Early Heirloom Organically grown Cinderella Pumpkins in Stock now!

We have posted the Cinderella pumpkins for sale in our online store now... feel free to take a look and choose your pumpkin for an early pie!

These pumpkins are quite unique... in shape, texture, and flavor. Great for pies and baking due to their softer sweeter texture  And they are easier to deal with because the skins are soft and easy to cut plus the inside are almost totally solid for easier cleaning.

Here is a writeup from "allaboutpumpkins.com"

Cinderella

Cinderella Pumpkins are a unique French heirloom whose correct name is "Rouge vif D'Etampes". The source of their nickname it that they resemble the pumpkin that Cinderella's fairy godmother transformed into a carriage. This pumpkin is recorded as having been the variety cultivated by the Pilgrims and served at the second Thanksgiving dinner. This is our favorite pumpkin variety. There is something magical about them. Cinderellas make a delightful decorative accent for the fall season, but additionally their flavor is good for any pie or winter squash recipe.

As with all heirlooms, each pumpkin is unique in shape and coloring from red, to orange, to yellow, even white.   Take a look at the variety:

Every pumpkin is unique

When you order these in the online store here, they will be listed by nearest weight in lbs. If we dont have the exact weight in stock that you request, we will get as close as possible.

Time to get started early on baking!

Heirloom veggies are amazing!

Heirloom is the way to go!  Forget hybrids...  Heirlooms far out perform and hybrid we have ever tried!

Check out kaelyn with her find of an 11 lb beet!  The amazing thing is this huge beet is totally edible!

Heirloom....  The way things ought to be!

Dry Farming ? How to grow food without water

I ran across this article about dry farming.  Although innovative it isnt truly anything new.  I remember my dad (an ex farmer from the 60's)  taught me these same principles.

The basic approach is to water well in the beginning to get the sprouts started and established, watering deep  is more important than often. You want the moisture to be under the sprouting plant.  Then as the plant grows, you cut back on watering frequency, but make sure that any watering is DEEP, meaning soaking through the top foot of soil at least. Then you wait until the top is completely dry, and the moisture level is 4 to 8 inches down (dig down to see). You want the moisture level to be normally just UNDER the root level. As the plant grows, let the moisture level go deeper before the next watering.

While not truly "dry farming" as in this article, you get the same effect. The roots grow down deeper and deeper in between each watering in search of the ever falling moisture.  Finally they get deep enough so that you dont need to water any more.  The roots are down in the area where there is enough moisture to maintain the plant.

The only thing i disagree with the article is, I find it better to water well as above, then let the ground sit untouched instead of tilling lightly to dust.  When you water and let it sit, the soil forms a hard crust on the surface that provides a good shield form evaporation.  Experience has shown that this crust is more effective at holding in water than dust.

Of course thick mulch also retains water, if available. a couple inches of mulch will almost completely block evaporation between watering.

Another innovative way to block evaporation is, <gasp> weeds! or should i say ground cover. I have found that if you let the weeds grow (depending on type of course)  they form a type of living mulch that not only keeps water in but provides for a lot of life. To keep them from overwhelming hte plants you can mow or trim the weeds between the plants, but leave a couple inches for "living mulch". Perhaps a dangerous approach but it works!

SO yes, this does work, within limits. yield is lower, while quality is higher.

Here is the original article :  http://www.care2.com/causes/farming-without-water-its-possible-and-tasty.html

What do food labels mean?

So many terms appear on packages foods today few people know what they really mean. Below is a list of ones that actually have meaning and OTHERS that can mean anything.
We are constantly frustrated by finding that the goods we do buy are in fact not what we thought. This goes for everything from butter,  honey, beef, veggies, etc. You have to talk to the producer directly to discover the truth.
What to do? Know your farmer and buy from him. I see no other way.


Here is the list:

Grist Mobile

Winter Vegetable Crops!

Everyone knows that vegetable gardens are a summer event, right? WRONG! WE have recently discovered that this thought is a uniquely American limitation. Other countries grow vegetables year round with great success! (as long as they do not listen to the "wisdom" of American science and universities)

Let me clarify that not all vegetables will grow in the winter, some are genetically predisposed to summer weather, but many are perfectly suitable for life in winter. Am I referring to heated greenhouses consuming disproportionate amounts of heating fuel? NO! These vegetables can be grown in no more than simple shelter without using any heating at all. All they need is basic protection from the wind and harsh weather, but temperatures themselves are not the problem.

We are going to embark on this journey of growing year round without heat. The principles make perfect sense when applied in a synergistic fashion and carefully managed. This will produce yet another speciality income stream for Little Sprouts _ organic vegetables available in the winter FRESH from a local farm. Think about that.. no more need to fall to foreign raised vegetables in the winter. No more need to rely on canned, frozen, or otherwise preserved. While vegetables themselves do not brings in much income... winter vegetables will be more valuable because they are rare.

We are very excited to be venturing into this new product for our customers. It may take a year or two to get it right, but the process has begun! Stay tuned tor updates on how this is going.

Greenhouse plants continue growing!

The greenhouse is picking up steam so to speak... plants are again taking off after the severe cold spell that paused everything. The broccoli and cauliflower are doing nicely, and the rest are starting to pick up also.

Mixture of broccoli and cauliflower

Left front is radishes, let back is lettuce, right front is basil, right back is cilantro

Newly sprouted tomato seedlings, just off the sprouting heater.

Greenhouse crops growing nicely!

We spent some warm and humid time in the greenhouse today. Indoor gardening is definitely the way to go in the winter!

Things are coming along nicely now that the interior has warmed up. It took a couple weeks to warm up the soil enough to get those plants moving. The most impressive growth is the seed starting heat mat. This little gadget takes you from seed to plant in 3 or 4 days! Very impressive!

Cucumbers just a week since planting. I plan to install a trellis of some sort to support the vines here.

These are the soil warming buckets. Potting soil from bags is placed here to allow it to reach warmer temps before using in pots. These hold 4 regular sized bags.

This is the biopod where we are trying to grow grubs. It went dormant on the back porch due to the cold, so I moved it here to get it going again. After a week there are just a few signs of life inside.

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These are pots filled with soil and waiting for transplanting. This waiting time helps to further increase the soil temp to speed up the tiny plant's growth.

Here are the broccoli and cauliflower we sprouted first. They are finally warm enough to start growing again and most have just recently taken off.

This shelf has basil, cilantro, radishes, and lettuce in trays, behind it is spinach waiting to sprout.

This row is zucchini planted same time as the cucumbers and growing nicely. I'm hoping they are bush and not vines!

Hunter and Kaelyn's potatoes are finally healthy and growing in the two big pots. In the back you can see the newly emerging tomatoes and eggplants resting on the heating pad.

And here is the world's best greenhouse keeper watering a few things, including the plants :)

Watering in the greenhouse

Kaelyn crawls through through the shelves to water the broccoli and cauliflower.

Greenhouse Planting Time!

We finally got hte greenhouse ready enough to start planting. the weather is perfect too, bright sunny days with lots of warmth to heat things up inside and last through the night.  All of our seeds are either heirloom or at least open pollinated. We have completely stopped using hybrids, becasue its not "natural" in that hybrids do nto reproduce properly. That violates the principles of Little Sprouts Farm. Plus, since they dont reproduce properly, you have to buy seed every year. We'd much rather just use our own seeds each year as a sustainable model.

Here's a few pics of what we have going on:

This is the soil warming station.
We bring the bagged potting soil from outside and empty it into these extra large black pots to allow it to slowly come up to temperature before planting.

This shelf is filled with brocolli and cauliflour, each plant in its own pot. The seedlings are already about 3 to 4 inches tall.

In the foreground wide trays are radishes, lettuce, basil, and cilantro.
the background shows some tomatoes on the left far back in sprouting bins, and a flat of spinach just starting.

The two large pots in on the left are Hunter's and Kaelyn's potatoes. they started these as a school project in a glass of water before transplanting here. In the back are sprouting bins with eggplant, sweet peppers, cucumber and zuchini.

These shelves have pots filled with soil and awaiting seeds or plants. They serve to increase the mass to attract and hold heat, plus heating hte soil for planting later.

The large trash cans are filled with fresh water and goldfish. The water is what we use for watering, and also helps to add mass to store heat overnight. The goldfish are there to keep the kids entertained and to provide some natural fertilizer in the water.

This lovely mound.. is our resident gopher mound. Right after we set hte greenhouse here, someone moved into the basement, or they MADE a basement. Soon I will have to evict the residents and fix the flooring!

Planting in the greenhouse today!

We finally got some time to start planting the greenhouse today.  We have baby broccoli, cauliflower, and just planted heirloom tomato's and lettuce.

We are exploring different options  for planting boxes and pots. For now I picked up some 3 foot  trays about 4 inches deep. We put 3 broccoli or cauliflower in each. That seems a bit close to me but we'll see.  The rest are just in starter pots until they sprout.

The greenhouse is amazingly warm! In the afternoon today it was so warm we were sweating with light work. Its also very humid, water dripping from the roof like rain. To help keep it from freezing we placed in 3 plastic trash cans (dark colors and black) filled with water. I also dumped 6 cubic feet of potting soil into large black plastic planters and placed them on the ground. All this should help to hold some heat in its mass to keep from freezing overnight.

The next step is to pick up a bunch of planting pots form somewhere and some seeds.

I have to say, its sure more pleasant working in the greenhouse than struggling in the mud outside in the winter garden!

Gardening Mistake 1- Timing of planting and building up

I have been reading a very good book called "ECO FARMING". I recommend it to anyone who wishes to seriously understand the chemistry and biology of soil building and plant producing.

The first lesson leaned in this book is that I have committed a cardinal sin in my garden, thereby severely reducing yields and hampering nutritional value. That is the sin of bad timing.

What I have done for 3 years is this cycle..
When winter dries out enough to work the ground, I add as much organic material as I can gather (shavings from chicken coop, scrape the pig pen, clean out the barn stalls, grass, etc). I applied that to the garden and tilled it under a couple of times, then plant. I  assumed that organic material was good so it could be added anytime. WRONG!

Organic material is good, it is in fact the only way to increase soil fertility. Chemical bagged fertilizers do NOT increase soil fertility, in fact they reduce it. The mirage is that plants seem to grow better with chemical fertilizer, for a while, but its not real. Over time more and more fertilizer is necessary to achieve the same effect until finally we realize that the land is.. dead.  No, organic material is the ONLY beneficial soil building process in the long run.

However, you can not add uncompleted (green) organic material when plants are growing. Green organic material must be added at the end of fall, when it can sit and compost in ground over the winter before spring planting.  Adding green material in the spring right before planting has a detrimental effect on plants for that year.

The reason behind this is that the organisms in the soil that compost the material USE the same nutrients that plants need to grow, so for the time that the ground life is composting the green material in the soil, the plants are left without nutrients and actually starved.  It is only after the soil life (bacteria, fungus, etc) has finished composting and then dies itself, that the nutrients they consume in the organic material and produce in themselves are deposited in the soil for plants. So here again is a cycle of nature. Organic matter added to the soil is consumed by bacteria and fungus, then the bacteria and fungus die and their remains are higher in nutrients that the original material. Plants can then grow in this and excel in nutrition and hardiness.

Composted organic material ( to the point that it looks like dirt)  is ok to add anytime of course.

So, this spring I wont be adding any additional organic material that is not composted . Next fall I plan on adding everything I can find right after harvest, till it in, make mounds to drain the water better, and let it sit for the winter.

The new "super tomato" ?

This news story caught my eye this morning, and sparked a question...

Where would we be in health care in America if we concentrated our efforts within the food supply on creating health instead of creating wealth? Why is the nation with the "best health care in the world" not actively working within our own food supply to improve the nutrition of our food?

Here is the story: http://news.yahoo.com/video/world-15749633/italians-create-a-super-tomato-22751792

Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying that this super tomato is real, has health benefits as claimed, or isn't truly simply a marketing ploy. I simply do not know. Nonetheless, I wonder why this comes from Italy, and not almighty science of ag America.

I suggest that there are numerous reasons. America has used it's wealth of science to create more toxic chemicals to cover the effects of an exhausted, malnourished, abused soil. We as consumers have demanded better taste over better health. Our government has crippled the food system by singling out particular crops for subsidy, creating a political football out of our most basic needs. We as consumers have chosen convenience over health. We as consumers demand lower prices, not better quality. We as consumers judge quality based on what we see on the outside, not what is inside. We as farmers have bought into the big corporate industrial mindset, trading the wisdom of the past for financial and physical debts. The list goes on and on.

This is not intended to be a doom and gloom posting. On the contrary, my purpose is to share my thoughts in order to spur you into activity. It is easy to step back and claim that "I can't make a difference, I am only one". Whether that is true or not is not the question. the question is, are you part of the problem or part of the solution. That is really all that matters.

The one proven method of changing policy in American free enterprise is with our pocketbook. Mine and your spending habits truly determine policy of the people in charge. I do not personally see conspiracy around every corner, from a small group of peoples intent on corrupting our world and quality of life. No, I see a simpler process of people seeing advertising from a company attempting to increase profits, blindly absorbing that advertising, and using their cash to support the advertisements claims. We see and hear ads for fast food, and we are more prone to eat fast food. Eating more fast food validates the advertising and promotes more advertising. This is the vicious cycle. The way to break this cycle is for you and I to choose to stop, and consider what is in the best interest of our own families in the long run. Does saving a dollar on an artificial food product called burgers instead of having a moment of family time over a home cooked meal truly make our families, our children and our lives richer? Are the many activities we bring into our lives more important than the people in our lives?

I offer to you that if we would simply cut back on our consumption of fast food, reject the common notion that we don't have time nor funds to do what we know in our heart is right (does anyone truly think fast food is healthier than real food?), and "vote with our checkbook" on foods that will prevent health problems instead of cause them, THEN there will be more effort and thereby more choices and lower prices on healthy food.

So, I challenge you to ask yourself, are you part of the reason fast food exists, or part of the reason healthy food is making a comeback? Which side of the battle claims you?

Land, Sea, Plants, Animals ...

In my researching methods for sustainable farming (farming here encompassing animals and plants) a fascinating sub world has come to light.  We all have seen "exciting new discoveries" from time to time that seem too good to be true. Only occasionally do they stand the test of time.  This discovery seems very interesting.

A respect PhD, Dr Maynard Murray, deceased, conducted some experiments all the way back to 1938 with fascinating results. Inspired by the extraordinary resistance of sea animals to degenerative disease, Dr Maynard explored what would happen if the qualities of sea water were applied to plants and animals on land.  The results are nothing short of astounding.

To summarize, virtually all degenerative diseases  tested were cured or significantly reduced through simple application of the trace minerals in  sea water. This was even the case for animals specifically bred to produce genetic dispositions to cancer. In this case, the genetic disposition to cancer was reversed in two or three generations.  the list of degenerative illness is amazingly long, surpassed only by the list of cures shown through sea minerals.

There is no magic bullet here, no single element or compound that affects this health change. It is the balance of minerals that seems to provide benefit. Changing the concentration of a few, even while leaving the components complete, makes the application ineffective. That, sadly, is probably one of the reasons that this knowledge has been all but forgotten in the modern world. It is only within the last few years, when people are finally realizing that we are killing ourselves through our food supply, that notice is being given to this amazing discovery.

The method is simple, sea water or the minerals evaporated from it, or added to the soil. plants grown in this soil are inherently more disease and pest resistant. Animals then fed on these plants are also amazingly disease resistant. It is as if restoring the soil to the balance of ingredients in the sea is a magic process for restoring inherent life to plants and animals.

We have not tried this out for ourselves yet, but I am hoping to implement a sea mineral application before next springs' garden and pasture growth. We will report here any findings. Until then I encourage to read through this amazing excerpt from Dr Maynard's book:

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/SEA.html

Tomatoes in the garage

We chose to try something new with the tomato plants for the upcoming freeze. Instead of covering and uncovering the plants in the garden... We removed the roots and all and hung them upside down in the garage. They are supposed to ripen even if still green this way.

We didn't pull the cherry tomatoes out. If we did most of the tomatoes would probably fall off in handling, and it didn't seem worth while. These are the heirloom large size tomatoes.

It is amazing how heavy these plants are this way!

Swiss chard harvest

With the threat of the first frost of the year tonight, we decided to pull in much of the swiss chard. There were quite a few large beautiful leaves that could be hurt by a frost. So tonight we washed and put it into freezer bags for later use.  The final result was 14 gallons of chard, packed into 2 gallon bags.

We prefer freezing raw leaves, after just a good soak and wash in cold water. canning requires a lot more effort, and it is less versatile when used.

tonight the workforce was just Kaelyn and myself. She did an excellent job of washing and sorting the leaves for me, especially considering she is only 5 years old! The best part is, we had a great daddy daughter evening while doing it!

Moving deeper into understanding plants

Now that our animals are mostly settled and growing nicely, it is time to turn some attention to the growing of plants, specifically fruits and vegetables. The Farm that we ultimately wish to create will be based on both plants and animals in our own controlled ecosystem where all species are interdependent and coexisting in a set of symbiotic relationships.  This seems to be the true nature of a successful farm.

The growing of plants is perhaps even more important than the raising of animals, since animals life fundamentally relies on plants for existence. The health of nutrition of plants is one step below the health of animals in the food chain.

My research so far has been into the history of modern farming of plants (which seems wrought with as much problem as the modern raising of animals). There are fundamental problems that I see already in the commonly accepted and taught approach to raising plants. At the root of all the problem is a similar problem as that seen int eh raising of farm animals, shortsighted and narrow vision of nature by man. I am becoming convinced that the last few generations of mankind (at least in America) are suffering from a sever case of more information than we have the wisdom to apply.

Here's some of the problems in plant growth discovered so far:

1. mono-cultures - raising an abundance of one crop without the offsetting influence of other species
2. belief that plants only take 3 nutrients from the soil (NPK) and nothing else matters
3. hybridization of plant genetics to suit man's shortsighted goals (genetic inbreeding of plants) at the expense of nutritional value
4. lack of application of the system nature has to renew and preserve the soil
5. application of chemical pesticides to control the bugs that nature sends to attack unhealthy plants
6. removal of weeds intended to help regenerate the soil

That's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  In future blog posts I will be sharing what I learn as we go through this journey. For now let me just peak your interest in the goal:

A generation ago, valid science conducted by a respected scientist virtually proved that many of man's ailments could be cured through the proper treatment of the plants that provide for man's existence. Serious health problem such as cancer, hardening of the arteries, even genetic dispositions to particular diseases were corrected through careful and natural raising of plant food. Although published, this information has gone mostly unnoticed in today's "modern world" for whatever reason, but it is still as valid as ever.

To heal America, we have to heal her land. It is truly that simple.  At Little Sprouts Farm we are dedicated to rediscovering these truths and learn to apply them in today's world to make a positive impact on our health, our environment, and have a wonderful life while doing it!

Stay tuned for more!