Wind and Weed Wars

 Tortuga Thursday

In 2012, on the plains of Northern Arizona, two families joined forces and began the trials and tribulations of building a small family farm with nothing in the bank but love.

Weeding is now in full force yet the crops are thriving too. My weeding efforts are concentrated on root crops and money crops. Root crops, such as onions and carrots, do not like to compete with the roots of weeds. The money crops, such as the cucumbers, need to reach their full potential so we have great pickles this fall.

The black plastic mulch was a great investment. Even in the areas where we have a horrible reoccurring grass problem, the rows are better under control. You can see in one of the pictures that between the rows we still

Cabbage

have a battle but at least the plants aren't being suffocated. In addition to the black mulch, we've used grass cuttings on other rows. Frank tends the yard, so now we say he's the mulch farmer.

We had two days of unbelievable wind. It's always windy here, but this was over the top. We had to stake the pepper plants to keep them from bending so far they would break. I think we lost only one.

The wind usually blows from the same direction - kind of out of the southwest.

Peppers

You can tell from this poor apple tree who had a major trim over the winter.

The garlic is all harvested and curing which takes three to five weeks.

Heavy decisions this week on the pickles. After finding some jars of our Old World style too soft, we may discontinue them. It's a touch process getting them to retain enough firmness and pump up the flavor. Our regular ones are

Onions

great but the Old World was Frank and Lance's favorite. But consistency is so important if you go retail. We'll see. Only one more Farmers' Market and we're out of product until September. Success!

PIRATE PICKLE PREMIER

  Tortuga Thursday

In 2012, on the plains of Northern Arizona, two families joined forces and began the trials and tribulations of building a small family farm with nothing in the bank but love.

In two days, Pirate Pickling Company will make its debut at the Prescott Farmers Market. What's a Pirate Pickle and how did it come about? The recipe is a secret and discovered in a forgotten chest hidden...I don't know the whole story. Our web site is still under construction, but the tale will be unveiled in the coming weeks. http://www.piratepickling.com/

There were hurdles to clear and hoops to jump through, but we finally got all the paperwork done. We had to be approved by Yavapai County as a home business. Lance and Frank met with five county managers, spent a couple of hours submitting our plans and won their approval. The Prescott Farmers Market application was submitted. They wanted another type of permit from Yavapai County - more paperwork but we cleared that application also. We sent our pickles off to a lab out of state for testing. They were deemed shelf stable with an excellent rating. Ready to go!

We had one more decision to make - give out samples or not? If we give out samples, we have to have a hand washing station, more equipment for safe keeping and food handlers permits. But that isn't why we decided against, at least for now. Because this is our first year, we don't have a ton of product. Opening jars of pickles every Saturday will deplete our jars of pickles and relish quickly. Our pickles and relish are very unique in flavor, but hopefully we can convince market goers to try them without a taste. AND they're made with ingredients grown on our farm without pesticides or chemical fertilizers. We don't use alum in the processing either. We're all natural.

Salty Dogs in two styles (regular and Old World and the name says it all)
Kraken's Breath in two styles (regular and Old World - this is a spicy hot pickle)
Walk the Plank (dill slices)
Captains Reserve Relish in two flavors, spicy hot and sweet dill

What is Old World? Before crunch became more important than flavor, pickles were firm and tasty. But they didn't "crunch". Our Old World style pickles take on more flavor from the recipe. Our crunchy ones are delicious, but the Old World have a deeper flavor.

The Prescott Farmers Market is every Saturday for the next several months and is open 7:30 am to 12:30 at the Yavapai College. If you're in Arizona, we hope to see you there.