Drying Figs and Tomatoes; July Flower Orders; Happy Blog Anniversary 6 years!!!

Thank you for coming back to my blog again.  Has been a bit of time, wish I could say we were sitting by a stream listening to the cool water bubble around rocks or fly fishing.  Didn't happen here at Windmill Farm.

The season is exploding, so many peaches on the ground, not enough time to pick all the trees; vegetables turning corner and starting to look like their production season is just about ending; so many tomatoes, I pick every time I go out to garden a case or two.  The fig trees have had lots of fruit this year but have been fighting the birds and the heat.  At least we were able to supply our CSA members with figs and had some extra to try out drying them in our dehydrator.

 I have never been a fig lover but dried, I love them.  I just couldn't figure out what the nutty taste was like when a friend, who begged me for some ate them, told me they tasted like Fig Newtons. She was right.

I had some not so perfect, tomatoes I cut up and dried in my large screen dryer that I leave out in the sun to dry, instead of the electric dehydrator.  I put a little salt and basil on top.  They are fabulous in soups, salads, any type of cooking.  One little dried piece of tomato has a huge amount of packed fresh tomato taste.

 Great thing about drying tomatoes, is I can use my Roma's, which actually are the perfect ones to use; or any size, shape or ripeness of the tomatoes.  They were dried in the sun in 2 days and I was able to sprinkle some on top of our CSA member's boxes as a treat along with the dried figs and fresh figs.

What we hate more than anything on the farm is waste.  It takes so much time and money to get to the point where our crops are producing; people want to purchase our products but sometimes; there just isn't enough time in the day to get everything that needs to be done, done.  Every time I walk or gator past the orchard and see fruit on the ground, it just kills me.  Most people wouldn't give it the time of day, no big deal.  Probably most people wouldn't even eat any fruit that hit the ground.  But I look at every one to see if some part of it can be used to either preserve, dry, or eat fresh.  I have some canner friends that feel the same as I do and are ready to accept a case or too of almost too soft; or maybe not large fruit at a very cheap price.  When you cut it up to make something out of them, it doesn't matter that they weren't the #1 fruit.

Along with our CSA delivery this week, I had several flower orders AND a small wedding flowers to do before Saturday.  Every day was get up early, pick, pack or arrange in a vase; or meet someone at the gate for eggs.  

I looked at my blog the other day and saw my first blog that I wrote was, July, 2009.  Well happy anniversary to my blog today, wow 6 years of writing about our small farm, about growing food; about remodeling our house; about craft ideas; talking about the many classes we have given; our CSA baskets.  I can't believe the time has passed and I feel pretty good about the commitment I made to people who happen to come to our site to see what we are doing; to be inspired possibly; to see what we may be doing next!!!  Happy Anniversary Windmill Farm blog!!!  I just wish more people would make comments, even to say hello.  It always feels like I am talking to myself.

Hope you come back again, and leave a comment sometime!!! Until next time.

Summer Bouquets; Windmill Farm CSA (Community Supportive Ag) How We Pack Boxes

What a hot and busy farming week.  A lot of people continue to ask us what is it exactly that we are doing at our farm.  Our CSA business is a membership farm, a certain number that we can handle ourselves.  We grow, weed, water, care for vegetables, herbs, flowers and have heritage breed, free ranging chickens and sell their eggs.  Once the produce is ready, we deliver whatever is ripe, put it into a certain size box (price and sizes vary) and off it goes to our members, every other week.  

This week seems like every fruit tree has something ripe which needs to be picked and the vegetable garden tomatoes are a sea of red.

I put all our baskets out on a table; line them with a special open air plastic liners and then we start out with putting items that are firm on the bottom that can't be damaged, and start layering after that with produce.  Squash, cucumbers, onions, garlic, egg plant are normally at the bottom and work our layers up from there.

We also have special flower, jam, and egg orders to go along with our CSA baskets.  All produce  items have to be picked, washed, sorted with the damage and imperfections culled out before we start packing.  Some boxes are  labeled by member's names (only for those that have special requests or changes); when finished packing with the most fragile on top, like berries or figs; the boxes are placed in the cooler by delivery dates.

Tuesday night we put out a few boxes after 5:30 pm for the members that work and can not come by Wednesday morning to pick up of their boxes.  Then Wednesday morning, I put out more boxes out at my roadside stand for my members that live outside our delivery zone.  We have several families that have friends that are members too, so one person will pick up several boxes to deliver to some far off homes even up in Bangor and Palermo.  The van gets loaded up with our local members here in Gridley and they get their boxes delivered to their door steps.

Interesting event happened last year, I put the Wednesday morning boxes out early, on our roadside stand.  None had names on them because there were no special orders.  When I drove by to deliver to my Gridley people, I noticed several boxes had their plastic liners up and items put on the table.  Some passer byer had come by and thought the boxes, with the contents were available for sale and picked through the produce and took what they wanted.  There were a couple dollars in the $$$ slot, but they took much more than they left in money.  I had to take all the boxes back and re-pack.  Since then, I leave a note on the stand and have the member's names on them.When the van is empty, we come back home and re-load up and head out to our Oroville and Paradise member home/offices.  It is a big relief when the last box is in the hands of the member, our farming job is done!  All the flowers, eggs, jams, watermelons, boxes are gone; matched up with the right sized boxes; the right number of members.

I pick and prepare my flowers after packing all the boxes, normally later in the day when it gets cooler, Tuesday evening. It is a nice time to unwind, let the creative juices flow with whatever I pick in the flower gardens. They get packed into the van along with the produce to match up with CSA members or additional clients. The van is normally a sea of boxes, flowers, watermelon, eggs.  Thank goodness I have my handy delivery list and Frank as my navigator.  It does take a bit of organization, if anyone is ever interested in doing a CSA farm.  1/2 of what I do is marketing; keeping financial track; emailing and keeping records of who wants what in their box next delivery; or the number on locked gates; who has coolers to leave the boxes; one member has the box delivered to her husband's business which is upstairs in a complex.  I text them and someone comes down to greet us so we don't have to cart these 20+lbs of produce + a watermelon up flights of stairs.  

I am sure the members must think I look weird delivering with a sweater on during these hot days.  I want to tell you, inside the van, the air conditioner is on maximum to keep all the produce and flowers as cool as possible.  When the boxes leave our care, we have done our very best to deliver the freshest, most perfect fruits, veggies and flowers our little farm is able to do.

Even Bella was tired on Wednesday as she lays on the cool floor of our sorting shed. Hard life.