Join us for some Fall fun and family portraits

Where did Summer go?  It was fabulous but I still cannot believe it’s gone.  We just pulled out the tomato stakes and bean poles.  The broccoli Rabe is growing and Kale abounds…. but when doesn’t Kale prosper?  Luckily I love the leafy stuff and am crafty at disguising it in dishes from soups to pasta sauce. 

Our annual summer blast which also celebrates my 29th birthday every year was in a word - a blast.  Mark your calendars now for next year’s… It’s the first Saturday in August.  This year’s shin-dig was extra special because Carter came home for a week. 

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Watching him stand in the peach orchard as he said goodbye to Kipper broke my heart.  Is there anything sadder than seeing a kid say farewell to a pet over it’s grave?   Animals are such a gift and Kipper was a gift in the truest sense of the word.  He came with the farm.  Mark insisted he would live in the barn… or the garage.  Don’t worry.  He never spent a night in either.  The previous owners had trained him not to leave the kitchen.  By the first week, after hanging his paws off the kitchen step while watching us forelornly as we sat it the family room, Mark caved and let him join us.  Soon he was spending the day in the office with me, and for the last year he had been sleeping next to our bed… So much for the barn dog!

We’re planning one last outside event on October 22nd between 10-5pm.  Please join us  and check out some pottery that will be for sale, maybe a pit fire pottery demonstration, and a chance to get some amazing family portraits done by Terree Yeagle.  Click here for more about that:  http://www.facebook.com/gretchen.gunn1?ref=profile#!/event.php?eid=203165423083871

Her portraits make great memories and good gift ideas.  She did a session for me last year which I used as my Valentine’s Day gift.  She can do glam great and the great outdoors just as well.  I hope you can join us!

Peaches and Blackberries are Ripe

Busy, busy, busy…. never did get a chance to write…. still don’t…. but….

We’ve got peaches and blackberries and they will be out front after noon today.

Here’s an old favorite peach recipe we’ve developed over the years.  Hope you enjoy.

~Gretchen

http://www.njlhealthandbeauty.com/recipes/peachy-summer-treat/

Happy 4th of July! Peaches and Blackberries on the way.

I plan on having time to put my toes in the water and to do some writing over the long weekend.  Until then, please enjoy some farm shots and have a great Holiday Weekend.

Don’t forget to thank a Veteran!  So here’s mine – Thanks Mark!

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May Update

Asparagus is up and selling like hot cakes!  If you’ve got kids – especially little boys – this is the veggie for them.   Ask Ramona – it’s how she gets her kids to eat it.

Other than asparagus and the peach orchard getting ready for shuck split

(when the buds to break away from the newly forming peaches-which means a final spray), we are just watering and fertilizing the greenhouse.  We will plant this weekend.  We are usually safe from frost after May 15th…however, we did get a frost on June 13th last year.  We’ll take our chances.

We have been working on cleaning up our perennial beds and relishing the neon green of budding trees. 

So enjoy some photos and we’ll have more interesting farm stuff to discuss soon.   We have either gotten this farm thing figured out (highly unlikely) or we are in the eye of the farm season storm.   Either way, we’re having fun and enjoying the sun!

As we walk the grounds, the cats (barn and house variety) follow along. It’s our little slice of heaven.

Shea made the transition inside last year after either getting mauled by a fox or hit by a car… He’s so cute, he’s won over Mark.

Renegade hates Shea… Renegade is a crowd pleaser with his hive fives.

Pruning Season

 The apricots are blooming.  So I’m asking everyone to send this intention to the universe – at least for Gunn Creek Farm: NO MORE FROST!  If the weather holds, we’ll have fruit this year. These trees were a Rutgers Ag. test that has been discontinued because the trees aren’t hardy enough for our climate.  If we have gentle weather after they bloom we get fruit… if not, we don’t.  So let’ hope it stays above freezing from now on.

I’m trying to get this in before I  go rescue the cold and wet horses.

 (Think Sundance is ready?)

Mark and Newt got almost all the peach trees pruned.  We just have the saturns in the lower field to trim.  Newt is such a joy with his energy and excitement about helping out (Thanks Newt – there are days you motivate us more than you know!) He has picked out the perfect tree to place a memorial  under for our friend Andy who loved the orchard… More on that as it unfolds.

Greenhouse is at ‘Lilly Pond’ capacity… as full as we can get it until it’s time to transplant and I still get a thrill out of the first signs of germination.  Arugula is up.  Talk about instant gratification.  We planted on Sunday. 

(Trust me, this gets much more visually exciting in a couple of weeks.)

Thanks to Luke the big tractor runs.   

 Mark bush hogged an old row of blackberries and the raspberries.  Ever the opportunist for a warm spot, Callie made herself comfortable waiting for our next adventure.  More on that soon…  Until then, the only sad news is that our bees didn’t make it. I was hopeful but I was seeing robber bees at the hive.  There is honey left over and since we don’t appear to have disease in the hive, they can have at it.

What’s up next week?  If it gets warm Asparagus, otherwise peach blossoms. Can’t wait!

 

We got the fences mended last weekend – only to have a wind storm tear more down Monday morning…

Gun Creek Farm 2011 Season Kick Off

Spring roared in like a Lion with 3 inches of snow this morning and the same amount forecast for tonight.  Where is the lamb-like weather?  Coming soon.  As for real lambs?  They can be found at our friend’s Roger’s at Headquarters Farm and also at our upstate NY friend’s David and Greg’s.  Love you all but you can keep the live farm stock!  Lambing season is much too complicated for me. 

Produce is hard enough to manage and why we’re looking forward to climbing temperatures. 

Warm weather means that (drum roll please) the asparagus will be up as soon.  One or two warm days and the ‘field of dreams’ will be in full production.

 So what’s the big deal about asparagus other than it is fabulous fresh (even with the negative side effects we all know but rarely mention – it’s very fragrant when, well there’s no delicate way of putting this and if NPR can talk about it on air than so can I – it makes your pee stink!)  Asparagus is our first crop and kicks off our growing season. 

 

2011 is shaping up to be a good year for the farmers (Mark and Gretchen) on Gunn Creek because moderation is our new mantra.   This may shock all of you who know us, but we’ve finally decided that while we can do it all – run a successful business and farm…. We no longer WANT TO work to the point of exhaustion anymore!  What we’d like to do is spend some time enjoying the real and preverbal fruits of our labor.  What does this mean to you and for the farm stand?   Moderation there as well.  We will sell our Asparagus at the stand but that’s it this year.  We will be taking special orders for any of the other fruits (peaches and blackberries) and what herbs and veggies that we decide to grow.  So please feel free to email us with any requests.

 I will continue to blog about what we are doing which will be focusing on my original goal… growing enough food to provide for us throughout the growing season and sustain us through the winter.  I look forward to finally canning and freezing  more of we grow and to truly keep us in Gunn Creek food all year long. 

So there’s a quick update of what’s in store at Gunn Creek.  The good news is that this means we’ll have more time to enjoy the Zen Garden for dinner parties and the pool for entertainment.  Look for more invites this summer!  And until then, I hope to see you out front for fresh asparagus soon!

Season Ending

August was a month of festivities and finality. 

We are done playing farmer for another season.  It was a dry year.  Thank goodness we have irrigation. 

Our last hurrah is to load up the stand this weekend with the ‘spoils’ of our labor… before they actually spoil.  So come and get it!  We are loading up the stand up front with hoards of peppers and tomatoes.. All FREE!   

 

Zen Garden Tour

Check out the zen garden in full bloom!  Go to this link… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vii2XwMtu5g

Summer Party and Tomato Salad

We had our annual summer yesterday and it was great.  It was also my birthday.  Don’t I look fabulous for 29?  Kidding aside, it was a terrific party and for once I allowed myself to relax and enjoy.   I really have to do that more often!

What was nice this year was that we had tons of fruits and veggies for everyone to pick.   We had crowds of people picking peaches and blackberries.  Well, all but one enterprising young lady.  Little Grace asked if she could go pick blackberries and when she got the green light, she took her clam shell container and skipped over to the nearest bowl of potato chips and proceeded to load up her clam shell with Ruffles potato chips!

Seems I say this a lot this year, but we need rain!   The grass is brown and the leaves on all the trees are starting to curl.   Animals are getting drinks wherever they can.  We’ve got the fountain in the Zen garden for the bees and the horse’s watering trough for the wild birds.   Even the pool works in a pinch, as you’ve heard last time.  Frogger continues to thrive.  She’s good at scaring Mark when she swims up next to him and then jumps out and watches the Mets with him at night.

Friday I went outside and saw something dark on the pool cleaner ‘tail’ – the hose that propels the ‘Johnnie Ray’ our pool cleaner.  We named the pool cleaner Johnnie Ray because it looks like a plastic stingray and that’s just what we do.    Anyway there on the hose was a mouse holding on for dear life… praying that the cleaner wouldn’t go into the deep end and take him with it.  I wanted to run inside and get my camera but I couldn’t take the chance that Johnnie Ray would dive deep and take mighty mouse with him so you’ll just have to imagine a wet, scared mouse with enough sense to climb aboard and hope for rescue.  It must have fallen in while it was trying to get a drink.  It was more than happy to climb onto the pool skimmer and then scamper into the bushes.

What’s up in terms of the gardens? 

 Mom came to the rescue this week and canned 23 quarts of Tomato sauce for us while we were working.  Thanks mom!  

Love you!

I’ve also come up with a tomato salad that you’re welcome to try. 

Cube 6 tomatoes

½ cup chopped basil

1 cup chopped Kale or Swiss chard

Toss with balsamic dressing – either pre-made or the recipe below.

1 cup olive oil

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar

Tablespoon spicy mustard

Garlic, salt, and pepper to taste.

The trick with getting the dressing to emulsify is to whisk the oil in slowly.

 Not much else new to report on the farm front.  My attempt to plant a field of sunflowers didn’t work.  We planted rows of sunflowers and then sowed clover seed between all the rows.  THEN I got the bright idea to spread compost over all of it… Well…. I guess  the compost burned out the clover entirely and only a handful of sunflowers made it.  I guess the good news is that the field will be fertile when we try this again next year.

Heat Wave – How one Frog Copes

We have a new Gunn Creek resident, who we’ve dubbed, Frogger.  Okay so it isn’t very original, but that’s what triple digit temperatures and a couple of glasses of wine will do to our creativity.

Frogger is a frog that has taken up residence in our pool.  She -I’ve decide the frog is female, Mark and Deidra say male – if anyone can actually tell from the picture, please let us know.   She has been living in our pool since the drought started.  Mark and I have each rescued her from the leaf skimmer multiple times because we thought she was stranded.  It appears she views this as her Jacuzzi.  Apparently she has figured out how long she can stay in the chlorinated water without dying.  So now we have company when we are relaxing in the pool at night.  She’ll swim up to the ledge, leap effortlessly onto the patio and stare at us with huge unblinking eyes for a few moments, blink and then begin grooming herself with her back legs.  If the Mets are losing, we find her fascinating (yes Mark has a TV under the pergola that we can watch while floating in the pool).  Again heat and adult beverages might add to our fascination in Frogger but I find her a pleasant, quiet companion.  Kipper and the cats also seem to take her in stride as they are careful to walk over her and not on her.

Okay, enough about cute frogs.  Here’s a quick stand update and fresh tomato sauce recipe.

 

Blackberries!  Buy them PLEASE!   We’ve reduced the price because they are ripening so fast we need to move quantity.  They are at their peak sweetness now and are really good.  Take several.   Freeze some for the winter.  Simply spread them on a cookie sheet and place them in the freezer for a couple of hours.  Then transfer them into a freezer Ziploc bag and forget about them until the snow falls.

White and Yellow peaches are also in abundance as are the standard summer fare of corn,  tomatoes, peppers, onions, squash, and basil.  We enjoy looking up from the fields and seeing someone at the stand.  A customer asked Mark today if everything at the stand was from our farm.  It didn’t occur to me that anyone would ask that but the answer is yes.  

Not only do we grow everything here, we start all our vegetables and herbs from seeds in our greenhouse in the spring.  It allows us to appreciate every season.  Presently we’re in the best time of year in terms of bounty and long summer days.  I’m looking forward to the cooler months and our fall crops which we are going to start planting next week.  Winter, is Mark’s least favorite time of the year.  I’m not a huge fan of short days and slushy snow, but it’s nice to focus on house projects and a roaring fire while we flip through seed magazines and plan next season’s varieties.  A warm, sunny greenhouse in March is pure joy and a welcome respite from winter’s gloom.  Several months later the planting season starts in earnest and then before we know it,  we get to where we are today – hanging out at the pool with Kipper!

 

I will leave you with that tomato sauce recipe for now.

Thank you for your business! 

Simple Tomato Sauce

Sautee 3 cloves minced garlic & one minced onion with olive oil in a large frying pan.

Dice 3-4 cups of fresh tomatoes and add after the onions and garlic are soft. 

Add Tablespoon kosher salt and pepper to taste

Depending on how juicy the tomatoes are, you may want to add ½ cup of water or chicken or vegetable broth.

Cover and cook for an hour.

Add ¼ cup chopped basil and simmer another ten minutes. 

Optional:  white wine and or tablespoon of sugar for sweetness.

Enjoy!