A One Apple Farm!

This summer has been an adventure in wonky weather - as you have read in my earlier posts!  We had a regular Late May warm spell that we thought indicated that Spring has sprung - but alas- not so fast!  After about two weeks of great weather, the apples bloomed, the cherries blossomed (those that weren't still under snow), and we thought we were on our way to a banner year for fruit at Wicked Raven!  Sadly - it dropped down to well below freezing for a week solid, and froze everything solid.  Many of the fruit trees went false dormant and did not recover for the whole summer - I have cared for them and am hopeful that they will come back out next summer.

This is the lone apple from Wicked Raven this year!  It is a Westland and it is the first fruit that this tree has produced.  This particular tree is in its second year at Wicked Raven and so is well established.  The Westlands are super hardy - I got this one because a couple of years ago - three to be exact - we began "baby sitting" our "Grand Dog" - Brix.  Brix is Rye's dog and when he would go to the North Slope for work for two weeks at a time we would often watch the dog.  We have him full time now.  Another reason we have to get out of bed in the morning - like it or not.  

I mentioned it in an earlier blog, one of the times we were keeping Brix - he was only about 6 months old or so - I was planting the first Westland apple tree - I had the hole dug, the compost in, watered and had the tree in the hole ready to bury.  All of a sudden I heard a commotion near the house and I see Brix running at full speed ahead towards me.  I braced myself - steeling myself and flexing my knees - ready to jump out of the way or at least not have him take my legs out from under me.  Away he went past me at full speed and I looked and peered and braced myself for whatever was chasing him - there was nothing.  What the heck?  I turned back to my tree planting only to find the whole tree gone!!!

 Brix had run past me and stole the whole tree and was out at the end of the yard!  By the time I got there he had chewed the tree in half and had eaten part of it even!  With a sad heart I planted the little stump of a tree - and it lived!  So I ordered another Westland.  The one shown above is the second tree.  Hale and Hearty with one lone apple upon it!  Its little stump of a brother is still alive and trying to grow toward the sky - it will be a few years before it recovers enough to produce though I fear!

.

Above is the beautiful Westland Apple next to two Early Girl tomatoes out of the greenhouse for size comparison.  My dad has a Westland at Snowfire Gardens and his got bigger than this but his has produced before and his first apples were small also.  They are tasty though!  This apple was tart and crisp and juicy!  A perfect lunch apple or for anything you might want to do - I am wishing I had a bushel of them for Halloween - they would be great caramel apples!

And so I continue to go forward with faith because I was able to produce this lone apple!  Stay tuned - Ill update you on the Wicked Cherries soon and we got a ton of those!  

A little Halloween Fun!

Halloween is my favorite time of year - I know its not a "regular" holiday but here at Wicked Raven it is a holiday!  We have so much fun and so many fun memories from Halloween - with everyone in the family!  Even my mother in law gets INTO it.  She has been making Halloween Ghosts for as long as I have known her and it is always fun to make them and then see how many she gets to give away that year.  I think the record was 104. They are fun and easy to make and fun to give away!

All you need is a couple of bags of Tootsie Pops or Blow Pops, a box of tissues, a sharpie marker and some colored yarn or ribbon - I like to use fall colors.

Draw a face on the tissue - sometimes I do this after I have the tissue on the blow pop - works either way.  Draw spooky, silly or smiley faces - they are all fun!

Drape the tissue over the Blow Pop....

Gather it at the base of the pop (the neck of the ghost) and tie it up with your ribbon or yarn.  Just make a simple knot or you can make a bow of some type too if you want to be fancier!

Enjoy handing them out to the kids (or grownups) in your neighborhood!  Trick or treat-ers love them and since they are still individually wrapped they arent too scary for the parents either!

Have a Wicked Happy Halloween!

A Ploughmans Lunch

My greenhouse did very well this year in spite of the crappy weather and the gloomy cloud cover.  It really was my best cucumber year ever!  I had really great success with pickle cukes and this year for the first time in a long time I got to make the quick pickles that my grandmother used to make.  They are super simple and you can make a little or a lot at a time.

Start with at least 2 or 3 pickle cukes, I slice mine into rounds about 1/8^th inch thick (Ill tell you why in a minute) or you can cut them into spears.  I also slice some carrots into sticks to put in as well.  It adds some fun color and they are tasty as well.

Layer your cukes and carrots into whatever size jar you have chosen to use - place either fresh or dry dill in between the layers of veg – I have used both and it works well with either.   I use a mix of jar sizes since they aren’t going in the pressure cooker and  I like to use wide mouth best as it makes the pickles easier to get out of the jar.  Pack them in pretty good as they loosen up when the brine goes in.

In a saucepan heat 3 C of Vinegar, 2 Tbsp. of coarse sea salt ( I like the pink but any will do), ½ tsp celery seed,  1 tsp. mustard seed, ½ tsp turmeric, ¼ tsp chili flakes or white pepper,  and ¼ to ½ C. sugar (I use less since my people like them more dill and less sweet).

 Heat to just boiling and then pour the brine over the vegetables to completely cover the them.  

Put the lids on them and refrigerate immediately until cool.  The jars will usually seal themselves 

but it is best to leave them in the fridge for storage.

These make a beautiful hostess gift as well.  Such a pretty jar!

I like to make them as a sliced pickle because a favorite snack at our house is sort of a ploughmans lunch -usually cheese, pickle and bread– we make it on a cracker with sharp white cheese (you can use whatever cheese you like though) and then a slice of pickle on top of that.  To make a meal out of it add some apple slices and a little ham.  It’s a great farm lunch and it’ll help to keep you sturdy and regular!

Enjoy!

Houston High and the huge Hose

It has been a strange year in the Valley where Wicked Raven Farm is located.  We have had some of the strangest weather that I ever remember having.  What started out as the coldest spring we have had in five years turned in to the coldest and clammiest summer that I can remember ever.  Even though we didn’t set records for rain it was cloudy and gloomy.  Like I always imagine London might be the way it is described in some of the tv shows.

That being said – we didn’t always have the rain we needed to water things and we still had to haul out the hoses.  And at the Houston High School Garden that means 400 feet of hose!  

Do you know how much 400 feet of hose weighs?  A ton!  We ended up spooling it in to a wheelbarrow and hauling it across the parking lot that way so that we could water and refill the rain barrels at the garden.  We are working with the welding group to see if we can develop a hose reel that will hold the whole shebang.  Its in the works.

Above left is about 3/4 of the distance between the garden and the school.  Above right is the hose in the wheelbarrow ready to spool out to the hose bib - at the school in the background.  Its right in the corner of the school that you can see.

We are also well drillers – yes- that is also one of my jobs.  Drill a well at the garden you say?  Yes!  That would be ideal but NO! says the company who’s gas lines run under the garden, and NO says the school district and NO says the State separation guidelines.  And all with good reason.

First of all, the garden is situated in a gravel corner of the school property, out back that used to be the school snow dump area.  The snow plow guys from the school were kind enough to work with us when we first started the garden to move the snow dump area to another location that works for everyone and our garden area will only be used as a snow dump in extreme snow years – when the other one gets full.  A snow dump is where the snow from plowing the parking lots at the school gets dumped and stays there in mounds sometimes until the middle of summer here – depending on how much there is and how warm the year is.  It can be a long lasting yard full of snow.

The reason it is a gravel area that was an open space in the first place is that it is a Gas line (main line) easement that runs along the inside of the fence here at the school.  We cannot put anything permanent on top of the area where the gas line runs directly, and certainly a well cannot be drilled there.  We have some of our tire tomato planters, our soil mixing station and our storage cabinet against that part of the fence, all of which can be moved fairly easily around the garden if it should need to be.

Secondly, there is a septic station for the school that is only about 100 feet from the garden area, and it’s a big one.  A well could not be drilled that would be outside the gas line easement and also outside the separation distance for the septic station – there is just not room.  And yes, this is the best spot for the garden, where moose can’t get easily to it, and kids still can, and it is within a camera view – for those little vandals when they get fired up – which has happened!

And lastly, we have drilled another well on the school property – for the baseball field sprinkler system.  If you didn’t already know it, Houston High has one of the nicest baseball fields in the State.  Almost all of it was made via donations and in kind work.  The Kramer Family, the Ruta Family, and us – Ace Water Wells – to name a few – and if you get a chance come on out for a game in the spring!

So for now we haul hose in the wheelbarrow, and we plan for the future where we will have a greenhouse and rain catchment system to assist us with our watering and go along with the hoses.  As always - things are a work in progress!  Happy Gardening and Happy Fall!