House In The Woods CSA Blog

Oh, how our garden grows…

Posted on 11. May 2013 by admin

Oh, how our garden grows, let us share it with you in some photos. This time of year, Phil and I enjoy going around and peeking under the row covers to check progress. I can barely wait to start harvesting these succulent greens. I am starting to snitch some outer leaves here and there (for quality control, you know..). CSA Harvests begin Friday May 24 on the farm, and Tuesday May 21st for our drop sites, in Alexandria and at Joanie’s Cafe in Frederick.

Here are some samples:

Down the left column: 1. leafy Fun Jen nappa cabbage, we eat it like lettuce with built in celery stems; 2. Garlic patch with rye cover crop paths; 3. Beets; 4. Kohlrabi; 5. Cabbage

Down the right column: 1. cucumbers just before transplanting into the rows; 2. Scallions; 3. Beets; 4. Tomatoes growing strong in the hoophouse; 5. Fun Jen nappa cabbage

Posted in On the Farm, Veggies, Weekly CSA Harvests | Leave a comment

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival

Posted on 6. May 2013 by admin

I love the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. First full weekend in May. I run my sale on Saturday and spend all day Sunday at the festival. Phil and I used to go as farmers and gaze at all the sheep. Then I became a parent and a knitter, so I started going two days–one day with the family to gaze at sheep, and the other day by myself to gaze at yarn. These days we have consolidated it into one day, but I still get solo yarn time. Its such a treat. Here’s some fabulous felting inspiration. Phil liked this hat. Suits him, yes?

Check out the curly locks eye candy at my favorite vendor Wild n’ Woolly and their hilarious fleece art. And as always, say hi to the alpacas, who sneak into the sheep fest each year (they are covered by the wool part, I guess, but in this case…not any more).

Posted in Events, Family Art and Crafts, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Happy Gardening

Posted on 6. May 2013 by admin

Thank you to all the gardeners who came to the House in the Woods Plant Sale. We appreciate your support. We love to see you each year and hear about your gardening plans. We work hard to start these strong healthy seedlings throughout March and April (with some of our awesome volunteers!), then it is fun to send them off into gardens all over the region.

These two eager gardeners came to the farm with their garden plan in hand. They were looking for heirloom tomato plants and wanted to support a local business. Shannon asked on her local neighborhood listserve and up popped our CSA member, Elissa, who recommended they stop by our sale. We had all Shannon’s favorite heirloom varieties! Considering there are hundreds of heirlooms to choose from, it was pretty amazing that our 15 varieties included her faves. Check out their garden plan:

Dave and his son live near us and found out about our farm from our farm lane sign. Look how excited they are about their garden! Planting time is full of potential, full of plans. Time to get into the dirt and put it into action!

Happy gardening, from our garden to yours,

Ilene and Phil

Miss out on the sale? Find our tomato and eggplant plants at The Common Market. They also offer a great array of other organic garden starts, go check it out.

Posted in Events, Heirloom Tomatoes, Seedling Sale, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Heirloom Tomato Seedling Sale this weekend!

Posted on 30. April 2013 by admin

House in the Woods Farm

Varieties list!

$4.50/tomato plant, other prices vary. Bring a box for transport of your plants if you can. We accept cash and checks.

Sale Hours —At the farm

Friday May 3th, 10am-7pm
Saturday May 4th, 10am-5pm

Organic Heirloom Tomato Plants

REDS * PINK * BLACK * PURPLE———————————–

Brandywine–Pinkish red, most popular heirloom originated in 1889.

Cherokee Purple–A prolific beefsteak favorite, cultivated by the Cherokee Tribe in Tennessee. Deep red interior flesh, rich, complex flavor.

Rutgers– From 1934 “the Jersey tomato”, red tomatoes great taste for fresh slicing or cooking.

Black Krim–Dark red beefsteak, rich and sweet, from Black Sea of Russia.

Black Prince–From Siberia, one of the most popular black tomatoes. Rich taste for cooking or fresh. Smaller fruit.

Jetstar—Red slicer, a reliable and hearty hybrid that will fill your baskets.

UNIQUE COLORS———————————————————

Old German—a mild sweet tomato, with red-yellow streaks to skin and flesh. Low acid, as are most yellow, orange and green tomatoes.

Pineapple—just like Old German, can have bigger fruit

Green Zebra–A magic tomato, green with dark green stripes, blushes yellow. Green salsa, green sauce! A hit for contrast on a potluck platter.

Garden Peach–Heavy producer of 2″ round fuzzy yellow fruit. Sweet, juicy, well-balanced flavor.

Persimmon—Lovely orange tomato, fruity sweet like a persimmon

ROMA-PASTE TOMATOES———————————————

Amish Paste—deep-red and oxheart-shaped, lots of sweet, tomatoey flavors from this coreless meaty fruit. A great slicing and sauce tomato.

Orange Banana–Plum-shaped orange paste with pointed ends, sweet-tart. Disease resistance. Stinkbugs didn’t bug this tomato in our fields!

CHERRY TOMATOES—————————————————-

Matt’s Wild Cherry–Mini red wild cherry tomatoes, prolific. Cute little stems with six bite-size tomatoes on each. Kids love ‘em!

Sungold Cherry–Orange, super sweet mini tomato. A rare exception to our heirloom rule in our tomato collection, this hybrid is worth it. Our CSA members eat them all up on the car-ride home.

OTHER PLANTS FOR SALE——————————————————–

Eggplant, Italian and long Japanese varieties

Peppers, bell, jalapeno and specialty varieties

Basil, sweet and thai

Oregano, Sage and Chamomile

Parsley

For photos of each variety of tomatoes, go to www.houseinthewoods.com

***USE OUR FARM LANE ON SALE DAY, on PARK MILLS ROAD***

House in the Woods Farm: 2225 Park Mills Rd, Adamstown, MD. (For GPS purposes, but there is no mailbox there. Watch for the House in the Woods Farm sign)

Contact: ilene@houseinthewoods.com or 301-607-4048. You may schedule other times to pick up plants as well.

Our tomato plants are also available at The Common Market (www.commonmarket.com). You can get a lot of other great plants there too!

Posted in Heirloom Tomatoes, Seedling Sale | Leave a comment

Heirloom Tomato Plant Sale

Posted on 24. April 2013 by admin

The House in the Woods Seedling Sale is approaching! Organic heirloom tomato plants for your garden. We feature beautiful heirloom tomato plants. I have plenty of peppers, eggplant, basil and some other plants to offer as well. More details on varieties coming soon, check here at the blog.

Sale Hours —At the farm

Friday May 3th, 10am-7pm
Saturday May 4th, 10am-5pm

***USE OUR FARM LANE ON SALE DAY, on PARK MILLS ROAD***

House in the Woods Farm: 2225 Park Mills Rd, Adamstown, MD. (For GPS purposes, but there is no mailbox there. Watch for the House in the Woods Farm sign)

Contact: ilene@houseinthewoods.com or 301-607-4048. You may schedule other times to pick up plants as well.

Our tomato plants are also available at The Common Market (www.commonmarket.com). You can get a lot of other great plants there too!

See http://blog.houseinthewoods.com for photos of our plants and heirloom tomatoes–watch there for more details and updates about the sale. You can get the same links on Facebook at House in the Woods Farm.

Posted in Heirloom Tomatoes, Hoophouse, Seedling Sale | Leave a comment

Frederick Mag article

Posted on 6. March 2013 by admin

Check out the March edition of Frederick Magazine for a House in the Woods sighting, in the article titled “Waste Not, Want Not”. I am quoted talking about the way we can make use of vegetables that are not picture perfect, instead of wasting all that good food. In a CSA, customers learn that the farm is their garden rather than their grocery store. The produce is organic and fresh and beautiful, but if there is a little nick on something, we don’t throw it away. It is not wasted. It’s perfectly good eating. For the next level of imperfects, we are able to sell to the Common Market deli, where they can chop off a bad spot and use local produce in the delicious dishes and soups they cook. We also donate to the Frederick Food Bank, thanks in part to another Common Market collaboration they call Farm to Food Bank.

In the article, yeeks, there is a full page photo of me in the hoophouse. (at least its not a centerfold, eh?) It wasn’t easy doing a farm photo shoot in February, I gotta tell you. There is not much to show off on the farm in February. The garlic was sprouting a bit, since that’s planted in October, and we’ve got some greens in the hoophouse for our family use. That’s about it. So the Fred Magazine photographer, Jason I believe, came to do the photo shoot. Jason was squatting down to take photos of me making soil mix for the seedlings and my cat approaches, eyeing his back and shoulders. I gave him just enough warning that my cat Tigger was going to jump on his back, so he didn’t startle and drop his fancy camera in my dirt. Jason was pretty cool about it, actually, he let the cat nestle down for a nap (a cat nap?) on his back while he clicked photos. I wished I could have taken some photos of him and Tigger, it was much more interesting content, but like I said, he was the one with the camera.

Check out the Fred Mag while its on news stands.

Posted in Hoophouse, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Blogging for Mother Earth News

Posted on 9. January 2013 by admin

I’ve got big news! And a big cabbage!

Ilene is blogging for Mother Earth News.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/ilene-white-freedman-farmer-environmental-educator.aspx

And I’ll keep on writing right here, on the ol home page. The best way to see links to both, is on our Facebook Page.

Posted in Events, On the Farm | Leave a comment

CSA Shares Available

Posted on 9. January 2013 by admin

House in the Woods Farm has CSA memberships available for the 2013 season! Select your own items farmers-market style to fill your weekly or every-other-week bag. And new, a 5-week FlexShare option! Click on “How to join our CSA” for all the details.

www.houseinthewoods.com

Posted in Veggies, Weekly CSA Harvests | Leave a comment

Happy New Year!

Posted on 1. January 2013 by admin

Happy New Year from House in the Woods Farm!

Posted in Family | Leave a comment

Beeswax Candle Dipping

Posted on 7. December 2012 by admin

I love to dip candles in December. Today was dipping day! Candles are a beautiful symbol for the season. Candles are symbolic for Solstice–it’s nice to have the warmth and light of candles during the dark days of winter. Solstice celebrates the return of light after December 21st. The holidays of the season–Christmas, Chanukah and Kwanzaa–embrace the same idea. So candle making is a universally wonderful thing to do in December, don’t you think?

We like making things for ourselves, and we especially like making it from the source. Homegrown from the start inspires us deeply. So this year’s candles were e-special-ly special dipped from our own bees’ wax. See the honey on the beeswax? It makes the candles smell even sweeter.

It was a year long project. I adventured in the art of refining lumps of dirty beeswax from February through August. I had dirty lumps of beeswax on the counter and in two different freezers, and one in the back of the fridge. It felt good to collect them (most of them?) and melt em down and clean em up into usable beeswax. I will write a post with the refining details later, for those of you with dirty lumps of beeswax in your freezer(s). But anyway, this month, we brought out the block of refined beeswax and melted it down to dip candles.

They aren’t smiling for the camera, but the kids get pretty into it. Probably though, I like it the most. It makes me feel warm inside, to dip beeswax candles.

The kids love having homemade, homegrown Chanukah candles for our menorah. Jonah made the menorah, too. Happy Chanukah to those celebrating this week and next.

Posted in Animals, Bees | 1 Comment