Betsy Freese is the editor-in-chief of Living the Country Life and executive editor of Successful Farming. She grew up on a fruit farm in Maryland (see www.strawberryfarm.com) and moved to the Midwest to get an agricultural journalism degree from Iowa State University. She and her husband, Bob, a veterinarian, have three children and own a farm where they raise sheep, hay, corn, and soybeans.
I dug new red potatoes yesterday, the earliest in the year I've ever done that. Wow, were they delicious in potato salad. I will leave most of my hills alone for another month. Maybe.
I also pulled all my beets and boiled them. I slice and eat them on salads with blue cheese and walnuts. Yummy!
Bob is trying to make it rain, so he cut the alfalfa. It's going to be hot and dry all weekend, so the haymaking should be great, but that will be it for the crop this year if we don't get some moisture. We have had one-half inch of rain in the past month at our farm in south-central Iowa.
That's Warren putting grass hay in the barn last month. He'll be loading the elevator with alfalfa Saturday.
Des Moines is full of pig people this week attending World Pork Expo. I'm going out to the Iowa State Fairgrounds to see what's new and exciting. The dry spring weather in the corn belt and the effect on grain prices is top of mind for the hog industry.
One of the gurus of the business, Randy Stoecker, sent me a presentation he gave recently to PIC, the word's largest swine breeding stock company. I've highlighted a few parts below. You can see the trends easily. Randy worked for PIC, Murphy Farms, Smithfield Foods, and other companies in his long career, and has seen the industry transition. The key message, he says, is how in only 12-15 years the industry went from small, family-sized hog farms to almost total integration with the packing industry.
Living the Country Life is a part of Meredith, home to Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, and much more. The food expertise around here is tremendous. I was lucky to participate in a pasta and wine lunch with chef Edmondo Sarti recently. Everyone had a chance to make some pasta dishes at each table. Below is my favorite: Mezzi Rigatoni Puttanesca with Spicy Tomato Sauce, Capers and mixed Olives.
Here are 5 simple tips for perfect pasta, thanks to Barilla:
1. Fill your pot 2/3 full of water. More than that and it will boil over. Less and the pasta won't cook right.
2. Salt water with coarse sea salt.
3. Undercook pasta by three minutes, drain, transfer to pan and add sauce, cook three minutes, allowing pasta to absorb flavors.
4. Never use oil in the water. The pasta will not bind to the sauce.
5. Do not rinse pasta after cooking.
Mezzi Rigatoni Puttanesca with Spicy Tomato Sauce, Capers and Olives
6 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons onion, chopped
2 anchovies, optional
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 1/2 pounds plum tomatoes, peeled and crushed
2 tablespoons capers
1/2 cup Kalamata olives, pitted
Sea salt, to taste
1 tablespoon parsley
1 box rigatoni
Saute garlic and onions in oil with anchovies and red pepper flakes. Add crushed tomatoes right before mixture turns yellow. Simmer 5 minutes. Add capers and olives. Season with sea salt, if needed. Meanwhile, cook pasta according to box directions. Drain and toss with sauce. Sprinkle with parsley.
Note: I think we added the parsley early in the photo above. The dish was absolutely delicious!
Dessert was served in the Meredith Test Gardens. Vanilla Panna Cotta with Mixed Berries.
Bailey Nurseries stopped by the office this week to show garden editors some of the latest varieties and provide tips to share with readers. A big seller for the company is reblooming hydrangeas. These showy plants bloom from late spring through fall and look great on country properties. Here are some tips to keep them blooming at your place:
1. Don't overfeed hydrangeas. If you add too much fertilizer or "bloom enhancers" the effect is more dark green leaf production with fewer flower buds.
2. Stop fertilizing after August 15th, as plants need to slow down and acclimate for winter.
3. Don't over-water. Although hydrangeas are named after Hydra, Greek for water, your plants will form large leaves, lots of green growth and few flower buds if over-watered. It is normal for plants to wilt in the heat of the day. Give them a long drink every couple of days and leave it at that.
4. In northern states, hydrangeas need more sun -- 6 hours a day in Minnesota, for example. In southern states, the plants need more shade, especially from the hot afternoon sun.
5. To change the flower color on bigleaf hydrangeas from pink to blue, you have to alter the pH of your soil. Bailey sells pelletized garden lime to make the blooms pink and pelletized soil sulfur to make hydrangeas blue.
6. Panicle hydrangeas bloom in mid to late summer. Below is the Vanilla Strawberry variety. Happy gardening!
The time has come to train the 4-H pigs to show in the county fair. Caroline takes them out one by one each night and walks them around the barnyard, through the lawn, around the house, and hopefully not through my vegetable garden. This pig is the heaviest muscled of the four, but her least favorite. He does not want to come out of his pen. Once outside he stands around and sniffs at the ground. The other three pigs race from their pen, hit the grass running and squealing, and root tunnels in the dirt faster than you can say, "Stop that, pig!" This is the last year for 4-H in our family, so I'm going to enjoy every pig-chasing moment.
The boards in our barn are nicer than the boards in many homes. Bob had these stored in the shop for a few years and wanted them out, so he and Caroline stripped off the ugly tin in the lean-to and added the board. The sheep now have fancy digs. I should hang some pictures.
I'm pleased with the progress of my garden, but worried about rain. I don't like to water. The potatoes in front I planted. The potatoes coming up in the middle and back of my garden overwintered from last year. We had such a mild winter that every little lost spud sprouted. I also have volunteer cilantro.
For mulch I'm using finely ground wood chips from two stumps we had removed. I'm not sure that's the best mulch, but it's what I had in great volume close at hand. In the past I have put down newspapers and covered with straw. That works well until the straw spouts in July and my whole garden looks like an oat field by August.
What's in your garden?
This is the problem with hosting a foreign exchange student --after nine months they have to go back home. We put Michelle on a plane to New York City, and then to Sweden this morning. Caroline and a gang of friends went to the airport and it was soon flooded with tears. Michelle's mom, Annika (above, with the camera) flew in a few days ago and we had a wonderful time showing her around Iowa and our farm. One ewe even gave birth to twins in the grove while she was here -- an exciting thing for someone who lives in the city.
We all learned and changed for the better from this wonderful experience. The world is just a small town. Love, peace, happiness.
We will miss you, Michelle. I'm glad you loved your time at "the goat farm in Iowa." Come back and see us again.
In our new issue, I wrote a story about Neal Sawyer and his grass-fed beef farm near Princeton, Iowa. Photographer Mitch Kezar and I visited Neal and took photos of him riding around his pastures on his four-wheeler, checking the cows and moving electric fence. Neal talked about how he convinced his father, Norman, to switch the herd from grain to grass, and it worked. They sell Sawyer Beef at farmers' markets.
As the Spring issue hit mailboxes, I heard that Norman was in a terrible ATV accident in the pasture where we had photographed Neal. A blog set up by the family says, "On Thursday morning, April 19th 2012, Norman Sawyer was thrown from a 4-wheeler. He landed on his back, injuring his C6 and C7 vertebrata. From what we’ve been able to piece together, one of the high-tension electric wires caught the 4-wheeler throttle and caused the 4-wheeler to take off, bucking Norman off. Neal was with him in the pasture, but did not see the accident. When Neal got to Norman, both could tell it was a serious neck injury. Due to the condition of the pasture, the ambulance could not reach Norman. He was helicopter evac to the hospital in Rockford, IL."
You can follow Norman's progress at http://www.nwsrecovery.com/ and leave him an encouraging note.
Betsy