Follow our progress, setbacks, and everything in between at Flip Flop Farms. This is an account of our attempt to build a semi-sustainable farm and live local on our 0.13 acre homestead in Raleigh, NC.
We hope to see you in the dirt!
Last night, Michael and I (and Peanut, of course!) were sitting on the back porch getting our first taste of spring. It was 65 degrees and as we watched the sun go down, we admired and envisioned the yard we were about to sink our feet into.
We saw the bees that we worked so hard to get established last year. We sadly lost one of our hives over the winter, which was somewhat expected. They had not been as productive as our other hive during the fall, most likely due to swarming when they first arrived. A home is ready and set for another set of bees that we will get in a month or so.
We next saw the four newest members of our family... four Plymouth Barred Rock Chickens. We have had them for about 2 weeks and have already gotten over two dozen eggs from them. Their eggs are amazing! The yolks are a bright orange and their whites are thick and translucent. Nutritional differences between fresh, farm-raised eggs and eggs from the grocery store soon to come... You will see below that we started with five chickens. The night before we became chicken-parents, one of the ladies got bit in the bottom by an opossum. We happily took her, thinking we could nurse her back to health. After about 5 minutes in the coop, she adopted the beloved name of "opossum ass." Not great... I know, but hey, we had to find some humor in the situation. About 2 1/2 days later, she went to a better place. She is no longer in pain and the other four are much more active and productive. Our first taste of farm life... burying a chicken in the dark, wee hours after the Super Bowl.
Lastly, we gazed at the garden that is soon to be sowed. We are going to expand the garden in the coming weeks to just about double the size we are able to plant. It looks a little barren right now, but as we sat on the back porch and talked about what all we wanted to plant this year, we saw the tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, beans, broccoli, zucchini, squash, herbs... and hard work to come!
As I type, Peanut is sitting on my lap and is a little jealous that all the other animals got a picture in this blog. So in his honor... (here is my happy baby!)
What do you get when you mix an engineer, a nutritionist and a small plot of land?
Precision... Logistics... Obsessiveness... Creativity...? Your guess is as good as mine. We are about to step foot on an adventure that will promise to take us in more directions than we can image. Let me introduce ourselves...
I'm Madison. I'm a nutritionist and food scientist by trade but have found a (third) love in local food and sharing with people ways to increase nutrition through consumption of local food. My first love is my husband (and partner in crime), Michael. Michael is a biomedical engineer by trade that does accident reconstruction/forensic engineering (which funds our farming adventures). He grew up on a small family farm and now that he has land of his own, his passion in "getting back to his roots" has begun to shine. He loves getting his hands dirty and watching things grow - no matter what it is. The second love of my life is our beloved beagle, Peanut. As you will soon come to find out, Peanut is the child I never had. He is the first to want to go outside and the last to want to come in. He is at our feet every step of the way, wanting to help in every way he can.
This blog serves multiple purposes. Not only it is a way for us to keep record of everything taking place on the farm and an account of all that we do (plantings, animals, etc.), but it is also a place for us to share produce, recipes, successes and failures.
Hand in hand (and paw in hand), we take our next steps into our farming adventure. We hope that you will share in any and all part of our journey... and that you find it as humorous and joyful as we do. All we know is that our coming adventures will continue to help us find out what you get when you mix an engineer, a nutritionist and a small plot of land.
Here comes the sun in Raleigh, NC. Today, we broke the heat record with a peak of 92 degrees and stifling humidity. Even Peanut, our beloved beagle, was only up for a couple tosses of the tennis ball. After that, he got into the habit of plopping over at any given opportune spot on the floor for quick breathers. God help us when summer finally does hit.
The garden, on the other hand, is lapping up the heat and really hitting its stride. All the seeded plants have sprouted in great numbers. The beans, most of all, have been a real surprise and popped their heads up beautifully. During the middle of the day, we usually see some droop-age in the tomatoes and peppers, but they usually perk up with a quick afternoon drink. The early broccoli, has really shot off and will hopefully start making some early heads within the following weeks.
We even had a few gentle visitors this morning. If they start getting into the garden, I am afraid we may have to formally introduce them to Peanut.
In addition to our garden ventures, we are in the throws of perfecting our homemade mozzarella and other various cheeses. This all began with Madi's birthday cheese-starting kit. After one gallon of milk became 1 - 1.5 pounds of cheese, we were hooked. We have since tried larger quantities of mozzarella and queso blanco. I think we are definitely sold on the mozzarella, maybe need a little more seasoning for the queso (it was a little bland).
A side perk of the cheesemaking ventures is our first attempt at whey-based bread. What a success. Just 4 cups of leftover whey (of which there is plenty) makes 4 healthy-sized loaves of delicious bread. The first time through, we stuck strictly to the recipe and made some great white breads ... although there was so much, we still have a freezer full and our neighbors are all full as well. The second attempt, knocked out this morning while we could still stand it in the kitchen with the stove on, we started doing a little "personalization". We still made two "normal" loaves with whole wheat flour. Michael got his jalapeno-cheese bread, and Madi got her cinnamon-raisin ... yummmm! Hopefully we'll keep perfecting this to the point where we will be independent of the yeasty section of Harris Teeter.
The bees ... oh, the bees. We have been foiled again by our bee supplier. It looks like the earliest will be this coming weekend; although, I don't hold out much hope. We will keep the hives nice and neat, and hopefully our girls will find their way here soon enough. Every day they are away is one less day of honey production. We might be working to feed/fatten these girls up all summer. As a family, we are definitely ready for them the join us:
Finally, this weekend (April 17th) the 17' x 10' garden at Flip Flop Farms went live and filled in beautifully.
After a very successful trip to the State Farmer's Market Saturday morning, Madi and I went full bore with planting. We currently have the following in the ground:
12 - Celebrity Tomatoes
4 - Lemon Boy Tomatoes
4 – Roma Tomatoes
4 – Hot Banana Peppers
4 – Cayenne Peppers
4 – Italian Sweet Peppers
12 – Jalapeno Peppers
4 – Caribbean Red Hot Peppers (strain of Habanero)
2 – 5’ rows of Romaine Lettuce
2 – 5’ rows of Kentucky Wonder bush beans
2 – 6’ tall teepees of Kentucky Blue pole beans
1 – 5’ row of Clemson Spineless Okra
3 – Zucchini
9 – Broccoli
2 – 6’ rows of Burpee II Cucumber
6’ x 6’ Watermelon patch
6’ x 6’ Irish Red Potato patch
The tomatoes were all purchased as small saplings from the farmer’s market. I’d love to see if starting them from seed is a possibility next year, but that is something to consider for the fall. A kindly reminder to anyone reading this because I nearly made the mistake last year until reminded by a much more experienced gardener than myself (thanks Dad), you cannot save seeds from a hybrid for planting in successive years. They are bred by the seed folks to specifically not be viable after one year. Kind of a bummer, but we’ll see if I can move a little closer to the all heirloom varieties next year.
The peppers (planted this weekend) and the broccoli (planted 2 weeks ago) were also planted as saplings rather than directly from seed. As small as the plants still are when you buy them, I would almost be willing to put more time in growing these directly from seed next year, than I would tomatoes. It took some convincing to get Madi to allow me to plant the Caribbean Red Hot Peppers. They are supposedly a good bit hotter than the standard Habanero. It must be a hyper-masculinity thing. I never could find a use for the standard Habanero just because it was so very hot. So, of course, my next course of action is to plant something even hotter. I am hoping that through drying and possibly some roasting that I can take the heat level down a little and get some of the flavor out of the pepper rather than just brutal heat.
Everything else was planted from seed. Luckily, I found a vender at the farmer’s market that had some seed potatoes there on site. I cut them up (with one “eye” per piece) and got them out Saturday. I am hoping that they will start to sprout within the next 2-3 weeks, so that I can again cover them up with dirt. This is called “hilling” the potatoes in my family and, in short, encourages the potato to continue growing bigger and more developed roots. Once I hill them 1-2 times, my plan is to then cover up the entire patch with straw. I have read, and been told, that growing in this fashion will allow me to harvest a few small potatoes during the summer directly out of the straw, rather than having to pull the entire plant. We’ll see how it works.
The tomatoes, this year, have been staked up using stakes in a box around a series of 4 tomato plants with twine tied between the stakes to produce a grid of string for the tomato plants to grow up and be tied to. The cucumber, same as last year, was planted in two rows on either side of a sheet of concrete reinforcing wire mesh.
This past weekend was also special because we finally got the bee hives painted and set out in the yard. The paint turned out GREAT. Sitting out in the yard, they almost look white in certain light, but at other times are unmistakably matched to the color of the house.
Without any available scrap lumber or bricks, we were able to use to some extra pavers that had been stored under our house to lift the hives off the ground. We used 3 larger pavers on each rear corner, and three smaller, yet longer, pavers in the middle of the front of the hive to support the weight. With some digging, we were able to get the pavers to sit level side-to-side and to provide a slight incline back-to-front. This incline allows any moisture to roll off and out of the hive rather than sitting at any given point and being trapped inside. We were also successful in getting the hives situated such that they point in a SW direction. This allows the hives to get early, full sun to get the ladies up and moving in the morning. Luckily, under the edge of the water oak and behind the budding pear tree, the hives are situated so that at the peak of heat during the day they are only in dappled sunlight. This will hopefully make it a little easier on the girls to regulate the temperature inside the hive and keep it a constant 93 degrees Fahrenheit for their queen all summer long – even in the dog days of summer here in Raleigh.
So now, we begin the waiting game here at the homestead. We will wait, and maintain, the garden soil until all our little seedlings pop up. And then we will wait the extra week to week and a half for our bee girls to finally get here and start settling into the homes Madi and I have so meticulously prepared for them.
