Finally taming the wild loofah.

    Early in the Spring of last year, we decided to once again try to grow loofahs. We have tried to grow them in the past but the season was just not long enough. This time we planted the seed in four-inch peat pots and started them under grow lights.They are easy to start from seed and we soon had a flat full of lush loofahs. Trying not to get too excited after all we had been at this point before, We installed four cow panels into an arch. The baby loofahs were soon nestled in close to the arch as soon as the weather was warm enough and all danger of frost had passed.  Well, the days passed, warm wonderful days filled with sunshine, warm rain fell on them, birds sang and the bees buzzed. The loofahs sat and sat and sat not one new leaf nothing. Were we to be disappointed once again?  All of a sudden the plants seemed to take off! We don't know if they over heard us discussing pulling them up and planting pole beans or if that is just the common loofah behavior.  However, they took off like crazy. If you watched you could almost see them growing. They were vining skyward at an unbelievable rate. Soon the loofahs reached the top of the arch but still, they climbed up and over them went passed the arch and were grabbing the tomato cages. We tried looping them back over the arch.  But loofahs are bold and wild there is no telling them where to grow. They were the rebellious teenagers of the garden not paying our good ideas about what was best for them any attention. Like having teenagers you just have to deal with them. Soon they were covered with bright yellow blooms and lots of bees. The bees loved the loofah blooms! Then we noticed tiny loofahs that grew and grew soon we had some very large loofahs. We were thrilled.!  We were able to get a large number of these wonderful gourds. We picked some green they make a softer sponge. Most we picked after they had started to change color from green to a darker brown.  Some we dried and will use in the shower. Others were cut into smaller pieces for dish washing. We also made gardeners soap out of some of them.  They have really come in handy. We look forward to growing more of them next year. 

Lots of loofahs

Lots of yellow loofah blooms

Wild tomato grabbing

More

Covering the arch

Dried loofahs

Loofa sponges. Peeled, seeds removed and washed.

The perfect picture painting for us

    This is a picture that was painted by Lynne Jaindl for Grand. Lynne is a wonderful artist from Macon Ga. It's a painting of a picture from the blog. We think the chicken wire behind the glass is a nice touch.  Summer Rose loves her polka dot boots and now they have been immortalized in art forever. We can't wait to get our old farmhouse remodeled and find just the right place for this adorable painting. Thank you, Lynne!!!

A blast from the Summer Past

       This past summer we had a harvest of beautiful peppers. They are very easy to grow and don't take a lot of care. We put them in the ground and they took off growing. Peppers like a rich soil with lots of organic matter. They looked great growing in the garden. Pepper plants also make a nice addition to your flower beds. They blend nicely with brightly colored flowers. We did have to keep them watered late in the summer because the rain stopped for a while. We only added fertilizer one time in the spring. Most peppers start to produce in about seventy days, some a few days more some less. Once they get started making peppers, and they produced tons of peppers. We planted four kinds of peppers Corno Di Torro Rosso, Marconi Red, Small Purple Bell Peppers, and a Yellow Bell Pepper. We loved the bright colors of all of these wonderful peppers. We enjoyed them all summer long and into the fall. Grand also put jar after jar in the freezer. Some she chopped into small bits, some she sliced into strips and others she put up as whole peppers. There are many things you can make with peppers such as casseroles, soups and stews, tacos, pepper steak, and even stuffed peppers. But the recipe we are going to focus on today is Tacos!!!

                              

                               Grand's Awesome Tacos

                                              Ingredients

1. A pound of Ground Beef

2 A cup of chopped onion

3. A cup of chopped bell peppers

4. 1 14 ounce cans of tomato

5. 3 cans of different kinds of beans, your choice (garbanzo beans, black beans, great northern beans  whatever kind of beans you like )

6. About a cup of canned or frozen corn

7. 2 tsp of garlic powder

8. 2 tsp of cumin

9. 2 tsp of chili powder

10. salt and pepper to taste

                                       Instructions

Brown ground beef add onion and bell peppers cook till soft. Then stir in tomatoes, beans, and corn. Add garlic, cumin, chili powder, and salt and pepper. Cook over low heat about 10 min. or longer. The longer you let it simmer that better the flavors will blend. We have used this recipe for tacos, enchiladas, nachos and even topping for taco salad.  

                                                       Hints from Grand

 If you like you may use an envelope of taco mix. We like to use dried beans in this recipe. Grand cooks up a package of beans and then freezes them in jars. If you want more meat use two pounds of meat and cut back on beans. Taste this as you cook, some canned beans have more salt than others. We don't like hot foods but you can spice this up with jalapeno peppers or hot sauce. There are no rules here add whatever you like green onions or add some leftover rice or maybe throw in some summer squash.  
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Our delicious taco delight

A close up of our peppers

Beautiful colorful peppers

Low tunnel fail

     We have had a major fail on the farm. This fall we decided to invest in a low tunnel hoop bender and then used the bender to bend electrical conduit into low tunnel hoops.We also ordered one of their frost covers. When we started forming the low tunnels using our new bender we were thrilled. The bender worked great and we plan on ordering different sizes. We mounted the bender to an old wooden shipping crate that we found in a shed. Making the hoops went really fast and they turned out perfect. We were hoping to use the hoops with the frost cover to extend the growing season at the farm. We used ten-foot electrical conduit to make hoops about four feet tall and used these to cover over our Brussel sprouts. We used five-foot conduit to make a tunnel about two and a half feet tall.

This size we used over our broccoli plants. The tunnels worked well and the plants did great under them. We wired our hoops to fence posts we had driven into the ground and we will try wooden boards next time. Then, we covered the hoops with our frost cover.

We then lined the sides with our many rocks to hold the frost cover in place. It all looked so good and we were very happy with our work. Then, Mother Nature showed out with rain and high winds. The next morning we found out that one of our frost covers had blown over. Well, blown might be and understatement, the cover over the Brussel sprouts had blown completely over, hoops and all, only the rocks had kept the frost cover from blowing into the next county. Our farm is in a valley between the mountains and the valley acts like a wind tunnel. The cover that blew over was facing sideways with the side taking the wind full force and was about 4' tall. We decided to take down this cover so that it didn't blow over again.
We hope the Brussel sprouts can take the cold. The frost cover that didn't blow over was facing into the wind and was only about 2' tall. We didn't stick the hoops to far in the ground because we knew we would take them up, but we thought we had them deep enough to resist the wind. We were obviously wrong.
We will keep you updated on how the uncovered Brussel sprouts do. We are going to use our hoops to grow earlier in the spring. We are going to work with mother nature and line up our tunnels differently next time. We have learned a lot.  If you use low tunnels please let us know how you anchor them to the ground. We ordered our bender from a company called Build My Own Greenhouse.com. We were very happy with this company and will continue to order from them. They also sell greenhouse supplies. We hope we will soon be able to build a greenhouse.

Visit to the Farm Museum

  On Saturday we went to the old Appalachian Farm Museum. The Museum is made up of old farm buildings, that would have otherwise been torn down, and combined them into to one "farm". All of the buildings were saved from actual old farms in the surrounding area.

     The first  building is an old farmhouse that is similar to our house at Sweet Summer Farm.  It is called the Davis House. It was built by John E. Davis. He started building it in 1899. He had been farming in the area for about ten years. He spent about two years building his new home. He built this house for his family, his wife and his seven children. His last three children were born in that house.  Mr. Davis built his house out of logs even though  sawmill-lumber was readily available. Davis built his house using a technique called matched logs. It is where you take a log that is hewed flat on two sides, then split in half along its length to produce two building logs. They were then used in "matching" positions on opposite walls.


 An old smoke house is also on display. The smoke house was usually the closest building to the house not because of easy access, but just to be able to keep it safe from wild animals. Most families raised hogs. The hogs could have many large litters each year and could be turned out to forage in the near by woods. The meat could be preserved with salt and smoke and keep for long periods of time. This would help ensure the family's meat supply.

 The wood shed is a replica of the Davis shed.  They also  had an Ash Hopper. Ash Hoppers were used to store ashes from stoves and fireplaces  I bet most people have never seen one. Ashes were used to control some pests in the garden. But most important the ashes were used to produce lye so that they could make soap.
 
    They also had a corn crib, except theirs wasn't leaning to one side like ours. But we learned that the style of corn crib we have was a corn crib and gear shed combination. Corn was a very useful crop to grow. First of all, you could eat it cooked, you could dry it and grind it up to make cornmeal out of it, you can make it into hog, chicken, horse, any kind of animal food, and you could also trade it for other goods.

    They had an apple house that was used to store their apples in the winter. Apples were a great thing to grow in the mountains because the cooler climate in the mountains made for better growing conditions for the apples. Also, apples provided many different uses you can eat them, you could make them into apple cider, apple vinegar, apple sauce, apple butter, and of course apple pies. Also, apple slices could be dried to use later. Some would also use sulfur smoke to help preserve them. t
The sulfur smoke would get rid of any bacteria. Where the apple house originally was built into the side of a mountain which would keep the apples protected from hot summers and cold winters, and also because from the hill you could just walk right into the top floor! They stored the apples in the apple house until they took them to market.

      Then we saw some bee gums. Honey was a very useful thing to have on a farm. It is a great sweetener, It could replace sugar if you didn't have any. You could also trade or sell honey. Black Gum trees were most commonly used because they were usually hollow. They were called "bee gums" because of they had hinged lid and a wooden bottom. Which were storage containers called "gums" to store food and other goods. We hope to get bees at our farm next year, but I think we will go with traditional bee hives   

      There is also a beautiful old barn, a blacksmith shop, a springhouse, gardens with interesting fences, and of course a chicken coop.  We really enjoyed going through the displays inside and the gift shop. If you get the chance you should visit the Mountain Farm Museum. It is located just outside of Cherokee NC on the way to Gatlinburg TN                                                                                                                  

Appalachian Farmhouse

Big old barn

The ash hopper

The bee gums

The smoke house

The empty garden just some herbs on the edge next to the fence

An old chicken coop

 Apple house

An interesting fence design

 Old corn crib that is the same style as the one on our farm

The old blacksmith shop

 Old spring house

Fixing up our old barn

          Our barn is quite old and was not in the best shape. There had been some previous repairs, but let's just say they were not the best. Also, the barn had no plumbing or electricity, so we decided to change that. Last week we started our repairs. We got our friend Fernando to  help, which means he did almost all of it. The first thing we did was fix up a corner of the barn that was leaning. When we started taking some of the boards off  the whole corner dropped about four inches. We had to jack it up to repair it, all that was holding it up was the siding. The support beams were completely rotted on the ends and the bottom support beam was so rotted that you could just rake the pieces out with your hand. We had to buy new support beams but we were able to reuse some of the siding from our shed we tore down so that our barn still had the same look from the outside. We also decided that we needed to run electricity to the barn and put in some lights. If we forget to shut up the chickens and it gets dark we can turn on the lights from inside the house. The lights will make a trip out to the chicken coops much safer, we don't have to fumble around with a flashlight. We also decided that we should run water to the barn so that we don't have to go to the faucet on the house or drag over the garden hose. Having water at the barn  makes giving the chickens and ducks water much easier, Also when we get more animals such as goats it will be easier to give them water too. In order to run electricity and plumbing to the barn, we had to dig a deep and long trench from the house to the barn.  Fernando said the job would be much easier if we rented a ditch witch. It is a big machine that can dig a deep narrow trench so that we could lay down all the pipe and wiring underground. We spent a long time trying to figure out where the pipes and wiring ran back to the house from the well. The last thing we wanted was to hit pipes and wiring with the ditch witch.  When we were confident we had a clear path to the barn we fired up the ditch witch. We had gone only about three feet when the trench began to fill with water. Yep! you guessed it we had hit the pipe from the well!!! Of course, we also cut through the wiring! I mean why just do plumbing repairs when you can repair electrical as well. Don't most people have to stop their plans to repair what they mess up. It seems like we always do.  After a trip to the hardware store and more hours of work than we had planned on we now have water and lights at a barn that does not lean as much as it did. There are still a lot of repairs to do on the barn, but this is a great start. We are always so happy when things are getting fixed up around the  farm. We would love hearing about your barn repairs and welcome any advice.

Grand's Apple Pie

Grands apple pie is awesome. It's great anytime of the year but really good in the fall made with fresh local apples. Grand has been making this pie for over forty years. It's definitely a family favorite.

Ingredients    
4 to 6 cup of sliced apples
1 cup of sugar
3 tablespoons of cornstarch
3 tablespoons of frozen orange juice concentrate
1 teaspoon of  grated nutmeg
2 piecrusts

Directions
1.Mix together the sugar and the cornstarch set side

2.Mix your frozen orange juice concentrate with your nutmeg

3.Gently stir orange juice concentrate and nutmeg mixture into  the apples

4.Sprinkle the sugar and cornstarch mixture on top of your apple mixture and stir

5.Place your bottom pie crust in your pie plate and pour filling into your pie plate and place your top pie crust over your filling

6.Then crimp your pie crust however you like, and cut several small cuts in the top.

7.Bake at 375 for 45 minutes

                                                        Hints from Grand

Check out our pie crust recipe Grands Best Pie Crust Ever recipe. Grands favorite way to seal the two pie crusts together is to just use a fork. You just have to take your fork and press the two pie crusts together, all the way around the pie. Grand also likes to brush the top of the pie with a beaten egg white and sprinkle it with sugar. It makes for a very pretty pie.

Growing Peanuts in North Georgia

  Early in the spring, we planted a small patch of peanuts. Peanuts are a big crop in Ga, as I am sure many of you know former president Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer. They grow really well in south GA ,we thought we would just see how they would do in the north GA mountains. Honestly, we did not have a lot of hope for them, but we were surprised. When we dug our plants we were delighted to find quite a few peanuts. There are not enough to keep us in peanut butter for the next year, but hey we are going to enjoy having  a nice big pot of boiled peanuts. Peanuts need a long growing season. We started ours inside under grow lights. They came up and grew great, but when we transplanted them into the garden they wilted badly. Thankfully they soon recovered and grew at a steady pace. Peanuts like sandy loose, and well-drained soil to grow, but you can still grow them in clay soil. Which was perfect for us because we don't have anywhere near sandy soil. Peanuts go through a process called pegging which means that they have runners underground that also produce peanuts. The plants don't just produce peanuts at the crown of the plant. It all depends on the variety and in what conditions they are grown in but they should produce about 25 to 50 peanut pods. We planted our peanuts in a small square "peanut patch" which was actually to small for them. We still got a good harvest, though. Next year instead of a small patch we plan on making a long rectangular three-foot wide row. We are thinking about plowing in some sand and compost into the row before we plant Peanuts plants grow to be 12 to 18 inches tall and up to three feet long. So you should space your rows about 36 inches apart. If you don't want to start the seeds inside and then transplant them then you plant the seeds directly into the ground. If you do so you need to make sure that it has been three weeks after the last frost and the temperature of the soil is above 60 degrees. You should plant your seeds just shy of 2 inches deep, and 4 to 6 inches apart. We eventually saw small yellow blooms and that means they've started making peanuts. After a long wait, they were finally ready. There is no sure sign to tell when they're ready, that we know of. Just look on your seed package and it will tell you the number of days till  mature.  Otherwise, you will just have to dig one of them up and see if your peanuts are ready to eat. It is really fun to grow peanuts, we enjoyed them this year. If you have not tried growing peanuts give them a try it might turn out better than you had hoped.

Just a small sample of our peanut crop.

Whole peanut plant

Peanuts growing on plant base

Peanuts that grew along the stem, they grow underground. 

The plant sends out little roots that grow into the ground and make peanuts !