Fleur-de-MysteryRose

Ruth and Jack Flounders run a small heirloom rose nursery in Schuylkill County called Roses in Thyme. I think we first met when they came down to buy garlic for their Sculps Hill Vinegars, and throughout the years we’ve exchanged occasional emails. Last week, they drove down with their grandson to show him the llamas and to buy sweet potato slips.

Draven loved touching Griffey’s (the retired Mennonite Buggy Horse) soft muzzle, got to see the girls sunbathing on llama beach, and even cranked the bucket on the wishing well as he toddled around the farm. Before they left, they gave us a gift: a beautiful old shrub rose. It is just like the ones they sell at their nursery, only it was mislabeled and they only sell correctly labeled old roses. (Check out their website: rosesinthyme.com). So, the mystery rose has taken harbor with our mystery peonies and our mystery rugosa rose, an alleyway of pink fragrance from the house to the barn. Laurie Lynch

At Fleur-de-Lys Farm this week: We’ve got strawberries, garlic scapes, elderblossoms for making Elderblossom Cordial, lettuces, red Russian kale, radishes, honey, assorted fresh herbs, and eggs.

No Boys from Brasil, Just a Young Man: Our 18-year-old son Richard returns from his Rotary Exchange year in Juiz de Fora, Brasil, tomorrow. So, it will be help-yourself day at Fleur-de-Lys Farm Market.

Starting Thursday: Orphan tomato seedlings – St. Pierre, Rose de Berne, Green Zebra, Taxi, Rowdy Red, Egg Yolk and plum tomatoes Assalito Family, Pompeii and Roughwood Garden.

Llama Beans: They are here for the taking! Pick up a bag and cook up your compost.

Written on Slate: One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.

-- Dale Carnegie

Fleur-de-LastDaysofMay

Everything is abloom at Fleur-de-Lys Farm this week! We’ve got strawberries, lettuces, baby Jade bok choy, Russian red kale, radishes, assorted fresh herbs, and eggs.

Sweet Potato Slip Special: Bunch of 25 slips for $15.

Llama Shearing Status: One done, one to go.

Coming Soon: Orphan tomato seedlings.

Written on Slate:

I sing of brooks,

Of blossoms, birds, and bowers;

Of April, May

Of June and July flowers.

                        Robert Herrick

Fleur-de-SchuylkillShastas

 

The best thing about the Fleur-de-Lys email newsletters is the feedback they generate.

Farming can be a solitary life, which is why I treasure customers stopping by and emails from readers. Ruthie lives up in Schuylkill County so I don’t see her often but I love her wisdom and recollections. And yes, I love it that I can occasionally use words to make her smile:

“Your tale about the milkweed brings a happy smile to my face.  When one of my step-daughters was a little girl she asked me to show her how to plant Shasta daisy seeds on our little mini farm.  We planted the packet in a neat little row in my flower section (aside from my husband's very serious vegetable section.)  Archer is now attending grad school in Seattle, Washington, married and has a darling baby girl.  But each summer the Shasta daisies continue to bloom all over that 4 l/2 acres and probably for miles around. My son now owns that property so I still get to see the daisies.  Our little ones do grow up quickly but mine still thank me for all the little things that I taught them.”

We thank you too, Ruthie. Enjoy this sweet potato and Shasta daisy planting weather.  Laurie Lynch

At Fleur-de-Lys Farm Market this week: eggs, asparagus, lettuce, kale, rhubarb, herbs and lovely peonies!

Sweet Potato Slips:  This morning I emailed my sweet potato supplier in Tennessee asking when I should expect the slips. I think he’s busy. I didn’t even get one word in reply, and this is a talkative fellow. The message? “ASAP.” That email came at 9:56 a.m. The UPS man arrived at 11:07 a.m. … with a box of sweet potato slips! ASAP means ASAP down in Tennessee. As always, I ordered more than I can possibly plant, so if you’d like to try your green thumb, give me a call (610) 683-6418, email or stop by.

Brownie Points: Well, Trig’s homemade brownies arrived in Brasil last week. She won Brasilian brownie points from my son Richard and his host mom Meire! And, I just got word this afternoon that the brownie mixes I sent made it too! Happy baking, Richard.

Llama Beans: We’ve got bags of llama manure pellets (AKA Llama Beans) to get your compost bin cooking. Who says nothing is free?

Written on Slate: “My dream is to become a farmer. Just a Bohemian guy pulling up his own sweet potatoes for dinner.” – Lenny Kravitz

Fleur-de-Milkweed

You have all heard of Johnny Appleseed, the pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to the Midwest and became an American legend.

Well, in this part of Maxatawny Township we have Marina Milkweed. Yes, I’m talking about my daughter. She’s been living in Belgium for the past two years, but her legacy is showing up in our asparagus field, our strawberry patch, under the basketball hoop, and in the meadow.

Ever since she was a barefoot scamp, Marina was drawn to milkweed pods growing along our stream. Her favorite thing to do at summer’s end was to pluck the teardrop-shaped pods from the plant, pry the sticky, milky shells open with her fingers, and then scatter the hundreds of seeds with their silky parachutes into the breeze.

After 10 years of spreading milkweed seeds, her handiwork is evident everywhere I look. And that’s a good thing, especially this year, which is thought to be one of the worst for the monarch butterfly.

The monarch butterfly, with its beautiful black-and-orange wings, is one of those select creatures that lays her eggs on one type of plant, and one type only, the milkweed. There, the eggs hatch into larvae, and the larvae feed on the foliage.

This past winter, hailstorms in Mexico left 2 inches of ice on the trees where the monarch butterflies spend the winter. This was followed with 15 inches of rain. Scientists from Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, estimate that more than 50 percent of the monarchs were killed, and the monarch population was already small to begin with.

As spring came to Mexico, the remaining female monarchs began flying north, depositing eggs on milkweed leaves. The migrating monarch mommas die, the eggs hatch, and the offspring continue the migration. It takes three to four generations for the monarchs to reach Canada. In the fall, the final generation migrates back to Mexico.

It isn’t just the severe weather that hurt the monarch population. Illegal logging in Mexico has destroyed its habitat and the use of genetically engineered corn and soy in the Midwest has also had a deleterious effect. Farmers can spray herbicides on the genetically modified corn and soy without killing the crops, but the herbicides kill the milkweed.

So, if you would like to help the monarchs this summer, stop by Fleur-de-Lys Farm and I’ll dig up a milkweed plant for you. Plant it in a wild spot on your property and you will create a much-needed habitat for the beautiful monarch. Special Note: Our milkweed is called common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) and is considered invasive, i.e., a weed. There are two other milkweeds, butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) and swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata), both good for the monarch and the garden. Laurie Lynch

This Week at Fleur-de-Lys Farm Market: Eggs, asparagus, sorrel, chives and other spring herbs, and a 19^th-centruy French heirloom lettuce called Sanguine Ameliore. A photograph of this butterhead-type or “cabbage” lettuce caught my eye in this year’s Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalog. The catalog calls it by its French name, “Sanguine Ameliore” or “strawberry cabbage lettuce”. As you know, my knowledge of the French language is extremely limited but I was curious. To me, “sanguine” has something to do with blood, and that is the color of the “sprinkles” of red on the chartreuse leaves of this lettuce. So, I Google-translated “sanguine ameliore” to “blood improves” and double-checked it with my French-speaking Marina Milkweed. I guess in seed cataloguese, “blood improves” translates into “strawberry cabbage”.

Sweet Potato Slips: They should be arriving any day. When they arrive, I will send out emails to everyone who pre-ordered. If you’d like to reserve slips (12 slips for $10), let me know. We still have the following varieties: Carolina Ruby, Centennial, Yellow Jewel, Red Japanese (white flesh), White Triumph, and Nancy Hall (white flesh).

Llama Bean Bonus: We are attempting to spread goodwill and llama beans throughout the Lehigh Valley and Berks County, one bag at a time. Mix these llama beans (AKA llama manure pellets) into your compost pile and you won’t be sorry. Free!

While the Cat’s Away: This weekend Paul will be getting a much-needed break sailing on the Chesapeake. If you are in the Fleur-de-Lys neighborhood, stop by for a glass of refreshing elder-blossom cordial and give me a much-needed break.

Fleur-de-BrowniePoints

Our son Richard has been a Rotary exchange student in Brasil since July. I can count the telephone calls we’ve received from him on one hand: the day after he arrived, Christmas Eve, and a few days after his 18th birthday. He sent us one youtube video of himself from a news report of a professional soccer game. (He was in the stands. I thought I spotted him wearing a striped shirt, but I was wrong. Had it been so long that I didn’t recognize my own son? He was the shirtless wild man waving his jersey above his head like a helicopter.) Over the last 10 months there were never enough emails and the majority concerned problems getting money from his U.S. bank card through Brasilian ATM machines.

Late last week his email was a little different. It started off with “One month from tomorrow I’ll be leaving this paradise.” With that timetable, I actually allowed myself to get excited for his homecoming. Then, he asked a favor: Please send a few boxes of brownie mix! 

A little background: When Richard packed his suitcases last summer, he was under strict baggage weight restrictions. One of the suggestions for exchange students is that they occasionally cook for their host families. So, Richard packed a few boxes of pancake and brownie mix, and Pennsylvania maple syrup. The boxes traveled well; the syrup did not.

Getting back to last week’s email, Richard wrote that his host mom, Meire, loves his brownies and they’re a real hit with his friends in Juiz de Fora. “I made them for my class on my birthday and the requests won’t cease.”

So, I went to Weis and bought six boxes of Betty Crocker Brownie Mix with Hershey’s chocolate, which gives them a “local” twist. I found a strong cardboard box and packed them. Then I dashed an email off to my mother’s college roommate and life-long friend, Trig.

I saw Trig over the winter while visiting my mother in State College and she told me about a book she’s writing called “Brownie Points.” The book revolves around her delicious brownies that have sweetened palates from San Francisco to the North Pole to Singapore, and everywhere she has traveled in between. Trig once gave my two nephews who visited her in Tiburon a goody bag of brownies to take for the road, and a second bag for the Golden Gate toll-takers. She is quite the character. While others go quietly into their 80s, Trig became an actress with a leading role in a short film called “Grand Ma Takedown”. In the film she is dressed from hat to hem in hot pink, packs a handgun, and confronts bank robbers and ninjas.

Trig responded to my email about Richard wanting brownie mix by asking for his address so she could send him some “real brownies”.  Meanwhile, I took my box to the post office and filled out the requisite custom form. Contents: Betty Crocker Brownie Mix. Quantity: 6 boxes. Weight: 9 lbs. 0 oz. Value: $15. Postage: $53.25.

$68.25 for six batches of brownies. An extravagant expense, yes. But in my book, Richard baking brownies for his host mom and Brasilian friends is priceless when it comes to brownie points. Laurie Lynch

I asked Trig (AKA Joyce Turley) if I could share her recipe in this newsletter and she responded, “Sure. It will be on the back cover of my book. Recipes are like ballads -- gifts of love to be shared.”

Brownie Points

4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate (Trig uses Sees chocolate chips from California)

1 ½ sticks butter, European-style if possible

3 eggs in blender; add ½ cup flaked coconut and liquefy in blender.

1 ½ cups pure-cane sugar

1 ½ teaspoons good vanilla (Try to get 100% pure Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla) 

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup chopped walnuts and 2 cups whole or pieces of walnuts (less if desired)

¼ cup chopped black walnuts (optional)

Microwave chocolate and butter in large bowl on high for 4 minutes or until melted. Dump in all other ingredients.

Spread in greased 7½ x 7½ baking dish. (Trig lines the dish with parchment paper.) Bake at 350 degrees for 31 minutes. Turn oven off and remove when cool. Cut into squares when cool or best if cut after sitting overnight. If you’re having a sugar attack, cool in refrigerator for an hour, then cut and lift carefully so they won’t crumble.

                                                                     

Farm Visitors: It’s been a busy week at Fleur-de-Lys Farm. A neighbor brought three visitors from China for a tour and then a photographer from “Organic Gardening” came to check out our garlic field for possible photos to illustrate an upcoming article.

Last Set of Easter Peep Names: Our buddy Otis likes random, rhyming words for animals and dolls, so he named his Easter chicks Shaggit and Naggit.

Fresh at the Farm:  This week we have dozens of pastel-colored eggs from our pastured hens. With the heat and rain, we’re cutting Purple Passion and green asparagus twice a day, and watering our heirloom tomato and pepper seedlings at least as often. Lots of herbs in the cutting garden as well.

Written on Slate: “Life is a privilege to be seized and nurtured until every joyful, exasperating, shocking, fulfilling moment has been savored. Then – you go back for seconds.” – Joseph Alioto

“Make sure you have Brownies when you go back.” – Joyce Turley

Fleur-de-Scrambled

 

Scrambled. That’s how my life is now.

So much so that when my mother and great aunt were visiting over the weekend, it didn’t occur to me to hide the four trays of chitting (sprouting) seed potatoes – All Blue, Lehigh, Adirondack Red, and Purple Sun – laying on the living room floor (planting No. 3).

“What are those things?” asked the 80-something duo. “They look like cookies or something.”

The dining room table covered with semi-organized piles of paperwork, seed catalogs, and planting charts is invisible to me; to them, it was a glaring example of domestic disarray. In their homes, there’s not a paper or knickknack out of place. The pots of luffas crowded on the kitchen windowsill are as natural as the wall-to-wall tomato seedlings in the hoop house or the ladybugs in the bathroom.

“You must like this life,” said the woman who is planning her 90^th birthday around nine holes of golf and knows how to relax with a glass of “white water” (vodka with a splash).

It’s spring. Although there is never a month I’d earn the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for my homemaking skills, this time of year is especially bad. Why, when I was carrying out a flat of Giant of Prague celeriac and assorted heirloom peppers to transplant and the tray flipped and spilled all over the front steps, I was more concerned with rescuing seedlings than sweeping up the mess.

Add demands of a part-time job, family obligations that cut weekends from each month, and rain that encourages mats and mounds of weeds … no wonder I feel like I’m always scrambling. So, if I’m not available when you visit, please understand. Bring change or write me a note and remind me what I owe you on your next visit. But most of all, stop in and enjoy our fresh eggs, fresh asparagus, fresh green garlic – and, if I’m around, fresh-cut arugula, sorrel, lettuce, chives and other lovely herbs.  No matter what life brings, I promise never to be hard-boiled. And one of these days, things will settle down and I’ll be sunny-side up, or at least, over-easy. Laurie Lynch

More Chick Names: All of the Easter Peeps came back safe and sound. The rest of the names are as fun as the first group: Pecky Anne, HENrietta, Queenie Black (a Crevecour with a crown of feathers), Chocolate Turtle, Arabeth, Aussie, Shelly, Flippy-Flip Chick, Blackie, and Blondie.

Sweet Potato Slips Soon: $10 for a dozen slips. Heirloom varieties include Georgia Jet, Beauregard, Vardaman, Yellow Jewel, Nancy Hall, and White Triumphs. New varieties: Carolina Ruby and Red Japanese. Please call or email to reserve. They should arrive in mid-May.

Llama Beans: We’ve got bags of llama beans (aka llama manure pellets) to cook your compost … and more on the way. Our llama beans can become your black gold … and they’re free!

Dandy Soup: Soon after I was raving about my garden-harvested dandelion meals, Valerie sent me an email that shows how she’s unscrambling her life. “Thinking of you today. I made a soup with beef bone broth, dried beef, your carrots, sheep sorrel, thistle roots, wild garlic, and oregano that grow in my yard. And mint tea, also from my yard. Why do we bother planting anything? Just learn weeds. My rule of thumb when making soup is; If it’s growing at the same time, then it all goes in the soup.”

Written on Slate: “If my heart were a garden, it would be in bloom with roses and wrinkly Indian poppies and wild flowers. There would be two unmarked tracts of scorched earth, and scattered headstones covered with weeds and ivy and moss, a functioning compost pile, great tangles of blackberry bushes, and some piles of trash I’ve meant to haul away for years.” – Anne Lamott

Sign Gone, We’re Not:  We are having a new Fleur-de-Lys Farm Market sign made. On occasion during the next month or so, we may be sign-less. But, we’re still open.

Fleur-de-CircleofLife

Last weekend was our second wave of potato planting.

The first was a few weeks ago when I started several pounds of fingerlings in large black plastic pots in the hoop house. It’s a painless way to grow potatoes – no digging trenches, just add a little compost when the leaves shoot up, and then, after the plants flower, you simply reach into the pot and pull out tender gems for dinner.

But last weekend, it was the more traditional way of planting potatoes, with a few Fleur-de-Lys twists. I still dig trenches, three of them, but instead of numbering them 1-2-3, they are Red, White, and Blue. That way, I plant all my red-fleshed or red-skinned potatoes in the red row; all the white-fleshed potatoes in the white row, and yes, the blue-skinned and fleshed potatoes in the blue row. I separate varieties in rows with stakes. Later in the season, when I want to harvest a few pounds of white and blue potatoes for a Penn State tailgate, I know which rows to go to. These mind games come in handy for us graying market gardeners.

Another trick of the trade is making sure the seed potatoes have a generous helping of composted manure. After I dig my trenches and place my potatoes, I start wheeling in loads of compost to start filling in the trenches, covering the seed potatoes. As I move along the row, I search for the fat, C-shaped white grubs in the black compost. I gently pick them out, collecting them in a bucket. Then, as I return the empty wheelbarrow to the composted manure pile for a refill, I take the writhing beetle grubs up to the chicken pasture. Bonbons for the hens.

It’s Easter Peep return week, so I’ve been busy collecting all of the names for the girls (more on that later), getting them reacquaintedwith their sisters, and gathering eggs from last year’s peeps. We’re also starting to pick asparagus, baby arugula, sorrel, chives, green garlic (scallions of the garlic variety), shiso, and, we have local Milk & Honey Farm honey. One interesting first for us was about a third of our Red Russian kale over-wintered and has sprouted new, tender, tasty leaves! I’m perplexed, but not complaining. Then, I got a call from Karen, a great gardener on the other side of Kutztown. Her broccoli raab did the same thing! All I can think is that we didn’t have a brutally cold winter, and we had more snow cover than usual, acting as a blanket for tough plants and perhaps helping them survive and now thrive. Here’s to thriving! Laurie Lynch

Name Game: Yes, we want our peep customers to name their chicks! The week before Easter we had former peep family who trudged the whole way up Hen Hill to call for last year’s peep: “Pancake, Pancake.” She came running … along with the rest of the flock! This year’s youngsters liked the letter C. We have Claire, Charlotte, and Candice. We also have two chicks named Chipmunk and two chicks named Chippy. (I have to stop describing the Aracauna chicks as looking like chipmunks. I’m afraid I’m skewing the data.) Other names are Goldie and Princess and Peepers, Sorrel and Shadow, Brownie and Blackberry, Tulip and Daffodil and Lilly, Bird and Buddha, and, simply, “Him” (we are hoping “Him” is really “Her”). We also got Pecky and Picky, as well as pictures of Pecky and Picky Perching on a Pot. But my special Easter treat this year came from a customer/photographer in the Philadelphia area. She brought me a trio of photographs of her precious babe in an Easter bonnet and special dress playing with her first Easter peep. Charming.

Tomato, Tomahto: Started transplanting tomato seedings this week. New heirloom varieties headed to our Fleur-de-Lys field: Violet Jasper, Carbon, Black Ruffles, Rowdy Red, and three vintage plum tomatoes: Assalito Family, Roughwood Garden and Pompeii.

Written on Slate: “I call everyone ‘Darling’ because I can’t remember their names.” – Zsa Zsa Gabor