The Fight with the Dragon

The Dragon Whose Name is Lamb's Quarter

In the heat and humidity of the week, I took out an army of fearless teens.  We wore our battle armor -- gardening gloves -- and fought a great fight with the dragon weed whose name is Lamb's Quarter.  Lamb's Quarter, considered edible by some, is our mortal enemy, but we were strong and brave, and we hunted him down until he cried for mercy.  Now, he lies in the hot sun, gasping, and we reign triumphant in the shade, sipping well-earned iced tea. 

The Queen strawberries have rewarded us, their faithful courtiers, by showing some red! My kids collected a handful this morning, and we think we will be able to bid you welcome to our Kingdom of Strawberries July 1, or possibly late next week, to collect the jewels of the realm:)

From the Captain of the Infantry,

Sarah

Finally -- blossoms!

It's been a long, drawn-out spring, but with today's Sunday sunshine, the blossoms finally dared peek out.  Throughout the day, they have stretched out their necks, and are now joyously stretching up to the warmth for which we've all been waiting.

These are Annapolis, our earliest bearing variety.  Typically, we lose most of our Annapolis to a late frost, but that shouldn't happen this year:)  We are so encouraged to see such large blossoms, and such heavy blossom packs.  It looks like the Annapolis will do very well this year.  Mmmmm.....

Dan is examining the flowers for insect pests and pollinators.  We need the one, we have to watch for the other.  He breathes on the flowers, and the warmth of his breath causes the insects to go into a flurry of activity.  Most pests and pollinators are so tiny that we can only see them as black specs, but Dan has learned to identify them by their behaviour. 

Typically, Dan is pessimistic about the plants -- "Yeah, maybe three made it through the winter....maybe we'll get at least one flat of berries for ourselves..." he'll say to me.  Today, he couldn't help the light in his eyes as we looked at the blossoms covering the field.  Blossoms on plants that survived ten weeks without rain last summer, blossoms on plants that survived the January melt and the winds that bore down on the bared plants, blossoms that survived the late spring.  Praise God for these blossoms!

Ever wonder about the weeds?  There's no magic bullet.  Dan weeds every night after putting in a full day on his construction job.  Sometimes, I join him.  We call it date night:) 

Spring planting 2013

Spring planting the past few weeks has been a hopping challenge.  It was such a relief to get all those strawberry plants in the ground -- 26,000 of them -- and then to let the rain come down.  Now, the field is full of little plants poking their heads out of the ground.  Here are some pictures of planting:

The white barrels contain a water/nutrient mix that is added to the plants as they are plugged into the ground.

The two girls alternate placing the bare root plants into the pincers.

The roll of black tape is for drip irrigation.  It is installed in the soil as the plants are plugged into the ground.  Drip irrigation conserves water.  Moving from overhead irrigation to drip has allowed us to double our planting area without increasing our water usage.

The kids take turns on the planting machine -- here they are on break!

Starting the drip tape installation.

The last plant!

Hooray! Lets celebrate the end of planting with a pontoon ride on our new irrigation pond!

Good job guys!

Tapping Trees at Brouwer Berries

With all the April snow, Dan can't get into the strawberry field, but he never has trouble finding projects to entertain himself on the farm.  If you've ever walked through our grove to the strawberry patch, you may have noticed the rows of maple trees. He's tapped five of them, and managed to collect over 30 gallons of sap! 

At first, he tried boiling the sap down in our house, but at a ratio of 60 gallons sap to 1 gallon syrup, my windows were getting pretty steamy:)  So, he rooted around in the old red barn, and found an old wood furnace to re-purpose, and created this set-up:

Do you see the old pressure canner on top of the furnace, and the steam rising?  He's kept this boiling on and off all week now, and about once a day he's brought in one pint jar of syrup for us:

I'm a Canadian, I love this stuff -- and no -- it's not for sale:) 

The Land and the Homeschool Vision

5 Brouwer children holding the first strawberries of 2012 

My oldest son is in the process of applying to a 2 week USDA internship program at Iowa State.  I'm hoping he gets it, but I'm also hoping the strawberry season is early, so that he is still around during the season.  We depend on him! Here's part of his application essay, which is just a wonderful glimpse into why we homeschool, and why running a strawberry farm is part of our homeschool vision, and our vision for the land upon which we are raising our children:

"My family owns and operates a pick-your-own strawberry farm.  I’ve been a part of every aspect of the business from the time I was five years old.  Just this year we expanded from 1.5 acres to just about 5 acres.  Our single irrigation pond would not provide enough water for all our plants so we switched from overhead irrigation to drip tape. Drip tape runs underground through the roots of the plants so it helps conserve our water.  Our farm contributes to the biodiversity of our landscape.  We are located right in the middle the corn belt, so a lot of corn, soybeans, and sugar beets are grown around us which limits the amount of wildlife that can successfully live in our area.  However with our strawberry farm active the past years we have seen an increase in new insects that originally could not survive in our area such as fireflies.  With just our five acre farm we have the largest grouping of fireflies in the summer than any other area near us.  On a warm summer night, our lawn and small slough light up with millions of fireflies rising from the ground."

Wow.  I love reading that kind of thing from my son.  He gets it!   I hope the people at the USDA get what a great kid he is, and how he'd be a perfect fit for their program:)

When?  When will those berries turn red?  You can't wonder more than we do.    When will the rain that has been blessedly pouring down enter the strawberry cells and swell them to juicy plumpness?  When will be that magic moment when just enough heat units have warmed the berries to cause them to change color and develop that deep sweetness we are longing for?

For the first time in 4 years, we haven't had a late frost, and so we'll get to taste the early season fruits.  Even I can hardly remember what an Annapolis or Sable taste like.  I've become more familiar with the wine-sweet Cavendish, a mid-season berry, and the peach-sweet Winona, a late-season berry.  Any day now, I'll get to taste the early season berries.  

For the first time in 4 years, we haven't had an infestation of thrips, a nasty bug that destroys our strawberry blossoms.  The pessimist in me wonders what nature will hurl at us next, since we've managed to dodge the frost and the thrips.  What challenges will this harvest bring? 

Then, there's the baby.  He's a blessing and a delight, but will I be able to keep nursing him throughout the busy strawberry season?  Nursing is such a pleasure and a joy.  It represents for me everything about eating local that I treasure.  No packaging.  No carbon foot print.  No preservatives or additives.  A relational activity rather than an impersonal one.  Everything that we want our farm to be for every person who drives into the yard.  

Which brings me back to that question -- when will you be driving into our yard? 

Hello all you strawberry lovers!  Hasn't it been a wonderful spring?  The sunshine and timely rains have been just splendid here on the strawberry farm.  I took a walk through the fields this morning and was astonished to see thousands, if not millions, of blossoms and green berries.  There were even green berries the size of a dime.  Just for some perspective, I pulled up my records for our years of strawberry growing:

Year	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Start Date	June 1	June 7	June 14	June 17	June 17	June 19	June 16	June 5	June 16	June 27	June 19	June 9	June 20

Do you think we'll match or beat 1999's start date of June 1?  Right now, it looks very possible.

That means we'll get to welcome many of you to our farm very soon.  Yes -- our farm! Dan and I bought it this spring.   Our children think they've moved to heaven on earth, and I'm just about ready to agree with them.  The flower gardens are growing, there are five new baby kitties, four ducks waddle around eating the weeds for us, and the Banty chickens strut around the yard as if they own it.  Are you as excited to come as we are to greet you? 

We would love for you to pass on this message of welcome to others on your e-mail list.

Looking forward to seeing you soon,

Sarah