This past week or so has seen some good news and bad news, The worst news was the frost that occurred over Mother’s Day weekend. Freeze warnings were issued and of course, because everything got an early start this year, lots of stuff was at risk. Some fruits and vegetables were affected; see the details below.

We have also been busy planting, plowing and planning this year’s planting scheme for the farm. So let’s just cut to the chase and tell you the good, the bad and the just plain ugly news from Magicland Farms.

The Good

• The strawberries survived the frost on Mother’s Day weekend due to the use of sprinklers. So it looks promising that we will have a strawberry crop this year.
• The peas, onions and garlic also survived the frost due to the fact that these crops are cold hardy. They can take a lot of cold and still keep on going.
• The tomatoes in the high tunnel sustained no damage.
• Most of the sweet corn plantings are okay because the early plantings were small and the growing point was still beneath the soil.
• The green beans were just coming up so they sustained no damage. Tom was amazed the other day with how well they are growing. At the rate they are going, it looks like a super early bean year for us.
• We have planted three different varieties of sweet potatoes: Beauregard, Carolina Ruby and Vardaman.  Here is a photo of our sweet potato planting: The row at the right is a row of tomatoes; the rows to the left are the sweet potatoes.

The Bad

• The potatoes sustained some minor damage. On Sunday, Tom and I went to look at things at the farm and you could see new green growth coming from the potatoes so while they might have suffered a setback, the plants are starting to make a comeback.
• The tomato plants we had in the low tunnels out in the field were about half damaged. Interestingly, the side of the low tunnel that received some of the sprinkler water meant for the strawberries survived; the side that didn’t was a loss. Those tomatoes that died have been replaced with new transplants.

The Ugly

• The pawpaws sustained heavy damage from the frost.
• The apples sustained moderate to heavy damage depending on the variety and the location in the orchard.
• Tom looked at the peaches the other day and thinks that there might be moderate damage to the crop. However, we should still have some peaches.

Overall things are looking good. We all wish the frost hadn’t happened but we know that everything happens for a reason. Planting is continuing, we still have lots more to go. Keep on checking back for updates. You can see some more photos at my previous post: Sunday Stroll Around The Farm.

Ever have one of those days where plans get thrown out the window and you still have to come up with something for dinner or dessert? That has happened around here enough that cobblers have become my go-to replacement dessert.

We eat our big meal at lunch so oftentimes dinner consists of dessert and the beverage of your choice. Most everyone in the house is happen with these meals and I enjoy baking so it is a win-win situation.

One of the great things about cobblers is that they can be made using most any fruit.  Since we freeze peaches and store the apples, I can whip up a cobbler in no time even during the winter. Another reason to call it a win-win recipe.

Below is a recipe for the apple filling which is quite good.

Apple Filling Ingredients

5 cups apples, peeled and sliced

1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons flour

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup water

1 tablespoon butter, softened

Combine all ingredients except butter. Pour into buttered 9 inch pan. Dot with butter.

Here is a recipe for a cobbler topping that is very good.

Cobbler Topping Ingredients (covers 9 inch square pan)

1/2 cup flour, sifted

1/2 cup sugar (I like to use a mix of brown and white sugar)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter, softened

1 egg, slightly beaten

Combine all topping ingredients. Beat with wooden spoon until smooth. Drop batter over fruit spacing evenly. Don’t worry about covering fruit, the batter will spread a bit while cooking. Bake at 375 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until crust is golden brown.

Enjoy!

Since we usually have our big meal at lunch time, dinner is often just a pizza or something lighter. But usually two or three times a week, we have what we like to refer to as dessert for dinner. Most members of the family have a sweet tooth so having dessert for dinner is not a problem for them. One of the recipes I like that is easy, and tasty as well, is a puff pancake. This recipe is versatile since I can use either apples or peaches (both of which we grow) to vary the taste of this recipe. Both the apple and peach version went over well with my taste testers. Despite the name pancake, it isn’t cooked like pancakes but, rather, is baked in the oven. The batter used for the recipe is very similar to a pancake recipe though.  

Puff Pancake Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cups milk
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1 apple or 2 peaches, peeled and thinly sliced
• 2 tbsp. butter

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place butter in 9″ pie pan and melt the butter in the oven. When butter is melted arrange fruit in the pan. Mix the remaining ingredients and carefully pour into the hot pan. Sprinkle with brown sugar and extra cinnamon if you desire. Bake for 15-20 minutes or till puffed and golden. The pancake does fall after it is removed from the oven. Serve with maple syrup if you like.

My notes:

• This recipe is designed for a 9″ pie plate. I cook in large quantities so I make it in a 13×9 pan. In that case, you simply need to double the recipe.
• We like lots of fruit in our desserts. As you can see, the original puff pancake recipe calls for a small amount of fruit (at least in our opinion). I added a lot more fruit when I made it and it was wonderful.

(Early Redhaven Peach Blossoms)

(Red Delicious Apple Blossoms)

Here are some beautiful photos of some of the fruit trees blooming in our orchard. The blossoms are pretty much gone by now. There were a lot of blossoms on the trees so we are hoping for a bumper crop of fruit. Because of the large number of blossoms, we will have to do some thinning.

Remember our first apple of the season is the Quinte apple which we usually have for sale in mid-July. Quinte is a great tasting summer apple.

Sorry about the lack of posts; I will try to one update to cover the last few days and then will start posting daily again.

Last week we worked on fertilizing the peach trees; there are tons of tiny peaches on them which means that we need to thin the fruit.

We also worked on the electric fence last week. Pretty soon it will be difficult for the deer to get into the crops and do damage (at least we hope so.)

Since it was rainy last week, we did more transplanting:

Tomatoes:

• Big Beef

Peppers:

• Giant Marconi – an 8 inch long Italian type sweet pepper
• Telica – a large jalapeno
• Bianca – an ivory bell pepper
• Vivaldi – a bell pepper
• Mandarin – an orange sweet bell pepper
• Ariane – an orange sweet bell pepper

Eggplant:

• Zebra – a purple and white variegated eggplant
• Hansel – a deep purple finger shaped eggplant
• Millionaire
• Machiaw – an Asian type eggplant up to twelve inches long and slender
• Vittoria – a purple eggplant

This is a very important picture to us here at Magicland Farms.

In Magicland’s history the peach crop, and in fact the peach trees, have been wiped out by severely cold winter weather – the last time this happened was in 1994. Every time we get temperatures below zero, the peaches are the thing we are the most concerned about. This year, as you may know, we had a couple of bouts of Arctic weather where the temperatures plunged below zero. As far as we can tell from the data we gather, it got down to -8 at the farm.

As soon as we were able, we got out to the orchard to cut some small branches from the peach trees that had buds on them and put them in a vase at the house to see how they withstood the weather. Well, happily for us, they blossomed so it would appear that, so far, the peach trees have withstood the cold weather this winter.