Today at YellowTree Farm

Lately we've been plugging away at starting our seedlings.  Today we started some red celery and asparagus chicory seeds.

Today at YellowTree Farm from YellowTree_Farm on Vimeo.

In Season: Bamboo Shoots

At YellowTree Farm, we're big on gleaning and foraging.  Open your eyes; there's plenty of food all around us just going to waste. Bamboo shoots are in season right now, and we're selling plenty of them at the Maplewood Farmer's Market.  Fresh, springtime bamboo shoots are considered a delicacy all over Asia, and they're an excellent source of fiber, protein, vitamin C, potassium, vitamin E, and iron.  

If you're already a fan of the frozen or canned bamboo shoots available in grocery stores or in your delivery of Asian takeout, you simply must try our locally foraged fresh version.  Just peel back the outer layers until you come to the tender, bright green insides.  Slice them up, boil or sauté them with some salt and oil, and you've got a hyper-local side dish to any meal.

Fall Project: Microgreens

At YellowTree Farm, we're always thinking of ways to remain productive during the colder months.  Late last summer, we decided our cold-weather project this year should be growing microgreens.  

Microgreens are a tiny form of edible greens produced from the seeds of vegetables, herbs or other plants.  They're used in a variety of ways, including as salad components and as garnishes.  Microgreens can have surprisingly intense flavors considering their diminutive size, making them perfect as a flavor accent.

Their tiny size makes them nutrient-dense - all the energy it takes to grow from seed to full-size vegetable is packed inside these tiny greens.   Microgreens are often higher in protein, phyto-chemicals, vitamins and minerals than their full-size veggie counterparts.  

We offer them to chefs in custom blends.  The varieties we grow include:  arugula, beet, brocooli, carrot, Chinese heading mustard, chrystanthemum shungiku, collard greens, fennel, fenugreek, leeks, mizuna, onion, pac choi, purple kohlrabi, radish, red mustard, red Swiss chard, tatsoi, and Tokyo bekana.  Keep an eye out for our microgreens at your local restaurant.  

'Tis the Season for Tomatoes

Not only did our Matt's Wild Cherry win highest brix at yesterday's The Good, The Big, & The Ugly Tomato Festival, but our tomatoes are also featured in this month's Sauce Magazine, on stands now. Check out the stunning photos of our tomatoes taken by Greg Rannels.

Can it, already

Only a week left until Justin's canning class at Kitchen Conservatory. Join Justin for a hands-on tutorial on canning as a way of preserving summer's bounty all year round. He'll teach how to make a decadent-yet-healthy tomato sauce, how to pickle fresh corn, and how to preserve cipollini onions in balsamic vinegar and French walnut oil. Everyone taking the class gets to go home with a jar of canned goodness. The class is next Sunday, July 25, from 12:30-3:30. Find out more and register here.

Tomato Spotlight: Matt's Wild Cherry

Out of all the tomato varieties we're growing this year, Matt's Wild Cherry stands out. It's an heirloom tomato, originating from Mexico. Diminutive in size, it's packed with totally-perfect-umami-tomato flavor. They're perfect for snacking, and we've been popping them into our mouths like candy for weeks. The best part? The plant seems to be yielding a ton, so it seems as though we'll enjoy hundreds and hundreds of these little gems.

Bragging Rights

It's only May 3rd, and not to gloat too much, but we've got ripe tomatoes in the garden! Mainly it's our sungold cherry tomatoes that are ripening the fastest, and they are so very sweet. Here's a peek at what's growing right now:

DIY Gardening Tip

Late last month, the folks at GOOD magazine provided a lovely tutorial on the basics of creating a verticle garden chock full of edible plants. Edible gardens are terrific space-savers. Check out the tips from GOOD, and also our friend Fiona's lovely indoor verticle garden, below:

For Sale: Vegetables and Herbs

This year we are teaming up with our friend Kelli Best-Oliver and are offering a variety of vegetables and herbs available for pre-order. Provided next to some of the names of items below is a link where you can search for descriptions of the particular varieties. To pre-order, please either e-mail (justin@yellowtreefarm.com) or twitter @YellowTreeFarm.

Vegetable plants
Celery
Eggplant
Leeks
Onion (Ishikura bunching) (Johnny's)
Onion (deep purple bunching) (Johnny's)
Pepper (zavory hot) (Burpee)
Potatoes (seed potatoes, variety TBD)
Tomatillos (green) (Seed Savers)
Tomatillos (purple) (Seed Savers)

Herb plants
Anise (pimpinella anisum)
Basil *Dark Purple Opal, Genovese, Italian Large Leaf, Lime, and Small Leaf
Borage (seed)
Caraway (seed)
Chervil
Cilantro
Dill
Fennel
Hyssop
Lavender
Lemongrass
Lovage
Marjoram
Moroccan Mint
Oregano
Parsley *Giant Italian and Flat Leaf
Rosemary
Sage
Shiso (purple)
Thyme
Tulsi

Seeds available
Arugula
Banana melon (Baker Creek)
Chinese yellow cucumber (Baker Creek)
Daikon radish
Dakota black popcorn (Baker Creek)
Detroit red beet
Dill (Baker Creek)
Fennell (Baker Creek)
Mongogo du guatemala squash (Baker Creek)
Parsley
Purple kohlrabi
Tatume squash (Baker Creek)
Thai golden round melon (Baker Creek)
Tulsi
Udmalbet eggplant (Baker Creek)
Yellow watermelon

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

We're nearing the end of the holiday season, which means our mailbox is receiving a slew of seed catalogs from all over the country. We've been browsing their pages since the middle of the month, slowly making a list of what we need to buy for 2010, and keeping in mind the seeds we saved from last year's growing season.

Fall's Bounty

As the nights grow longer and the weather turns colder, there's still work to do on the homestead. This is how our kitchen cabinets look these days. We've been canning a lot: turning crabapples into mustards, making jams and butters, and finding various ways to preserve our green tomatoes.

We're still waiting on our fall crops of broccoli, beets, and kohlrabi to grow bigger. Meanwhile, our daikon radishes have gotten huge! It's surprising to look around the garden and discover what's still growing: leeks, onions, peas, beans, and chard. Some vegetables seem to thrive better in cold weather, like our lettuces which are finally coming in, and it's interesting to note the differences in taste through the various seasons.

All the unseasonably pleasant weather lately has been a blessing for our chickens. After the raccoon attack last summer, the egg supply in our fridge looked dismal. However, now our younger hens have matured before the cold weather sets in, and we're collecting more eggs daily!

Summer update

The end of July was a busy time for us. Most notably, we no longer have goats - for several reasons. But we do, however, have about 45 pounds of goat meat in the freezer. We also participated in a couple benefits for Slow Food St. Louis: Earlier in July at a special dinner held at The Crossing where some of our produce was featured on the menu, and also at Slow Food's annual Art of Food benefit toward the end of the month where we donated a basket of produce and a tour of the homestead to a lucky bidder.

Sadly, we lost about 15 of our chickens last week - some we've had for over a year and had grown very attached to, and others that would have just begun to start laying eggs any day. A raccoon had eaten a hole through the wood of our chicken coop, and we awoke one morning to find the hens dead. We are thankful that 5 survived, and we're contemplating what to do about acquiring more birds for our flock.

These days there's always work to do: Various plants are done growing and we're taking them out of the ground, and it's also the time of year when we need to get our fall crop ready to be planted. The popcorn in the front yard has recently come down, and we've been enjoying the delicious sweet corn from our side yard. Our fall corn crop is about 2 inches tall so far, the cucuzza squash is starting to get huge, and we're picking peppers as fast as we can. Gleaning has also become a favorite activity of ours, as we scour St. Louis for unclaimed plums, apples, and pears. In addition to all this, we're expecting the two new litters of bunnies to be born this week.

For Sale

Available now:

carrots
celery
cucumber
herbs:

black opal basil
chamomile
genovese basil
lavender thyme
majoram
nasturtium
oregano
purple basil
sage
shisho
summer savory
szechuan buttons
tarragon
thyme
tulsi tea/holy bail
winter savory

lettuce greens
pears
peppers (mild)
peppers (stuffing)
plums
potatoes
squash
Upon request:
chanterelle mushrooms
honey
rabbit
Available soon:
melons
tomatoes

Our produce and herbs are organic, heirloom varieties and we don't use any Bt or chemical sprays.
e-mail justin@yellowtreefarm.com to place an order and arrange a pick-up.
(pictured: part of the herb garden)

Harvesting potatoes

Our heirloom Carola potatoes are ready to be eaten, and we've been digging some up throughout the week for dinner. They're absolutely delicious! ...delicate skin, buttery, mild, and soft. It's so nice to be our own source of fresh, chemical-free, local potatoes.

What's growing right now

Here's a look at what's growing right now. It's June and we've got tomatoes on the vine starting to turn; peas, dry beans, and green beans being picked each night; cucumbers and eggplants are flowering; and the corn's grown taller than the both of us.

Accidental Harvest

We inadvertently grew white asparagus! Our compost got dumped over the asparagus bed allowing no light in. The result, enough white asparagus for a meal. The crop should be this year. They have been in the ground for 4 years.

Our seeds have finally arrived!

It may seem like a ton of seeds for only 2300 square feet of garden, but with our new biodynamic farming practices, all of these seed varieties will be fully utilized:

asparagus
beans
yard long
green
Linda Sisco's bird egg
fava
Kentucky wonder snap
beets
Detroit red
Burpee's golden
blackberries
broccoli
cabbage
premium late flat Dutch
Napa
carrots
Amarillo yellow
Chaterney
Hercules
lunar white
oxheart
purple haze
St. Valery
cauliflower, giant of Naples
celery, tango
corn, country gentleman
cover crop, crimson clover
cucumber,
Japanese climbing
Thai golden round
egg plant
Thai yellow
udmalbet
herbs
anise
basil
black cumin
broad leaf sage
caraway
chamomile
chocolate mint
chrysanthemum
dill
dotted mint
Greek oregano
lavender
lavender thyme
mint
Oxaca cilantro
purple basil
rosemary
rue
Russian taragon
shiso
St. John's wort
sweet marjoram
thyme
titan parsley
wormwood
grape, Concord
greens
America Spinach
Amish deer tongue
arugula
Asian mix
bibb lettuce
Black seeded Simpson lettuce
de morges braun lettuce
escarole
extra dwarf pak choy
glory endive
Limestone lettuce
Mustard
old mix
Olympia spinach
pan-Pacific stirfry mix
red orach
ridicchio
Romaine lettuce
Shanghai green choy
spectrum mix
winter greens
fennel, Florence
kohlrabi, purple
melon
Banana
Green Machine
Evan's sweet
Misc. (non-edible)
dishcloth luffa
nipple fruit
Plum Granny or Queen Anne's Pocket
onion
bleu de solaise leek
cipollini-bianca di maggio
ishikura bunching
purple bunching
Tokyo long white bunching
tropeana lunga
yellow of parma
parsley root, hamburg rooted
pea
Oregon sugar
sugar ann
peppers
ancho
alma paprika
candlelight
cayenne
sweet yellow mini stuffing
shishito (mild)
yellow bell
potato, carola
pumkin, Galeux d'Eysines
shallots, Dutch red
squash
cucuzza
Kamo Kamo
lemon
Mongogo Du Guetemala
romanesco zucchini squash
Taturne
white scallop
strawberries
tomatoes
carbon (purple)
cream sausage
Illinois beauty
Jo Thienemann's Australian heart
orange fleshed purple smudge
roma
sausage roma
thessaloniki red
white tomesol
yellow
Misc. cherry
watermelon
black watermelon
Wilson's sweet

This list includes new seeds we purchased, and older seeds we saved ourselves from vegetables we grew in the past. Fortunately if we save our seeds properly, we won't have to buy seeds for subsequent years.