Hello! My name is Miriam and I am the assistant farmer at B&H this year. I was an intern last year, so some of you may remember me from the farmer's market and other events. You may not see as much of me at market this year since I'll be focusing on the field work down on the farm but you are welcome to come out and visit us. I'll also be showing up here on the blog from time to time.
My journey to B&H has been a winding one. I started out my adult life thinking that I was going to be an electrical engineer, but it didn't take. I worked as an electrician for a couple years in Philadelphia and although I didn't mind the job, it just wasn't the right kind of dirty. I came to farming after studying permaculture and natural building and thinking hard about who I want to be. My long-term goal is to have my own urban homestead and small market garden in Philadelphia so I can provide for myself as much as I can to meet my own needs. This is my third full-season as a farmer and I still enjoy the work, so I think I'm on the right track. I love being outside, working hard, and feeling connected to the world around me.
It is springtime and here at B&H, we are playing peek-a-boo with the rain. As soon as the soil dries, we disc and harrow and seed and plant until the clouds form again. Because of this, we got a little behind on our planting schedule, but with dedication and hard work we've managed to catch up. We have lots of greens germinating in the field and we've transplanted the broccoli and cabbage that we started in the cold frames. The bare-root transplants have taken to their new homes, so our cold frame experiment this season was a success. With all the extra room for root growth, the plants started out larger than they would have been in cell flats, which is our usual method for starting new plants. Very soon now we'll start our summer crops, your favorite tomatoes and eggplant and summer squash. But to give you a taste of the market season coming up soon, we're already harvesting the spinach we planted last fall, the rhubarb is in full-leaf now, and the strawberries are blossoming.
Spring also means that I have some projects of my own. I get excited by the first flowers of the season, dandelions and violets and even the weeds in the fields since they signal the start of the farming season when I can get my hands dirty again. But I figured there's something else I can do with these plants other than look at them, so I started making wine. Last year I made one gallon of dandelion wine and it turned out very well, so this year I'm making two gallons. I'm also trying violet wine for the first time. Unfortunately, it will be a few months before I can taste it, so I don't know if I can recommend it. Here's the recipe for the dandelion wine, but if you'd like to try it you'd better move quickly. Our first spring flowers are starting to give way to late spring plants.
Dandelion Wine
Adapted from Jack Keller's wine website: http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/
· 2.5 qts dandelion flowers
· 2.5-3 lbs granulated sugar (less sugar makes a dryer wine)
· 4 tangelos or oranges – you will use a very thin paring of the outer skin (no white) and the juice (strained – no pulp)
· 1 gallon water
· ¼ tsp wine yeast (I use Red Star Premier Cuvee)
· 1 gallon fermentation vessel (glass jug) and fermentation trap (also call an airlock)
The recipe I follow says to pick the flowers at mid-day, when they are fully open. I tend to pick them in the late afternoon. I figure it's all right as long as the sun is shining. Once picked, keep the flowers cool until you are ready to process them. Remove as much of the green from the flower heads as you have the patience for. (This year, I am running an experiment. With my first batch, I removed all the green, which took several hours. With my second batch, I merely pulled the whole tops from the stems, which took about 30 minutes.)
Boil one gallon of water. Put the prepared flowers in a crock and pour the boiling water over them. Cover with a cloth. Let this mixture steep for two days. The crock can be ceramic, glass, or stainless steel. Don't use aluminum.
After two days, pour the flower mixture back into a pot and bring to a boil. Add the outer parings of the tangelos (be careful not to get too much white pith with the peel) and boil for ten minutes. Strain through a muslin cloth or bag back into the crock and add the sugar, stirring to dissolve. Let cool to room temperature.
Once cool, add the yeast and tangelo juice. Stir well, then pour into your fermentation vessel, fit the fermentation trap and keep in a cool, dark place until the there are no more bubbles rising through the trap. This should take 2-3 months. At this point, the wine is ready. It's a good idea to siphon the wine out of the vessel so as not to disturb the sediment on the bottom. I think it's good for drinking right away, but you can also bottle it and let it age for six months to a year.
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