Will also be this week (not sure of the variety yet). Old Man Highlander, a gouda-style cheese naturally ripened for 6-9 months. Hopefully, long enough until the first shoots in the spring provide the green garlic. After being cleaned and sorted (saving the good bulbs to plant the next crop), a solid, well-cured, well-wrapped garlic bulb will keep 6 to 8 months or longer. It takes about 2-3 weeks for the garlic to cure. Leave the roots on as they have a moderating effect on the drying rate.” Remove any chunks of dirt from the roots, being careful not to bruise the garlic. In curing the energy from the leaves goes into the bulbs as they dry. “After garlic is harvested it needs to be cured. We’re almost done picking the garlic and tying it up to cure in the barn. Lisa, Lauren & Jacob (and our wonderful cast of characters) It takes a community to produce it and it takes a community to consume it. Lauren and her cast of characters and me and my cast of characters. The main reason most give up.īut I plan to persevere (as will Zach, my stubborn brethern, and his wonderful mushrooms). Or I could continue to pain-stakenly grow a wide variety of vegetables for the "members" of the farm - the CSA ("Oh, Lisa, I know what you're doing is hard but it's so good," my sister and her husband tell me). I, too, could be a lounger (Please, God, make me a lounger!) listening to music and playing frisbee (my brother keeps telling me to mono crop). They lounge, listen to music, contemplate the mysteries of life, play frisbee, harvest their acre and then collect (from the government - because if it wasn't for that check (subsidy, welfare really) the check that puts them in the black (I had to look that up but "in the black" means on the credit side of the ledger: prosperous) it wouldn't pay (it doesn't pay at all) to plant all that GMO **it. But the outcome has been nothing short of catastrophic millions and millions of people eating not much else but corn and chemicals.īut the appealing part, (at least for me it's seductive), is how these guys who are growing this acre of GMO corn have so much free time. Yes, his intentions (to get the cost of food down to 17% of a family's income) may (probably not, for how can we even charge anyone for the basics of life? air, water and food?) or may not be admirable. Because I think that he is responsible for the obesity of millions of people. If there is such a thing as "karma" I wouldn't want to be Earl Butz. (I'm not sure about that but $300 for an entire summer of working was a lot of money back then).Īnd last but not least, King Corn, "a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation." Yeah, no **it. It’s a hot, muddy and sweaty job, but it’s a great way to work for a few weeks in the summer and reap the financial reward. That’s all there is to it! But, it must be done right, or the crop will fail.ĭisclaimer: Detasseling is tough. The steps involved include finding the tassel, pulling it off, and throwing it to the ground. Job Description: Detasseling involves removing tassels that grow on a corn plant, which forces cross-pollination. We would freeze enough corn so that we, a family of 8 - and yes, it is enough, too much! just ask my mother but not my brother- could have corn 4 times a week until the next year's harvest.Īnother not-so-sweet memory of corn is my summer job when I was 14 years old as a "corn detasseler." It's not nearly as glamorous as wassailing. One year we found a snake in the kitchen which we assumed came in with the basket of corn. I can still remember the whirr of the electric knife (my mother's favorite kitchen tool) slicing the kernels off the ears. For two weeks solid we would eat sweet corn for breakfast, lunch and dinner (I kid you not, and I think that excessive trait continues to haunt me today) while picking, husking, blanching and freezing the rest. Otherwise, they would take a bite out of each ear. A few days before the corn would ripen, he would place an electric fence around the sweet corn to keep the raccoons out. My father would plant the plot of sweet corn with a tractor after planting the field corn for the cows (other varieties are popcorn, seed corn and dent corn (for flour)). This week was the first of the sweet corn (sorry only three ears and even that was a stretch (we plundered and pillaged every stalk of corn) - but it's so tender and succulent, you don't even need to cook it!) which brings back many family memories for me (not all of them sweet!). This week, I am looking back at whatever was and how that was, whatever it was. Usually, I am looking forward to whatever is next. Just a reminder that the 10th pickup (halfway) for the CSA was yesterday, Tuesday, July 26.
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