Persephone

In northern (or southern) latitudes, vegetable growth virtually ceases when day-length becomes less than ten hours. Days are shorter than ten hours for at least a few days any place on the globe above latitude 30 or below latitude -30. This includes almost all the United States except the most southern parts of Texas, Louisiana and Florida. The calendar months during which there are fewer than ten hours between sunrise and sunset have been dubbed the “Persephone period” by Eliot Coleman. Although plants grow little during the Persephone period, mature plants may remain healthy. Thus, winter harvest of many salad greens is possible if they are planted in Fall, allowing enough time for them to reach maturity before the beginning of Persephone.

Johnny’s Select Seeds has published a chart that helps chose, depending on the date at which Persephone begins at your latitude, the best Fall planting date for various salad greens to allow winter harvest. However, the chart is awkward to use. Based on this chart, I have created a free database that automatically calculates the best Fall planting dates for your location. To use it, sign up for a free Airtable account here. Once you have signed up, download a copy of the Fall Planting for Winter Harvest to your Airtable account here.

Foraging

I can’t decide whether foraging food or growing food is more satisfying. Our horse pastures sprout meadow mushrooms this time of year, and this year the crop has been huuuuuuge.

A few of these will become a side-dish for steak tonight. The rest go into our dehydrator.

Agaricus campestrina

Farming Aptitude Test

Multiple choice (chose all correct answers).

You need to remove this 100′ row of exhausted summer squash plants to plant a fall crop of radishes and salad greens. To accomplish this task you will need:

summer squash
Summer Squash
  1. A stout pair of gloves
  2. A cool cloudy day
  3. A helicopter with grappling cable
  4. Patience

Viscaina (Biscayne) sauce

The choricero pepper is the essential ingredient of Basque (Spanish) chorizo, and of the red mother sauce of Basque cooking, salsa viscaina. The sauce can be made from fresh peppers, or dried peppers rehydrated in hot water.

Use it as a sauce for grilled fish, or baked potatoes.

Ingredients

  • 2 onions (preferably red) thinly sliced
  • 6 choricero peppers, thinly sliced
  • 1 garlic clove, smashed and diced
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 slice of dry bread
  • 2 cups of stock (vegetable, chicken, or fish stock)
  • 1 tsp salt

Procedure

  • Saute onions and garlic in olive oil until translucent.
  • Add sliced peppers and continue to saute (about 5 minutes)
  • Add stock and salt, simmer 30 minutes
  • Add bread slice and pcuree with immersion blender, blender, or food processor.

We have been certified

No, not certified insane. Certified by the Real Organic Project.

Although High & Dry Farm has been certified organic for several years now, we, like many farmers, have been disturbed that the USDA allows organic certification of farming practices such as hydroponic farming, and raising livestock on barren lots deceptively designated as “pasture”. Certification by the Real Organic Project means that farming practices conform to what any reasonable person would identify as organic, i.e, crops grown in soil, without use of artificial chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, and livestock raised under humane conditions including access to real pasture. So there is organic, and there is real organic. We are both.