Joe's Farm Gives Thanks

We have so much to be thankful at Joes Farm. We are healthy, wealthy, and wise over here at Joes Farm. I credit most of that health, wealth, and wisdom to the high quality produce that is jam packed with vitamins and minerals that we grow at Joes Farm.

I am taking a quick break away from the kitchen and the farm to write this update. We had a bit of a disaster last night that was caused by the freezing temperatures that have rolled into Las Vegas. The tomato and pepper plants that were turning out natures bounty have died as a result of the freezing cold temperatures.

As we always do on Joes Farm, we look at the positive side of things. We had a thanksgiving miracle today with a record harvest of green bell peppers. We also bagged a few tomatoes and jalapeno peppers.

This is what we are thankful for today at Joes Farm.
Feel free to share with us what you are thankful for today by writing a comment below.

Deal of a Lifetime

I have never done anything like this on the Joes Farm blog and I am a little concerned that I am opening Pandora's box. But, I found one heck of a deal today on http://www.woot.com/ and I would not be able to live with myself if I did not pass on this steal of a deal on to all the faithful Joes farm blog readers. They are giving away ecomposters with a spider base. If you love sustainable "organic" micro farming like I do then you need to make your own compost and with deals like this how can you not get one. I would buy one but I already have a state of the art ecomposter with a 120 gallon capacity.

So if you don't have a composting facility already, take a look at this. Composting is good for the planet, good for the farm, and it is fun for the whole family. Act now! They probably will sell out soon after this is posted.

The Dog Days of August

We are back to the farm after a long hot July. This July was the hottest July in the history of the world. That is science. The temperatures in Las Vegas have never been hotter. The farm took a beating but kept on producing. I could not be happier.

Due to the overwhelming power of the Las Vegas sun in the hottest month in the history of the world I was forced to install a state of the art sun shade to help protect my crops against the destructive solar rays. The crops did sustain some damage over the past several weeks. I did my best to help the crops pull through. I had two beautiful watermelons growing before the onset of heatwave 2010. I do not exactly what happened to them but I can only blame their demise on the heat. One day when I was inspecting the melons I felt around to the backside and they both had gaping cracks in them. I turned them around and found that they had both split open and had become infested with little garden critters. It was like the ants and beetles were having dinner at the Bellagio buffet, only it wasn't the Bellagio buffet it was my watermelons. When I saw this I became enraged with anger and I broke them off and smashed them on the ground. In hindsight I should have taken some photos, but this time the anger won.

Some positive notes from the farm.

we harvested out first potato

The watermelon plants are going full steam ahead and there is a new watermelon that is growing at an alarming rate.

There are some bell peppers that are doing pretty well. you can see that some of them are sustaining damage from the suns harmful rays.

This is a wide shot of the garden. The Watermelon plants are taking over the garden right now. latching on to the tomato plants. They have plenty of blossoms and I have bees cruising around everyday. The watermelon outlook is good.

Here you can see the zucchini plants. I have been dealing with an infestation of what I believe to be squash bugs. I have dealt with them in the harshest way I know how, but they keep coming back.

I have some big things planned for the farm and on how to make this blog even more interesting and educational. Stay tuned and thank you for your continued support and interest.

Return To Joes Farm

After a long absence I have returned to Joes Farm. I left the farm in the capable hands of my brother. He nurtured and cared for the farm as he cares for his baby, Toots, that is growing inside of his wife's stomach right now. I came home to a lush jungle of tomatoes, watermelon, peppers, zucchini, and corn to name few. Since the creation of Joes Farm I now understand what it feels like to be a parent that births, nurtures, cares for, and loves their child. I now have a mature full grown garden that has made me so very proud.

Today marked the first successful tomato harvest in the history of Joes Farm. It was a momentous occasion and we celebrated on the farm by eating some of those tomatoes. Which I might add were the most delicious tomatoes ever grown or eaten. The tomatoes harvested today were the heatwave variety. Last year we did harvest tomatoes but as a self respecting farmer I can't say that that I was successful. They were not big, beautiful, red, ripe, and delicious. Here at Joes Farm we demand excellence in our produce production.

We have some good growth in progress on our pepper plants and we were able to harvest a few cucumbers upon returning to the farm. There were not any pictures taken of the cucumbers because they were not around long enough for pictures to be taken. I can attest that they were some wonderful tasting cucumbers. Below are pictures of the peppers in the process of growing and the cucumber plant that produced the aforementioned cucumbers.

Next up we have a photo that shows cases the second field where you will able to see zucchini, corn, and some tomatoes. What you probably cannot see are the cantaloupe and watermelon that are growing in the back of the field. I am also including a close up of the zucchini plants that are growing like gang busters but have yet to produce any zucchini's. You will also see the corn stalks popping up around the edges.

April Update

April was a good and bad month on the farm. Things have been pretty busy so I have not been able to update the blog lately. These photos were taken a couple weeks ago, so they don't fully convey the prolific growth of the crops at joes farm. I will be updating again soon so that you can see with you own eyes what happens on joes farm. Below are a few photos to get you caught up. The bad things that have happened on the farm have been caused by the winds. We had a few days with extreme winds. One day we had gusts around 70 mph. The beans did not like that and got a little beat up. One of the cucumber plants took a real beat down and may not pull through. We will just have to wait and see.

Pictures:

1. this is a potato plant that I got started in the pantry.

2. This is a tomato plant that is growing out of the main composter at the i care organics composting facility

3. these are all the containers that I am working with tomatoes, cucs, beans, cantaloupe, and watermelon.

4. These are the beans that I am growing.

5. This is the main field. If you saw it now you would not recognize it. Tommie's in the back. Peppers and watermelon up front.

6. Here is a close up of some blossoms on the tomato plant. I only have a few tomatoes forming right now. i did some research and apparently it is too cool at night for fruit to set yet. That is science.

7.This is field #2. These are some flowers, corn, and other varieties of tomatoes. I got the flowers to try and attract some more bees to the fields. the marigolds are also supposed to keep some pests away from the tomato plants but i don't know what pests. there are a couple cantaloupe and watermelon plants in the rear of field #2.

Guess This Plant

Out here on Joes Farm in the the heart of the mojave desert in Las Vegas, Nevada we seem to have a mystery plant. I thought it might have been a brussel sprout plant. Then I looked up pictures of the brussel sprout on the internet and found that it infact was not. So I have decided to hold a fun and educational contest here on Joes Farm.

Guess this plant!
Please leave a comment on what the hell this thing is.

The Farm at Night

Things have been progressing very nicely on Joes Farm. We have almost completed the phase II of the farm remodel. The last step will be to harvest the existing crops and plant some new ones once the new high quality nutrient rich Joes Farm custom mixed farming soil is prepared. We have some tomatos, peppers, beans, watermelon, cucumbers, and melon working right now. Everything is progressing pretty nicely. We have a few tomato blossoms that are opening themsleves up to the world. Below are a few night time photos of the farm. I decided that i wanted to show a different side of the farm to all the loyal followers out there.

This is a a close up of a couple of brandywine heirloom tomato plants the one nearest to the camera is showing a big, beautiful blossom.

This next photo is a picture of field #1 this field is planted with tomatos, peppers, watermelon, and beans.

This is Field #2. This construction is still in process. this has some holdover crops.

Joe's Farm Cares

You may have noticed weeks ago that we were raising money on Joe's Farm to help Red Cross disaster relief in Haiti. The amount of money raised was probably very large based on the traffic that Joe's Farm generates. Even though money is tight in these difficullt times Joe's Farm does not stop caring. Let me be very clear, we still care about Haiti, but after a long vetting process and scores of applicants we have decided to start caring about children with cancer. Since we don't know anything about curing children with cancer we are going to help someone who is raising money for people who know about curing childhood cancer. If they wanted to raise money to build a thriving and productive farm in the middle of the damn desert they would contact us but that is not what they are trying to do.

The lucky winner of our support is actually a part of the Joes's Farm family. He is the unofficial head of Joe's Farm legal council. Go to this website http://www.firstgiving.com/jit2010 and donate money. It does not matter how much money you donate, just that you do. This is safe and secure. I know this because Joe's Farm has been donating for years.

So unless you hate children or love cancer go to http://www.firstgiving.com/jit2010 and give some money.

Questions

I decided to take time away from the farm to address some questions that were submitted by huge, HUGE fans of Joes Farm.

Question #1 was submitted by Scheuer79 who is a monster fan of the farm and asked about the free gallon of compost offer that is available to followers of the Joes Farm blog that take a free tour of the farm. Scheuer79 asked, "Hi Joe's Farm. Is it possible to maybe sign up twice in order to receive two gallons of that stuff?"
The answer to that is yes. You will get 1 gallon of compost for every follower after taking a free tour of the farm, this of course, is all based on availablity.

Question #2 was submitted by ihaveuc who is a die hard fan of the farm and asked, "What the heck are you growing in the jar, looks like a dinosaur doodie? Could you mail one of those out this way or is that a Las Vegas specialty?" on our spring is upon us entry on Feb 3rd.
The answer to that is that it is in fact not a piece of dinosaur doodie it is a sweet potato that i had bought at the local supermarket and while it was sitting on the counter it started to sprout some eyes. So we had the bright idea at Joes Farm to prop that up in some water and watch it grow. This is something that is available anywhere that sweet potatos are available not just in Las Vegas.

Question #3 was submitted by Big J who has followed Joes Farm from Day one, His question was on our latest post Big J asked, "Joes Farm, what type of plants are growing on the wooden poles shown in the picture?"

The answer to that question is several varities of tomatoes. I have planted Hawaiian, cherokee purples, beefsteak, and the brandywine. I put the bamboo poles in place so that I can attach the tomoato plants to the pole for support when they start to grow.

Joes Farm Version 2.0

We have had some major changes at Joes Farm this past week. In these trying times when many farms are burying their head in the sand Joes Farm has decided to stay the course and continue improving on the its already outstanding farm infrastructure. This past week we have undertaken several capital expenditures to improve and upgrade our main plots.

The planning for this upgrade has been going on for several months. The land was surveyed, the blue prints were drawn up, and materials were purchased. This past week construction began. We started by harvesting crops on the southside of the plot. It was painful to harvest these crops before they had the chance to reach their full potential but we knew that it was what needed to be done to move Joes Farm to the fore front of Las Vegas farming. Several onions, carrots, lettuce, spinach, and radishes were harvested. Much of the spinach and lettuce was donated to a local realtor who is a huge fan of Joes Farm.

Step 2 was to begin deconstructing the old beds. The old infrastructure was removed and we had to bring in an earth mover to clear space for the new struture. The lumber was brought in and we decided to use premium douglas fir because we demand the best for Joes Farm.

Step 3 was to bring in our aggregate to create our soil. We blend our own soils here at Joes Farm. We can't disclose the propotions of our blend or any of our secrets but I can tell you that we use the highest quality compost created here on property by the I Care Organics division of Joes Farm in the E-Composter. We take this high quality compost and blend it with the other aggregates to form the perfect blend of nutrient rich, porous, yet moisture and nutrient rich soil in the world.

Step 4 was to add some worms. We have been doing a great deal of research on the benefits of worms on the farm and when the opportunity came along to purchase some hard working worms we jumped at the chance. The list of benefits is too long to list here on Joesfarm.blogspot.com but lets just say it is a big W for Joes Farm. We also took some of those worms and put them in the E-Composter. The addition of these hard working worms is going to take I Care Organics to the next level. In the coming weeks and months we will have some vermicompost that is ging to be a big benefit to the crops at Joes Farm.

Step 5 was to water and plant some crops. For the crops that were planted today we purchased these plants at the local nursery. We are still in the early phases at Joes Farm and I wanted to experiement with some plants that were not grown from seed here at the farm. We also started the pilot Topsy Turvey project. The Topsy Turvesy have taken the farm world by storm and these 2 Topsy Turveys are going to be given to the loving household of Mr and Mrs Andrew Walczak. The Topsy Turveys were provide by Mr and Mrs Walczak and once the plants get settled in they will be transfered back to the walczaks for the duration of the season.

I Care Organics Compost - First batch

The business end of the E-Composter provided by Richard and Susan Walczak

The new plot on Joes Farm. 8'x4'x2'

The side view of the new plot

from the inside

Watering the new plot

These are after the crops were planted. Several varieties of tomatos, beans, and carrots.

The Topsy Turveys with a couple tomato plants.

Salad Harvest

I had a couple recent harvests of the fall crops. The first of the two harvests consisted of radishes, sugar snap peas, lettuce, and a carrot. I went ahead and used a store bought cucumber and made myself a salad with all of that. It was the best tasting salad in the history of the world. The heads of lettuce that we turn out on Joes Farm are not very large but they are organically grown, jam packed with vitamins and nutrients, and best of all they are delicious. The radishes that we have been harvesting at Joes Farm are bigger than golf balls and they are they most delicious radishes that I have ever tasted. They are a sweet and they have a little heat. Pretty much they are the perfect radish.

Today at Joes Farm we had our first spinach harvest. I just want to make it clear that this was no spinach harvest like they would have at Botto's spinach farm in Malone, NY, But it was pretty substantial as far as Joes Farm harvest's go. I went out to the field with a large mixing bowl and all i did was cut and pinch the leaves of some of the plants so they can keep producing. I was very surprised and overwhelmed with the amount that was harvested and it was not even half of the available spinach. I used half of it in a recipe to feed the farm staff this week and I half half of it left to do what ever I want to do with it. I can say with out a doubt in my mind that we have truly been blessed on Joes Farm today.

This is the first harvest mentioned above. A couple heads of lettuce and radishes.

This is a picture of the salad that I made. It was pretty delicious. You can also see my TV remote.

This is a bird's eye view of the colander of spinach.

This is a view from the side of the colander of spinach.

Spring is upon us

Spring has sprung over here at Joes Farm. There is so much activity on the farm I don't quite know where to begin. The new crop has been started. The winter crop is being harvested as needed. I just decided that I am going to cover the new crop in this post. I am going to discuss the latest harvests in a future post.

90% of the crop was started on January 26th and January 27th. A couple of tomato plants were started earlier. The list is pretty long. I went with a few different types of cucumbers. One is for eating and one is designed for pickling. The tomatoes, I hope, are going to be the crowning jewel of the farm this year. I have several different varieties this year. I have several heirloom varieties and several hybrid type tommies. I also, just hours ago, received a shipment from the good people over at totallytomatoes.com.

The seed shipment from totallytomatoes.com included some lilac hybrid peppers, strawberries, Christmas grape tomatoes and Bulgarian triumph tomatoes. The Bulgarian tomatoes came highly recommend from an actual Bulgarian. The are alleged by this Bulgarian to be the best tasting tomatoes in the world. Only time will tell. The good people at totallytomatoes.com also included two packages of free trial offer seeds. They contained the red alert tomato and the numex sunrise hot chili type pepper.

The crops that are already started include bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, Kentucky style green beans on the pole, Carolina cross watermelons that could weigh up to 200lbs, poblano peppers, cantaloupe, and broccoli.

This is some of the new crop on the window sill of the green house.

More of the crops in the green house on the table.

This is a birds eye view of the tomatoes that were started first.

This experiment right here is a sweet potato that started growing on the counter and I chopped and put in the water. we will just have to wait and see what happens with this science project.