This past week we began planting cabbage and preparing for Valentine’s Day.

I am not quite sure how to create a connection between cabbage and the infamous cupid, but surely one does exist?  Perhaps cabbage is incredibly heart healthy -

Cabbage usually takes seven to ten days to sprout depending on the amount of sunlight and heat.

While you are starting those new plants, challenge yourself to do something special this week for those you love.  If you are at a loss for what to buy (inexpensive) for the men in your life, think duct tape.  It comes in pink and red!  (I bought red at WalMart) and believe me, they’ll be impressed! While in the electrical tape area (a topic I know nothing about) there was also a package of amazing double sized tape in red that says it can hold over 100#!  Awesome, Gary will be thrilled.

Have a great week and Valentine’s Day.  Enjoy those in your life, keep thinking Spring- while we watch the snowflakes.

We met on Friday, New Years Day, to begin sifting through the mountains of seed catalogs we’ve received and decide what to offer this year from His Glories Farm.  It’s a fun, but sometimes overwhelming job.  There’s just so much good stuff!   Be sure to note the food.  Decisions like these can only be made after a great meal!

controlled chaos

Top of the list for 2010 are the fingerling potatoes.  We plan to offer both the French fingerling and Russian Banana varieties.  If you haven’t had the opportunity to try these delicacies, you are truly in for a treat this summer.

Another potato that we have ordered is called All Blue.  Combining Kennebec, Pontaic and the All Blue with fresh green beans will make your 4th of July celebration something special indeed.

New herbs that we will offer this summer include:  French tarragon, large leaf Italian basil, Italian parsley and sage.

And don’t forget our edible soybeans!  Gary and Vanessa promise that we will quadruple production in that area.

Thanks for checking in.  Have a great week and stay warm!

Where does the time go?

Not so long ago we were digging potatoes, tilling and fertilizing the daylilies while planting turnips (a cover crop) and anticipating a few days of fall colors before tucking the garden in for a short winter nap…

And now Christmas has arrived.   Shalom.

Our prayer for each of your families during this busy, hectic time of the year is peace.  A peace that passes all understanding.

God’s continued blessings you to each of you and your families this Christmas season.  May the celebration of Christ’s birth fill your hearts and lives with peace.

From all of us at The Farm,

Merry Christmas and we look forward to seeing you in 2010!

Join us Saturday, November 14 at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church on Route 32 on the south end of Strasburg, IL from 6 am to 11 am to celebrate the city of Strasburg’s first Governor’s Home Town Award.

His Glories Farm will be one of the many vendors set up in the gymnasium of the church.  Fresh lettuce, potatoes, scallions and popcorn will be available for purchase.

SCAN (which stands for Strasburg Community Action Network) has been very active this past year, and the pancake and sausage community breakfast held from 6 am to 11 am is a great opportunity to come see all that has been accomplished!

Hope to see you there!

Thank you to everyone who visited our Fall Produce and Plant Sale.  We were so glad to share your summer garden successes and look forward to sharing next season with you too!  In the meantime, enjoy the pictures and keep eating the last of the summer tomatoes, and we will keep you posted on our preparations for winter and what is growing in the high tunnel too.

Pictures from the Fall Sale…

The fried eggplant was wonderful!  A big thank you to our cooks!

Gracious!  What a wonderful summer it has been.  We have so enjoyed meeting and getting to know so many great people!  We are truly blessed to share our passion for gardening with all of you.

You are invited…

This Friday, September 11 (Patriots’ Day) we will be hosting our Fall Sale and “Fancy Fixins’” at Vanessa’s.  (For directions, please see the “Fall Plant and Produce Sale” tab).  Our Junior Foodie (with some assistance from the rest of us) will be serving some of our favorites from this past summer.  Fried eggplant – and it really is incredible, Onion Curls – wonderfully sweet, they melt in your mouth! and for something amazingly different, we will have Stevia for you to taste too.

We will, of course, be open on Saturday, September 12 from 8 to noon, but we could only book our gourmet cook once so if you aren’t able to make the Friday event – we will gladly hand out the recipes (and I will post them here too).

Aside from the Fall Sale (and food fun), this weekend saw the harvesting of over a hundred pumpkins, broom corn, Indian corn, etc.  Our kids decided that hunting pumpkins beats Easter eggs hands down!  As you can see, the rewards are just tremendous!

This is just one truck load!  Broom corn with pumpkins.

The green “gourd” is actually an heirloom watermelon called “Moon and Stars.”  It will turn blue and have a host of large and small yellow spots.  Delicious!

Harvesting broom corn that is over 12 feet tall!

The Indian corn is simply breathtaking this year.

The variety and depth of colors always amazes us.

We look forward to seeing you.  Make plans to attend and bring a friend!

Potato Day 2009

Many hands make light work… and with 1,675 # of potatoes we used all the hands we could get!

More potatoes!  Go, girl, go!

Quite a production.  But potatoes aren’t our only “bumper crop”

The eggplants are simply incredible!  If you haven’t tried one, you are really missing out!  Ask Vanessa for a recipe.

And look what is hiding quietly in the tomato patch.  Fall is right around the corner.  Have a blessed week.  We look forward to seeing you soon.  Vanessa has chosen Friday, September 11 from 4 to 7 p.m. and Saturday, September 12 from 8 to noon for the Fall Plant and Produce Sale.  Please make plans to attend and savor the last of the summertime garden as well as decorate for fall.  We look forward to seeing you there!

This time of year is particularly crazy as it seems the long hot days of summer bring the garden to a crescendo of flavorful delights that you just cannot eat enough of fast enough.  Would it be wonderful if just some of these tomatoes ripened in December? 

New to the Email Produce Route this week are Mushroom Peppers.  Ours are still green, but we would like to offer them now as the cute peppers are very hot – so enjoy with your favorite salsa, as a garnish, for pickling or drying!

Happy Birthday to H. this week too!  Enjoy your day!!

One of the items listed on this past week’s Email Produce Route that is creating quite a conversation is Edamame Beans, or young soybeans.   Served frequently at Asian restaurants, these beans are sometimes boiled in the pods (as the recipe below indicates), but they can also be prepared a variety of ways.

The United States Department of Agriculture states that edamame are “a soybean that can be eaten fresh and is best known as a snack with a nutritional punch”.

Here’s what you’ll find in a half-cup serving of shelled edamame (or 1 1/8 cup edamame in the pods):

• 120 calories
• 9 grams fiber
• 2.5 grams fat
• 1.5 grams polyunsaturated fat (0.3 grams plant omega-3 fatty acids)
• 0.5 gram monounsaturated fat
• 11 grams protein
• 13 grams carbohydrate
• 15 mg sodium
• 10% of the Daily Value for vitamin C
• 10% Daily Value for iron
• 8% Daily Value for vitamin A
• 4% Daily Value for calcium

Edamame Snack – very easy to prepare and enjoy

We have been a bit remiss in posting recently

(could it be all the greenbeans? )

So here a quick “visual” tour of the last two weeks…

The guineas are growing fast.  They are almost bigger than the Bantam hens that hatched them.  And flying just comes naturally!

Then there is our resident shepherd.  He has spent several hours taking the goats (via collars and leads) all over the Farm.  Amazingly, if one is on a lead – the rest follow and stay together!

Aren’t the zinnas gorgeous?  Such a riot of color for late summer.  Don’t forget to collect the seeds this fall.  Simply store them in any paper (not plastic) sack in a cool dry place (basement works well) and replant next spring.  Almost as easy daylilies

We have been eating really, really well lately too.  J. has perfected Eggplant Parmesan, and we are all enjoying it.

Check out the following link to make your own:

http://startcooking.com/blog/383/How-to-Make-Eggplant-Parmesan

Enjoy the coming week!