Blog - Page 26 of 40 - Five Feline Farm

A Look Back at 2016

As the year draws to a close, Five Feline Farm is taking a moment to step aside and recount the changes we experienced.

All of this was made possible because of the support we received through the year from you. Our friends and customers. We made new friends on Saturday mornings at the 18th Street Farmer’s Market, at the fall Honeybee Festival in Paris, IL, on social media, and special group tours of the Farm. Your support, enthusiasm, words of encouragement and product feedback are invaluable as we move forward in this business.

We created new products and enhanced existing ones:

Spearmint and Hint O Mint Beek Balm

Patchouli, Bergamot and Winter Phantom Balm fragrances

Snow Balm-our own version of that smeary stuff in a little blue tub

White Chocolate Macadamia, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip and Dark Chocolate Cherry scones

New cat toy shapes

Some things around the Farm were improved or increased:

Market garden beds

More honeybee colonies

Online store expansion

And a few things discontinued:

Olive oil based Phantom balm

Oatmeal Raisin scones

2017 Vision

Our most recent leap of faith was to purchase a building. The back of the building offers equipment storage and the front, with it’s cabin style porch, will house an on-farm store.

We will continue to preach our anthem of whole and natural living wherever possible. From food to skin care products, to repurposed materials in catnip toys, every step is about whole, natural and sustainable.

This past year, Five Feline Farm grew beyond our expectations. Our dreams are bigger for the coming year. Maybe even outlandish. Stick with us, you never know what might happen.

Thank you for your encouragement and support. Here’s to a wonderful 2017 for all of us.

Check out our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages. And don’t forget the online store!

Planting Garlic

Did that last post make your mouth water? Are you craving some creamy roasted garlic spread on tender slices of Italian style bread? Perhaps a side of simple pasta with a browned butter sauce topped with grated Mizithra cheese?

I can tell you from experience that roasting garlic grown a few yards from your kitchen adds an additional layer of satisfaction.

Garlic is planted in the fall and overwinters in the ground. Since the time to plant in Central Illinois is late September/early October, get your order for seed garlic in now. We order from Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, IA. This company is a non-profit charged with preserving seed that otherwise may be lost over time.

Bed Preparation

Prepare your garlic bed now. Choose a different location each year for garlic, using good crop rotation principles to reduce disease and improve soil health. Here at Five Feline Farm, garlic will be planted where spring lettuce was grown. The excess lettuce has been allowed to sit on the soil. About a week or so before planting, the bed will be turned with a broadfork. (More to come on this technique in a future post.) Garlic is a heavy feeder so adding in compost and Epsom salt will increase your harvest.

When it is time to plant, carefully remove the outer papery layers until the individual cloves can be separated. Don’t remove the papery layer from the individual cloves. Plant each clove about 3 inches deep and 6-8 inches apart with the pointed end upright.

When the weather turns cold, mulch heavily with clean straw. In the spring when the days have warmed to 60 degrees and the night temperatures stay above 40 degrees, you can pull back the straw and keep the bed evenly watered until ready to harvest. You may leave the straw to help keep down weeds but there is a risk that it will stay wet and develop mold. Like most things in gardening, there is a trade off: do more weeding or accept the risks of mold. Decide for yourself how you want to manage your garlic bed.

Our next post will contain ideas about how to use this delicious fruit of your labor. While you are waiting on that post to arrive, check out our Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter feed. Plus, if you haven’t already signed up for our email list, please do. Each post will automatically show up in your email plus an occasional bonus for subscribers only.

Planning To Plant Garlic

Walk into any decent Italian restaurant and take a deep breath. That warm spicy aroma tingling your nose is quite likely garlic. That incomparable deep flavor that makes Italian dishes sing.

You can bring this into your own kitchen through bulbs of garlic purchased at a box store, but why do that when garlic is so easy to grow?

Now is the time to start planning for your fall planting of garlic. Yes, it is somewhat counter-intuitive, but some plants are designed to spend their winter nestled in the cold earth. Garlic is just such a plant.

There are two basic types of garlic and numbers of varieties within those types. Like any other plant, the specific varieties have different advantages of flavor, storage, etc.

Hard Neck Garlic

These bulbs of garlic are different from the kind you normally find available in the store. The bulb forms a hard center stem that grows up through the bulb to support the leaves. As the bulb is opened, there are typically 6 or 8 cloves of garlic around this center stem. The cloves are full and large. Varieties we grow are: Music, Bogatyr, and German Red.

Soft Neck

This garlic does not form that hard center stem. Softer leaves shoot out of the middle and many cloves form around this center. The outer cloves are reasonably sized with size decreasing as you near the center. Even the outer cloves do not attain the size of the hard neck ones. We grow Inchelium Red

After you receive your garlic bulbs, either through a mail order supplier or somewhere local, don’t peel off the outer papery cover until you are ready to plant. Store the bulbs in a cool, dry place until ready to plant.

At this point you should also plan where you will plant your garlic. Choose a sunny location that is well drained with rich soil. You will need 6-8 inches of space per plant.

This post is the first in a series about home grown garlic. Our next post will cover the characteristics of the garlic varieties we grow. In the meantime, check out this post about how to use garlic bulbils.

Come back for the next installment or sign up for our email list to have these posts delivered to your inbox. You’ll also get a free ebook. How cool is that?

In Defense of Butter

I love butter. Smooth, silky, creamy butter. There is nothing like it to transform pan sauce into a glistening, slightly thick, lip-smackingly rich perfection.

The butter at my house can be found in not one, not two, but three locations.

Butter on the Counter

Softened butter occupies a place of honor on the counter. Kept fresh in a butter keeper, ready to spread at a moment’s notice.

Butter in the Fridge

There are packages of butter awaiting use in the refrigerator, stick by glorious stick.

Butter in the Freezer

And there is always butter in the freezer. Usually purchased 16 or 20 pounds at a time. Butter stores perfectly well in the freezer. I can’t chance running out.

I preserve herbs in butter, making logs of rich herb butter to freeze. Later sliced and added to everything one can imagine. See how that process works in Making Herb Butter.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking.

“Her arteries are so clogged with all that butter fat, there’s no oxygen to her brain.”

“Bet her blood flows thick as frozen butter.”

“Cholesterol must be off the chart.”

The low-fat movement is surely having a stroke about now.

Yes, I use a lot of butter. Along with all the other full fat ingredients.

I’ve stopped using canola oil, shortening, corn oil, butter substitutes, reduced fat milk and cheese. In my opinion these options are not healthy, whole food. Many are GMO laden or composed of unrecognizable ingredients. These are not the food that my grandparents knew and used. I have stocked my kitchen with organic coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, full fat milk and cheese.

And butter. Lots and lots of creamy butter.

By the way, my cholesterol is down.