<< Back to main
News from our farm for June 19
Posted 6/19/2009 11:47pm by Heather Redden.
Hello!
Boy can technology be aggravating! I had the newsletter all done and was doing a final spell check when my computer ate it so here I go again.
The hot weather has been hard on Brandon's lettuce production. He is having trouble convincing the seeds to germinate right now. All varieties of seeds have an optimal temperature range for germination and lettuce's range is on the cool side. I will have lettuce tomorrow at the market but that will be it for awhile. We will have a new product tomorrow though. Brandon has started to harvest the hardneck garlic. Most of it will be hung to dry on the porch but I will bring some of it tomorrow. At this stage, it is called green garlic because it still contains moisture. It smells and tastes great. You can use it just like dried garlic or roast whole cloves in the oven which is just scrumptious. We put whole cloves on our pizza tonight for dinner.
I have a lot of honey sitting on my bee hives right now. I am so excited since this will be my biggest honey crop yet. I was hoping to harvest it this week but it isn't ready yet. The bees have been so busy bringing in the nectar that they haven't put much effort towards drying it yet. Bees make honey by adding enzymes to the nectar and then fanning their wings to move air through the hive to evaporate the water out of the nectar. It isn't honey until it contains less than 18% water. At that point, the bees put a wax cap over the comb and it is ready for harvest. I checked earlier this week and almost none of it is capped. I'm not complaining though, farming teaches patience and it will be delicious when it is ready.
I hope to see you tomorrow at the market and check out my new blog on the website later this week where I hope to put up some of the other fun happenings on the farm that were going to be in this newsletter until the computer ate the first version. It's time for me to go to bed!
Thanks,
Heather and Brandon Redden
www.naturesharborfarm.com
Boy can technology be aggravating! I had the newsletter all done and was doing a final spell check when my computer ate it so here I go again.
The hot weather has been hard on Brandon's lettuce production. He is having trouble convincing the seeds to germinate right now. All varieties of seeds have an optimal temperature range for germination and lettuce's range is on the cool side. I will have lettuce tomorrow at the market but that will be it for awhile. We will have a new product tomorrow though. Brandon has started to harvest the hardneck garlic. Most of it will be hung to dry on the porch but I will bring some of it tomorrow. At this stage, it is called green garlic because it still contains moisture. It smells and tastes great. You can use it just like dried garlic or roast whole cloves in the oven which is just scrumptious. We put whole cloves on our pizza tonight for dinner.
I have a lot of honey sitting on my bee hives right now. I am so excited since this will be my biggest honey crop yet. I was hoping to harvest it this week but it isn't ready yet. The bees have been so busy bringing in the nectar that they haven't put much effort towards drying it yet. Bees make honey by adding enzymes to the nectar and then fanning their wings to move air through the hive to evaporate the water out of the nectar. It isn't honey until it contains less than 18% water. At that point, the bees put a wax cap over the comb and it is ready for harvest. I checked earlier this week and almost none of it is capped. I'm not complaining though, farming teaches patience and it will be delicious when it is ready.
I hope to see you tomorrow at the market and check out my new blog on the website later this week where I hope to put up some of the other fun happenings on the farm that were going to be in this newsletter until the computer ate the first version. It's time for me to go to bed!
Thanks,
Heather and Brandon Redden
www.naturesharborfarm.com
0 Comments »