Greetings!
Welcome to the Magicland Farms' newsletter for the week beginning July 23. We hope to keep you up to date with the happenings at our farm, along with providing
you with some of our favorite recipes and other information we think you might find of interest. If you know of someone who might be interested in receiving our newsletter,
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Boss's Corner Hi, Last week I talked about drought and this week I'm going to talk about storms and rain. Summing up real quick we received around 2.5 inches of much needed rain this past week. It all started on Tuesday evening at around 8PM. I, along with my son Matt, were at the stand closing up. The sky to the west looked ominous and weird. The mammatus clouds(I believe that's what they were) were moving rapidly from the northwest. The air was almost calm but we heard a roar to the west. This roar became louder and then we noticed that the distant trees were waving back and forth like crazy. The nearby trees weren't even moving. Then we watched the trees across the road, about 500 feet from us starting to violently bend down and seconds later the first gust of wind startles us along with a big roar. Still no rain. We hopped into the truck and headed expeditiously south towards home. The wind picked up and when we got to the wooded area on Gordon, just south of 48th, we became quite anxious thinking a tree was going to land on us--many small branches hit the truck as we traveled south making quite loud bangs. Still no rain. When we got home the wind still kept up and I heard a tree crack just to our home's north. There was only a few drops of rain which worried me that we wouldn't get any moisture, just wind from the storm. Well a few moments later it started raining moderately but it only lasted a couple of minutes. Summing up we only got a tenth of inch of rain out of that storm. I did feel fortunate though, that we didn't seem to have suffered any damage. Right after the weather cleared we went back to the farm out of curiosity. We saw a tree down on 48th blocking most (but not all) the road and a man in a white truck working on clearing it. We also noticed that most of our signs were blown down. Other than that we were surprised there wasn't more damage. The big disappointment then was the lack of a decent rain... Well late that night and through most of Wednesday we had really nice rain which totaled, as I mentioned, nearly two and a half inches of crop saving water!! The timing of that rain made me feel that God directly intervened on Wednesday. Another ten days of that heat and no rain would have wiped a good portion of our crops that we weren't able to water--much of our late planted corn and our winter squash comes to mind here. Bon Appetit and Mirai Sweet Corn will be the corns of the week. I am not sure if we will be picking Mirai on Monday, but we will be picking Bon Appetit. While Mirai is the sweeter of the two (perhaps the sweetest corn in existence), Bon Appetit is my personal favorite. Both varieties are tender and very flavorful. Bon Appetit have large ears and we already have had comments about its size (No, its size has nothing to do with last Wednesday's rain! Its earsize was already predetermined over two weeks ago when pollination was taking place.) Both varietites are NOT GMO (Genetically Modified). I've written about GMO sweet corn before, which is the most common type of sweet corn sold in supermarkets. My main problem with it is this:Genes from bacteria have been spliced into its makeup so that it produces BT toxins that kills corn earworm, corn borer and several other insects. When you eat the corn you are consuming the toxins. It is claimed there are no toxic affects in humans from this toxin. Despite this, several large seed companies, such as Harris and Johnny's Seeds, refuse to sell it and the European countries will not accept GMO crops. Personally, I have eaten BT potatoes, which I grew many years ago and it felt like the potatoes just sat in my tummy and didn't digest. I tried this several times and the results were the same. After these tests I ran on my own tummy, I never grew BT potatoes again. BTW, I don't think BT potatoes are grown anymore and I am not sure why since they do destroy the Colorado Potato Beetle, which is a major problem in growing potatoes. Early this week we will have a short supply of green beans. We are between our second and third plantings of beans. The first planting has already been disked down and we put in another planting of beans in its space. The second planting ripened so fast that the beans are a bit too old and chewy for our high standard. We plan on disking that down this week. The third planting has just started and by the weekend our supply should be ample. Last week, we plowed down our first two plantings of corn. This week we plan on planting another crop of corn in the spot we plowed. In the past, when we planted another crop of a quick maturing corn after plowing down the first patch, we ran into leaf rust problems since late summer/fall weather is conducive to this disease. We discovered a quick maturing variety that is supposed to be rust resistance so we are giving it another try. If it wasn't for that nice rain this attempt of double cropping sweet corn would be impossible. Because of high farmland prices, double cropping seems to have become a wise choice for anyone who wants to increase production of vegetables. WARM!! I just looked at NOAA's CPC (Climate Prediction Center) forecast for Michigan that just came out. Well here goes: August--Very Hot September--Much Warmer than normal October--Warmer than normal November--warmer than normal December--warmer than normal January--warmer than normal February--warmer than normal March--warmer than normal April--" and on and on Of course these are just forecasts and few put much confidence in them especially after their 2011/2012 winter forecast. One thing is almost for certain, if the El Nino goes the way it looks like its going (real strong) it will be a milder than normal winter. Of course if its a weak El Nino it is almost impossible to make a good forecast for the winter. Nashle, Tom P.S. Garlic and potatoes are plentiful right now which means it is the right time to make Chicken Vesuvio. Vesuvio is an Italian dish that is piled high with chicken and potatoes, all in a white wine sauce that has butter, garlic, and herbs. The recipe follows! And if you're looking for step-by-step directions with photos, go to my daughter's cooking blog, Sabbath Supper, from where this recipe comes from. | 
