Yesterday was the Vernal Equinox, meaning the first day of spring! While many of you might be in the throes of spring weather, here in Northern Vermont we still have snow on the ground and flurries coming down. We can expect more snowfall for about another month, although if it does snow, it is not likely to last long. The ground is starting to warm up and with longer days, the sun is out in full force to melt it. Even though on the surface it still looks like winter here, spring has definitely sprung!

Yesterday morning when I was out feeding and watering the chickens, I heard lots of birds singing and squawking in our woods. Little squirrels have been scampering all over the yard and for the last week or so the sun seems brighter and feels warmer. The air is the slightest bit warmer, smelling of spring. In the middle of the night, we were woken to the howls of coyotes, and all the little streams, brooks and maple sap are flowing. These are all portends of spring in this part of the world.

Gardening is still a little more than a month away. Here in our Zone 4 conditions, Memorial Day is often touted as the last danger of frost, and gardening takes over most people’s free time for the rest of the spring. But it is good to start some seeds early.

We are really lucky – we have a beautiful 4 season sun room and last year when we got serious about gardening for food, we bought a grow system, so that we could start seeds indoors while a blanket of snow still covered the garden beds or the danger of frost still loomed. Last year we started our seeds late, because we had just moved at the end of April. So we started some seeds indoors and others we just direct sowed into the ground the first week of May. Other seeds we direct sowed in July when the ground was up to the right temperatures. Unfortunately, our peppers, melons and squash (the ones that need warmer soil) really began to take off as the fall frost was imminent and we lost a lot of those plants, many of which were to be storage crops. So this year, we decided to concentrate our seed starting efforts on those more temperature sensitive plants: tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, melons, squash and herbs. We also started several trays of marigolds – indispensable companion plants to vegetables in an organic garden. This way they will have a much bigger head start!

It only took about 2 hours on Sunday (a week ago) afternoon to get our seeds started. First we mixed the organic compost with water, to get it to a moist consistency. Then we loaded the trays with compost and planted the seeds. We labeled each plant, and placed the trays on the grow shelves. In about 5 days the first bit of green started to shoot out – thyme was first, then a baby pumpkin and some oregano. We are still waiting for the rest to show signs of life!
Last year was the first time we saved seeds. We saved seeds from the best specimens that we ate – the biggest and sweetest tomatoes, and the most tender eggplants. We also saved a lot of marigold seeds, dill seeds and radish seeds – these we need a lot of for companion planting. As for the other plants, we got all of our seeds from High Mowing Seed Company – a local company (they are less than 15 miles from us) who specialize in organic and heirloom seeds. We figured those seeds would do best in our particular zone, since they were also grown in it! We are going to try some different varieties of beets, turnips and carrots, plants that did not perform like we thought they would last year. We also got pepper, melon and squash seeds from them this year, thinking we would have better luck with some hardy varieties grown nearby.

If you are new to gardening, no matter which zone you live in, it is a good idea to start tomatoes indoors first and then harden them off for a few weeks before planting. Tomatoes are very delicate when they are young, and if you put seedling out too soon, they are likely to wilt and die in the heat of the sun. So put them out for an hour or two at a time, working them up to being outside all day before putting them in the ground.

In other exciting news, today is a busy day on the homestead, with spring fighting for dominance over winter skies, we will welcome our two baby Alpine goats home!  This photo was taken about a week ago when we went to Fat Toad Farm, where they were born, to pick them out.  In the picture above, the black colored one is called Claire, and the tawny colored is Astrid. Aren’t they just the cutest?!  This is a long-time dream coming to fruition and we look forward to working with them. If you have not “liked” my facebook page, I suggest that you do – there are a lot more cute goat pictures!

Today is a very exciting day for the Thistlemoon Meadows homestead. We just finished an incredibly delicious farm fresh breakfast – from OUR farm. One of our sweet little hens gave us a very unexpected surprise this week – an egg, and then ANOTHER egg! This came as a surprise, because we were not expecting eggs until late November at the earliest.  They are only a week shy of 5 months, but at least one of them is mature enough to begin laying.

I can’t explain my excitement when I found that first egg. My heart swelled for this flock of birds that we have raised from day-old chicks. We have fed them the best organic feed, which happens to be local, and they feast on grass, clover and other greens as well as bugs, grubs and worms and our kitchen scraps (vegetables).

They have been such a joy to have, especially our special girl, Gimpy. But even the healthy ones all have such personalities and we have so enjoyed their greeting clucks and squawks whenever we  pass by.

I cannot ignore the fact that we are in the middle of harvest season, and as part of that harvest we can now add these eggs. I am just so thankful to our hens and for all the beautiful sun and rain we had this spring and summer that allowed them to have such good quality fresh food. You can tell by the deep color of the yolk. Look at your eggs the next time and take note of the color of the yolk, and how well the egg holds its shape after you crack it open – this will tell you so much about the quality of the eggs that you are buying.

We look forward to more eggs to come. But we wanted to really celebrate these first two. To do so, I made a delicious harvest breakfast – fried eggs, with bacon and kale homefries. The potatoes in the homefries were also from our garden. I served it all with a dollop of homemade ketchup.

Happy Harvest and Hallows to all!

I feel like I have had a more intimate relationship with corn this year than I have before. Corn is prevalent here in Vermont. The roads we drive regularly are lined with them, and so we have seen their growth from start to finish, and finally to harvest.

It is harvest time here in Northern New England. We spent the weekend doing our own harvest – 75 feet of potatoes, yielding just over 35 lbs.of wholesome goodness. We planted 8 varieties of heirlooms this year, with whimsical names such as Purple Viking, Austrian Crescent and Rose Finn Apple. We also harvested the rest of our heirloom tomatoes – Pink Brandywine, Black Krim, Bonnie Best and of course the ever present Romas. We had some cold days, which killed most of them sadly. But we managed to save enough to enjoy over the next few days. We also harvested our bush beans, another 75 feet worth of plants – Black Turtle, Royal Purple and Blue Lake. We haven’t weighed the beans, as they are still in various stages of drying. But it looks like it was a good harvest.

Wednesday is the Autumnal Equinox, the official first day of autumn. Commonly a harvest time in many parts of the world. Living in a northern climate, you certainly feel it in the air. Something has shifted. It is that crispness in the air, mingled with the smell of burning wood, damp earth and rotting leaves. Earthy, pungent and comforting. This kind of weather calls for comfort food, which is where fresh corn chowder comes in. Corn is everywhere, and so now is a good time to stock up for winter, and also enjoy some fresh. But that chill in the air calls for a hearty and warming bowl of steamy goodness – warming you, inside and out.

INGREDIENTS:

1 TBS olive oil
3 slices nitrate-free bacon, chopped
1 small onion, diced
1 small carrot, diced
2 cloves garlic minced
1 cup leftover diced potatoes
4 cups fresh corn off the cob
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp ground cumin
¼ tsp Calabrese ground peperoncini or hot smoked paprika
½ cup white wine – I used Viognier
2 cups stock or water
½ cup plain yogurt
3 TBS butter

METHOD:

In a large pot, or Dutch oven, over medium-high heat sautee the bacon, onion, and carrot in olive oil until onion is translucent. Add the garlic, and pre-cooked potatoes and sautee about 5 minutes. Then add the corn and spices and sautee until corn becomes soft and glistening. Then add the wine, stock or water and bring to a boil. Simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes. Then stir in the yogurt and butter right before serving.

Serves 4-6, depending on portion sizes.

We started our garden about a month late – our moving date was not well timed with the Farmer’s Almanac this year. So now, we are harvesting veggies that everyone else in our area harvested 4-6 weeks ago. In some ways it makes us feel really behind in our gardening, but in another way it is actually good – having a second harvest! The first time around we bought these goodies from the farmer’s market – second time around from our garden!

Less than two weeks ago we got our biggest harvest yet – 5 beets, 10 carrots, fresh herbs and lots of beautiful edible flowers – nasturtium and borage.

FLOWER POWER!

Nasturtium flowers and leaves are edible and have a wonderful peppery flavor. Even the seeds can be pickled – they apparently taste like capers. The flowers are high in vitamin C, and have been used to treat colds. It can also be used topically for bacterial and fungal infections because of its mustard-oil content.

Borage flowers are perhaps one of the only truly found in nature blue foods, beyond blueberries. They have a very sweet taste. The flowers are also rich in minerals, most notably potassium. Medicinally the leaves are often used as support to the adrenal glands and for inflammation. Probably the most well-known use for borage is borage oil. Borage oil is very high in gamma-linolenic acid, GLA. GLA is an essential fatty acid, omega-6 oil. Borage oil supplements are most beneficial for arthritis and chronic dry skin, such as eczema.

We really planted both of these flowers in accordance with companion planting – plants that keep bugs and disease, as well as other garden pests away from the plants you are growing for food. So these plants have a dual purpose. Plus they are very pretty as an edible garnish. My stepdaughter Gwen had never had an edible flower until we served this salad for dinner recently. At first she didn’t want to try them, but after some coaxing, she did, and she really liked them!

I love roasting beets for salads, and pairing them with goat cheese. There is something so good , and not to mention aesthetically beautiful about the combination of goat cheese and beets. So I decided to roast the whole lot, and arrange them on top of fresh greens from the garden, also. As we have been harvesting plenty of those for months now.

This is a perfect dinner salad on a hot summer night, when your family is looking for something light. This would also be a wonderful first course to a summer harvest dinner. It is colorful, delicious and healthy on so many levels!

INGREDIENTS:

5 small beets, cut in half
10 baby carrots
2 TBS fresh rosemary
1 TBS fresh thyme
salt & pepper
olive oil
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp maple syrup
5 cups fresh greens – arugala, red leaf and green leaf lettuces, nasturtium leaves
olive oil to toss the greens in
salt & pepper to season greens
¼ cup goat cheese, crumbled
nasturtium flowers, as garnish
borage flowers, as garnish

METHOD:

Stir the veggies with olive oil, salt and pepper and herbs until well coated. Roast in a preheated 400 F oven for about 45 minutes, turning once halfway through.

In the same bowl, add mustard and maple, dump the roasted veggies in and stir to coat. Then toss the greens with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. Crumble the goat cheese on top, arrange the roasted veggies and the edible flowers. Serves 4 as a main dish.

It has been a few weeks, since I did a homestead update. Mostly because we have been busy with visitors and homestead projects, as well as our real jobs, and work on some other exciting up and coming projects for The Foodie Blogroll! If you would like to see what our visitors think of spending time up here, check out my mom’s blog, Travel Close Up where she has several posts already up about her visit here (and more to come)!

(black bean flower, tomatoes on the vine, lettuces fresh picked, un-ripe raspberries)

Anyway, things have been wonderfully busy. We have been eating greens, lettuces and radishes from our garden with regularity. We have enjoyed cocktails with the few currants our bushes produced this year (there may be a post on that)  and we are excited to see our potatoes, beans and tomatoes thriving – even a few fruits appearing on our raspberry bush.

We cleared two new beds, one for melons and one for winter squashes. We also cleared some more areas in the back of the garden for rutabagas, cabbage, more turnips, carrots, kale and chard.

(our gimp, Non-Pengunio the possible rooster, and the flock enjoying the out of doors)

The peeps, or I should now call them chicks, are all thriving as well. Our runts have gotten their feathers all in, our gimp, is getting along just fine, eating, putting on weight and running around like the rest of them. Our possible rooster, is starting to look more and more possibly like a rooster as the days go by. They have been enjoying time outdoors in their Chicken Tractor and their new favorite treat is daily doses of greens – tops of carrots, radish and turnip greens – that we have an over abundance of. We are looking forward to getting started on their permanent home, the coop, when my dad comes for a visit in a few weeks. We have been really enjoying our Wyandottes and Rhode Island Reds, but all of our Barred Rocks, including the two former runts, have terrible personalities. They peck first and ask questions later, which is all well and good now, but when they are full grown may present a painful problem. So we are a bit bummed about that. But we will see how they mature.

Life is good in Northern Vermont – the heat wave seems to have come and gone, and we are enjoying temps in the 80′s, cool breezes and some summer rains. I am beginning to think that Thistlemoon Meadows is a very appropriate name, as we look out the window often and remark that it looks like we could be in Scotland! Which is not such a bad thing in my book.

Happy Summer to everyone on the Northern Hemisphere!

(I really want to thank our very dear friends Amber AKA Valley Writer, and Mr.ValleyWriter of Adventures in the Pioneer Valley for the beautiful Thistlemoon Meadows sign – here is Amber and I standing behind it! You can check out her post about her visit to Vermont, Visit to the Land of the Locavore, here.)

I have really enjoyed doing these weekly homesteading picture updates, so this is going to be a new regular feature of this blog. We had thought about starting a garden blog, but then decided that gardens and farm animals have everything to do with food – so why not just post about it here! It is going to be really helpful next year to look back at the pictures  and posts to see how the gardens are doing in comparison.

(Clockwise: The flock in their new home, Roberto in the beginning stages of the build, Jenn painting the tractor, middle stage of the tractor, you still need to eat when you are building, Jenn with the flock in their new home!)

We celebrated Summer Solstice in two ways. The first was by finishing a project that we worked on for about a week, from design to getting materials, to building – WE BUILT A CHICKEN TRACTOR! Yep. Our first real construction project, on the homestead, which was prompted by the chicks growing so darn fast!!! We will be building them a coop later in the summer – something bigger, with nesting boxes, and insulated for winter, maybe when my dad comes to visit in August (Dad, if you are reading this, get ready!!!). But we decided on a chicken tractor for now, this way, they have a big space to grow into over the next few months, and then once they are full grown, a few at a time can go out to pasture in it. Sadly though, one of the chicks seems to have hurt her leg, the same day. We did a lot of research on what it could be, and how to fix it, and tried a few different splints and braces which just seemed to make her despondent. Unfortunately it seems that she will either continue to adapt to it (she is doing just fine with it right now), or she won’t and it is probably a genetic pre-disposition.

(Clockwise: chick with hurt leg, the flock on one of their outdoor adventures, big bird on top of the feeder, the flock on one of their outdoor adventures)

The rest of the flock is doing great, even our litter runts. With the bigger space, they are having a blast running around and trying to fly, including our injured one. She is just as wild as the rest, which bodes well for her spirit. We have been letting the birds out a few hours a day on sunny days to get used to being outdoors. Two of our birds have started to become very friendly, and when we open the door to the tractor, they come running over to say hi. We pet them under their beaks and on their chests, and they love it! The injured one has been very good natured, and even started falling asleep in my hands, as we were working on her legs. So keep good wishes for her to continue to adapt, she seems to be a fighter!

(Clockwise: Tomato/Eggplant/Pepper bed, Cucumber/Turnip/Radish/Lettuce bed, All the beds, Potato and Bean field, Currants)

The second thing we did was make our rounds through the gardens and “orchard”, taking pictures. We have already started harvesting lettuces, and it looks like we are just days away from harvesting radishes and currants (only about 3 berries though…). The potatoes and beans, our main crops are going like gangbusters and so far the neem spray and garlic/rosemary/mint infusion have been keeping the critters at bay. Hopefully this weekend we will install fencing, then we can sleep like babies at night.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

I am excited to see growing things popping up everywhere! It is amazing to be seeing the beginnings of the fruits of our labors thus far!

From the top, left to right: apricot tree, chestnut tree, yellow raspberry bush, wild strawberries, currants

Bottom, right to left: elderberry bush, Roberto planting the first potato, (top)potato and bean field (75 feet of each), (bottom)blueberry flowers, lettuces, Jenn playing in the trenches

And the peeps? Growing by leaps and bounds in just their first week of life! We already had to upgrade their living quarters!

Top, from left to right: Peeps new digs, peeps at one week old, (top) peeps, (bottom) Rhode Island Red eating her first mosquito – GOOD GIRL!

Bottom, from left to right: Not our chicks, but our resident birds bundles of fluffy joy, Arwen – the fastest developer, she may be a he, and if so shall be re-named Elrond, (top) a Barred Rock at one week, (bottom)Penguino a Silver Laced Wyandotte at one week, a Rhode Island Red looking pretty!

Hope everyone has a great weekend doing whatever you love to do best!

We have PEEPS! Now it is really starting to feel like a homestead around here!

Not that it hasn’t been homesteady all along. I mean we have been working on our garden for the past several weeks, and that is actually really going well. This past weekend we planted spinach, chard, mache, 2 kinds of carrots, 2 kinds of beets, 3 types of onions, nasturtiums, green peas, lettuces, turnips and radishes. Also sage, rosemary and dill – oh and the ever present marigolds. Garden gems for the organic gardener! Not to mention blueberry, raspberries, elderberry, lingonberry and currant bushes. As well as apricot and chestnut trees. We also have tomatoes, peppers and eggplants growing inside right now. We are doing a companion planting garden, and are really excited to see the tops of beets already emerging, as well as onion starters sprouting and either radishes or turnips starting in less than a week. My stepdaughters were here last weekend and even got in on the action. Thanks Rachel and Gwen!

I joked on facebook earlier that today I connected with my Irish roots earlier, by digging 75 feet worth of potato trenches by hand. Good hard work that will hopefully yield hundreds of heirloom varieties – over 8 different kinds. Those will be going in the ground tomorrow. Then this weekend the hot plants – tomatoes, peppers, cukes and melons. Probably squashes if we can squeeze them in.

It has been non-stop work since we got here 6 weeks ago. But it is so nice to see how much we have accomplished – all for an important end -FOOD.

But today was the day I have really been waiting for!!!  My first livestock! A recent passion that has just been growing since we got out to the country. I placed my order for peeps 4 weeks ago – just weeks after arriving. I was not  messing around. I got 3 different varieties – Rhode Island Reds, Barred Rocks and Silver Laced Wyandottes (which I was told not to expect, so I only ordered 2) I ended up getting all, including the Wyandottes, but not the rooster I had ordered. We were expecting them tomorrow, but they arrived a day early. So we spent a rushed hour putting the final touches their brooder, where they will stay for the next 3-4 weeks, until it is consistently warm enough for them to be outside in their coop that we have yet to build. Just another project to do here on the farm!

When you get peeps, you have to show them how to drink water by dipping their beaks into the water. When we got them home, they enjoyed the first water and food of their lives, having been born yesterday morning, immediately packed into boxes and shipped out. So we really are raising them by hand. Such a privilege. I hope they enjoy their life at Thistlemoon Meadows!