Kelly and Comet at the Village Pointe Farmers Market

Photo Courtesy of Mary Keck

This week, we have been finding lots of monarch butterfly caterpillars on the farm.  They seem to like our carrots.  We’ve collected some for our butterfly house, and we’ll post photos after they hatch.  We all get a lot of pleasure from watching them emerge and dry their wings.  It gives us hope that we’ll have success with our planned butterfly garden.

We also harvested a new crop: our beautiful Black Sheep Farms t-shirts!  Support your favorite local farmer by purchasing an organic cotton shirt made in USA.  We’ve got mens and womens sizes, and they’re only $18 (including tax).  You know you want one!  Contact us to make arrangements.

-Brian

This past week, we finally saw the results of a long, long growing season: artichokes.  Artichokes are not a typical Nebraska crop, so we had to make some adjustments.  For instance, we started the seeds in January.  Artichokes usually do not bear fruit until the second season, so we “fooled” them by setting them outside in March to create an artificial winter.  We had no idea what to expect since this was our first attempt, but we were rewarded with small chokes.  I’m not sure if we should have let them go a little longer, but it looked like they were opening, so we harvested our first batch.  I steamed one (I have to try it out before bringing it to market!), and it was delicious.

-Brian