Collards for those who think they don't like collards

I've heard a lot of people talk about how they just don't like collards. I can understand this. I too did not like them as a child. Or as a teenager. Or as an adult. I ate them out of the desire to have a prosperous new year and then did not eat them again until the next new years.

This all changed when I started growing them. Like most vegetables, the way to love eating them is to grow them. The first year I grew them, it was an extremely cold winter for NC. We got comment after comment like: "These are the best collards I've ever had" or "It only takes 15 mintues to cook them! They're not in the least bit bitter!" These collards were nothing like those bought in the store. They were sweet, without the expected bitterness. They cooked so quickly that many people almost overcooked them thinking they were like store-bought collards.

We had such a surplus that mom and I immediately set about to experimenting with the vegetable, pushing ourselves beyond the traditional pork and collards parameters. We came up with three great recipes that I'd like to share with you this year. These collard recipes will convince even the most skeptic of yankees.

1) Cream of Collard Soup (thanks to Peggy Carlough)

- Sautee onions and garlic in butter
- add in chopped collards (about 6 leaves per person)
- partially submerge them in water or veggie stock. If you are using water, add in a bullion cube
- let reduce until collards are soft, about 5 minutes
- purree
- put it back on the heat and a little bit of cream/half and half to taste (you can add mushrooms here if you'd like for a heartier soup)
- add salt and pepper (and NUTMEG!!! my mother disagrees with this spice, but I love it!) and let it warm through
- serve with toast

2) Stewed Tomatoes, Peppers, and Collards
- sautee onions and garlic in canola oil
- add in some red and green peppers (or aji dulce or paprika peppers if you can find them)
- add in some chopped collards and stir
- add water/stock/bullion cube if necessary to get the steaming process going
- add in a can (or two) of chopped tomatoes
- salt, pepper, red pepper flakes to taste
- serve with ricotta chese and pita

3) Collard Casserole
- cut up collards in a pot with a little bit of veggie stock or water/bullion
- when they are a dark green color (before they get brown), toss in some cream of mushroom soup
- take them out of the pot and put them in a greased casserole dish
- sautee onions and garlic in another pan
- add in a healthy amount of mushrooms
- put the onions/garlic/mushroom combo on top of the collards that are in the casserole dish
- top with (swiss, provolone, mozarella) cheese
- bake until the cheese is bubbling


I hope these recipes inspire you to try some of our collards and experiment beyond their tradtional boundaries. Collards are a very versatile vegetable that we should embrace and not relegate to old, poor southerners. They are so healthy and beneficial to our winter diets!

I truly believe that if we all ate more collards, or greens in general, we would lead richer, fuller, and more satisfied lives. New Years Legends can come true.

So what do you do in the winter?

One of the most popular questions I get is "so what do you do in the winter?" It changes every year. For the past few years, we've been clearing out around the fields. Since we're starting to use fields that have been abandoned for 30 years, we have a lot of smilex, honeysuckle, and ligustrum to destroy so we could get our fields to the optimum size. We finished that major project last year, so this year, we'll just be doing a bit of weed eating and bush hogging to maintain our progress.

This year, we have two major projects in the vineyard: 1) removing the Pierce's diseased vines and 2) cleaning the carpet.

The Vidal blanc was great while it lasted. It made a delicious, high acid wine that received great compliments. Nevertheless, we know that it has Pierce's disease and that it won't last much past next year. A good portion of the vineyard has already died. We've decided to remove it now so that we can  move on to our next variety more quickly. We're trying Villard blanc, a grape that was widely grown in France into the 60s. It's fairly rare here, but its resistant. I'm looking to taste as many different companies' Villard as possible so that I can get a good plan for how to make the wine.

decapitated vines, awaiting removal

So the first step is to cut down the top parts of the Vidal. After that is finished, we will pull back the landscape fabric that we use to keep the weeds down, attach the vines to our ATV, and pull them out. We will then go back, add some P and K, and put in the new Villard vines. And start over. It's going to be tedious, but we have almost one month to get them out.

Before (notice you can't see the black plastic)

The second job for the winter is cleaning the landscape fabric that covers the ground between the vines. Since we don't use herbicides, this is our best tool for giving our vines a fighting chance against the weeds. Over the summer, the weeds start to take over the fabric, so now, when the summer weeds are dead, we're hoeing the vineyard. This is tedious work too, but it's much easier to do this now rather than in the summer. After we get the whole thing cleaned (it will take about a month),  we will blow off the plastic with leaf blowers and then spray it with a weak solution of citric acid. I'm considering broadcasting some clover on top of it in the early Spring.

After (gorgeous work Liuba!)

So by the time we get the vineyard cleaned and cleared, it will be time to put the new vines in and get started on the Spring crops. It will be slow and steady work, but I'm glad I can provide work for my employees in the winter that will cut down on the work we have to do in the oppressive heat of summer.

I'll be making a trip to the Dallas, Houston, and Austin areas in late February. They grow two different types of Pierce's disease resistant vines down there: Lenoir  and Blanc du Bois. I'll do an update from down there as I journey to find the best varieties of grapes to grow (sustainably) in NC!!

Forced Relaxation: the winter

It's been a long time since I last updated the blog! A lot has been going on and I've spent almost every week up in Mocksville since we harvested our grapes. The wine is looking good and we'll probably put it in barrel next week.

The theme to the year so far is early seasons. Spring came early, summer came early, fall came early, and now, it looks like winter, too, is coming early. It's supposed to get down to 26 tonight in Concord. I can't believe it! I just hope that we get a good solid week of below freezing temperatures sometime in late January. That would help our vines and pest population immensely!

It also, hasn't rained in almost a month. We've been very diligent with our watering, however. Normally this time of year, we have to winterize the well and blow out all the irrigation lines. We haven't had the opportunity yet because we keep needing to water the garden about once a week!

Despite the rough weather, the winter garden is really looking great. Thank you, knowledgeable employees and dedicated customer/volunteers! The garlic is in the ground, our crops have been fertilized, hoed, and mulched, and we're getting ready to start construction on two new high tunnels. Due to the high demand of butter crunch lettuce and swiss chard, we need to be growing those throughout the winter. I'm also going to try putting in a few rows of pink-eyed peas so that we'll have fresh peas for New Years Day!

After we get the high tunnels built next week, we'll begin clearing the dead Vidal blanc vines out of the vineyard and preparing it for our new arrivals in the spring: Villard blanc. I can't wait to try this grape and develop a winemaking style for it. I have never had it before, so it's a huge risk in planting. But most importantly, I know that it will grow in our conditions, so I'm confident that we can make an excellent wine from it. It should take us about a month and a half of steady work to clear off the landscape fabric, cut down the plants, and dig the holes.

It might be winter now, but we still have produce for sale. If you're looking to buy our produce, here are the three ways to do so:

1) On the farm: Saturday morning at 4758 Poplar Tent Rd from 9-12. We will have veggies, eggs, meats (from Big Oak Farm), canned goods, and Uncle Scott's Rootbeer.

2) Via email: Saturday morning on Elizabeth Avenue in Charlotte at 11am, we run orders to Charlotte for our loyal customers. email us to receive the order form

3) Special order: Call 704-782-2117 to order food any time!

Farm Tour Time! and an update on the wine

It's time for the Know Your Farms Tour. There are tons of interesting farms on the tour this year. It's two days, so you can fit the tour into your schedule. If you're trying to eat locally, this is the way to learn all about the many things that we grow in the Piedmont. We are a scheduled stop on Saturday from 1-6 pm.
Here's a link with the details. We'll have cookies and wine to taste and produce, canned goods, and Uncle Scott's Root Beer for sale.

Hope to see you there!!

On a different note, the wine is going well. It had a sluggish fermentation, but once it got going, it went! I tried to get it to go about 2 Brix/day, but it ended up going about 4 Brix/day. It's through fermentation now, been pressed, and is sitting in a tank, settling, and going through malo -actic conversion. We're still waiting on the numbers to come back from the lab for alcohol, pH, TA, etc, but if taste is anything to go by, there's plenty of acid still in the wine. That is good news for a southern wine! After it finishes malo, we'll put some of it in barrels.

Thanks again for your support!

Winemakings

The fruit is picked!! Thanks so much, volunteers. You really make owning a small vineyard not only possible, but fun. I might not make as much money as a doctor or lawyer, but thanks to your support and encouragement, I feel enough respect to make up for it.

After the fruit was picked, we took it up in a refrigerated truck (sans refrigeration cause it broke) to Mocksville. We crushed and destemmed and pumped it to a tank where it macerated for approx 4 days. Yesterday, I turned off the chiller to let the must warm up to prepare it for inoculation, but by the time I was pumping over this morning, it still wasn't very warm. I put the yeast in, along with some nutrients, and pumped over for 5 more minutes. When I left the winery this afternoon, the thermometer still said 59, and that's a little low for my tastes. I hope to come in tomorrow and see proof of inoculation. It could take a while to get going because the final spray we put on (3 weeks before harvest) was still quite visible on the grapes.

But I'll keep you update. Pictures to come I swear!

Harvest time!!

These past few weeks have been stressful, to say the least. After a month of little rain and hot temperatures, we've had about three weeks of moderate temps and rain almost twice a week! Some days in July were so hot that it was difficult for the plants to produce fruit. Consequently, we started running low on food about three weeks afterwards. It wasn't quite time for us to plant the fall garden, so, basically, we've been experiencing a shortage of food. We've decided to close the farm stand to the public until later in the fall. If you'd like to purchase any food, just email us and we'll get an order together for you.

The grapes will be harvested tomorrow!!! On Wednesday, the brix were at 21, so hopefully they'll be at 22 by Saturday. It's actually been a little cool for my tastes recently. I think we'll have good acid this year, but I wish the brix were a little higher. The reason we're picking now is because it seems like there will be a few rainy days ahead. The seeds are dark brown and crunchy, the sugar is ok, and I know that waiting longer could just allow the grapes to go bad. If there's one thing I've learned through growing grapes, it's that 'waiting for perfection' is an unattainable goal. In agriculture, the act of waiting can be very dangerous. It's like that bird in the hand proverb: grapes in the winery are worth more than grapes hanging on the vine.

Dad and I are going up to Raylen  this morning to pick up our harvesting bins, then over to Charlotte to get refrigerated trucks. The employees are coming in at 1 to sharpen the clippers, wash picking baskets, and start taking the nets off. We'll start  picking  at 6am. We'll need all the help we can get tomorrow, so if you're free, come out for a few hours. We culled the grapes while still on the vine, so it should go fairly quickly.

I'll post the results of the harvest as soon as I get the results from the lab. Happy Autumn everyone! It's almost time to relax.

Whew!

I don't know if you remember last year's epic mission with the netting of the vineyard, but I must say that compared to last year, this year has been a delight! Thanks to making all those mistakes last year and to my time netting the vineyard near Melbourne, we will probably finish netting the vineyard  (including prep-work) in exactly one week! The extremely hot weather these past few weeks has pushed veraison up even further than it was last year. The early bud break and mild May  meant that the grapes grew fast and happily. The next to last week of June, I saw my first Chambourcin start to turn color. I thought this must be a mistake. Is it a disease? or virus? But no, the grapevines were fine. They were just ready to turn a little early.

Thus, my family and employees jumped into gear. I didn't have to beg to have the vineyard sprayed or mowed one last time before netting, I didn't have to explain the need for netting, and all the employees were able to work extra long hours on sweltering afternoons.

We used an old basketball goal (courtesy of a Sundrop Promotional Toy cerca 1985) on the back of our ATV to feed the net up and over the rows. Most of the little cups we put over the posts last year to facilitate the snag-less dispersion of the nets were brittle and broken, so we just took them off. Turns out, the corners of our 2x4 supports aren't that bad. The nets slid right over. Plus, our canopy is much crazier than last year and that crazy canopy is helping to keep the nets away from the fruiting zone. We didn't get much of a chance to position our shoots, plus laterals never really broke and we decided after last year's sunburnt  crop not to leaf pluck. We got a lot more shade this year, and hopefully better fruit. Killing multiple birds with one stone!

So I guess we're to the count down to harvest. I must get my affairs in order and make sure all the other crops are well prepared for my future lack of attention. I hope we don't get too much rain between now and then. I don't really know how we'd spray the vines with the nets on. This super early harvest might be a blessing in that we get to pick all the fruit before we put in the fall garden. I just hope I get all the paperwork and permits in time. I wasn't planning on needing the paperwork until the last week of August. We'll use the same basic vintage plan as last year for the majority of the Chambourcin, but I'll be trying some extended maceration batches and natural fermentations in the back of the grocery store just to see how it goes. I don't know if we'll have any white this year. Pierce's Disease has pretty much affected every single Vidal blanc vine we have. We'll probably be replanting the rest of the vineyard this upcoming winter and spring. It breaks my heart to see the little grapevines scorched and withered, but I know there's nothing I can do for them, so out they go. Onwards and upwards for a new variety of white which will hopefully make as good a wine as the Vidal made last year.

I still don't have a camera, so sorry for the lack of pictures. I got a disposable one (yep! they still exist!) so, when I got those photos developed, I'll put them up.