Starlight Farm and Gardens: Starlight Farm & Gardens 2012 ( The Second Year)

StarLight Farm 2012

Time does fly, it seems, and what a year 2011 was! We made an offer on the farm on my 65th birthday. Jan 17, 2011. Besides all the activity that incurred in the purchasing of the farm, We succeeded in getting up to speed so that we didn't waste a full year by not getting anything planted in the ground. Our daughter started school at ECU, got married, and my son and his partner had a baby. As you can see by all the previous entries in our blog, we have been very engaged in this first year.

A farmer friend dropped off a couple hundred extra strawberry plants, so we planted them. Here they are with irrigation lines. Yes, irrigating in winter (dry one)

One thing leads to another, a severe drop in temperature forces us to cover the strawberries for the night. They survived!

18 degrees F. is cold for this far south. The wood stove is fired up for the night.

Spring is creeping up on us. Time to start some late winter chores like pruning fruit trees.

Now don't you all be thinking that just because Susan is most of these pictures, it should imply that I let her do all the work. ;-) Somebody's got to man the camera. Here she is pruning a pear tree.

One of the biggest events of the farm so far. The first of the animals arrive! Little chicks came all the way from Missouri in this box!

The Dominique is a chicken breed originating in the United States during the Colonial. It is considered America's oldest breed of chicken, probably descending from chickens brought to New England from southern England during colonial times.

These chicks were shipped when they were just one day old. They love to be in a warm hand and will go straight to sleep if you hold them very long.

This is what they will look like full grown. The Dominique chicken is an American Heritage breed and was almost extinct at one time.

Finally we have our compost system operating. Here we have a 5 gallon bucket of kitchen scraps (not table scraps) waiting to go to the farm. Two of these a day, 10 gallons!

Early ~ Mid Spring

We had a mild winter this year and Spring came on fast. We've been scrambling to keep up and get everything in the ground and the other parts of the farm organized in a timely fashion. If we wait too long on some of these crops, the blast of summer heat will hinder blossom development and the setting of fruit (vegetables) All & all though, I think we have kept up with the calender, and the farm looks pretty good on the first week of April.

One of the first events was the onset of Pear blossoms. They came out during a sunny spell and there were plenty of bees to pollinate them. Some of the trees had fewer this year and I think it was due to the warm winter and the shortage of chilling hours that some fruits require.

Beekeeper and friend of the family, Cass Wigent set up a bee hive in the orchard; a great addition to the farm.

Here, Cass is checking on the condition of the newly arrived bees.

The garlic and onion trial planting that we did in the fall all are looking good in the spring.

One of the time sensitive projects was getting alot of the seeds started so they could go under the lights and be ready for transplanting.

Here they are under the lights in the first week of April.

The arrival of the chickens, was a big event, and the raising them up to mature size and hurrying to get their chicken house ready to move them in was another project.

Here they are in their new "run" approaching mature size.

Here my oldest son Tobias, talks to his son, Kingsley, about how to behave around chickens.

The entrance to the Chicken house with its new door.

Building the "run"

Another project was the planting of potatoes. We got our seed potatoes from a great family farm in Maine. Here are some cut and ready to go in the ground.

Another beautiful variety, ready to go in the ground.

In their trench on top of a layer of organic compost

We read an article in a farm magazine that talked about raising ginger in NC. Apparently the hot humid summer is very suitable, so we are going to give it a try. Here they are waiting to go in the ground.

Whats next? this is another part of the barn where I would like to bring in some sheep. Maybe in autumn.......

Drinking a cold beer after a full day of work.

Another spectacular setting sun to another great day on the farm!

End of May

Looking at the previous entries I can see the transition from spring to summer. Where we were taking photos of blossoms, there are now pears as you can see to the left. The last weeks have been very intense as we have been planting and planting ....gradually filling up a full half acre of vegetables. We are not done yet ,but only have squashes and sorghum to go. The chickens are mostly grown up, one of the roosters just starting crowing for the first time! No eggs yet. I have to say, the farm looks pretty good, weeds under control and the infrastructure in an acceptable state of tidyness.

Peas are trademark of early planting, and these are outstanding. The only problem is that this was a "trials" planting equaling only 6 feet. Its always frustrating when you do one of these trial planting at they are so successful you wish you had planted 100 ft.

This garlic was another trials planting that came out beautifully. Planted last fall.

I love this photo. Early morning sun shining through a rack of honey comb (full) from the bee hive.

I'm afraid we are spoiling our chickens. Here is one of the hens enjoying cocktail time with the humans.

the newest grandson to arrive. Here is Ernest on his way to "learning the ropes".

Grandson Kingsley is becoming an "old hand" at the farm. He seems to have a way with the chickens. The farm is a good place for kids, as well as adults.

Farm hands left and right. Here is Kingsley cleaning our "swimming pool".

Here is Alan covered in dirt.

Here is Susan walking a row of about to be planted Ginger. This should have been a trials planting as far as I was concerned, but Susan read an article about planting Ginger in NC and was all excited about it and wanted to take a gamble. We shall see how it turns out. (The roots came all the way from Hawaii.....)

Potatoes! Wow they are so healthy. They like sand and acid soil and we have plenty of it. Can't wait to dig some!

Middle of July

Holy Somoly, looking at the above pictures and comparing to the present, is like looking at two different planets. Where in the above photos of beautiful freshly planted rows with lots of soil exposed is now a jungle with ripening vegetables coming on like a green landslide. We can hardly keep up with the weeds attacking from every angle and the daily picking of vegetable to go to the restaurant. But this is what it is all about and the wonder of all our trial plantings and how they are manifesting themselves continues to fascinate us. We are in it up to our necks and enjoying it all.

A couple of notes about the weather. Spring was long and just about perfect.....sunny days in the seventies, cool nights and just the right amount of rain.
Then the heat came. Everyday in the 100's and the scramble for irrigation began....literally over a 1500 feet of drip line installed. The plants struggled to take up water with often a wind blowing to top it off. Now we have rain and daily thunderstorms and with each storm we cross our fingers that there are no damaging winds or hail. With one storm we had to straighten our corn back up with stakes and twine from wind damage. Its interesting....while much of the country struggles with drought, we are living in green luxury. Maybe we will pay our dues when the hurricanes come.

Yep....country excitement!

One of our chickens' eggs in the frying pan. Notice the rich orange yolk. The difference between supermarket eggs and pasture raised organic eggs.

The chickens are all mature now, and laying from 10-14 eggs a day. We let them out of their run every evening so that they can range around the property and forage about. They go back into their chicken house by themselves as soon as it begins to get dark. Their eggs are delicious!

The grand children love the farm, and we happy to make part of their memories of growing up. This is Ernie the newest to arrive.

Kingsley is an old farm hand; collects eggs helps us dig potatoes etc. He already know his way around.

Canning season has started. Here I am beginning the prep for canned tomato sauce.

The work station....good to do it outside....when you're done, just hose it all off.

finished product.

Fig preserves.

This is what vegetables look like just picked from the garden, brushed with some olive oil, sea salt and pepper ready for grilling.

Our corn partially blew down during one of our violent thunderstorms we have had this summer (g. warming?), anyway, we straightened them back up and staked them with twine. It worked...no damage.

Part of our melon and squash harvest. Watermelons really do well in the South!!

We went through a bout of extreme heat, temps in the 100's for 3 weeks, didn't cool down much at night either.....then a monsoon like climate set in.....lots and lots of rain with milder temperatures.

November 2012

I'm not sure what happened, but Autumn snuck in the back door and is racing by. Once again, the restaurant along with the farm has been busy, and many new developments and changes have appeared on "stage".
Probably the biggest one is our determination to join the movement to "Label GMO's. We are already growing our food on the farm organically, but as we studied this issue in more depth, we decided to take the issue further by starting to eliminate GMO's in the restaurant.
Here is a statement that we have issued on our StarLight Cafe Facebook page:

Recently at the restaurant, we’ve made a decision that should make all of us feel even better about the quality of our food we serve. We have, from the beginning, strived to serve you the absolute freshest food. As you may know, we make everything possible from scratch, from our salad dressings, to pasta, to our own ice cream, desserts, and soups, sauces, etc. Food integrity is important to us at StarLight Café, because without it, we would simply be peddlers for corporate restaurant supply companies selling pre-packaged goods. That is how 95% of restaurants operate. We never have and never will operate that way.

Some of you may have heard about the growing controversy over the widespread overuse of herbicides on our farms. After much reading and research about the problem of herbicide residues finding their way into our food supply, we have made the decision to make every effort to stop using ingredients that contain GMO’s (genetically modified organisms). It’s not easy, and since there are no requirements for labeling in our country, it means we have to check all of our ingredients.

We have started with the most ubiquitous in the food supply, the big four: soybeans, corn, canola, and sugar. It’s hard to find commercial sources for these Non-GMO ingredients, but after doing some research; we are finding sources for all four of them and have begun eliminating them from our kitchen. This means that our salad dressings will no longer contain any soy oil or non-GMO canola oil and will be made entirely with either olive or non-GMO canola. Also our fryers and sauté pans will only contain these.
The next big ingredient for us to change has been sugar. We are now using only cane sugar in our cooking. Most sugar on the market is made from sugar beets, which is another GMO source.

These are two big steps that we have taken, and as we research more, we will keep you up to date on our efforts.

Bon Appetite ~ Alan & Susan

ON A MORE CASUAL FRONT, see the photos below for an array of farm happenings during the latter part of summer and this fall.

The first signs of Autumn

We let the chickens roam every evening so that they can supplement their grain diet with fresh greens and bugs.

With all the rain we had in the late part of summer, our Muscadine Grape harvest was exceptional. Here we are squeezing them for juice to make grape jelly.

Our oldest son demonstrating to his son, how farm animals feel about being confined to cages.

One of the more interesting trials was the growing of Sorghum. Sorghum is being recognized as a good replacement for corn in the face of climate change.

We are experimenting with making syrup with the Sorghum stalks. Our grandson Kingsley is helping with stripping the leaves before they are chopped

Sorghum sap to become syrup

Another reason for growing sorghum are the large seedheads that farm animals love (especially chickens)

Another very successful experiment was the growing of peanuts. Here some to them are on the way to the barn to dry.

Beautiful!

This is turmeric.... wonderful taste!

Our oldest grandson, Kingsley getting ready to visit the bee hive

The last crop from the garden (before the first killing frost) . (day after thanksgiving)From left bottom, bell peppers, pecans,heirloom NC sweet potatoes, mint, garlic scallions, ginger, and tumeric.