Lasagna Gardening

Since the bible states unequivocally that Adam would toil to produce food by the sweat of his brow and that the ground would produce thorns and thistles instead of good food,  it makes sense that a woman would come up with a method of gardening that would keep down the weeds and bring the level of weeding to the bare minimum.  
For the past three years I have followed the gardening method made popular by the book "Lasagna Gardening" by Patricia Lanza and I haven't deviated from her plan since.  I have planted, transplanted and sowed seed into beds made according to Lasagna Gardening with the greatest success.  This is the first year though that I have been able to start early in the fall to prepare the beds and actually "cook" my lasagna beds and I am looking forward to seeing how the beds progress through the winter.  
So far, at River Cottage Farm we have planted three year old asparagus transplants as well as new seedlings in our new lasagna beds and things are progressing nicely.  Our squash and cucumbers are stunning and our beans are recovering nicely from an onslaught of locust. 

Here Cole is planting a new crop of asparagus we grew from seed into a manure filled trench covered with a thick layer of soaked newspaper and cardboard.  A good thick 8 inch layer of straw will cover the cardboard being careful not to smoother the small transplants and a good watering will set the whole garden until spring.
Feel free to come by the farm and take a look at the garden in progress and look for gardening classes beginning next spring.  

Greek Style Yogurt

Thick, creamy yogurt is all the rage and with good cause. Ever since my travels to Germany where I found myself, trudging zombie-like over hills, through hamlets, over church yards with 125 steps (each way) for my daily dose of quark I have been addicted to the stuff. Once home I tried to find a thicker yogurt to compare with the quark I had found but anything that lacked the usual slick, thin texture seemed to be pumped up with thickeners, powdered fats and fillers.
After spending many months scouring German and Greek websites I found the answer was quite simple, strain out some of the whey. This sounds easy and it is. Just pour the yogurt into butter muslin and hang until the desired thickness is achieved. Here are a few tips for success.

When using raw milk to make yogurt the good bacteria will fight, and always win against the good bacteria in the yogurt culture which is why heating your raw milk to 185 F will produce a somewhat thicker yogurt. If you want to keep your milk as raw as possible you have to be ready for some very runny yogurt. You will have to determine how many layers of butter muslin you will need to keep your yogurt contained. Most times two layers of a good muslin will work. When I make yogurt or cheese I usually use three gallons at a time and at eight pounds of milk per gallon I need a good strong hook. I line a large colander with the butter muslin and very gently pour in my cooled yogurt. The corners are tied and the yogurt is hung to drain. Be sure to stir the yogurt several times, gently scraping the sides of the butter muslin. Once the desired thickness is achieved place the yogurt, still in the muslin, back into the colander and transfer to a container. I like to mix up the yogurt to smooth out any lumps using a good whisk.


When I make our Greek style yogurt I usually end up with half yogurt, half whey but being able to adjust the thickness to your own taste is what makes this worth the work.

The whey left over is filled with vitamins and minerals so don't throw it out. You can used this highly nutritious liquid in bread making, cultured vegetables and smoothies. When soaking grains be sure to add two or three tablespoons of whey to the cooking water to assist in breaking down phytates.

Fall comes to River Cottage Farm

There is no doubt about it... the air is crisper, the nights cooler, and the colors are about to change the the face of the ridge behind our farm. Every year autumn seems to come from nowhere and I never feel I am quite ready for it and the letting go of summer, but this year is a year of firsts on our new farm and my anticipation for breathtaking beauty outweighs my sadness at seeing summer slip away.

When we moved to the farm in April the trees had already unfurled their leaves but just. So far the scenery has outdone my expectations and I don't think autumn in Rockfield will disappoint. We are surrounded by hundreds of trees as far as the eye can see and I can only imagine the burst of color that is about to be unleashed on our farm.

Realistically though, aside from the changing scenery there is also the need to brace oneself, the animals and the garden for yet another cold season. So I am trying to keep my mind on the tasks ahead which include:

building a new barn
storing and feeding hay
anticipating every possible problem with providing water for animals
planting garlic and shallots
building hot boxes and mini greenhouses to keep greens growing throughout the winter
buying a new ram for the ewes
building a straw bale chicken coop to keep the girls laying through the winter

Just jotting down this incomplete to-do list I can already feel the aching muscles and giddiness from lack of sleep. Thankfully there are more willing and able hands on the farm this year and the work certainly moves along at a surprising pace with all the laughing and dreaming we do together with shovels in hand.

Hand Shearing

In a constant attempt to simplify things on the farm and bring life ever closer to a sane pace, I have always wanted, nay needed, to change the way we shear our sheep. It isn’t that we have had incompetent shearers, actually we have been blessed with some of the best in the country but shearing day never seemed quite what I imagined. It was rushed, stressful and I always ended up with sixty bags of soggy, smelly wool waiting to be sorted, washed, picked, carded, spun and knit. Also, with shearing quickly becoming a profession of the past, it was so difficult to get the shearer to the farm that their winter coats came off, ready or not!

I admit, sheepishly, that my dream shearing day looked something like the scene from Babe where the farmer loads the dogs and Babe the pig onto the horse drawn wagon and head to the fields to work. Hand shearing each and every sheep, the scene draws to a close at sunset with shots of a pile of freshly shorn fleeces stacked on the wagon waiting for the short ride home.

So with this farming fantasy swimming on the periphery for at least 15 years you can imagine my delight when shepherdess extraordinaire, Sue Smith from Blackberry Hill Farm informed me, every so nonchalantly, that she sheared most of her 60 sheep every year. In what I am finding is pure Sue Smith fashion she proceeded to give me step by step instructions to guide me to success.
1. use a small pen – large enough for comfort but small enough to constrict running
2. comfort the sheep - keep them calm and quiet with some sort of feed treat
3. Buy Fiskar scissors with Easy Action for Arthritic hands
4. Buy a sharpener
5. sort locks as they come off the sheep – no skirting necessary!
6.  don’t try to do more than two sheep in a day



And so I embark on shearing my own sheep, one fleece at a time, slowly and gloriously. No multi-tasking here just shear bliss.

Look for our hand shorn fleeces for sale in our River Cottage Farm Shoppe.