Cucumbers

Our magnificent cucumber patch is where it's happening. We have a mix of japanese and kirby cucumbers in there. The kirby cucumbers are perfect for pickles because they are small and the seeds are soft. This first batch consisted of only four small jars. More on the way.

Japanese & Italian Greens

Farm friend Olivia gave us some special Japanese greens seed: Komatsu, Shinkgiku and Mizuna. Our italian neighbor Nick gave us arugula seeds. The greens are all very flavorul and not your average supermarket blend. Everything has sprouted and is almost ready to eat...

Jalapeños

Green Architecture

We are learning from past mistakes. Although unsightly, putting the cages in earlier is a lot easier than wrestling with a unwieldy four foot tall tomato plant.We are also trying out pole beans planted from seeds. The said pole is salvaged wood from a bench that went from "I can fix this" to "look! now we have wood for poles!".

It is February. Is this alive?

Or just frozen? There are a few plants that have kept their green color this far into winter. This particular green onion must have been too small to pick during our final harvest. And now… we're just scared. We might break a tooth trying to get through that.

Food: Roasted Garlic and Beets with Greens

Beets are tough little suckers so it takes an hour for them to cook throughout. We either roast them or boil them. We've heard of something called a 'microwave' but believe it's just a fad. 
Beet greens are really tasty to sauté and add to the mix. Salt, pepper, vinegar.

Last Harvest of 2008

These peppers are pretty impressive considering it is November! It is a beautiful Fall day in Brooklyn and we gathered the last remaining vegetables until next year. We are planning to make a big grilled pepper and eggplant salad tonight for our final farm dinner. It is sad to see things come to an end for the season...

Harvest: Spring Onions

Eggplant 2 Ways

Harvest: Peppers

Autumn Pepper Roundup

While the rest of the farm has been finishing up for the year, the peppers are still going strong. This is the pepper pot with habaneros, jamaican hot yellows and thai hot peppers. Even this late in the season the plants are flowering. Elsewhere on the farm, the poblano pepper plants, the banana peppers and the godfather peppers are all still doing well.

Plant Problems: That is not kohl rabi

The seed packet is labelled kohl rabi. There is no way that this plant is kohlrabi. This plant looks an awful lot like a dandelion. That would mean that the seed company is selling packets of weeds under the guise of cabbage. Good thing that dandelion greens are actually extremely nutritious cooked or raw.
Bad thing that the growing season is extremely short… as the leaves get bigger the taste goes more bitter. A taste test Farmer No. 2 confirmed that the leaves are in fact bitter. The plants have also flowered which is another sign that we missed harvest time. At least the hundreds of bugs loitering on the stalk are enjoying themselves.

Harvest: Mucho

Every plant is pumping out produce right now. Today we harvested swiss chard, fatali peppers, salad mix, green beans, roma tomatoes, green peppers, striped eggplant, cucumbers, beefsteak tomotoes, jamaican hot yellow hot peppers, banana peppers and jalapeño peppers.

Harvest: Orange Oxheart Heirloom Tomato

We planted two heirloom tomato plants this season. The black plum tomato plant fared well for the first month and a half yielding a couple dozen delicious golf ball sized tomatoes. The other plant, the orange oxheart, has been growing prolificly; five or six feet in height since Farmer No. 1 bought the seedling from the Green Market. In all that growth, it has only yielded this one single tomato. The plant has flowered over and over, it just didn't take. On his visit, Nick the Farmer looked in disgust when he saw we planted pepper plants in the same area. I was only able to translate the concept that the 'roots no like each other'.

Infarmation: Garlic 101

Farmer no. 1 recently purchased garlic at a local corner store and noticed the words "GROWN IN CHINA" on the label. Think of all the pesticides, soil conditions and pollution in China....alarmed by this thought, the garlic was immediately thrown away. We started checking the garlic at all the local grocery stores and found "GROWN IN CHINA" at every store. Why are our local grocery stores selling something that can easily be grown locally?

Very upset by this discovery, we immediately went to the farmers market to purchase locally grown product. The subject was discussed with a local farmer and he said that most garlic in U.S. grocery stores is grown in China, and what is currently in stores was harvested last year!

The Brooklyn Farm will now officially begin growing garlic...and you might consider planting a few bulbs too. It is very easy to grow and Fall is the ideal time to plant garlic for the optimum bulb and shoot development.

We will order our bulbs now and plant in October. Check out the Garlic Store in Ft. Collins, CO. to purchase organic, USA grown bulbs available in lots of interesting varieties. By Spring, we'll have fresh, organic garlic. In the meantime, we recommend buying garlic solely from the farmers market.

For more information on growing garlic, click here.

Harvest: Bok Choi in the Boxes

We planted three short rows of baby bok choi in one of our boxes. The crop has been growing perfectly. Every single seed sprouted and it's all been pest free. The earlier crop grew so well we wanted a second go of it.
Flavor wise this plant doesn't bring much to the table, it's very mild. Color and texture are it's best qualities. 

Brooklyn Farm: Colorado Branch

Farmer no. 1's mother is the original green thumb. 12 foot sunflowers in the high altitude of Colorado Springs (6,000 feet above sea level). It is more challenging to grow in higher altitudes because the temperatures are cooler and the growing season is shorter. The altitude in Brooklyn is around 100 ft above sea level, and our crops are a month ahead of Colorado crops. But we definitely don't have sunflowers like these...nice work!

Harvest: Carrots

Brooklyn Farm's Carrot No. 1 and Carrot No. 2
We planted only five feet of carrot seeds in the beginning of May and we have only gone through a third so far. We'll still plant more carrot seeds this year; carrots can tolerate lower air temperatures because they are root vegetables in the relatively warmer ground.

Food: 13 Farm Ingredients

Farm Friends M+K came over and helped us consume recent harvests. This was a big production using as many different vegetables as we could find in the field. Eggplant parmigiana with farm eggplant, fresh tomato sauce, basil and local mozzarella. The salad made use of farm bibb lettuce, salad bowl lettuce, arugula, basil, thyme, cucumber, carrots, beets and peppers. Thai chili peppers were thrown in to the cucumber salad.

Food: Cucumber Salad, Green Bean Tomato Salad

Farmer No. 2's Mom's Cucumber Salad 

Large cucumber (20") quartered lengthwise and cut into 1/4" slices

Combine in a bowl:

1/4 cup rice vinegar

2 tbsp sesame oil

2 tbsp sugar

2 hot peppers sliced (dried chili flakes work too)

Salt and pepper

Add cucumbers and toss

Let it sit in the fridge for at least an hour, overnight is better.