Free Sauna

We've had a hot week, full of ozone, sweat, and long days. My dad tells me I need to think of it as a "free sauna".... it works on some days. We decided a few months ago that neither of us were allowed to complain about heat until at least July. But, we kind of failed. Oh well- there's a "cold" front coming in, right? We're trying to learn how to work with the summer heat, instead of against it. Getting to the farm really early, and then organizing our day so we are doing most of our field work in the morning and evening, and saving cooler chores for the afternoon.

Above is a picture of our beautiful patty pan squash. We'll be selling some at the market tomorrow. You can use patty pan like you would zucchini, or you can ask me about Patty Pan Pie at the market tomorrow. We will also be selling carrots, Chioggia beets, golden beets, yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers, green beans, hot peppers, and amaranth. Amaranth is a gorgeous colorful green leafy vegetable that you can cook like spinach.



We have had a lot of help from family and friends this week and it is much appreciated! Our friend Ely has been helping us with our cooler, and he got it up and running for us last Sunday. That's him on top of the cooler. Also, my mom is in town from California and has been helping out at the farm and the market. Thank you! And last but not least, Don's mother has a bountiful garden that is producing tons of yellow squash and cucumbers, and she gave us pounds and pounds to sell tomorrow. She uses the same all-natural practices that we do. Thanks to everyone who has been helping out, and thanks to you all who will be at the market tomorrow!

-Chelsea

Help Us Find New Land! This is a BIG DEAL!

We started the farm in July 2008, and even though we haven't even finished our first whole calender year we are already looking for a new location. We are pretty sure that we will be able to finish our season where we are, but the fact is our current land arrangement hasn't been stable for quite a while. We are very sad about it and wish that we could work things out, but it is better that we just find a new place to go.

Bootstrap Farm is looking for a new home! We don't have much time either! In order to really prepare the soil for next year and get a cover crop in over the winter, we need to start tilling up the soil right now. We have to find land before the fall. Yikes!

Our search for a new place to farm has not been very successful yet, and we need everybody to help! We need you to call friends and relatives, ask anybody who might know somebody who owns some flat ground suitable for farming. Good farmland can be hard to find in Oklahoma! The only way to find it is by word of mouth.


We have been looking for land in the following counties: Tulsa, Wagoner, Rogers, Creek, Okmulgee, Mayes, Payne, and Pawnee and we are open to locations elsewhere. We are concentrating on these counties because of their proximity to our market and because their geology makes them more likely to have at least some good farmland. For the most part the good land is old alluvium near creeks and rivers, but sometimes you'll find it in other places.

Here are our search criteria:

• At least 8 contiguous acres, but preferrably 15 or more.
• Few Trees (we don't want to doze a forest for a farm)
• Flat, well drained soil such as loam, silt loam, or sandy loam.

Thats really about it! Even finding those few qualities can be tough. We are interested in buying OR doing a cash lease as long as the lease can be long term. If you know of a property that might be suitable that is for sale or lease send us an email or call Don at 918-812-2671. We are pretty flexible and can probably work something out as long is the soil is suitable. If you are curious about the soil at a particular spot you can check it out at the NRCS Web Soil Survey (that's what we use).


Thank You For Your Help,

Don and Chelsea

Big Bad Storm

We survived a big bad storm today. Here is the big storm system rolling in. It was moving so fast- and for a few minutes the sky was very green and eerie. We were in the middle of harvesting lettuce when it started lightening close-by. So we hopped into the reefer trailer to weather the storm. It was one of the bigger storms we've had this spring- pretty exhilarating. 2 inches in 1 hour. The plants are pretty battered, but they needed the water; that is the give-and-take of farming.


This is our lovely employee Kathryn. She is an awesome worker and she's great company. She's picking lettuce just before the storm hit. She was a good sport after the sun came out today and harvested in the mucky mud with me.

Tomorrow at the Cherry St. Farmers' Market, we will have lots of goodies: Purple carrots, orange carrots, green beans, chioggia beets, turnips, red salad lettuce, kale, dill, and cilantro. We will have squash soon! we've gleaned a few baby zukes this week, and they are delicious. We just ate fish & zucchini tacos with tons of cilantro for dinner tonight.


Below is a fun picture of our purple-top turnips. in the wash bucket. These taste great worked into mashed potatoes, cooked like scalloped potatoes, roasted in the oven, or grilled.


Hope you all have a good weekend!

Chelsea

Cilantro Time!

Hey everyone! I thought I'd post really quick about what we've been up to this week and what we'll have at the market tomorrow. We've been busy planting corn, beans, squash, okra, melons, black eyed peas, more cilantro, and sweet potatoes. We found out that planting sweet potatoes actually goes very fast. We were a little scared when we ordered 500 of them, but it only took us 2 hours to plant! Here is our biggest, tallest, best corn we have for now. It is a super-sweet white variety, and I just loved how it looks blowing in the wind. We pulled up our drip irrigation tape from the last round of peas, beets, and turnips so we could reuse it on the corn and melons. Below is our jerry-rigged tape spool on a bale spike.... It worked alright, but we'll have to come up with something a little more fancy next time. It took a lot of work to do it this way.





At the market tomorrow we will have tons of green beans. They are sweet and tasty- I was eating them all day in the field. We'll have beets (both the Chioggia and Detroit Red varieties), Russian Kale, red salad mix (best lettuce ever!), dill and cilantro. We just found out that dill is super healthy and awesome. It tastes great in many dishes, and it is especially tasty with fish. Dill has lots of calcium, magnesium, and iron as well as cancer-fighting compounds. Check it out here WHFoods Dill. Find us tomorrow at the Brookside market: 41st and Peoria from 8am to noon.
-Chelsea

Produce Update - Beets and Turnips

Hey everybody. We've had a nice week, full of good harvests, accomplishments, and a little bit of rest! We have a few good employees out at the farm now, so that takes the load off. We actually got home by 6:30 today!! Wow. Our tractor, whose name is Levi, by the way, is up and running. The cooler is still a little ways off, but at least we finished something this week!

Here is a picture of our beautiful Chioggia Beets, an Italian variety that is sweet, mild, and striped :) These are great to grill with . We marinate thick slices in Italian salad dressing before grilling. Did you know you can grill Turnips too? Marinate in a bit of lemon juice and salt for a few hours. Best way to eat a turnip hands down.

We are getting excited about all the summer crops that are coming along. Here is a picture of our baby green beans. They might even be ready for the Saturday market. A little bit of rain tonight and a lot of sun will do it, I think.We are also looking forward to sweet corn, zucchini, patty pan squash, okra, tomatoes, black eyed peas, and melons but those things are at least a few weeks away. Tomorrow at the Brookside farmers' market (41st and Peoria 8am to noon) we will be selling shelled english peas, Detroit Red Beets, Chioggia Beets, Turnips, Kale, and delicious baby red lettuce. We've been eating red salads all week; the lettuce is so sweet and tasty we don't even use salad dressing.

Another accomplishment this week was putting in our tomato stakes. We are using the "stake and weave" system to prop up our plants. Our stakes are 6 feet apart, so that means that between Don and Dan (our friend who is working for us) they pounded in 100 T-posts! We'll do at least 100 more for our heirloom tomatoes that we planted a few weeks ago. The rows you see here are Beefsteak and Brandywine.

See you all at the market tomorrow.

Chelsea