Sweet Potatoes

At the end of April I ordered 100 sweet potato slips and a packet of basil seeds from Gurney's Seeds. Two days later they said the shipped the basil seeds. To this day I have not received them, either they got lost in the mail, or some miscommunication is going on, which wouldn't surprise me. Around May 12 I emailed them about the basil, they said they had shipped it. A couple days later I asked them to refund the sweet potatoes, as I had found a better place that seemed better and would ship them sooner. They refunded me on the sweet potatoes, and I ordered from Tatormans.

Yesterday I received a box of sweet potato slips from Gurneys. So, apparently they refunded me and then shipped them, they are not the best with communication. Anyway, last night I cut down vetch and weeds I had growing in a bed, spaded it over, ran it over with a hoe, watered it with 40 gallons of water, sprayed Sea-Crop on it, and set black plastic over it. I cut holes in the plastic and proceeded with frustration to insert the slips. It was harder than I thought it would be, but I planted 63 plants, roughly a foot a part.

This morning I planted the rest of them in a bed I had soybeans growing.

I am getting 125 plants from Tatormans, so I will have to find more room to put them in. My sweet potato harvest should be quite large this year if they do well!


English Vintner

News of the Garden

Well, it has been a few days since I was on here. Life has been busy, but has gotten less complex since my brother starting working for my dad again and so I have fewer days to work, and more days to do school. I am enjoying doing math on a more regular basis, and reading through history is exciting.

I haven't gotten up as early the last couple days as I wanted to, but I guess I should have gone to bed earlier if I wanted to get up earlier.

Today I went down to the garden, and enjoyed a sunrise, something I haven't seen more than about two of in the last two weeks! It has been rather cloudy, and for the last two weeks has rained almost everyday. We've probably gotten 5-8 inches of rain in the last two weeks! Tuesday we had a flood warning, two creeks were within a foot of flooding (one creek was 11.5ft and the other 8.5ft high). All that to say, I haven't gotten a lot done in the garden lately.

My romaine lettuce is about done, I'm letting the slower heads and less diseased looking ones go to seed (I did that last year and grew all my head lettuce from seeds I saved). The rest were also bolting, and we ate some, but today I threw the rest in the compost pile. It is a pity the season for lettuce is so short here. If I could find a better place closer to the creek and in shade it might help, but I haven't figured out how to do that.

My leaf lettuce is getting big, I have a patch coming up that will be the last until fall I assume. This fall/winter I plan on doing a full bed (20ft long) of lettuce, greens, and maybe some root crops under plastic with hoops.

My swiss chard and beets are about ready to harvest, I'll probably harvest some this week. I have a little bit of spinach, it isn't doing that well though, poor germination and not so good soil.

My potatoes are doing pretty good. I have some under agribon (though slugs are eating some of them) that are about 20inches tall. I have another row that are a couple inches tall, and I just planted 12 more plants this morning. So, if they don't get eaten by pests I should get a good crop of them.

I am expecting sweet potato slips in the next week or two. I reordered from another place that specializes in sweet potatoes. I got 3 different kinds. 50 slips of Georgia Jets, 50 Beauregard, and 25 Centinial (I forget the exact name). I have one bed that has chickling vetch that will plant probably 50 slips at least. I need to till a another bed or two above the fence for some more. If I do them above the fence I will have to buy chicken wire to go over the bed, to keep the deer from eating them.

My brassica are doing well. They don't seem to have cut worms, though slugs are a small problem. My peas once again have failed, due to aphids. I'll try a small crop next year, if they fail, I may not do peas for a while, until my soil is better. I guess on the one hand they are improving the soil as a legume.

My squash are quite well, no signs of squash bugs yet. This week or next I should have my first female flower. I have 14 zucchini plants! 5 hills of watermelons (orange and sugar baby), 3 cucumbers, 2-3 yellow summer squash, and another couple zucchini that my cousin gave me.

Most of my beans are coming up. I have an amount of beans coming up almost equal to a row of beans 60ft long.

My two biggest crops this year will be zucchini, and beans. If I can get my tomatoes in (I have the plants, just haven't transplanted) then I should get a good crop of those also.

My allium are doing well. If my garlic does okay I should have 150 cloves of garlic. 30 cloves elephant garlic. A couple dozen red and yellow onions, couple dozen leeks, and a good amount of shallots.

My strawberries are about done bearing. I have a few berries left to ripen. I think we got close to 2 quarts, not to bad, since I transplanted them this year from the previous bed. Hopefully next year I will have more.

I have yet a lot to do in the garden, and not a lot of time. My cousin should be coming again around the middle of June and hopefully we can get more done then also.

My tiller which we got working, is now not working again. It got left out in a down pour. I was actually going to go put a tarp in it, but the rain was pelting so hard, so much thunder and lighting, and I couldn't see that I didn't. I am not sure what is wrong with it, but I about broke my pull string, so that has to be fixed also. I will probably check and see if the intake valve is stuck down, that was what happened last time. I've been playing around with the jet screw and that doesn't seem to be the problem. I really need my tiller working before the sweet potatoes arrive. I chopped down above the fence on Monday, now I need to till. So, I guess I should see about my tiller, amongst the other things! : )

Whew....life is full around here. I have a flute recital tonight, should be fun. I have been playing the flute now for 7.5 years, I started playing 2 months before I turned 10 years old.

I bottled my Utopia Cream Ale, I actually flavored 3 gallons of it with raspberries, 1 gallon with caramel syrup, and 1 gallon left alone. The raspberry is good, but I wish it was stronger.

Cherrio, don't get in too much trouble while I'm off. ; )
English Vintner

Caramel Syrup

Yep, it's time for another recipe. I asked Matthew Sganga (Stone Table) how he made his caramel syrup, and he said that you can make it two basic ways. One way you make a simple syrup, and add vanilla to that. The other way you beat some egg yolks into it.

So, I went home and experimented with it. After my third time I think I have perfected my recipe.

Caramel Syrup
3/4 c. white sugar
1/4 c. brown sugar (you can change the ratios to get whatever color you like)
1/2 c. water
3Tbs butter
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 egg yolks

Mix the sugar and water in a pan, heat to boiling with lid on to keep it from evaporating too much. Add the butter and let it simmer while you mix in a bowl 2 egg yolks and vanilla extract together. Take the syrup off the stove, let it cool for a few minutes. Ladle a little bit of the syrup into the egg yolks while beating to temper the egg yolks. Pour the egg yolk mixture into the syrup while beating it to incorporate the egg yolks into the syrup. Bring to light boil on stove. Take off, pour into jars and cool.

You have to be careful with the egg yolks, if you add them into the boiling syrup, before tempering they may scramble and you will have little bits of cooked egg yolk running through it. If this happens either use it as is, or strain it. You can use milk or cream instead of water for another variation off this. Do keep in mind though, milk and egg tend to scramble or curdle when boiling, so choose your ingredients and when to add them carefully. To make a thicker syrup use less liquid and more butter and sugar.

This syrup can be added to anything you want caramel syrup for. Oatmeal, brownies, iced coffee, cakes, ice cream, you name it.

Enjoy the recipe!

English Vintner

Strawberries

Strawberries are a wonderful summer fruit. They have good aroma and excellent taste, and are appeasing to the eye. Strawberries typically ripen between late April and June. There are two main types of strawberries, June-bearing and Ever-bearing. Ever-bearing produce a crop in Spring and then a crop in Fall. June-bearing typically bear fruit for a couple of months in the late Spring early Summer.

The first strawberry that was bred was in Brittany, France in 1740.

Strawberries grown commercially are usually grown in raised bed systems, with black plastic to keep erosion and weeds down. They are usually replanted every 1-2 years because of disease.

For the home gardener strawberries are a fun crop to grow. When grown correctly they can provide quite a nice yield, up to a quart per plant!

The main things to consider when planting strawberries is how good the soil is, do you want to take up the room, and which varieties?

The better the soil the less pests essentially. For little or no aphids on your plants, grow strawberries in pure hummus or compost. Aphids don't like strawberries when they are grown in pure hummus, I assume due to the plant being healthier. You want to add some fertilizer to it, high rich compost that has not lost nutrients will work pretty good, though I would probably add some bone and blood meal and comfrey leaves to the soil. The bone meal will release phosphorus slowly, and the blood meal will release nitrogen rather quickly. The comfrey leaves decompose fast and add nutrients, nitrogen, and phosphorus. You want a thick mulch of straw to keep weeds down and help strawberries stay cleaner when it rains.

The room for growing strawberries is not a whole lot. Plant them with between 12-18 sq inches per plant. Most of the time strawberries are sold in bundles of 25 plants. Expect 25 to give a small harvest the first year (or none if you pinch off flowers for bigger growth) and then a couple of gallons depending on how the soil is. For a small garden you probably don't want to take up more room then 25 plants worth, besides the fact that strawberries send out runners that propagate into new plants quickly.

What varieties? I have June bearing and like the yields. For 25 plants, and only getting one kind, I would say that is up to you. If growing more than 25 plants try getting a mix of June-bearing and Ever-bearing ones, so you get strawberries all summer long. If you plant strawberries in the Fall, you can expect to get a small harvest in the Spring, versus planting in the Spring and getting little or no harvest.

Strawberries are fun to grow, and taste MUCH better than ones you can buy in the store! Find an online nursery and look up the varieties of strawberries to find the perfect strawberry for you!

Information gleened from: my experience, http://www.farmfreshliving.com/How_to_Grow_Strawberries.html, and wilkipedia

English Vintner

Onion Relish

Time for a recipe. This recipe is one I learned at the Stone Table, the restaurant I am interning at. They put it on the spinach salad they serve, and it is amazing. Sweet and sour and it looks amazing!

They keep it simple, and don't have a set recipe, so I just guessed, and you will have to guess also. (Just use those cooking instincts!)

Onion Relish
1 red onion
red wine vinegar
brown sugar

Cut the onion in half, the cut it so it will be in slices, not diced. Separate them and put them in a pot. Add red wine vinegar, for one onion I would guess between 1/4-1/2 c. though, I just guessed. Take a handful of brown sugar and put it on top of it all. Turn on the heat, around medium and let it cook down. I used a lid part of the time to keep it from boiling off too much moisture. The onions will be cooked when they are pink and translucent. Store in the fridge, use on salads and sandwiches.


English Vintner

Hops 2011

Hops, what are they? Hops are the bittering herb used in beer that imparts a bitter flavor to the beer. The history of hops is quite ancient, dating back to Babylon and Rome. It was the Romans who brought the hop to Britain as a vegetable. The earliest mention of hops in Europe is in the Hallertau district in 736 AD. However, it would be hundreds of years before Europe came to except the hop in beer.

What did they do before they had hops to add to beer? They would impart the beer with many different herbs, which were all being used for what the hop would replace, to add bittering flavor to the brew, balancing out the high alcohol and sweetness of the ales they brewed. They used herbs like coriander, yarrow, St. John's wort, rosemary and wormwood to add flavor to the beer.

However, due to the lower alcohol (lower than wines) the beer still spoiled quickly. Meaning, you brewed your own beer, and it was drunk very quickly. No time to ship it around the country, or start a large brewery, beer just wouldn't keep that long.

It was Germany who took to using the hops in the first place, and soon after the Dutch started importing the beer made with hops, and hops themselves to grow.

Why could they ship the beer from Germany? Because the hops are what make a beer keep. This was a new revolution to the world of brewing. You could get twice as much beer out of the same amount of malt, because you could make lower alcohol, impart hops, and it would keep even longer than traditional ales. This was when the herb growers who supplied the 'gruit' for the beer started getting upset. Because the introduction of hops would mean they would be out of business. No longer would people buy those herbs, that would not keep an ale, but would buy hops which will keep the beer for long periods of time. So, it was banned and put down in many countries because this.

Once Holland was won over to hops, England went next. They soon developed a taste for the hopped beer. In the 1400s they imported the hopped brew, and in 1428 they were growing hops. However, the controversy kept up througout the ages, and even as late as 1651 hopped beer was described in John Taylor's Ale Ale-vated into the Ale-titude as "A Dutch boorish liquor...a saucy intruder."

The advantages of the hopped beverage was so much better than unhopped that it triumped over the the traditional ales, brewed without hops.

However, the change to hops and hop growing did not come without cost. The hop was assailed by many pests and diseases, and you had to learn with it's whimsical nature. Some years the harvest would be good, and others bad. The cost would sometimes be 10 times higher in a bad year than the year before. Meaning you either made a fortune in a bad year, or a little in a good year. Neighbors often hoped for the others field to fail in order for the price to rise and make greater profit.

The hops move Westward, the Americas.

In 1629 the Massachusetts Bay Co. ordered seeds from England. In 1640s it was noted that hops grew "fair and large" in the colonies. Although Massachusetts in 1791 produced the first harvest, it was New York state that would take the country's leading and first producer. They were first planted in 1808. First harvest sold for 12 cents a pound. A series of English crop failures increase the demand that in 1822 trade routes were designated.

Gradually it moved to the West Coast, where California and Oregon gained production. In the early 1900s New York was still the leading producer. And in 1914 when the prohibition hit the production went down, and continued to decline, even after the prohibition in 1933.

The most recent development in hop history (1990) is the increasing availability of hops to to the homebrewer.

So there you have it. The history of hops. Did you know? Hops themselves are not bitter, it is only when added to the boiling wort (beer before fermenting) that it brings out the oils that impart the bitterness. Hops are added to beer to add aroma and flavor, along with the bitterness which helps keep a beer so long.

So, why talk about hops? Well, for one thing, I brew, so I use them. For another, I grow them! I started growing hops last year, and I blogged about it. My hop grew 15-20 feet last year, pretty impressive, and I got a small harvest. This year, with added SEA-CROP and compost tea my hop is doing even better! It is 6ft long already! It is growing more than 4 inches a day! I am looking forward to a vine that will be more than 40ft long! I hope to take some pictures of it in a week or two, but didn't have my camera with me today.


English Vintner

Here is the main source for where I took my history for hops. I looked at a few other websites as well. http://home.earthlink.net/~ggsurplus/hophistory.html

English Cafè, part 2

So, part two. I have decided on a roaster, Behmor 1600. After a year of that, and my customer base is big enough, I plan on upgrading to a gas fired 1 or 2lb roaster. The cost would be $2500 for 1lb roaster, or $3500 for a 2lb roaster.

I gave a sample of coffee to the Stone Table restaurant, haven't heard back on the results yet, whether or not they want to buy from me. I want to give some samples to my church, and see if they would consider buying from me. I have two other customers who want to buy from me on a regular basis, other than that, I don't have any more confirmed customers.

I got in sample bags for coffee last week, haven't decided on a bag yet. I will have reclosable valve bags for whole beans, and sealed bags for ground coffee.

Cost for the roaster is $300, grinder is $90, start up beans $100+, bags is $25, and some other expenses mixed in.

My grandparents have put aside money for each of their grand children in the bank, for college. I am not sure about college, and my grandma said that if I wanted to I could use some of that money to start up, instead of a loan. I am still thinking on the idea, but I like it.

I talked with my uncle who roasts coffee, and he said I need to look into this as a business that will grow to the extent that I cannot handle alone. I should be looking at this as growing quite large. That would be one reason to buy the larger roaster right now. However, until I get my customer base down I don't want to spend several thousand dollars on a machine that will take a few years to pay off.

If I sell an average of 5lbs a week, I profit in a year $1300, that means I make in a year roughly $2700. Not to bad. In one year I bring in enough money to buy the larger roaster. In two years if my customer base keeps growing and I am selling 10lbs a week, I am profiting $2600, bringing in $5200. This looks like a fun business to be in! It is fun looking at costs, and seeing how much I can make at this price, in a year. Quite fun to plan.

I will probably be receiving a check for $650 sometime in May, if I decide to go ahead with this. It will then be the end of June before I get things cracking.

I have my awesome cousin who is married drawing up some ideas for a logo. I'm looking forward to what she comes up with (she is an amazing artist!)!


I think I need to set up a website, so people have a place to order it, at least a place to look at prices and beans. I hope to get my dad help me with that. I know someone in my church who is a photographer, I'm considering asking her to take some pictures for the website of beans, mugs, etc. So many things to consider when starting a business! This is so much fun.

If you are interested in sampling my coffee, email me and I'll get you a sample (local only please, I can't afford to ship samples).


English Vintner

English Cafè

I am considering starting a coffee roasting business. I would prefer local people, who could stop by and order, or order ahead of time and stop by and pick up.

I would be offering a selection of 4 different coffees, sold by 13oz net weight. Organic, Decaf, and two Regular caffeinated coffees.

Cost would be $12.00 per package, if would like to buy larger or smaller quantities, let me know and I will give you the price. I sell whole beans, but will grind it if you don't have a grinder.

Ground coffee stays fresh for 2 hours before coffee snobs consider it starting to loose flavor. So, you really should be grinding the beans yourself minutes before brewing. Roasted coffee, should be used up in less than 2 weeks, preferably within 24-5 days of roasting.

I would like to host a coffee party for those interested in trying fresh roasted coffee, and want to know more about how roasting is done. I think the date May 19 might work. I'm gonna see who is interested in it. I would serve something to go with several different blends of coffee, have my roaster set up, roast some batches for people to see, and send them home with samples of beans to try.

Start up cost will be $650, I'm hoping to do a micro loan with my grandparents. I would like to have a minimum of 10 customers who are on a regular basis, along with others who like to get a pound once in a while, and others who buy from me as gifts to friends. I am hoping to have at least one restaurant who would be buying at least a 1lb a week, and maybe my church, who would use I'm guessing 2-3lbs a week. I am thinking if my customer base keeps growing, and I continue, I will have to upgrade my roaster to an actual commercial one.

Any ideas for names for my company? Right now I'm thinking of English Cafè for the name.

English Vintner

Asparagus

Who doesn't like asparagus? It is a wonderful vegetable and high in nutrition. It comes in 'season' only from the beginning of spring up until the beginning of summer. Usually the window is 6-8 weeks long for mature asparagus.

You can buy 2-3 year old crowns. Plant the crowns in Spring when the soil is warm, let it grow. The following year cut asparagus for 2-3 weeks. Some people don't do this, but a study showed that this increased next years asparagus season. So, the year after you plant the crowns cut for a couple weeks, then let the plants grow the rest for themselves. The following year, two years after you planted them you can cut for 4-6 weeks. The following year and every year after for 10-15 years cut for 6-8 weeks, usually until the first week of June.

This is my second year, I planted asparagus last year this time. It grew well. I was not going to cut any this year, due to some shoots coming up several weeks ahead of others, but after doing some more reading on it, decided to cut some. So, this morning I got 11 shoots. I will be cutting for the next week or so, to improve next years yield.

I am thinking the reason cutting the second year can improve the third year is that you are forcing the plant to put out more shoots, expanding the root system, my idea anyway.

Here are pictures of my asparagus that I cut this morning. Once picked put into ice water to remove any heat. Then place in plastic bag and refrigerate, should keep for 2 weeks, enough for you to continue cutting until you have enough for a meal.





English Vintner

GMO and ORGANIC

The problem with GMO seed is that it cannot exist along side organic seed. Monsanto likes to trick people into believing it can be so, but don't be fooled (this is no April Fools).

GMO seed is pollinating organic varieties thus eventually making everything GMO, which makes Monsanto have a monopoly! Is something wrong here? Hello! Everybody knows that a monopoly makes for a poor quality, you can do whatever you want and everyone has to do what you want them to do.

I don't know how we are going to get out of this one, really, I don't know.

Read this article, good info on it, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-rose-levy/monsanto-lawsuit_b_842336.html


English Vintner