Markham Farm

Over the past few years, I have swapped over the material used for my raised beds from regular lumber to concrete blocks.

This started with Covid-19, when the price of lumber started to skyrocket. Back when 2x4s were so cheap as to be disposable (plus biodegradable!), replacing them every 3 years or so was no big deal. But after the price doubled … then tripled … well … I started looking for alternatives.

I decided to go with the type of concrete blocks that have holes in them, using the big 8x8x16 blocks for the ends of the beds, and the 4x8x16 blocks along the edges.

The ends will stay in place just fine, because each block weighs 35 pounds, it is stable, and it has lots of ground contact. But the long edges, arranged so that the holes point up and down and balanced on the narrow 4″ edge … are not particularly stable. So I got a bunch of rebar cut at 16″ lengths, and once I had the blocks for the long edges in place, I pounded a single piece of rebar down through the center hole into the ground beneath using a 4-pound shop hammer. (And wearing safety glasses.)

So far I have been doing this for three years and it has worked well.

The benefit is that it is something you do once and will never have to replace, and the blocks and rebar are inexpensive, especially when longevity is considered. It also gives you an 8″-9″ tall bed, which allows for all of the benefits of a raised bed. Also, if you ever do have to move it, you can pull out the rebar and move the blocks.

There are, however, some downsides that might make this less than ideal for some people or situations.

Concrete blocks are big and heavy. My standard 4’x16′ bed requires 6 of the 8″x8″x16″ blocks at 35 pounds apiece, and 24 of the 4″x8″x16″ blocks at 16 pounds apiece. That is a whopping 600 pounds of building materials just for a single bed. This isn’t something you can load into the back of an economy car — you need a truck, or would end up paying for delivery. And moving those blocks one or two at a time into place, and driving the rebar into place with a 4-pound hammer is seriously physically demanding work.

In practice, I have been using this to replace one bed per season. The beds having been well-maintained for years anyway, so the soil held together when I pulled off the boards and I was able to put the blocks in place pretty easily. But by doing it one bed at a time, I am spreading out the labor and cost.

Overall, I have been pretty happy with the results, but for many people, despite the increased cost of lumber, the standard 2×4 or 2×6 may be the better alternative.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

In case the title didn’t give it away, this is Brett’s little sister, Carole again. To be honest, I like things to be pretty. My yard, my garden, and my food. Let’s face it. Life can be hard. There’s nothing wrong with rejuvenating the spirit with a little whimsey and beauty now and then. I have a little side gig officiating and decorating for weddings, and by far the favorite cakes have been the ones bakers left plain so that they could be decorated with real flowers.
The obvious reason for planting flowers is to attract and feed pollinators. The plight of the bees and butterflies has not gone unnoticed, so it is becoming more encouraged to plant “pollinator gardens”. My Stepford-like neighbors disagree, and find my colorful yard full of dandelions and a wide variety of flowers in various stages, ( including the ugly stages at the end) rather troublesome. It does look a bit like the flower fairies have run amuck. I’ve even gotten a few notes in my mailbox to tidy up my yard. I did not respond with transplanting stinging nettle into their path. I’m trying to be a good human. I did put up my wildlife habitat sign and resolve to add some riotously beautiful rain gardens to my ditch this next spring.
The real reason I have, (or originally planted) all of my flowers was not intentionally for the bees. I love seeing the bees and butterflies, but I planted most of them for their medicinal properties, and a few to add some pizzazz to salads and things. I also add certain flowers, like marigolds, strategically placed in pots and around my raised beds, for natural pest control.
I am going to give you some info about a few of my favorite edible flowers, and a few flowers to add to the garden for medicinal reasons.
* Nasturtium- Super easy to grow from seed. I usually nick the seed and put in water for a day, then plant, because I am inpatient, and it gives me super quick results. They come in ranges of gold, orange and red and have a slightly peppery taste. They make a beautiful addition to salads or as a garnish.
* Calendula- these are also easy to grow by seed. I plant practically a whole field of these, because I use them medicinally in salves as well. The petals are pretty, mildly flavored, and can be used almost anywhere. They also are known for skin soothing properties, and when mixed with comfrey or lavender, make a powerhouse skin soother.
* Lavender- Lavender is a perennial in decent climates but can be finicky. It needs sun, dry roots, and really doesn’t overwinter colder than zone 4. I manage in zone 3 with super heavy insulation. Sometimes. Good drainage is important. The flowers are great in desserts, added to lemonade or baked in breads and cakes. The leaves are also fragrant and make nice sachets. I use lavender infused oils in salves, lotions, and homemade soaps as well.
* Cornflowers- I love cornflowers. Their pretty blue color makes me smile. They are easy to grow from seed, and they are great added to salads or used to decorate cakes.
* Roses- Yes, I did say roses. The old fashioned Rosa Rugosa ( garden shrub rose) is hardy, and produces rose hips that add flavor and vitamin C to herbal tea. You can add flavor to desserts or decorate cakes, and you can use it to make homemade personal care products like soaps, lotion and face wash.
* Violets- I love these sweet little purple beauties. I sugar them and use them a lot to garnish desserts, but they are also great in salads.
* Pansies and Violas- Like violas, pretty as a decoration, a fun edible addition to cookies, or salads and open-faced sandwiches.
I always also plant chamomile for tea, and Echinacea( purple coneflower) for its use in my cold and flu brew tea, to boost the immune system and shorten the duration of colds. I also have tons of Mullein, which only flowers biennially. The leaves are excellent for lung support and coughs, and the flowers have been proven as a serious antibiotic. I infuse a little olive oil with garlic and mullein flowers for my grandsons ears and he no longer gets ear infections. Bee Balm ( Monarda) is gorgeous, and the leaves have been found to be very high in the powerful cavity-preventing compound geraniol as well as the pungent antiseptic thymol.
Obviously, this is just a small sample of the flowers and plants you could grow. I’ll add more when I get my own book done. In the meantime. add a little fun and color to your food garden. I do it because seeing them makes me smile, but I have found lots of reasons to support my little indulgence, in the form of a well stocked herbal apothecary.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Why plant flowers?

Hello all. This is Carole again, with a spotlight on a delicious and nutritious addition to your garden.
Garden Sorrel is an herbaceous perennial, occasionally called spinach dock. The young leaves are tender and edible, but they do toughen with age, when they are better pureed into soups. So harvest it right away. They do have a lemony, slightly bitter taste to them, and are popular added to curries . They have been used around the world, added to spanakopita in Greece, and cooked in France with fish.
Nutritionally speaking, sorrel actually is a powerhouse. After kale, definitely a superfood. 1 cup contains only 29 calories, but has 2.6 grams of protein, along with tons of Vitamins, C, B9 and A , iron, magnesium, potassium and calcium.
So here’s why I grow it. I hide it in various casseroles and soups for extra nutrition, and in spring it adds some dimension to boring salads. It actually makes a good soup and it does have some history of medicinal use for inflammation of respiratory tract, a diuretic, and is in some herbal cancer treatments. But for me, the real magic in sorrel is that its wonderful for your chickens, and it makes fantastic compost.
Yes. I said it. I planted a perennial green because its an easy free nutrition boost to my compost pile. It grows in your most miserable spot with poor soil, and after you are done harvesting for soups, salads and other culinary delights, you can keep cutting the leaves and add to your compost. Plant it once, feed yourself, your chickens and your soil forever.

RECIPES
French Sorrel soup
Ingredients:

4 tablespoons of unsalted butter
1/2 cup of green onions, ramps or other wild onion
4-6 cups of packed chopped sorrel.
salt
3 tablespoons of flour
1 quart of chicken or vegetable stock
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup of cream
Instructions:
1. Melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a soup pot over medium heat, and onions or ramps , turn to med/low and cover. Cook gently 10 minutes.
2. While onions are cooking, pour stock in another pot and bring to a simmer.
3. Turn the heat up and add the chopped sorrel leaves to the pot with the onions. Stir well. When sorrel is mostly wilted, turn heat back to medium low , cover and cook 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.
4. Add in the flour, cook over medium heat for 3 minutes.
5. Whisk in the hot stock, stirring constantly. Bring to a simmer.
6. To finish, whisk together the egg yolks and cream. Temper the mixture by ladling a little of the soup into it with one hand while you whisk the egg-cream mixture with the other. ( this prevents the eggs from scrambling).
Now start whisking the soup. Pour the egg-cream mixture into the pot with the soup, whisking the entire time. ( coordination or a helper)
7. Add the final tablespoon of butter. Let this cook at just below a simmer for 5 minutes.
Serve immediately.
I love this with a nice home baked bread.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Sorrel, Simply nutritious

It’s been over a year since the lockdowns, restrictions, supply chain disruptions and all of the other problems related to Covid-19 began, not the least of which have been the deaths of 580,000+ people and counting. A great deal surrounding this has been politicized in all directions. Politics has been characterized as “war by other means,” and it has long been known that “the first casualty of war is the truth.”

Because it would be close to impossible to unscramble all that messaging, I try to focus as much as possible on the human element: human needs, human relationships and things like that. For thousands of years the average person didn’t have to worry about politics. The “game of thrones” was someone else’s problem that didn’t really affect the average person’s daily life. It has only been in the past couple of hundred years that ordinary people have had any role to play, and the fact we have such a role to play as others jockey for position has made us the target of pretty much non-stop efforts at persuasion with varying degrees of veracity. Politics is reported like a football game and may well have become our de-facto national sport, except that the rivalries have become serious enough to be incredibly dangerous all on their own.

What I am getting at, here, is that I don’t so much avoid politics as sit above it. As people “on the ground,” we have to deal with what is real, no matter how we vote in elections. Although some people have a high degree of security, most of us don’t. Economic rises and falls, lockdowns that disrupt supply chains, regulations that allow meat from other countries to not be labeled as such … these all affect us. They affect our sense of security, and because of that, they create a level of anxiety in the background, that sits there like a barely noticed high-pitched whine that makes everything more difficult.

And now we are seeing prices at the grocery store rise. It’s the very last thing people need when so much else has become insecure.

Reinhold Niebuhr wrote a prayer so famous that nearly everyone has seen or heard it. It’s fame spreads from its simple wisdom and truth:

God, please grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

This also works in reverse. That is, if you make the effort to change the things that you can change, you will be far more serene in the face of those things you cannot.

And thus the focus of my books. There’s little we can do about prices at the grocery store, or even the empty shelves and smaller packages. And we can’t snap our fingers and make Covid-19 go away. But we can create some raised beds and start raising our own food. Raising our own food gives us an area where, through our own efforts, we can create an aspect of security in our own lives. This sense of effectiveness and security puts us in a far better position from which we can confront the unknown while also revealing that often we accept limitations without testing, and that we are often far more capable than we realize.

I am grateful that the books I have written thus far have been of such great value to so many people during this crisis. As always, if you run into any questions, let me know via the contact form!

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Courage to Change the Things We Can

Currently, Mini-Farming, Self- Sufficiency on 1/4 acre is sold out on Amazon, but the Mini-Farming Bible is still available. so get it before they are gone. We will keep updating when more are available.

https://www.amazon.com/Mini-Farming-Bible-Complete-Self-Sufficiency/dp/1629144908

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Get your books now!!

A lot of the Mini-Farming books focus on vegetables, and rightly so. Growing your own food lets you take control of your health, and your grocery budget. But I want to emphasize the importance of growing herbs in your kitchen garden- or in containers right in your kitchen! This will give you a quick overview of growing culinary and medicinal herbs, and in the coming weeks we will focus on a few specific ones that I can’t live without.
For those of you that don’t know me, I’m Brett’s little sister, Carole. Like Brett, I was raised in the south, But I’ve had 27 years of gardening in Northern Minnesota to learn how to grow things in a climate that is not always easy to grow in. And, being of a more artistic mindset, instead of scientific, I like my garden to be a beautiful, sensory experience, not just practical. And I like my food to be the same.
One of the most exciting things for me as a mom, and now a grandmother, is watching and teaching children about gardening. And children love the sensory experience of a garden. Particularly the smells. And for me, it’s the scent of warm dirt and fresh lavender that takes the stress right off my shoulders when I get home from work. It’s the smell of the basil, rosemary and thyme that gets my creative juices flowing when I’m getting ready to cook dinner. It’s so much more fun, and delicious, to eat healthy, when you spice things up a bit with fresh herbs. They are so easy to grow ( mostly), and can help add endless variety to the preparation of what you are already growing in your garden.
THE BASICS: Herbs need about 6 hours of sun- so pick a spot that has that. I started with a couple small flower gardens and containers right outside my kitchen door.
MY FAVORITES: Basil, Thyme, Rosemary, Oregano, Parsley, Cilantro, Dill, Sage, Fennel, Savory, Bergamot, Mint, and Chives. These are the herbs I just can’t live without.
START FROM SEED: Don’t waste money buying plants. These all start from seed, and, if you aren’t using hybrid seeds that are sterile, these will actually self -seed if you leave one to go to seed at the end of the season, and the next spring you’ll have even more. ( except Rosemary- it doesn’t like non- Mediterranean climates so much)
USE CONTAINERS FOR: Mint and Chives. Mint is pretty invasive, and even the harshest Minnesota winters won’t kill it. I use a big old washtub for mine, and it keeps it from taking over. Watch out for chives, too- Don’t let those go to seed willy-nilly, or you will have them everywhere. Pick those beautiful flowers for a bouquet inside, then dry the seeds and put them only where you want them to grow.

FOR YOUR HEALTH: Some herbs get labeled culinary, some medicinal, but the truth is, all herbs are good for you. The ones that taste less pleasant get labeled medicinal, but that doesn’t mean the delicious ones have no value besides flavor. Just a few examples are:

Basil: Basil has been used for stomach problems and gas, to increase circulation, and to start the flow of milk after childbirth. Both Genovese and Holy Basil have been shown useful for eczema and acne. Holy Basil is so revered medicinally in Asia it almost deserves it own section. It has been shown to boost immunity and fight infection. The ointment I make for soothing and preventing infection after childbirth in cases of tearing or episiotomy includes Holy Basil, Thyme, Calendula and Comfrey.

Thyme: Thyme has been shown to lower blood pressure, help stop coughing and treat bronchitis. Its also high in Vitamin C and A and boosts immunity. I use it in various skin preparations and salves because it has anti- bacterial properties and has been shown to be effective in treating acne. It’s scent is a mood booster. The fresh oil from rubbing the leaves can even repel mosquitoes.

Sage: Sage has been shown to boost memory and brain function. Currently its properties are being studied more closely in helping improve function for Alzheimer’s patients.

Mint: Mint helps sooth unhappy stomachs. We use its scent to calm and relax, internally in herbal infused water to aid digestion, and in sachets to help fight nausea. It was a primary ingredient I used in the aromatherapy to help my daughter in labor.

Rosemary: Rosemary is a good source of iron, Calcium and vitamin B6. It is full of anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds. Rosemary helps with nasal congestion and allergies. Its scent is energizing and is said to help focus. Rosemary has long been used for its ability to aid in concentration, and it can help people struggling with ADHD symptoms. Some studies have shown it to be helpful in healing brain damage after stroke. I keep a live Rosemary plant on my desk, so its scent helps me focus when I have work to do.

Growing herbs is easy, and it can add so much zest to your life. Intoxicating scents invite you to cook, sooth you in your bath, or aid digestion or other troubles in a tea. Start growing herbs today, and I will add articles and recipes weekly to help you find great ways to use them!

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Why Herbs?

Today on the radio I heard an advertisement for a local yard maintenance company, promising a great deal to come treat your lawn with some fantastic herbicides to get rid of those pesky dandelions and weeds in your lawn. I got kind of miffed, and thought I should run a Public Service Announcement on the radio begging folks to not hire this lawn service. Why? Well, of course I’m not a fan of chemically treating lawns, but really, it was my love for the much maligned dandelion that had me in a huff.
It has only been in recent times that the dandelion has gone from being a much loved ingredient for teas, jellies, salads, and even herbal remedies, to a destroyer of the perfect lawn. They are high in vitamin K, Vitamin C, Vitamin A and vitamin B6. They also contain a lot of iron and potassium, as well as having folate and magnesium. ( If you are on blood thinners, consult your doctor). They are natural immune system boosters and can help balance blood sugar levels, relieve heartburn and more ( Though as with all herbal remedies, this claim has not been approved by the FDA).
Since I want an edible landscape anyway, I leave the dandelions. And to give some extra encouragement for you to leave them too, remember that they are the first food of our honeybees in spring, and what would any garden look like without pollinators?
Preparation- rinse thoroughly in cold water to float out any garden friends hiding in the plant, then try the tender leaves fresh in a salad. Try to choose younger leaves, as they are less bitter. For a break from kale or spinach, cook them like collards.
Flower heads: dip in egg, then flour with a little salt and pepper, and fry.

Dandelion Jelly:

2-4 cups dandelion petals

4 cups boiling water

3 cups sugar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 box pectin

1. Cut the green part off of the flowerand put the petals in a large bowl
2. Pour boiling water over the petals, and allow to cool for 24 hours
3. strain liquid, squeezing the soaked petals to get as much out of them as you can- cheesecloth or a flour sack towel works for this
4. Put 4 cups of the liquid, lemon juice and pectin into a large container and bring to a boil
5. add sugar, bring to a boil again, for 1-2 minutes
6. Pour into jars, and put jars in a canning boiling water bath for 10 minutes

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Dandy Dandelions

The current situation (for historical purposes, as I write, large portions of the world are locked down due to an epidemic) only happens once every few decades. Although some few experts — always ignored — have stated we should be be ready and vigilant, most of the world was anything but.

A couple of weeks ago, if you walked into a grocery store, you found the meat shelves empty, strict limits on eggs — one package per customer — and no canned or frozen vegetables left.

Most recently, some meat packing plants have shut down.

Though I don’t think we are going to get to the point of mass starvation, it should be understood that our supply networks are fragile and that an emergency — even a global one — can take us unawares.

So starting your MiniFarm is a lot like planting a tree. The best time to do it is 20 years ago, but the second best time to do it is right now!

Seed suppliers are back ordered and struggling so if you need to order seeds, get your orders in early!

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on The Second Best Time