Harvest, Preserve and Plant for Winter

Yesterday we harvested our oats by hand with scissors and today we harvested many, many cherries from a good friend's orchard which means that now we get to figure out how to extract the oats from their hulls and how to use our new cherry pitter. We will surely dry most our the cherries using our solar food dehydrator but we're not totally sure yet how we'll preserve the oats (likely the same way).

All of this harvesting and preserving reminds me, it is now time to start planting your winter garden. There is nothing better than being able to harvest fresh greens when they are covered in snow, but you must plan and plant when winter is the last thing on anyone's mind. To help with this, we have been growing kale and chard starts to sell at the Saturday Marketplace for people to plant in their own gardens. If you have questions about how to get started with your own winter garden please come and visit us on the 4th of July when we will also be debuting our new salves and soaps in addition to lots more produce.

Long Days

Last Sunday was the summer solstice. We had another family come over for good food, good company and a small bonfire. The summer solstice marks the beginning of summer and the longest hours of sunlight. We have been using these long days to the fullest; working on the land, weeding the garden, building our house, taking care of the animals, and of course caring for our three children. Even after the sun goes down; the goats have been milked, the kids read to and put to bed, we still often have hours of work. We make soap, brew beer, can jam, and work on house projects we couldn't do during the day. Good thing Brian and I like to work, and doing projects together makes it fun.

St John's wort is an herb that is flowering around the solstice. We have been picking the flowers and infusing them in oil with calendula and comfrey to make a healing salve. We hope to bring some homemade herbal salves and creams to the market. So please check out our booth next week for these new items as well as our goats milk soap, produce and plants!

Saturday Market June 27

Hello folks! Well, since we don't have our own computer and I am writing this at the library, I can't upload any of our new photos. You'll just have to use your imagination and fantasize about what our Tayberries, Gooseberries, Walla Walla Sweet Onions and new Oatmeal Soap look like until you can come and see them for yourselves at our next market on the 27th. Hopefully, after this weekend, we will be able to write a longer post, complete with pictures, recounting our Solstice fun. We hope to see you on Saturday!

What's New At Folkways Farm

Hello again folks! This week, in addition to getting ready for our next market appearance, there has been much strawberry jam making going on in the kitchen and way, way, way too much thistle weeding going on in our lower field. Although we will never do it because we care so much about the quality and safety of our food, there are certainly times, when our arms are swollen from thistle scratches, where we understand why so many people, especially large-scale farms, spray toxic chemicals all over everything. But, according to everything we have read, at some point, the weeds will just give up and move somewhere else..... right?

Our beautiful strawberry jam.

Some before and after thistle fun in the garlic.

And here it is folks! Our first iphoto, quicktime, slideshow, movie thing documenting some of the stages we've gone through while building our straw bale house. We have done all of the work ourselves with the help of many good friends who are happy to work for beer, eggs, duck meat, produce and edgy but passionate conversation.

See you Saturday!

Saturday Market June, 13

Hello folks! A big thank you to all who attended our second Saturday Marketplace and helped to make it a huge success. Next week we expect to have more Hood Strawberries, Raspberry and Strawberry Starts, Red and Green lettuce, Cut Wildflowers, Free Range Chicken and Duck Eggs, an assortment of other Random Produce, including Garlic Scapes, and if we're lucky, we will have a new batch of Oatmeal Goat Milk Soap and some Walla Walla Sweet Onions!

Hood Strawberries

Kale

Walla Walla Sweet Onions and Potatoes

And just to prove that we really are crazy and harvest all of our produce the night before in the dark and rain......

We hope to see you on the 20th from 9 to 1.

Saturday Market

Well, we did it, our first ever market! We would like to extend a big thank you to all who attended. We anticipate having more Hood Strawberries and Free Range Eggs next week in addition to Raspberry and Strawberry starts, Cut Wildflowers, Greens, Herbs and of course, Goat Milk Soap. We hope to see you on June, 13th at the Wellspring Saturday Marketplace.