Taking a BreakWith the end of the summer growing season on us, we’ve closed the Farm Store for the month of August. We’ll still be delivering our CSA, KTC, and Chef’s orders, as well as appearing at the Daniel Island Farmer’s Market, but we won’t have the store open. Enjoy! |
Summer Veggies coming in for some ‘cool cookin’Cukes and tomatoes are the season’s sensations and we suggest you try a simple gazpacho this week to celebrate. We are now providing you with our organically grown heirloom tomatoes, and hope you will enjoy them. Our tomato selection this year was chosen from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange catalog, all varieties that are time tested to withstand the humid hot south. Our efforts to baby them along seem to be worth it, as we are harvesting now in abundance. Much better results than last year. Enjoy! |
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About the farm…As I am sure you know, the last week has seen record temperatures around the region. This is especially difficult on the organic garden, as disease pressure mounts and increased pressure from insects. We have had a recent intense outbreak of squash bugs that has been relentless. Half of our summer squash, cucumbers and melons have succumbed. A recent application of Diatomaceous Earth is our hope for mitigation. |
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This Week’s CSAYour CSA box this week contains eggplant, heirloom summer squashes, heirloom tomatoes, tomatillos, green beans, cucumbers, garlic and lime basil! Enjoy!! |
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Our Local Foods Urges You to Support Walk for Autism-Charleston
In addition to selling the Autism Ribbon Floor Puzzles, we would like to encourage you to participate in the 2010 Walk for Autism-Charleston on Saturday April 17th at Hampton Park. Registration begins at 9:00 am and the Walk begins at 10:00 am. Registration is $15 for an individual or $20 for a family.
The folks from Outstanding in the Field (www.outstandinginthefield.com) will be setting up their famous “Long Table” at Thornhill Farm on Sunday, September 26, 2010! Their mission is tore-connect diners to the land and the origins of their food, and to honor the local farmers and food artisans who cultivate it. Outstanding in the Field is a roving culinary adventure – literally a restaurant without walls. Since 1999 they have set the long table at farms or gardens, on mountain tops or in sea caves, on islands or at ranches. Wherever the location, the consistent theme of each dinner is to honor the people whose good work brings nourishment to the table. Ingredients for the meal will be almost all local, with much of the produce coming from Thornhill Farm.
The meal will be prepared on site by award-winning Chef Sean Brock, of McCrady’s Restaurant in Charleston with the Our Local Foods team providing the assist! We encourage you to come join us and have a wonderful day on the farm!
We are so happy that the folks from Outstanding In The Field have chosen to include Thornhill Farm as part of their 2010 National Tour. We are also grateful that a portion of the proceeds from this event will benefit Thornhill Farm’s resident non-profit organization, Adaptive Gardens of the Lowcountry. Please visit www.outstandinginthefield.com to learn more or to purchase tickets.
We count ourselves very lucky for the perfect day we had for our event yesterday. The beautiful weather, fabulous oysters, great barbeque, and fantastic music made it a fun time to be had by all. We’d like to once again send out a special thank you to our event sponsors and donors: 
Beets, Wando High School Special Needs Class, Tom Knisley, Julian Levin, Thomas Beach, Guy Artiguse, the Staff of Our Local Foods, and all our cherished volunteers. Also a special thank you to all of you who came out and made it a great day – we hope you’ll come have fun with us again the next time we have such a wonderful event hosted here at Thornhill Farm.
Thank you!
Maria
Today was filming day… which is really good because we want to document what’s going on out here at Thornhill Farm. We had SunbayMedia out to do the filming. They captured the planting that’s going on, the new plants in the hoop house, our take on organic farming- the beneficial insects, compost tea, etc. We also talked about how OurLocalFoods fits into the local economy; specifically, we employ local residents, and sell food in the local area.
We really appreciate the willingness of the local chefs to work with us- including Sean Brock of McCrady’s Restaurant (in Charleston), and Frank Lee of High Hammock Restaurant (in Pawley’s Island). To cap off the filming, the crew went up to High Hammocks restaurant, and watched as Chef Lee prepared 3 dishes that included many of our ingredients, as well as crab and shrimp (always local favorites). The crew was lucky and got to eat Chef Lee’s dishes- report is that they loved the dishes so much that they plan on doing more filming in Pawley’s Island around lunchtime.
Maria
We have 300 chickens on the farm now – they arrived last weekend. We have a chicken tractor for them to live in (see the picture below). The chicken tractor is a chicken house built on a trailer. Our Local Foods would like to acknowledge the incredible design of the chicken tractor by George and Celeste Albers of the “Green Grocer” on Wadmalaw Island (just outside of Charleston, SC). The house has booms sticking out on each side with a shrimp net draped over it that hangs down to the ground. This area is approximately 25′x35′ which is the area the chickens have to run around and feed in. Each day, while the chickens are in the house, the trailer is moved a bit to a new spot, and the chickens are let out to roam around. At night, the chickens go back in their house to roost, and egg laying is also done in the nesting areas. The reason for moving the tractor each day is so there are plenty of new bugs and such for the chickens to find and eat. In a nice symbiotic way, the chickens also dig up the topsoil, add some fertilizer to the soil, and reduce the insect count.
And here’s a picture of one of the hens:
We will be harvesting eggs for the farmers markets at Daniel Island and Park Circle – so come visit us and get some fresh eggs!
Maria
Well, we almost got washed away yesterday. The report was more than 5″ of rain in 12 hours… so now we’re trying to dry off. We’re never ones to complain about rain – sometimes we just wish we could control when and how much comes down. But, there’s a lot to do in the fields, so we’ll back out as soon as the ground dries enough to get back in there.
In the meantime, we keep working on many other items. One thing to note, we’ve got a plant sale coming up on Saturday, April 11th. This will be held just East of Half Moon Outfitters on Coleman Boulevard in Mt. Pleasant (near where the Bridge Run starts). We have several thousand plants, so come on out and pick the ones you want!
Stay dry!
Maria
Yesterday we got Adaptive Gardens of the Lowcountry up and running at Thornhill Farm in McClellanville. This program helps high school students with disabilities by engaging them in horticultural therapy. The horticultural therapy aspects of the program are handled by Catherine, and Our Local Foods is involved in helping provide infrastructure and support however we can. The students are from Georgetown HS and they did a great job getting the planter boxes filled with good soil, and then started the planting. Stay tuned for updates as their garden grows!
…some pictures of the adaptive gardening program
- Maria
Last week we put the potatoes starts in the ground. In total we put out about 3000 plant starts. It is about 100 days to harvest, although delayed harvesting is OK too. So, look for potatoes in late May. We are also fast & furious on the rest of planting for spring and summer. If you’re in the area, drop by and see what we’re doing.
- Maria
