of blueberries — so now we have two cases of blueberry jam, 6 quarts of blueberry pie filling and two gallons of blueberries in the freezer. (I didn’t realize how many blueberries are in a 30 pound box when I said I’d take a box of them!)

And then there are still beans and beets to freeze and tomato sauce to can and squash to pick. I think we won’t go hungry.

DSCN7936 — 24 cucumbers doesn’t seem like a lot until you have to slice them all.

July – The squash are escaping!

July 17, 2017 Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm After, Before, Canning and Freezing, Chester County, Farm, Garden, Uncategorized

When I planted the squash in the side garden that we created this year, they looked so small and vulnerable inside that big space fenced only by some chicken wire. I wasn’t sure they would make it. The chicken wire was just about low enough for any hungry bunny to hop over, and certainly wouldn’t deter the deer if they wanted to just step over it and invite their friends for dinner. We did put some stakes around it with some webbing tape sprayed with deer repellent and we’ve been lucky so far.

In fact, the squash have grown, and grown, and grown some more. At this point — they are escaping the fence and running away, and there is nothing I can do about it – but wait for harvest, put on a my safari expedition attire, grab a machete and fight my way in to the squash patch and hope for a bounty of acorn, butternut and spaghetti squash — and some pumpkins and gourds.

I guess what is growing outside the fence is fair game for the rabbits or the deer.

DSCN7827 — The squash are so tiny you can barely find them in the dirt.

DSCN7956 — And they’ve crawled over the fence and are escaping — I’m afraid I’ll wake up tomorrow morning to find that they’ve covered the chicken coop!

July — It’s empty till next year!

July 10, 2017 Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm After, Before, Chester County, Farm, Garden, Greenhouse, Homestead, Uncategorized

Spring and early summer went so fast. I got a late start on my seeds since the greenhouse didn’t arrive until mid-March. By the end of June the greenhouse was empty — except for some weeds growing up from the floor. Seriously! I have enough weeding to do in my outside garden spaces.

I washed all the pots in a bucket of soapy water and let them dry so they’ll be ready for next spring. It’s kind of sad seeing it empty. Maybe I can start some seeds for a fall planting — there’s always spinach or lettuce. And I wonder how hot-house tomatoes might taste at Thanksgiving!

DSCN7856 — A good scrub to get rid of slugs and creepy, crawly things

DSCN7857 — All cleaned up and drying in the sunshine — ready for next spring.

June – Uh-oh, What Have We Done?

June 25, 2017 Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm After, Before, Canning and Freezing, Chester County, Garden, Homestead, Tomatoes, Uncategorized

The gardens are overflowing, and it’s not even the end of June yet! Already I’m up to my elbows in canning and freezing. When the plants were so tiny, it seemed like a good idea to plant a lot of them. There was so much space between them in the garden that I couldn’t imagine them filling it in. Even Chris commented that I hadn’t over-planted this year and there was actually space to walk between the rows. I was proud of myself for my restraint, but with two gardens to fill, I didn’t feel the need to shoe-horn stuff in like I’ve done in the past. This year would be different. A spacious garden, everything in it’s place, perfectly placed rows — I could picture it in my mind.

Then came lots of rain and hot sunny days, and the garden took on a life of its own. I think I must have bought my bean seeds from Jack, and the cucumbers too. The vines are reaching for the sky. I keep piling them onto up-side down tomato cages to give them something to climb on and still they grow. I’m thinking in investing in a bunch of extension ladders to line the garden rows so everything can just keep growing and growing and growing.

I thought a variety of squash would be fun this year — butternut, acorn, spaghetti, etc. Again I exercised such restraint. I only planted about four plants of each. They were barely a few leaves tall, with lots of space between each plant. Now, the garden is so overgrown with vines that it will take a machete to fight my way through to harvest them. What was I thinking?

Already there are cherry tomatoes, peas, beans, beets, zucchini, cucumbers, broccolini, scallions and spinach. Even if we were vegetarians, we wouldn’t be able to keep us with what is coming in — and so every other night or so, you’ll find me in the kitchen freezing and canning… canning and freezing. There’s nothing better than seeing the freezer fill up, or hearing the mason jar lids ping when they seal. And maybe this winter I’ll be glad I apparently over-planted the garden, but for right now… I’m not so sure.

DSCN7922 — The tomatoes are outgrowing their cages.

DSCN7923 — Even the tomatoes are ripening already.

DSCN7924 — Almost enough cucs to make pickles already.

June – Looking Old

June 14, 2017 Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm After, Before, Chester County, Uncategorized, Wood Shed

Not me! The farm! Well, probably me too… but it’s more fun making the farm look old. A while back we added a wood shed to the farm. It was new construction; stained wood with a weather vane on top. But over the course of the last winter, it settled a bit into the ground. Chris decided to use his farm jack to hoist it up and level it. And it looked great, but then… we decided it would look even better if it looked like it had always been there — with a stone foundation. Since there is no lack of stones around here, and since I’m the self-proclaimed stone mason of No Rhyme or Reason Farm (given all the stone walls I’ve built since we moved here) — I figured this would be no big deal.

Apparently I was wrong. A few hours later we finally finished wedging the last rock in to place. Piling rocks up to make a rock wall is one thing — fitting them precisely into the space under a wood shed was another! I think I’ll just stick to my free-form rock walls from now on. I’m eyeing the hillside at the back of the house. I think it needs a rock wall along the ridge line. I bet that won’t take as long as this did.

dscn7492 — It’s level — but it looks like it just got delivered and plopped here off the back of a trailer.

DSCN7898 — An amazing “old” stone foundation — now it looks like it’s always been here.

June – Using the trailer

June 6, 2017 Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm After, Before, Chester County, Farm, Farm Truck, Trailer, Uncategorized, Wood Shed

Remember that new toy/tool — the trailer? I wasn’t sure why we needed it — but as it turns out — it’s VERY useful!

“How?” you ask.

It’s useful for bringing home more toys/tools! Why didn’t I see that coming?

“What new tool?” you ask.

A wood splitter, of course. Every farm needs one. We did go through a lot of fire wood last winter; and we do have an inexhaustible supply of dead trees around the property. Chris already has a chain saw, so the wood splitter was inevitable, I suppose. And then he got to use the trailer too! It’s a great day on the farm!

log splitter on trailer — Loaded and ready for the trip home.

DSCN7873 — It was still on the trailer when it got to our driveway.

May – A (S)well Memorial Day

May 29, 2017 Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm After, Before, Chester County, Farm, Homestead, Well

There is a big round pipe from the well that sticks up about a foot high in the middle of our front yard. You’d think there would have been a less conspicuous spot to drill a well on our five acres — but I guess the well-drilling company’s prevailing wisdom said they would find water in the front yard — and they did, 400 feet down. The well-pipe is an eye-sore and I’ve been wanting to find a way to camouflage it for some time now.

On Friday I made my weekly run to the my local Amish market. I try my hardest to stay out of the adjoining garden center — because there is always an impulse buy, and heaven-knows, I don’t need any more garden plants right now. But right there, right in front of the garden center was a well cover. Not only a well cover — but one exactly like I’ve been invisioning — with an actual well pump on top of it. I wedged my groceries into the front seat of the car, flipped down the back seat and opened the back hatch. There was only ONE there and I wasn’t going to risk coming back on Saturday with Chris and the pick-up truck. I wanted it now.

So now I have a swell well cover — and a new flag, just in time for Memorial Day!

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