Hi folks! It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a MONTH since I last posted here. As you can tell from the title, time sure has been flying by for Ben and I. We successfully moved from 604 Sasser in Raleigh to 1000 McLemore Road in Clayton, then I went to TN to see my family, came back and we’ve been working on the farm pretty much from sun up to sun down since. Where did June go?! Well, I hope July doesn’t fly by as quickly. I’m loving the summer – even the heat – I am in NO way ready for the fall and for classes to begin.
I plan on posting some more recipes asap. I have some computer work to do in the next month, so that means I’ll be procrastinating a bit with it right here on the blog ;). Until those recipe postings though – I thought I’d share a few pictures with y’all so you can see a little bit of what we’ve been up to here at Two Trees Farm.
To the right is our new farm truck. It’s a ’93 Chevy Cheyenne. We managed to get a good deal from a very cool man named Gene. He sold us a camper shell too. I even got him to throw in a kitchen cabinet when we picked up the camper shell. Lately I’ve been discovering how much I’m getting to be more and more just like my mama – especially when it comes to finding a good deal or turning one person’s trash into my own treasure. That kitchen cabinet is gonna get fixed up and placed in our office/study.
This is the back shot of the truck. Ben and I still have most of our things in storage for the time being – but as soon as we get to unpacking Ben hopes to find a sticker he bought two years ago for his future farm truck: “I *heart* G.R.I.T.S.” (translation: I love girls raised in the south). Haha. Gotta love it! Farmer Ben from Massachusetts sportin a southern pride sticker. 😉
While we miss our neighbors on Sasser Street – Karl, Dave and Matt – and their beer garden – the farm is full of charms and good people. Our current roommates and soon to be neighbors are Beth and her two children Lucy (10 years old) and George (9 years old).Two Trees Farm (where our 1/2 acre plot is located) belong to Beth and the kids. When our lease on Sasser came up (without chance to renew – the owners are looking to sell), Beth kindly invited us to move to the trailer that is on her property. She and the kids are living there until the old farm house is finished.The farm house was Beth’s great great grandad’s – it was built in 1887. You can learn all about how Beth came to live on the farm and more at Beth’s blog (she’s a writer and stay at home mom) here. Anyway, it turned out that the farm house wasn’t finished in time, so Beth offered us a bedroom and bathroom in the trailer until she and the kids could get moved into the farm house. Of course, we jumped at the deal. When I tell people about our living situtation, a number of them feel compelled to express sympathy for us – but there’s really no need. Our schedules work such that we all tend to have our own space. When you’re living on a farm and most of your work is done outside (or in Beth’s case – in the other house painting and getting other stuff finished in there), it’s pretty hard to feel cramped. Ben and I really enjoy living with Beth, Lucy and George. We really couldn’t have better roommates – and I hope they feel the same way about us. It’s also insanely wonderful that we can open our front door and see our crops! The first day we were moved in, I walked out to the field and picked most of what we ate for dinner. Life can hardly get better. We truly are so very blessed. Sigh – okay, but moving along…and getting back to the pictures 🙂 –>
This is our new wash station. Ben and I found this tub at the Habitat for Humanity Restore for $15. We happened to have Art’s truck (Art is the farm manager of Veggie Barn – to check out their facebook page click here), which was lucky because that tub is mighty heavy. The truck bed tips, so we were able to tilt it and use a bit of gravity to our advantage. Well, I say “we”, but really, I left this particular job to the menfolk. Ben, Aaron, Derrick and a couple other guys from the house crew unloaded the tub onto the crates (which we got from Logan’s Trading Company – an awesome local garden supply store that you can learn more about here).
To the left is our room in the trailer. The window is probably Charlie’s (the dog’s) favorite thing about the house. He also loves the barn and all the rooms – including the hayloft – the farm cats (who are now out of sight quite a bit – poor kitties!), the monkey grass, the woods, the creek, the pond, and well, just about everything outside. The crazy fool loves to chase bugs and there are countless bugs out here. He is truly in dog heaven! 🙂
These are wild black eyed Susans. My cousin Thomas, who is quite the woodsman (and car mechanic and artist), told me that chanterelle mushrooms are in season when black eyed Susans are in season (they thrive off of similar weather conditions). Ben and I tried searching the woods for them but have yet to find any – but we’re convinced they’re there :).
This is a cold frame Beth is letting us use. No one’s using it now, except these pretty flowers and weeds, but we’ll be using it once the weather cools down for sure.
This is a sideways picture of Ben stretching after about 5 hours out in the field. We get up between 5 and 5:30 a.m. and then go in to eat breakfast and have some coffee sometime between 8 and 9. It’s SO nice being able to step inside and take coffee breaks. It’s also nice to sit in the shade of the trees and look at all the tasty and beautiful produce growing right in front of us.
It gets really hot out there. And when you get hot, you sweat. And when you get really hot, you really sweat – so much so that it drips into your eyes. For this reason, bandannas are necessary. Tie one around your head and you have a sweat sponge to keep it from rolling into your eyes. I posted this picture on facebook and once of our friends commented that this picture has a Marky Mark flavor. Hahahahaha! Remember Marky Mark (Mark Walhberg) and the Funky Bunch?! Anyway, you should see what kind of silliness we get into with these bandannas. They also make for good shields from the sun if you stick them in the back of your hat. Sometimes Ben rocks as mancy as 5 bandannas at a time. I’ll have to get some pictures of our 80s inspired banadanna farm fashion. Most of the bandannas came from my mama, who kept them from when my brother Matthias used to sport banadannas (he’s 14 years older than me – so he was a teenager/young adult in the 80s).
Here’s Ben putting leaves and compost down to add nutrients to the soil.
This is gomphrena. I love these flowers. Lara, one of our CSA members (and quickly becoming one of our friends), told us that you can dry the tops and replant them and they’ll flourish. I’ll have to get the specifics from her on this.
Of course, this is basil. Basil is one of my favorite herbs. I can eat it all alone and LOTS of it. But it’s also good with fresh tomatoes, olive oil, salt and pepper, and mozzarella.
These are the cucumbers. I took this picture less than a week ago and they are already much bigger than they were then. We also tied the posts more so they can really grow up well.
These are the peppers. They are also growing quickly. We’ve tied them now as well.
Here’s our solar dryer. I LOVE it! Ben and I have always hung most of our clothes – but we used doorways and lines inside the house. This thing is the premium model for us :).
Tomatoes. They are all tied up now too. They are also finally producing a bunch more. Ben has fertilized them and sprayed (organic approved – you’ll have to ask him what) for stink bugs. Stink bugs are boogers. They get on the tomatoes and suck all the juices out. We’re also beginning to see horned green tomato worms…hopefully Lucy and George will catch most of them for us. They want to catch them and keep them until they turn into moths. They’d be better off that way. If Ben & I get a hold of them, they get squished. They will eat the entire plant in no time!
Here’s another shot of the bar and our wash station.
Here’s a picture of the truck with the camper shell. Fancy aye? 😉 We are LOVIN it!
Okay!!! I think I’ve written enough to make up for the fact that it’s taken me almost a full month to update the blog. I hope I didn’t bore y’all too much. We hope to see you at market tomorrow, but if not, have a great holiday weekend!
Keep cool!
Patricia & Ben
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It feels like Spring around these parts, even though it’s still about three months away. The days are beginning to grow longer once again and life is full of new beginnings for Ben and I this year. For one, we have a new name. Ben’s Produce was never really our first choice. Actually, our first choice was Veni Vidi Vegetables (as in, I came, I saw Vegetables). We were so proud of ourselves when we came up with that name, but when we told folks about it, no one got it and others people told us they couldn’t pronounce it. So we scrapped Veni Vidi Vegetables and decided on Ben’s Produce for its simplicity. It’s been a good name for us. It’s good to have your name in your business name – it means everyone knows your name. But we also feel the name limited us in two main regards: 1) we want to move beyond just produce and 2) well, it’s not just Ben. Ben and I talked about changing our name last year, but when Ben’s Produce was voted Edible Piedmont’s farm of the year, we decided to delay the name change and resolved to change it for 2012. We threw around a lot of names, some serious, some not so much, before we finally came to In Good Heart Farm. In Good Heart has a lot of meanings, but we decided on the name based on the Old English use of the phrase. To say that the soil is in good heart is to say that it is healthy, in good cultivation, and in good spirit. To say that a person is in good heart is to say that they are cultivating wisdom, courage, and good spirit. Ben and I felt that our farm name should represent our vision and we couldn’t think of a better representation of what we want to do and what we want to be in our world than In Good Heart. 
In Good Heart Farm 