Let me take you down ’cause I’m going to strawberry fields. The harvest is real. Gallons upon gallons are picked every few days, and we are not selling them. Instead, we are trying to set a new Long Hungry record for desserts. Besides simply eating too many strawberries, the kitchen crew has produced pies, tarts,…
Planning plantings to provide people who’ve previously pledged payments with plenty of produce places particularly peculiar and perplexing parameters around the potential possibility of periodic over productions. It is way too easy to grow way too much. Our first plantings pose no problems. We can never grow too many onions or potatoes. These storage crops…
Educational opportunities abound on a farm and in a garden. Two groups of school kids spent extended stays here last month, and I spearheaded garden projects at two different Nashville schools. I am learning a lot. Last fall I got a message from Brad, a teacher at High Mowing School in New Hampshire. He had…
I have good news and bad news. First the bad news. There is more carbon in the atmosphere than is healthy for our planet, and it takes 25 years for the carbon we’ve been emitting to get up there. So there will be much more in the next few years. What happens when too much…
March is the compost month. The cows have cleaned up the hay and are eagerly awaiting the greening of the pastures. By harrowing where they’ve been, old hay and cow pies get spread around and mixed with a little soil. This is called sheet composting, where the decaying and rebuilding of humus happens directly on…
We sat in the field, letting the sun kiss our skin while we watched the butterflies and fairies play, and the wildflowers and grass dance. Our fingers worked to pull up the weeds that were choking the garlic and stealing their food, and in return they thanked us, one by one, with a deep sigh…
Pastures can get compacted, acidic and in need of renovation. I’ve been doing some things to improve our hillsides. The soil color is getting darker and the texture looser, so maybe I’m on the right track. The most important aspect of grazing cattle on pastures is to keep them off of it. The grass needs…
Spring Equinox has come and gone, and we are still walking around as if in a dream from all the great energy that you all brought to our farm. How thankful we are to have so many people bring such goodness to the farm that the plants in the upcoming season can then use to…
We are so lucky to always have such talent and creativity on our farm. The poem below is by an intern from two seasons ago, Olivia Cantrell. I Am But A Single Cell I am but a single cell within a seed, with little energy I must proceed To the sun above that…
I enjoy being around organic gardeners. They are a fun and inquisitive bunch, with lots of questions and unique experiences. Every garden is different, an artwork of soil, plants, and animals created by an artist with dirty fingernails. Winter time offers several area conferences for us all to run shoulders with each other. Last weekend…
You probably already know since I am too excited about it to keep it to myself, but I just got a dairy cow! She is a Guernsey named Gertrude. She started out really angry. I took her away from her last calf and moved her here to the farm. She screamed all day for…
The following is a blog post written by Jeff Poppen in response to the question “Why?” after Kristina’s post about a day spent scooping brains out of a cow’s skull. An open grown white oak tree can attain a magnificent crown, rounded and easily as wide as it is tall. When you burn the bark,…
Dear Facebook Friends, I have chosen not to look at computers for a variety of reasons. My time is spent outside during daylight, tending plants, animals and farming equipment, or shooting the breeze with neighbors and friends. I value computers and all they offer, and if I’d been born later I’m sure I’d be using…
I spent this afternoon scooping the brains out of a cow’s skull. Then I helped shove white oak bark into it. Then I helped bury it in a muddy spot. I’ll get back to it after it stays there through an autumn and a winter. Why This is one of the Biodynamic preparations that we…
The following is an excerpt taken from a consultation report by Jeff Poppen on a farm in Tennessee giving a general overview and synopsis of our planting schedule: In April we plant onion, potato, lettuce, carrot, beet, and swiss chard. In May we plant beans, corn, squash, and cucumbers. Later in May we plant tomato, pepper,…
Here at Long Hungry Creek Farm we like to deliver only the best, highest quality produce. We have these turnips, and we think every single one of them are de-lic-ious, but we heard that some people don’t like the big ones, and some people don’t like the small ones. What’s your opinion? We want to…
The old carvings in the cave where we store our potatoes have finally been deciphered. They were carbon-dated at about 30,000 years ago, and resemble carvings in Swiss lake caves and one up in the Himalayan mountains. It reads something like this: To advance from wondering nomads to permanent agriculturalists requires little else than land,…
Tennessee’s 5th annual Local Food Summit again celebrates Nashville’s farmers and chefs and their supporters, who are committed to good agricultural practices, eating better, and stimulating the local economy. Although we can grow almost all of the crops we consume, only a small fraction of one percent comes from Tennessee. Industrial agriculture, from corn and…
After typing up a consultation report to send to a recent client, I thought, “there is a ton of great information in here that people would probably love to read”, so I had to share with you all. The following is from the most recent consultation Jeff did. …
The one thing I don’t like about sweet potatoes is that they taste better than butternuts. When I reach for a butternut to bake for dinner, my arm involuntarily dips in the adjacent basket and it’s sweet potatoes for dinner again. I would say I hate when that happens, but it’s not true. How could…