Join us for some great music!

Hello friends!

We just closed out our season at the Normal Trailside Market. Thanks to all who made it such a great success! We sold 20% more in Normal this year as compared to 2007, and we’re sure it was because of the increased crowd. NOTE that the Normal Market is still running UNTIL THE END OF SEPTEMBER. Be sure to continue supporting the rest of the vendors who will continue to bring great produce and baked goods until the very end.

Of course, we’ll still be at the Bloomington Farmers Market for ANOTHER TWO MONTHS! That’s right, two more months of the best food on the planet. This is a wonderful time of year for fresh produce, with all of the bounty of summer merging with the beginning of the fall crops. In fact, this week Bill will be bringing ARUGULA for the first time in weeks. It is PRISTINE – like a misty mountain-top (that’s what Bill just said, and he has no idea I’m putting that into the email!). Seriously, it’s young, tender, and very flavorful.

We’re also bringing more pears – Bartlett and Asian. We just turned a few pears into dried fruits for the boys’ lunches, and they’re delicious. For once I agreed with Bill that it tasted, indeed, “like candy.” (He’s always saying that about vegetables, and it’s not quite true. At least not for anyone acquainted with the sweetness of real candy.)

And finally, we’re bringing grapes – purple, seeded grapes. They are spectacular, and you get to spit seeds. (Bill just eats them, as they are very nutritious.) Seeded grapes are healthier than seedless, so be sure to grab a bunch.

This week’s big news revolves around our good friend, Peter Kennell, a great musician who will be playing THIS SATURDAY at the market! Whoo-hoo! I strongly encourage you to check out his act. He’s a wonderful singer-songwriter whose music is hard to classify. We just like it a whole darn lot. He’s playing from 9 to 11 a.m. You can check out his stuff at http://www.peteradriel.com/home.html or on MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/earthrock where you can hear Peter and Jake playing. I just love this new-ish thing that he’s been doing with his guitar – he attached a little, tiny piano thing to it called a calimba. He also has this noise box get-up that he uses for percussion. I’m sure it’s painful for anyone with musical talent to read this description, so I’m just going to stop. But suffice it to say that my kids are enthralled when he plays.

Peter is also organizing this FANTASTICALLY COOL event on Sept. 5 and 6 at The Depot in El Paso. You may recall a similar event last year, which involved local music, local art, and local food. It was totally awesome! Well, it’s happening again. Here are the details from Peter:

On Sept 5 and 6, El Paso's historic railroad depot comes to life for
Alt. Corn Fest 2008 – two days of live music, art installations, and great
food and beverages – all locally produced!

On Friday, enjoy artisanal goat cheeses from Prairie Fruits Farm and fresh
fruits from Blue Schoolhouse Farm, Teresa's Fruit and Herbs, and Henry's
Farm. You can wander the Depot's lush grounds and enjoy an art opening
filled with sculpture, photography, paintings, and thought-provoking
installations from cutting-edge local and regional artists. 6-11 pm.

On Saturday, arrive early for a fresh-grilled feast of Woodford County
organic beef burgers (with all the trimmings), Dave's famous curly fries
(local potatoes!) and more ... Dinner is served at 6, and quantities are
limited. Then the Depot Theater doors open for great live music from local
folk-rock artists Peter Adriel, Ben Schreck, Ghosttown Gramophone, and
more. 5-11 pm.

The depot is an all-ages venue, open all day on Friday and Saturday. With
gardens, koi ponds, and mini-golf, there's something for everyone!

Location: On Rt. 24 in El Paso. (11 E Main St.)

I know everyone has a busy schedule, but this is really worth checking out. I now that last year’s audience was blown away by the quality of the music. And Dave’s curly fries are to-die-for.

Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

Green Beans, Yellow Wax Beans, and French Filet Beans
Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Basil
Swiss Chard
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Cucumbers
Carrots
Garlic
Leeks
Radicchio
Tomatoes
Okra
Head Lettuce
Sweet Peppers
Hot Peppers
Grapes

Bill’s now delivering to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal on Tuesdays and to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington on Saturday mornings. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!!

Please let your friends know about the blog. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Is This Farming?

Hello friends!

I’m only writing a short portion of the weekly email because I’m all taped and gauzed up. I’m sure you’re just dying to know why, right? OK, I’ll tell you. It’s a bad case of poison ivy. I am pretty darn allergic to it. In nature, there’s a word for sensitive people like me: dead. I mean really, if it weren’t for modern living standards, I’d have been left behind as the tribe forged ahead into new territory very early in life.

And it turns out that little Ben is also quite allergic to poison ivy. (I’ve passed along my sensitive skin to Ben and my sneezy allergies to Noah. I’m so generous.) So anyway, Ben picked up poison ivy last week only to turn into Quasimodo just in time for our oh-so-special Day Out With Thomas (the Tank Engine) event with grandma and grandpa. Yep. Ben’s face swelled up to the extent that he could hardly see out of his right eye. It totally changed his look – now we know what he’ll look like if he ever puts on too much weight!

So the doctor hooked him up with some steroids. I’m usually pretty conservative about medicine, preferring to suffer. But with a 4-year-old, it’s completely unreasonable. He couldn’t sleep (thus, nor could I!) for 3 nights because of the itching. Benadryl did nothing for him. Post-steroids he got better rather quickly, although not in time for the Thomas thing. (He was an unbearable crab ALL DAY.) By the way, it was an awesome event – I’d HIGHLY encourage you to check it out next year. It’s in Union, Illinois at the Illinois Railway Museum, which itself is awesome. They have so many working trains, from electric street cars to Metra-style double deckers. And the Thomas train that they brought in was great. Although there were thousands of people/kids/strollers there, it did not feel crowded or unpleasant.

That’s that. I’m going to turn it over to Bill now while I let the effects of Benadryl x2 + beer take hold. I plan to sleep well tonight! And here’s Bill …

Ben replaced Noah as the miniature farmhand this week because Noah’s now in kindergarten. It was nice to have Ben help. He talked non-stop all day long and in the process said a few funny things. He got to use hand shears after he told me, “Daddy, I’m 4 years old. That’s old enough to use the clippers.” He used them for his first time harvesting basil. When we were done harvesting the basil, he looked at me and said “Daddy, is this farming?” I assured him that we were indeed farming, and he seemed to be very happy about that. Ben also got to see a locust emerging from its shell (if that’s what it’s called!).

Noah had his first day of kindergarten today. We all rushed up to the bus and I took pictures of him getting on for the first time. Mercy looked in at all the kids on the bus and realized that we were playing the part of the dorky parents escorting their capable child onto the bus. The bus driver thought it was funny, though.

We will be bringing Bartlett Pears and Asian Pears this week along with our Russian Osh Kirgizia watermelons. If we have time to pick them, we will also be bringing in some grapes. They are deep purple wine grapes and they do have seeds, but they also taste really good. The purple skin and the gel around the seeds help make them a nutritious snack.

I started to water yesterday with my new high flow drip tape. I managed to get a few newly seeded beds of radish, arugula, lettuce, choi, and turnips to sprout by running the pump for 6 hours. I also have been watering head lettuce, so I will have more head lettuce this week despite the hot dry weather.

Last week was the best market we have ever had – even better than the gold standard Thanksgiving market. Thank you to everyone that came out to support us. We did notice a serious drop off in the Tuesday market this week. We assume it was related to kids starting school, but we hope that once the school-year routine sets in, people will have time to come get their vegetables. You can come by any time before 6 p.m. and still find a decent selection of the finest veggies in town!

Have you tried the pints of cherry tomatoes yet? They are truly fantastic. There are six varieties in almost every pint, all selected for flavor. There are sungolds (bright orange), which are one of the best tomatoes we sell. There are also red cherry, a wild cherry tomato from Mexico (the tiniest of the 6 varieties), yellow pear, red pear, brownberry (a brown cherry tomato with a great, unique flavor), green gage (bright yellow with a ping pong ball shape), and a red grape tomato variety. We have to painstakingly harvest all of these varieties because they split so easily. All in all, a pint of cherry tomatoes is like party in your mouth. We’re including a classic picture of Ben glowering over the pints of tomatoes. He’s reached that charming age where he grimaces for all photos.

I was fortunate to have my in-laws in town this past week. My mother-in-law was here for a week, which was great for the boys. She took them everywhere – swimming at Anderson Pool was the highlight. Noah was even brave enough to go down the big water slide alone! Grandma Sue (as the boys call her) is also a great farmhand. Mercy’s brother Nelson also came up for a day. He’s a foodie and remarked, as we were eating cooked, salted soybeans, “Did you put butter on these? Because they taste like butter.” There’s a testimonial. Be sure to try some this week!

Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

Soybeans
Green Beans, Yellow Wax Beans, and French Filet Beans
Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Basil
Swiss Chard
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Cucumbers
Carrots
Garlic
Bulb Onions
Leeks
Radicchio
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Okra
Head Lettuce
Sweet Peppers
Hot Peppers
Watermelon

Bill’s now delivering to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal on Tuesdays and to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington on Saturday mornings. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Please let your friends know about the blog. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

When Life Gives You Peppers, Make Paprika!

Hello Friends!

Are you ready for some hu-mazing vegetables?! That’s Ben’s new word. It’s a combination of humongous and amazing, and we really love it. It’s kind of like “ginormous” but not popular yet. The humazing thing this week will be the heirloom tomatoes. I hope you’ve been enjoying them. We eat tomatoes every single day. We are now bringing both heirlooms ($3/pound) and hybrids ($2/pound), although the heirlooms just kick hybrid butt. (I am a certified tomato snob.)

We’ll also have a nice offering of hot and sweet peppers. The hot peppers are poblano and Anaheim. Both have a great flavor that gets even better when you roast them. We’ll often roast a bunch, peel the skins off, and then freeze them for use in the winter on pizzas and pasta. The sweet pepper varieties are numerous, from Bell to Jimmy Nardello. They’re all quite good.

This week I’m posting pictures of Bill’s best recent project: homemade paprika. Did you know that paprika is just ground peppers? Typically it’s made from sweet peppers, but Bill’s favorite kind is smoked Spanish paprika. The pictures show the start-to-finish process, although not in order. (I still haven't figured out how to move the pictures around.) It’s lovely, isn’t it? And I can’t tell you how amazing the flavor is. Seriously. Check out the picture with the glove -- Bill wears gloves while cutting out the seeds, which make the paprika too hot to enjoy the flavor. He's using a hot pepper called "Cyklon." He only grows enough for us because in previous years, no one bought it! But you can make paprika with any of our peppers. After drying the peppers in the dehydrator, we just Cuisinart them into oblivion. It works great.

Bill and the farmhands have been totally enjoying this oddly un-hot August weather. It’s just been wonderful. Bill appears to be “caught up” with certain farm activities such as tilling and planting fall crops (of course, all to the detriment of any yard maintenance!). We would be run out of town if we tried to live there – between the compost and the unmoved grass, we’d have a million dollars worth of ordinance violations to pay.

This week Grandma Sue is visiting. It’s been AWESOME! The kids are being treated to all sorts of fun activities like swimming down at the lake behind our house, swimming at Anderson Pool in Normal (where Noah went down the big blue slide!!), and buying school supplies for kindergarten. All the things we have so much trouble making time for. It’s just been perfect. My mom is a very good guest, too. She eats anything and works as hard as any farmhand we’ve ever had. At some point I think she’s going to just get out the mower and take on the “lawn.” It’s been so long since we’ve mowed (3 weeks?) that it may be easier to have it baled. Ha ha!

My fun little project is getting estimates to put a basement UNDER the house. Whoo-hoo! What a crazy idea, right? But it’s the only way we can insulate under it because there’s almost no crawl space. We could also some “cool” space in the house. Since we don’t have central air and the house is small anyway, we have to keep our two chest freezers out on the porch where it gets quite hot. It’s an energy efficiency nightmare. It would also be great to have better space to hang the garlic and to store other vegetables. Also, the floor in the house is freezing in the winter because there’s no insulation whatsoever under it. I’ll keep you posted!

I won’t be at the market this week – Grandma Sue, Grandpa Rick, the boys, and I will be going to Union, Illinois to a “Day Out With Thomas.” You know Thomas, right? He’s the Number One tank engine on the Island of Sodor. We have spent a great deal of the last 3.5 years watching Thomas, reading about Thomas, doing Thomas puzzles, and discussing the precise location of Sodor in relation to Central Illinois. Now we get to see him in person. (It’s a real train made up to look like Thomas. We even get to RIDE Thomas.) The boys are beside themselves. I’ll take lots of pictures and there’s a good chance I’ll post one or two to the blog. (Go figure!) We’ll also be spending the night in a HOTEL, which a huge deal for the boys. They think hotels are practically magical.

Naturally, Bill will be at the market with the veggies. He’ll have his assistant Kanna, and my brother Nelson will be there to re-stock the crates. Take it easy on them! Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

Soybeans
Green Beans
Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Basil
Swiss Chard
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Cucumbers
Carrots
Garlic
Bulb Onions
Leeks
Radicchio
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Okra

Bill has recently started a new delivery system. He’s delivering to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal on Tuesdays and to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington on Saturday mornings. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Please let your friends know about the blog. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Holy Hotness, Batman!

Hello Friends!

And hello hot August weather! Monday was completely miserable … and I only spent 20 minutes outside walking from city hall to the Movie Fan to get a guilty pleasure flick to watch between the end of work and the start of the Town Council meeting! I can only imagine how hot and uncomfortable the farmers were that day.

Tuesday was much worse, though, for so many reasons. Tuesday was filled with the most improbable of circumstances. A ripper of a thunderstorm came through around 5 a.m. Not a problem for us – just one branch down and the power stayed on. Not so in Eureka. I took Ben in to preschool Tuesday morning to find that the entire town had no power, and huge tree limbs were laying all over highway 117. The preschool teachers told me they’d have to send the kids home if power wasn’t restored within a couple of hours given the forecasted heat. That was bad news since it was a harvest day (in which Bill has no time for anything) and it was a day in which I was giving a presentation at 10 a.m. for which I had not prepared.

I proceeded to work, hoping that of the 27,000 people without power in the Peoria area, the Ameren line workers would come to Eureka’s rescue first. Right.

About 8 miles from the preschool (and half a mile before getting onto the interstate), I heard a very unpleasant and very loud grating noise under my car. I immediately pulled over and found that the strap holding my muffler up had busted. I called my neighbor, who works at ISU, and was able to hitch a ride to work with him, leaving my car to be towed.

I furiously prepared for my presentation (which turned out mediocre at best – I’m not being modest, either!), and at 9:30 a.m. I got a call from the preschool. No power. I had told Bill to check the phone messages frequently, figuring it was likely that he’d get a call from the preschool. Unfortunately, Noah had been the last person to use our phone and hadn’t hung it up correctly. So when I called home, all I got was a busy signal. I had to then call the neighbor (the one neighbor that we have who would be home!) and have her send her kid over to find Bill either at home or down in the field.

The story ends with Bill picking up Ben, harvesting with two small-and-marginally-helpful boys, and bringing them both in to the market. I then took part of the afternoon off to help run the circus that we call our market stand. (It was also Noah’s first market where he sold his “art” – colored pictures out of the Elmo coloring book – for 25 cents.) If we seemed a bit out of sorts (code for “crabby as hell”!), that’s the back story.

But enough about us, how are you? Are you feeling like making pesto this week? I hope so! Our basil is kicking some major butt right now and needs a serious thinning. We will be bringing in small bunches as usual AND one pound bags for a discounted price of $6/bag.

Here’s a very easy pesto recipe from the Moosewood Cookbook:

Place 3 cups (packed) fresh basil leaves and 3 garlic cloves into a food processor and mince well. Add 1/3 cup pine nuts, walnuts, or almonds (we use almonds – CHEAPER!) and keep blending until ground. Drizzle in 1/3 cup olive oil while machine is still running, until you have a smooth paste. Transfer to a bowl and then add in 1/3 cup parmesan. Add salt and pepper to taste. (Side note: You can also make pesto with the same recipe but substituting cilantro, dill, parsley, etc. for the basil.)

We primarily use pesto on pasta and pizza. We always freeze batches of it in the summer for use in the winter. To freeze it, just mix up everything except the parmesan. You can add that when you thaw it out. We have had great success freezing into ice cube trays and then popping them into a freezer bag. It also works to use mason jars with a layer of olive oil on top. In fact, if you keep a layer of oil on top, you can keep pesto in the fridge for weeks and weeks.

Many customers have asked about storing fresh basil. It is a very perishable item, but we’ve been most successful getting it nice and wet (especially after a morning out at the market stand) and putting it into a glass of water on the counter. If you want to put it into a bag, it can’t be nearly as wet or it just turns to mush against the plastic.

What’s going on in the field? Many of the fall crops have germinated – rutabaga (which has yet to become a chic vegetable), fall radishes, chois, arugula, tatsoi, salad mix, head lettuce, and daikon. The sweet potatoes look great. And thank heavens that the parsnips look awesome. What a change of pace. Usually, Bill plants parsnips and can’t keep them weeded and they turn out to be a big failure and waste of space. Not this year! The fall markets promise to be amazing unless we have a serious breach of security in the deer fence.

We hope that the market won’t experience the annual drop off in customers after the start of the school year. We think it won’t be as drastic given how many new people seem to be attending the market this season. It’s truly been amazing.

Here’s some additional info on erstwhile missing vegetables … head lettuces will reappear in two weeks with Japanese turnips following in another two weeks. I also anticipate some salad mix before too long.

New this week will be sweet peppers and fresh soybeans! Yay! As most gardeners will tell you, this has been a bad pepper year. We’re not sure why, but the cool weather in June was likely the culprit. Our bell peppers aren’t as productive as usual, but they’re still tasty! We’re also bringing non-bell sweet peppers that are more flavorful than the bells. This year we’re featuring Jimmy Nardello, Carmen (an Italian Sweet Pepper!), Marconi Red, Krimson Lee, and Golden Treasure.

We’ll also have some hot peppers, including Anaheim and Poblano.

And since not a week can go by without a mention of my sweet baby boys (am I becoming Kathy Lee Gifford?), I should point out the pictures this week of Ben helping with the onion harvest. He’s actually quite helpful with the less delicate vegetables. He can be very focused when he gets set on a task. He’s got two cute little habits that I wonder about in the long-term … he’s a hand wringer when excited and he sticks out his tongue when concentrating. It’s so cute, but I have a hard imagining a 40-year-old doing the same thing.

Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Basil
Swiss Chard
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Carrots
Garlic
Bulb Onions
Leeks
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Okra
Fennel
Peppers
Soybeans

Bill has just started a new delivery system. He’s delivering to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal on Tuesdays and to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington on Saturday mornings. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Please let your friends know about the blog. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

The Rare Posting from the Elusive Farmer Davison

Hello Friends!

We’re approaching a major life and farm transition … Noah starts kindergarten in three weeks. Our little baby boy is growing up! Sniff sniff. Actually, we’re just so happy for him. He’s totally ready for the next big step in life.

As for the farm, when Noah goes to school, Ben will become our littlest farm hand. He will start staying home from preschool on Tuesdays and Fridays (as Noah has for the last two years) to help with the harvest. He may enjoy farming more than Noah – he is very eager to please us lately, and he truly loves vegetables and eating them! You should see him in the green beans. Somewhat like a very big Japanese beetle but without the hard shell. Ha!

I’m including a picture of our boys in their new sun hats. We purchased them from a company called Sunday Afternoons. The hats are rated for maximum sun protection. Bill and I have had similar hats for a long time, and they’re amazingly light and comfortable. I let the boys pick the colors. After all, it’s important for kids to control what little they can in life. When I showed them the colors available online, Noah immediately picked his favorite color … bright blue.

Ben then had to choose from sand, dark grey, hot pink, and lavender/pink. He immediately chose the lavender. It was one of those parental dilemmas … do I say something about the fact that a pinky purple is, in many people’s opinions, a “girl color”? I asked him, “Are you sure that’s the color you want?” No hesitation … “YES!” Then I just had to ask him (based on the fact that I was spending $25 on a hat that I can’t afford for him to suddenly decide is unacceptable), “What if the other kids say it’s a girl color?” He looked truly puzzled for a second and then said, “But it’s beautiful!” And that was that.

I’m also including a photo of a ginormous onion with boys for perspective. This is Bill’s banner onion year. If you haven’t eaten any, you’re missing a real treat.

And now a word from the farmer himself …

I have a confession to make. This will be our first poor tomato year in 6 years of farming. After walking through our large hoophouse tonight, I can no longer deny that our bligh-infected plants are only going to yield a quarter of their normal production. (Fortunately, the tomatoes we will harvest will TASTE GREAT!) Since tomatoes are our best selling crop, this really hurts. I have been taking care of these plants since March. I have invested a tremendous amount of time, mental energy, and hope on these plants and they are now nearly dead. I kept thinking they may still produce despite the fungal infection that steadily crept up from the bottom of the plant and now has browned the leaves up to the top ¾ of our 10 foot tall plants. Hundreds of full size green tomatoes sit in a state of suspended ripening, waiting for nutrients the plant cannot deliver because it has almost no green leaves. Their photosynthetic capacity reduced to near zero.

Our field tomatoes are in better shape, but many of them have the same blight due to our rainy growing season. Of course, I have been breaking a cardinal rule of farming by trying to grow the same crop in the same space for three years in a row. You are always supposed to rotate your crops to prevent diseases from building up to the point they destroy your crop. Such is the allure of tomatoes! It is hard not to keep planting them in the hoophouse because few other plants can produce $60 worth of income from a single plant.

You tomato lovers may be asking yourselves what I am going to do to recover from such a tragedy. Do not worry. I have a plan. I am going to research the possibility of grafting tomatoes onto disease-resistant rootstock and planting those in the hoophouse. I am also going to research the possibility of creating mobile hightunnels in the field. They will consist of fabric rowcovers over wire hoops and a layer of plastic over pvc or re-bar posts above the rowcover. I may also lay down plastic mulch to help warm the soil and prevent soil from splashing up on the leaves. That is how the fungal spores get transmitted from the soil to the plant. All of this work will partially re-create the near perfect tomato growing conditions of the larger hoophouse but will allow me to rotate my tomato plantings. Of course this entails much more work, but my early tomatoes are worth it!

I learn so much every year and this year is no exception. I am already on my second 50 page field notebook. I take the time to write down everything I see and learn that I think will help me improve next year. As a result, I continue to get better every year. So, rest assured I will do everything I can to ensure a tremendous abundance of tomatoes next year. The poor yield of this year’s tomatoes is very disappointing, but learning to overcome such challenges is also one of the reasons I love to farm. Mercy tells me I am obsessed with vegetables. She may be right, but I think there are worse obsessions in life.

While I am filling you in on our challenges this year, I may as well let you know that we will have a gap of a couple of weeks in our head lettuce production after this week. I switched from transplanting lettuce to direct seeding and I lost track of time and did not plant lettuce seed soon enough, hence the gap in production.

I planted fall crops today and I am so glad to see the rain this evening! I planted winter radish, daikon radish, arugula, choi, lettuce, tatsoi, kohlrabi, turnips, mesclun, beets, rutabaga, and ruby streaks mustard greens.

I have included a picture of a winter squash blossom with its biggest enemy (the cucumber beetle) and its greatest ally (the bee). I'm also including a picture of a young butternut squash. The plants look good and they appear to have potential. I will spare you all the details of what can go wrong with winter squash. Let’s just hope for the best.

And back to Mercy …

Wow. I’m exhausted after reading Bill’s posting! I usually don’t know this much about what’s going on, and maybe that’s not a bad thing. He usually makes it look so easy!

Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

Head Lettuce
Green Beans
Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Basil
Swiss Chard
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Cucumbers
Carrots
Garlic
Bulb Onions
Leeks
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Okra
Fennel

On Tuesday evenings Bill delivers produce to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington and to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies mid-week, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Please let your friends know about the blog. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

The Rare Posting from the Elusive Farmer Davison

Hello Friends!

We’re approaching a major life and farm transition … Noah starts kindergarten in three weeks. Our little baby boy is growing up! Sniff sniff. Actually, we’re just so happy for him. He’s totally ready for the next big step in life.

As for the farm, when Noah goes to school, Ben will become our littlest farm hand. He will start staying home from preschool on Tuesdays and Fridays (as Noah has for the last two years) to help with the harvest. He may enjoy farming more than Noah – he is very eager to please us lately, and he truly loves vegetables and eating them! You should see him in the green beans. Somewhat like a very big Japanese beetle but without the hard shell. Ha!

I’m including a picture of our boys in their new sun hats. We purchased them from a company called Sunday Afternoons. The hats are rated for maximum sun protection. Bill and I have had similar hats for a long time, and they’re amazingly light and comfortable. I let the boys pick the colors. After all, it’s important for kids to control what little they can in life. When I showed them the colors available online, Noah immediately picked his favorite color … bright blue.

Ben then had to choose from sand, dark grey, hot pink, and lavender/pink. He immediately chose the lavender. It was one of those parental dilemmas … do I say something about the fact that a pinky purple is, in many people’s opinions, a “girl color”? I asked him, “Are you sure that’s the color you want?” No hesitation … “YES!” Then I just had to ask him (based on the fact that I was spending $25 on a hat that I can’t afford for him to suddenly decide is unacceptable), “What if the other kids say it’s a girl color?” He looked truly puzzled for a second and then said, “But it’s beautiful!” And that was that.

I’m also including a photo of a ginormous onion with boys for perspective. This is Bill’s banner onion year. If you haven’t eaten any, you’re missing a real treat.

And now a word from the farmer himself …

I have a confession to make. This will be our first poor tomato year in 6 years of farming. After walking through our large hoophouse tonight, I can no longer deny that our bligh-infected plants are only going to yield a quarter of their normal production. (Fortunately, the tomatoes we will harvest will TASTE GREAT!) Since tomatoes are our best selling crop, this really hurts. I have been taking care of these plants since March. I have invested a tremendous amount of time, mental energy, and hope on these plants and they are now nearly dead. I kept thinking they may still produce despite the fungal infection that steadily crept up from the bottom of the plant and now has browned the leaves up to the top ¾ of our 10 foot tall plants. Hundreds of full size green tomatoes sit in a state of suspended ripening, waiting for nutrients the plant cannot deliver because it has almost no green leaves. Their photosynthetic capacity reduced to near zero.

Our field tomatoes are in better shape, but many of them have the same blight due to our rainy growing season. Of course, I have been breaking a cardinal rule of farming by trying to grow the same crop in the same space for three years in a row. You are always supposed to rotate your crops to prevent diseases from building up to the point they destroy your crop. Such is the allure of tomatoes! It is hard not to keep planting them in the hoophouse because few other plants can produce $60 worth of income from a single plant.

You tomato lovers may be asking yourselves what I am going to do to recover from such a tragedy. Do not worry. I have a plan. I am going to research the possibility of grafting tomatoes onto disease-resistant rootstock and planting those in the hoophouse. I am also going to research the possibility of creating mobile hightunnels in the field. They will consist of fabric rowcovers over wire hoops and a layer of plastic over pvc or re-bar posts above the rowcover. I may also lay down plastic mulch to help warm the soil and prevent soil from splashing up on the leaves. That is how the fungal spores get transmitted from the soil to the plant. All of this work will partially re-create the near perfect tomato growing conditions of the larger hoophouse but will allow me to rotate my tomato plantings. Of course this entails much more work, but my early tomatoes are worth it!

I learn so much every year and this year is no exception. I am already on my second 50 page field notebook. I take the time to write down everything I see and learn that I think will help me improve next year. As a result, I continue to get better every year. So, rest assured I will do everything I can to ensure a tremendous abundance of tomatoes next year. The poor yield of this year’s tomatoes is very disappointing, but learning to overcome such challenges is also one of the reasons I love to farm. Mercy tells me I am obsessed with vegetables. She may be right, but I think there are worse obsessions in life.

While I am filling you in on our challenges this year, I may as well let you know that we will have a gap of a couple of weeks in our head lettuce production after this week. I switched from transplanting lettuce to direct seeding and I lost track of time and did not plant lettuce seed soon enough, hence the gap in production.

I planted fall crops today and I am so glad to see the rain this evening! I planted winter radish, daikon radish, arugula, choi, lettuce, tatsoi, kohlrabi, turnips, mesclun, beets, rutabaga, and ruby streaks mustard greens.

I have included a couple of pictures of our winter squash blossoms and a very young butternut squash. The plants look good and they appear to have potential. I will spare you all the details of what can go wrong with winter squash. Let’s just hope for the best.

And back to Mercy …

Wow. I’m exhausted after reading Bill’s posting! I usually don’t know this much about what’s going on, and maybe that’s not a bad thing. He usually makes it look so easy!

Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

Head Lettuce
Green Beans
Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Basil
Swiss Chard
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Cucumbers
Carrots
Garlic
Bulb Onions
Leeks
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Okra
Fennel

On Tuesday evenings Bill delivers produce to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington and to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies mid-week, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Please let your friends know about the blog. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Bill Takes to the Air Waves

Hello Friends!

Thanks so much to all who came out for last week’s rainy market! We had an awesome crowd!

Did you hear Bill on the Dean of Green last week? Laura Kennedy and Don Schmidt did a very nice piece on local food. They even interviewed Jackie at the Garlic Press Market Café while she was cooking with local food – you could even hear her Cuisinart chopping up the pesto ingredients! I thought they did a great job, and not just because it featured our farm. Here’s a link to the show: http://www.wglt.org/podcasts/dean_of_green/audio/dog080718.mp3

I also have another link for you to check out: http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/green/chi-evanston-farmer_bdjul20,0,4473050.story
It’s an article from the FRONT PAGE of the Chicago Tribune about local farmer, Henry Brockman. The piece is about Henry charging for his biodegradable bags rather than handing out free plastic bags. As you know, we’re also charging for bags this season (although a dime per bag rather than Henry’s 25 cents for up to 4 bags). It’s been going remarkably well. I’d estimate that we’re still handing out 75% fewer bags as a result. We’ve only had one or two irritated customers – we try to explain to everyone why we’re doing it. The bags are expensive and we’re just covering our cost. Henry also has a great letter on his website about bags if you’d like to check it out: http://www.henrysfarm.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=38&Itemid=62

I’m including photos of our friends Sandy and Annie, the horse and goat next door. They feast on Bill’s compost every week. Have you ever had a horse run straight for you? It’s pretty funny (and not terrifying, because I’m on the other side of the fence!). When Sandy sees me walking to the compost pile with the pail, he just goes nuts. He’s a big fan of carrots, corn husks, and various other green things.

This week’s recipe is my favorite cucumber salad. I have never been a fan of cucumbers because the ones in the store have thick skins and are somewhat bitter. Bill’s are crisp, refreshing, and without a hint of bitterness. This salad is very quick to whip up. I’d say it requires a half hour lead time, and that’s only because the yogurt and cucumbers need to sit for a while.

Cucumber Salad with Tzatziki Sauce

Put 1 cup of yogurt into a fine sieve and allow to drain for 2 hours. (I do it in about half an hour by stirring frequently. That encourages the water to drain out more quickly.)

Peel and dice about a pound of cucumber and then put into a colander. Toss in 1 tsp of salt, and let cucumbers drain for half an hour. Press out excess water, rinse quickly, and blot dry. (I skip this step and then don’t add the following amount of salt.) Mash together 2 cloves or garlic and 2-3 pinches of salt. Combine yogurt, garlic and cucumbers in a bowl along with:
2-3 tsp white wine vinegar
2 tsp chopped mint OR dill (It’s AMAZING with mint, although I’ve made it many times without any fresh herbs.)
Salt and ground pepper to taste

Bill is trying a couple of new things this season: fennel and okra. Here’s what Alice Waters has to say about fennel:

Fennel has celery-like stalks (although more bulbous at the end) covered with feathery leaves topped with umbels of yellow flowers. Its strong characteristic anise flavor goes well with many other flavors, particularly fish. Alice adds the feathery leaves to marinades for fish and to numerous salads, sauces, and soups. It also works as a garnish. Alice frequently slices the bulbs raw into salads, parboils it with pastas, caramelizes it for a side dish, braises it whole, and cooks into broths. You typically peel away the outer layer and eat the white hearts.

Okra is a favorite southern vegetable. I’ll admit to never having eaten it until college, when we bought a bag of frozen okra! It’s a tasty little veggie. Elizabeth Schneider (Vegetables A to Z) describes okra as a bit like eggplant in that its flavor is heavily impacted by the accompanying ingredients. She also says the slippery texture on the inside is balanced well with something more acidic, such as tomato, lemon, and vinegar. It thickens dishes while cooking, which is nice in low-fat recipes. Okra is pretty perishable, so eat it within a couple of days. To prepare okra, just trim off the stems. Elizabeth Schneider’s favorite way to eat okra is steamed with butter.

Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

Head Lettuce
Green Beans
Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Basil
Swiss Chard
Japanese Turnips (white and pink)
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Cucumbers
Carrots
Garlic
Bulb Onions
Leeks
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Okra
Fennel

On Tuesday evenings Bill delivers produce to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington and to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies mid-week, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Please let your friends know about the blog. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison