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.