Real Food Farm Truck Rocked B-E Today

The Real Food Farm Truck is back on Wednesdays at GSB from 3:30 to 4. It was a great turn out of customers that had a great variety of produce to choose from. Tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, turnips, beets, and fantastic greens.

The mustard greens and arugula are rockin' spicy. I am going to try a twist on an old favorite sandwich of mine - the BLT. Instead of lettuce I am going to use mustard greens! C'mon baby light my fire...

See ya at the RFF truck next Wednesday!

Real Food Farm and Front Porch Farmers in Belair-Edison

The Real Food Farm truck begins visiting Belair-Edison at The Green School of Baltimore this Wednesday. The truck will be parked in our parking lot at the corner of Brendan and Cardenas from 3:30 to 4 pm. We are very excited to have their new truck of fresh, local, seasonal food back at GSB!

All of the Front Porch Farmers now have their second round of container farms. All of our farmers now have cool weather seeds and transplants. I was excited to see the waining peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes still on the vine - they are all going to taste so good!

Bon Appétit!

Still hot and muggy - beautiful zinnias

It is the end of September and it is still very hot, sticky, muggy, wet

Sweet finds in the garden

I did a lot more cleaning in the gardens today. With the help of the 5th grade class we found another 5 cucumbers, bunches of peppers, tomatoes, and strawberries. The thing I love about ever-bearing strawberries is that they are ever-bearing and we are still, and will be until the first frost, eating strawberries! The strawberries spread an incredible amount in their new home this year. And, one very over-ripe cucumber was as big as a butternut squash and off-yellow in color. Edible? Don't know!

The canoe garden is cleaned out and ready for a new round of planting. All of the Front Porch Farm containers are prepped and ready for distribution.

BUGS program Chili Sauce

This is a great video by the kids at Living Classrooms BUGS program and Wide Angle Youth Video for making chili sauce! Check it out!

http://www.vimeo.com/14776103

Onions and Garlic sets and cover crops

Onion and garlic sets arrived at Meyers Seed Company yesterday. We had good luck with white and yellow onions last year and will be overwintering both this winter. We had bad luck again last year with garlic, but will try again this year.

We will also plant spinach, radishes, lettuce, swiss chard, and turnips. Other parts of the garden will receive cover crops consisting of annual rye, hairy vetch, and crimson clover.

Friday is the first day of fall!

A day in the grow room

We started pansies today to overwinter. I am going to try both the transplants and direct seed for overwintering to see how they both do. I also started swiss chard, which I will also try as a transplant and direct seed.

I also bought Champion radishes for direct seeding, but as I was reading the package it said they do well in containers too. So I immediately thought that I could use them in our Front Porch Farmer's containers. I was also curious to see how they might grow indoors. I have planted a couple of seeds in 4" transplant containers just to see what may happen.

Tomorrow is the BelHAIR Festival from 12 - 2 pm at the corner of Belair Rd. and Erdman Ave. Stop by and have some fun!

A clean garden, a clean slate

I've really enjoyed the fall and winter growing seasons the last two years. There is something satisfying about growing food when it is cool and cold...

We went and saw Cintia Cabib's "A Community of Gardeners" at the Creative Alliance last night. It was a very well done documentary about community gardens and gardeners in Washington D.C.. Though we use our gardens daily at GSB, it was nice to step back a be reminded of all the cool reasons to gardens and produce food as well as community. Gardens really do bridge gaps that may not have easy vehicles for bridging those gaps. Check it out - www.communityofgardeners.com

While the 5th grade was out taking measurements of the gardens I pulled up all the spent warm weather plants and squished a bunch of harlequin bugs! The harlequin's like the horseradish and spinach - argh! There was a harvest of tomato, sweet pepper, hot pepper, eggplant, okra, cucumber, and sunflowers. The birds have been eating ALOT of sunflowers seeds!

I just returned from Meyer Seed company and bought the following seeds: Pansy, beet, carrot, swiss chard, collards, kale, bibb lettuce, romaine lettuce, white chinese radish, and mustard. Can't wait to get planting. The radish and beets are said to be good in containers too, so I'll give them a try in there too. Meyer didn't have onion or garlic sets in yet.

I love the Meyer shopping experience. If you have never been you must go. They are at the corner of Caroline and Fleet in Fell's Point - check them out!

Cooler Temperatures = Cooler Crops!

The Belair-Edison Front Porch Farmers received their first installment of fall crops today. Each farmer received spinach or sugar-snap peas transplants and sugar-snap pea and spinach seeds. The farmers also received instructions for transitioning their farms from warm weather crops to cool weather crops.

All of the farmers also received a pre-measured dry mix of Miracle-gro for mixing one-gallon of liquid feed. Instructions were also left for going Urganic or staying Organic. Our farmers will be receiving a second container that will include cool weather leafy vegetables, onion and garlic sets as well as pansies for winter color, beauty and as a early spring pollinator attractor.

We continue to transition the garden at GSB from warm weather to cool weather crops. Okra, eggplant, tomatoes and peppers (sweet and hot) are still coming in. We will be starting spinach, chard, lettuces, onions, garlic, and pansies in the coming days and weeks. I'm sure we will find some interesting cool weather crop to experiment with!

Also, the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange Annual Heritage Harvest Festival is this week-end in Virginia at a certain ex-President's home known as Monticello. It is cool and worth a road trip if you have never been. Look it up!

On the eve of a tragic anniversary...

Tomorrow is the 10 year anniversary of 9-11-2001.

I'm was an Air Force Aerospace Medical Technician and I am a Cold War veteran. For four years, I traveled around the world with and medically supported the 355th Tactical Fighter Squadron that flew A-10s out of Myrtle Beach, S.C.. At home at Myrtle Beach AFB, we practiced mass casualty exercises in case a civilian aircraft ever crashed on the runway we shared with commercial civilian flights, and were one of the first on the scene when one of our A-10s actually went down.

I saw my fair share of sacrifice, injury, pain, death and sorrow as well as deep patriotism and dedication to duty during our own missions and continuous preparation and practice for whatever an enemy might present the U.S.. And even with that, I still to this day, have a hard time wrapping my head around the pain caused for the people of those lost and the people of the USA and the people of the rest of the free world that day.

Kate and I are riding in the memorial ride around the Baltimore beltway tomorrow and it will surely be a day of deep reflection and remembrance.

Earthquake, Hurricanes, historic flooding...

What farmers have to do to create food!? What a last few weeks. We ended up with upward of 10 inches of rain at GSB. Our summer crops are holding up, but the tomatoes are literally busting at the seams with all this EXTRA water. The fall crops are enjoying the water, and I'm sure the new sugar-snap peas seedlings will enjoy next week's fall like weather.

Our Belair-Edison Front Porch Farmers have yet to receive their second boxes, but we have started some fall crops indoor for them. This coming week I will be delivering sugar-snap peas as well as onion and garlic sets and instructions on how to start to transition the Farms from summer to fall and winter crops.

Going Urganic

I posted this idea earlier in the month, but it has disappeared. So, here it is again.

We are going Urganic. Urganic is the concept of working toward being organic, but allows for the use of non-organic fertilizers. No pesticides and no herbicides will be used. We will practice as many organic practices as possible.

I found this year that our production isn't as high as it could be. We also started front porch farms in containers through out Belair-Edison that were all organic and also had minimal to no production.

In addition to being all organic, we were largely heirloom. I don't know how much of that combination played into our lack of optimal production.

So, Urganic we go. A little miracle-gro and some osmocote. The plants don't know the difference and the end product is safe to consume. Any fertilizer can be improperly applied, but when properly applied all fertilizers feed plants and will have no affect on local waterways.

So, I'm building this boat...

and I need a bunch of pairs of animals! Just kidding, but how about ALL this rain. Our sugar-snap peas are up in the garden and we have started a second planting.

Tomatoes are still coming in, peppers are doing well, and eggplants are ready to be harvested. We have a second watermelon which should be ready soon. We harvested our two pumpkins and six birdhouse gourds.

I'll be pulling the pumpkin and birdhouse gourd vines. We will be planting cool weather crops soon.

Enjoy all this liquid sunshine!

September 1st

Wow, I really notice the days getting shorter now. 8 o'clock and more dark than not... We are expecting a warmer than normal week-end so that will help the veggies keep producing.

Next week we will start some more outdoor cool weather crops. I am going to plant spinach in with the sugar-snap peas and see how they coexist. All of the indoor starts are up. I look forward to them getting their first set of true leaves, and them some size.

I didn't catch that mouse last night, but he/she ate well!