|
Hi,
We have now entered Magicland Farms sweet corn and peach season. As some of you may know, fresh sweet corn and Michigan peaches are the root cause of the existence of Magicland Farms. The following excerpt is from the Introduction of my proposed book Grow With a Pro - A Farmer's Practical Advice for the Home Vegetable Gardener. This excerpt was taken directly from my 100+ page book proposal:
I spent most summers, of my early years, at my family's cottage on a lake that is the largest in a chain of four lakes. In addition to the fishing, swimming, long sunny days and cool mornings, one thing stands out in my mind. Sweet Corn. This was Fresh Sweet Corn. Mrs. Eggerstedt, the kind woman my mother bought it from, often picked it for us while we waited. It was really, really delicious. Never had anything so good. Even the corn I grow today doesn't seem to taste as good. (The corn I grow today is, no doubt, of higher quality but you know how things are when you're a kid- a lot better than now.) After the Eggerstedt family sold their place, there didn't seem to be anybody around who grew and sold fresh, home grown sweet corn. I still remember one day in late August in the late sixties, when I got really annoyed that no one in the county seemed to be selling sweet corn except those places (supermarkets) where you know you'd be real lucky that it was picked the same month, let alone the same day. It got so bad that day that I almost pulled off the road and ran, helter-skelter, out to a corn field to pick myself some corn. This was even though I knew it was field corn. And, I knew it was wrong. I made up my mind, in that instant, that I had to plant some sweet corn next spring. And I did...the only problem was that it never came up.
Then there were the peaches. I never knew peaches were so scrumptiously delicious until Crazy Jack Simon brought a big bushel of fresh Michigan peaches to our family in Chicago. These were probably the first truly tree ripe peaches I ate-and they were sooo good. Before this, my mother purchased big beautiful peaches from Jewels Supermarkets. (I'm from Chicago's South Side. The food chain is really called Jewel everyplace else.) While the peaches were great looking, they tasted like nothing. The so-called, "fresh" peaches my mother bought at Chicago's Jewels (and other Chicago supermarkets) were almost completely tasteless (and I'm being kind here in using the word "tasteless" because they really had a taste all their own, if you know what I mean.). By the way, you are probably curious why the kind gentleman who brought us that bushel of pure enjoyment was known as 'Crazy Jack Simon.' Well, his name was Jack Simon and, according to my mother, he did some crazy things (in my mother's mind, anyway) like taking a boat to the middle of the lake and then diving right off of it into the 50 foot deep water. His only comment after he returned to the boat, "Boy, this lake is a lot deeper than I thought." This was all nutty to my mother. My sister and I thought it was really neat.
Fresh sweet corn and tree ripened peaches-those were the delicacies that made me want to purchase some land where I could grow them. And this land then became its own incentive for my suddenly becoming a Professional Vegetable and Fruit Grower wannabe.
We are now picking Bon Appetit corn, which is one of my personal favorites. This year we have planted five patches of this really great bi-color corn. Coming up fairly soon will be our famous Mirai corn. This is the sweetest corn we grow and unlike Supersweets, it is flavorful and very tender-so tender that it can't be machine picked! We have planted over 10 patches of this revolutionary sweet corn.
While we are on the topic of sweet corn I would like to mention that the last few years we have expanded the way we cook sweet corn. In the past, we primarily boiled it. Lately we found that if you cut the kernels off the cob before you cook it, the corn is great when added to tacos, barbecue sauce and many other dishes. Also, you can cook the corn in a hurry without a microwave by putting it in a pan with some butter, salt and pepper and sautéing it for a few minutes. Delicious! This method is not only fast, it keeps the kitchen cooler as well!
We have been picking our early Flamin' Fury PF1 peaches for a few days now. The Flamin' Fury series of peaches were developed by Paul Friday (The PF in PF1) at Coloma, Michigan. The PF1 is the earliest peach of the series and has exceptional quality although it is a small peach and it is clingstone so is not recommended for canning. It is melting, sweet and delicious, however. Michigan peaches are famous throughout the Midwest and the demand for them is exceptional. As anecdotal evidence to this was the story my wife Annemarie told me about a friend she was talking to from Ottawa Illinois. She said people waited outside their farmer's market before it opened to get the Michigan peaches!
While our SunSugar cherry tomatoes are still in rather small supply, we should have enough Little Red tomatoes to meet the demand. We are starting to pick our regular tomatoes but they are coming on slow, like usual. However unlike last year, we seem to have a good pepper crop coming. In fact we might just start picking them this week, which is a week or two earlier than normal for us. MYSTERY SOLVED! Last year we had a terrible pepper crop. We weren't the only ones who had this trouble. At the time, it was thought by many experts to be a viral problem. However now there is general agreement that it was tiny mites that did the damage. These tiny insects were so small you couldn't seem them with the naked eye. It was thought that the exceptionally warm early season may have caused a mite explosion.
Also I want to let everyone know our watermelons, muskmelon and sweet potatoes are doing really great! We just have to wait now until they are ripe!
Nashle,
Tom
|
