Many people don’t realize the difference between sweet corn and field corn, despite both being staples in the American diet. A few years ago, while vacationing in Illinois, we saw a car pulled over by a field corn field. Two people were sneaking around, stealing a dozen ears of corn, and rushing back to their…
Read more
If you visit our farm, you’ll notice an audible screeching noise coming from behind our barn at regular intervals. This noise originates from a dark green speaker box situated in our cornfields, which we affectionately call “Charlie.” Charlie is our state-of-the-art electronic scarecrow. How Does Charlie Work? Birds have always been attracted to Big Dave’s…
Read more
I started out the week irrigating the farm for two days. Then the farm got 2 inches of rain from the hurricane. Luckily I planned ahead and had our crew preharvest for the CSA boxes a day earlier than usual. That kept us from slogging through the mud and messing up the fields. Corinna always…
Read more
Watch out weeds. Here we come. This week, we trialed our new Flamewerks Flame Weeder on the back of our tractor. That’s right. We fight weeds by burning them. Want to see how it works? Watch this: Three burner units or baskets are mounted on the back of a steel frame, which hitches up to…
Read more
In a few weeks, I’ll have cucumbers coming out of my ears on the farm. I get kind of tired of them after 2 weeks — not gonna lie. And my plants just keep producing. But then I always long for them during the winter. Then I learned you can freeze cucumbers. It’s true. The…
Read more
This week was “Weeding Week.” Our guys spent a whole day weeding peppers, basil, and eggplant up front. They spend a half day weeding the leeks and kale in the back block. Purslane, red root, and lambs-quarter are our biggest problems — with purslane winning the contest by far. Ironically purslane is a superfood, highly…
Read more
Did you know there’s a fast, easy way to dry your fresh herbs using the microwave? Then you can store them in a Mason jar and use them all winter! Every summer, I plant a few key herbs that I use a lot in my cooking — like thyme, sage, parsley, basil, lemon verbena, mint,…
Read more
Well, well, well. What a week. Let’s start out with the BIG news: I got into an accident this week with the CSA delivery truck on my way to the Perrysburg pickup site. It happened around 4:30 PM. I was about 3 minutes away from the church (near the Burger King on Rte 20 at…
Read more
This past week, Kurt drove out in the dead of night to meet up with a mysterious visitor to our farm—the beekeeper. Every summer, we rent a pallet of beehives from our brother Airk, the beekeeper and owner of Benches Bees. This year, we have seven hives in all. That’s right! We rent bees! They…
Read more
Honey is a delightful, natural sweetener that can add flavor and health benefits to a variety of dishes. However, if you’ve ever found your honey turning into a gritty, solid mass, you’ve encountered crystallized honey. Our brother Arik Bench is a bee-keeper. (We actually rent his bees every year for our vegetable fields). We often…
Read more
