Nanny Berries

Typical ripening on a bunch of nanny berries.

 Today we picked nanny berries. It was a very good year here for most berries and nannies were no exception. We almost waited too long to pick these. I think the cedar waxwings and blue jays will have them finished off before long. We picked about 20 pounds today and plan to pick again tomorrow. They are about the easiest berry to pick that I can think of, especially when they are totally ripe as most of these were.I was able to pick entire clusters at once rather than sorting out the ripe berries one by one. You wouldn't know it from these pics but it was raining on and off and the wind was gusting to about 30 miles per hour. We would have picked longer if it hadn't been so nasty out. Hopefully it will be nicer tomorrow. Nannies are one of those wild foods that you can gather in meaningful amounts and that are easy to process and store. We make a puree and can it. Ann makes a great cake with it.
 

 Nice fully ripe clusters.

Alternative Farming Systems Information Center

Alternative Farming Systems Information Center

Top Rated Annuals & Biennials For Edibility

Top Rated Annuals & Biennials For Edibility

Wild Food

Ann and I love to forage for wild foods. A lot of people eat a few wild foods, wild raspberries or blueberries, maybe a wild black walnut or hickory nut, even maple syrup might be called a wild food. It does come from wild maple trees after all, but those common wild foods are just the tip of the foragers iceberg of wild foods.
   One wild food most people have heard of is wild rice. It is one of our favorites. It can be gathered in an amount that is meaningful in reducing your food budget, it is delicious, it lends itself to many traditional recipes, it stores well, and we think gathering it is fun.This year we gathered about 170 pounds dry weight. We spent about14-15 hours, spread over three days ,to gather that amount. There is a downside of course,we have to thresh it out yet, but that can be an enjoyable job too.Some people have their rice threshed out commercially but we prefer to do our own. I'll be doing a in depth blog on wild rice at some point in the future.
   The wild food we are hunting now is a common plant but not one that is eaten commonly. The acorns from all oaks are edible,though admittedly, not with out some preparation. Acorns have too much tannin to be eaten as they come. In order to remove the excess tannin, the acorns are hulled, ground,and then leached by repeated bathes of cool water. Once enough tannin has been removed the nut meats are dried and can then be stored to use ground as a flour additive or they can be pressed for a edible oil.
   We have made several jaunts in search of lush acorn pickings but have not found much yet.We have found several other select wild edibles while out looking for acorns though. Mushrooms! Yummy mushrooms of several varieties have sprung up in the last week. Ann found a few of our much relished honey fungus yesterday and that sent us into the woods in search of more. We didn't find any of those but did pick a ice cream pailful of Entaloma abortum,or pig snouts as we call them. They will make some great mushroom soup.
   I would not pick any mushroom to eat until I had been out with someone knowledgeable for several seasons. We only pick six mushrooms and none of those have any poisonous lookalikes, assuming you look at them closely and have learned what to look for.Eating wild mushrooms is like parachuting, if at first you don't succeed, it's not for you! Wild mushrooms are great, you just have to do your homework to get the reward.
     I'll be adding a lot more foraging blogs this winter after we get the garden to bed. Lots to do there yet. The horses and pigs have finished off the sweet corn. Now we have to get every thing cleaned up and prepped for spring.
 

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First Frost Sept.15

Carrots,Sugar beets,and Corn.

  Time to start prepping the garden for next year! We still have one row of fingerling type potatoes to dig as well as lots of carrots. Our experimental crop this year was sugar beets. They grew really well, now we just have to learn to process them. Dane is going to do a post about that. Our sweet corn did very good this year too. We were not able to use it all up even though we gave corn to every one we know who wanted it. Now the steer and horses are eating the stalks and the pigs get the cobs.Our biggest failure this year was squash and pumpkins. We got them in late, then had a torrential rain [ 5 inches/24 hours] which packed the soil . Then we had hot weather at blossom set and most plants didn't set fruit until the second flush of blossoms weeks later. We do have a few butternut squash that look like they are mature enough to keep. Most of rest will be pig feed.
    Our other big problem this year and last was vercicillium wilt .We got hit with it last year and lost most of our tomato crop. We removed all the plants when we cleaned the garden, and we moved to a different part of the garden but not far enough I guess. We have a fix for it next year. We are putting another garden on a sand hill about 300 yards away. Wider spacing, drier growing conditions, better air flow, as well as using resistant varieties, should prevent another bad tomato crop.We will have to irrigate there but it should be better for peppers too so it will be worth the extra work.We have ten big round bales of hay rotting for mulch which should help with soil moisture issues.

Potato Harvest

Today was tater diggin' day. We already dug several rows last week. We will have around 1000-1200 pounds total when we finish digging the last row. The potatoes are very nice this year. That daily trip thru the potato patch all summer to squash potato bettles paid off. Looks like all the kids get taters this year for x-mas!
   We don't waste any, the real small ones and any damaged ones get cooked and fed to the hogs. They like them with the excess milk we have from our goats. Most times by the time the hogs get the milk it is sour so I guess it is just like sour cream on your spuds.
   We did get a little bit of slug damage but that was our fault for not getting some diatonaceous earth spread on time. We use heavy mulch on our gardens and that does tend to harbor slugs. We also use a product called SLUG GO which is a organic iron compound that is toxic to slugs. You have to reapply it after rain.
   That's our son Dane in the bottom pic with his biggest find for the day.

AROUND THE FARM

The beginning of our orchard.

Not too much going on today here on the farm so I thought I'd post a few pics of the stuff we have growing. This pic is of one of three apple trees we put in two years ago. They were just loaded with blossoms and I should have taken all of them off but I couldn't resist letting them put on a few apples. We put in 10 more apple trees, two pears, two cherries, and two plums this spring. One of the plums didn't make it so I will replant that next year. We will probably add at least ten more apple this coming spring. I'm going to wait and see how things go on the pears,cherries, and plums before I put in more of those.
 We also put in blueberries, raspberries, and gooseberries. None of the gooseberries made it so I will have to try those again next year too. We started strawberries, asparagus, and rhubarb in the garden. I guess that end is now devoted to perennials.
      While we are not certified organic, we do use organic methods of production on all our property. Part of that process involves using hogs to cultivate next years new garden space. We also go over those areas with chicken tractors to add fertility.

A chicken tractor at work.

Piggy cultivators taking a break.

I have to get busy and get another chicken tractor built. This one is getting too crowded. Part of these birds are a Cornish cross type broiler and some are laying hens. Well, part of them are hens and part are roosters as we bought straight run chicks. We hope to be able to include eggs as part of the share on our C.S.A. In the future we will offer pasture raised chicken as well.We are still considering pork as part of our offerings.

    We are really happy with the job the pigs are doing on the future  garden space. With any luck at all they have eaten most of the quack grass roots and it won't be to much of a problem.
   
I will move them out of this area soon, rototill it,and plant oats on it as a green manure crop. We need lots of organic material on this plot to improve the tilth on this heavy clay soil. This plot will be used for corn next year. We will inter plant some pumpkins and squash in it too.

A job well done.

    This is the maiden voyage for my new blog, Forest House Farm,  hopefully it will live longer than some of my earlier attempts! I will be blogging about whatever is going on here on our homestead including garden updates as well as foraging reports. Today ended up being a great foraging day. Ann and I had gone to check how ripe the nanny berries were and made a little side trip to look for acorns. There were not many acorns dropping yet but we found some really nice mushrooms including chicken of the woods, oyster, and lions mane. Ann is going to make mushroom soup with the oyster {nom nom}and dry the chicken of the woods. The lion mane was too old to use.
    On a earlier note, the nanny  berries are starting to ripen. Ann makes a wonderful banana less banana bread using a nanny berry puree instead of the bananas. It's definitely the best use we have found for the nanny berries. Add some wild hazel nuts or butternuts and would be a foragers delight!
   All for now, hope to get this whipped into shape over the next couple of weeks. My goal is to present info here on our plans for next years CSA and foraging gardens and workshops. I hope to get lots of input from any potential customers out there in the Rib Lake,WI area. Come on people, talk to me!