Pickle Farming - Part 1

Yesterday I was lucky enough to head out to the beach with a friend for the first part of the day. My fiance, Brian, was working for our friends that grow pickles so when I got home I decided to go ride in the semi with him. He was driving a semi with doubles behind it. That means it has 2 separate trailers behind it. The whole rig from front bumper to rear hitch is 70' long. The set of 2 trailers is also known as "trains". They aren't too hard to drive but they are very tricky to back up. Brian drove the same setup for 4 years at an excavating company so he does great with them. I'm so proud of him! :) Anyway, enough bragging, on to the story of pickles...

Pickle farmers try to schedule their planting so that they know exactly what day the pickles will be ready to harvest. If it is 90 degrees and humid out the pickles can grow very fast. They can be too small to pick in the morning and too big to pick at night. Our friends had a 30 acre field ready to be picked on Saturday and the 30 acres next to it was supposed to be ready for Sunday. The pickles had other ideas though and as it turns out the whole 60 acres were ready to be picked on Saturday.

This made for a lot of rushing around before a big rainstorm hit. These farmers have an 8-row harvester and a 4-row harvester. The 8-row does most of the work while the 4-row gets the headlands and the extra little corners and things. The pickles are loaded in to semis and hauled to the factory. On Saturday they were hauling to factory about 45 minutes away. They had 6 semis (5 singles + the trains) going nonstop to keep up with the harvester. It takes 20 minutes to unload a single trailer and sometimes the line at the factory can be a 2-3 hour wait. Each of the single trailers made 2 trips to the factory that day and the trains went once.

Whenever I ride in a semi I always get a little nervous about the traffic. I would love to learn to drive one but it can be so stressful, especially with all the people on the road who don't appreciate trucks or know anything about them. We had the classic idiot who pulled out in front of us, making Brian downshift, then decided to slow down and turn just as we were getting up to speed again. Then, as we were navigating through the stoplights in town we met the driver who doesn't know what the white line at the stoplight is for. Boy did she back up real fast when we made a right turn and almost kissed the front bumper on her Grand Prix!

Sorry for complaining but I get really sick of ignorant people. I hope that by sharing experiences like this maybe more people can learn about things like this. If you don't know much about semis I would suggest taking it upon yourself to learn the basics. For example, don't ever pull up close behind a semi at a stop sign or light. Even on the slightest hill the truck will roll backward as the driver let's out the clutch to accelerate. It is big pain when they have to worry about rolling back in to you!

Okay, back to the pickles. So when we get to the factory the first thing to do is get weighed. We pulled on to a very large scale and the weight shows up on a little display so we can see it. The train weigh 160,000 lbs. when fully loaded. This is the gross, or total, weight and included the truck plus the pickles. The single trailer weighed in at 120,000 lbs. loaded. A women in the little trailer beside the scale logs your weight and gives you a paper for each load. After you unload you weigh the truck again to get the weight of the pickles. The single trailer weighed about 50,000 lbs. empty so that means we brought in 70,000 lbs of pickles in one load.

After weighing in, and maybe waiting in line, the driver backs to truck up to the "pit". The pit is just what it sounds like, kind of a hole with metal sides. The dump box is raised up just enough for a big pile of pickles to come out. There is a big conveyor belt that takes the pickles away from the bottom of the pile. Eventually the driver can raise the box more and more until all the pickles come out. Like I said earlier, unloading takes about 20 minutes.

The conveyor takes the pickles in to the factory to be cleaned and sorted. It drops them from one belt to another so a lot of the leaves and debris fall off the belt. Then they are run through a tank where water is sprayed on them at high pressure to get a lot of the dirt off. The next tank has red hose-like belts that pull through the water. The pickles go between all these belts and get scrubbed clean. The conveyor takes them through several tanks like this and then rinses them with clean water.

Afterward the conveyor goes by workers that manually sort the pickles. Any that are not the right side or that are damaged go back on a separate conveyor and are spit out in to a bin near where the truck sits. The pickles that pass inspection leave the factory on another conveyor and are loaded in to clean trucks that belong to the factory. They go to another part of the factory grounds and are stored in big tanks of brine until they are needed for further processing.

When the last pickle slides out of the truck the driver puts the trailer down. The debris and damaged pickles are dumped back in to the truck to take back home. The scraps are usually dumped in a vacant field to compost. Since pickles are mostly water it doesn't take long at all for them to breakdown. A pile 10' tall could be almost gone after a day or two.

I hope some of you found this interested and learned a little something. I did get to walk around and see some of the factory for myself while the truck was being unloaded. I know a lot of people aren't as close to commercial food production as I am so I like to share these experiences. This post is titled Part 1 because I hope to add more about pickle farming later. Next weekend maybe I'll get to ride in the harvester and tell you how that works!

Green Baby Shower Gift Basket

Okay I have a million new things (okay maybe a dozen) to post about. The majority of our wedding invitations are mailed out so I can start to relax again and get out of lurker mode. For those of you who don't know we are getting married August 23, 2008. I graduated from college the first week of June and took my board exams a couple weeks later. Then I started working full time and planning the wedding! All I ask is that for those of you who do read this blog please hold on a little longer. I plan to revamp the design here when I get a chance. Originally I wanted this blog to center around the farm and what Brian & I do as a couple. Now that I am finding more and more great blogs that I enjoy reading I think I am going to change the angle here to be more from just my point of view and discuss the things that I feel are important. Of course the farm happenings will still be incorporated since they are a huge, wonderful part of my life.

Anyway, I enjoy learning and reading more about how to live a "greener" lifestyle. I was raised to recycle, compost, turn the tv off, garden, etc. Now I am working on the finer points of this lifestyle. One important thing we can all do is give eco-friendly gifts. When I was invited to a good friend's baby shower I wanted to find something to give her that would help get the baby off to a great, healthy start.

Here is what I put together:
Seventh Generation Chlorine-Free Baby Wipes
Seventh Generation Baby Laundry Liquid Detergent
Seventh Generation Chlorine-Free Baby Diapers
Classy Kid Keep Me Tidy Clean & Green Biodegradable Diaper Sacks
Kiddopotomus & Co. Organic Dot Swaddle
Medela Single Bottle
Medela Nipples: Medium Flow
Green Is The New Black onesie: This is not the same one that I gave as a gift. The one I found was a natural color and made of Organic cotton.

I found all of these items at Babies R' Us. The Mom registered for the swaddle and I just took it from there. She did register for the Medela nursing system so I picked up the extra bottle and next stage of nipples for that. Total cost was around $55 with the diapers on sale. She seemed happy with it and a few other guests commented that it was a neat idea. One person asked me where I found all those cool products and I was glad I could say they are all available at Babies R' Us! This theme could carry over in to any kind of gift. Happy Shopping! :)

Some Inspiration for Independence Day

Happy 4th of July everybody! I hope y'all get to enjoy this day with your families. Here is an inspiring video for you to check out. I think it is great and hope this spreads to other sports teams around the country.

Check out this video: Red Sox Go Green



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Independence Days Update

1. PLANT SOMETHING: Some of my watermelon plants are coming up now. I planted three different kinds of cucumbers: one for slicing, one for pickles, and lemon cucumbers. I also planted my six little blueberry bushes in front of the house. One of them is mysteriously missing now and since ordering season is over for them I guess I'll have to get another one next year. I have a feeling that the puppy must have dug it up but I couldn't find it anywhere in the yard. What a bummer. On a good note, the potato plants that were accidently run over with the rototiller are coming back up again. I'm not sure if it is the same stems or new ones so hopefully it didn't hurt the yield too badly. At least we'll have some! :)

2. Harvest something. Not much ready right now. Next year I've got to plant some lettuce! My gooseberry plants have some pretty big berries on them but I don't think they're quite ready yet. I guess you could say we are harvesting hay because that is stockpiled feed for our animals all winter. We got 85 good bales off before a hailstorm hit and then the rest of a 7 acre field got poured on and will be cattle feed. Brian cut a couple rounds on the 15 acre field today. He has decided to say forget the weatherman and go with his gut instincts. I think he'll be better off.

3. Preserve something. *sigh* This is become more of a to-do list then notes on what I have done. I'll have to e-mail my Mom after this post and see if I can get more of her rhubarb to freeze. Oh, and my friend at work did leave some in the fridge for me so I'll get that tomorrow. Who knew I would love rhubarb so much. Plus I found a new recipe for it today so I'll try that.

4. Prep something. I have a couple of things to do here:

-Build a compost bin: we currently have to haul the table scraps across the road to avoid having them end up as dog food. Even then sometimes the puppy sneaks over and grabs a bite.

-Clean out the little red shed: this is the place where my chickens are housed and my sheep were at originally. I need to clean out the thick bed of hay and straw before the slatted wood floor gets rotten. Then I can finish the chickens' coop.

5. Cook something. Not much new here. I did make another patch of rhubarb muffins - Mmm Mmm!

6. Manage your reserves. I'm still doing okay here with the pantry. I was a little bummed when my fiance proudly announced he found a great sale on Powerade and then bought 2 cases of 15 bottles each. A few months ago I would have been excited about his find (and I was still a little proud at how price-conscious he is!) but it sucks to buy all those plastic bottles. We do reuse them until they get slimy or smelly but I'm afraid that probably isn't too healthy. Of course they go in the recycling bin after. So in an attempt to prevent this problem in the future we also bought a huge thing of Gatorade powder so I can mix up our own batches at home once the other stuff is gone.

7. Work on local food systems. Okay I still need to find a local source of feed for the sheep and chickens but I've got my flour source now! Atleast I think so. I called and talked to Shirley at Hampshire Farms and learned that they have several different kinds of flour and beans available. The flour is sold in 2# packages but larger quantities are available for order so I am going to try out a few different kinds and see what I like. Funny thing, as we got to talking we figured out that the farms' owner went to school with my fiance's parents and although there main farm is about 30 minutes away they also have an organic vegetable patch only 2 miles from our house! What a small world. I am so excited to get my first flour from them!

Independence Days Here on the Farm

I decided to join the Independence Days Challenge so here is my first post about it:

1. PLANT SOMETHING: Well let's see... already this year I have planted carrots, onions, bush beans, pole beans, snap peas and sugar peas, potatoes, and tomatoes. The seeds all came from Baker Creek Seed Co. and are heirloom varietes. The tomatoes plants came from a small greenhouse at a local farm but I'm afraid they shipped them in from somewhere else. I tried to start my own tomatoes from seed but I killed them - better luck next year I guess. The potatoes came from another local greenhouse. They do come from out of state but the family personal selects them and brings them home every year.

Everything mentioned above has been planted for atleast a week now. Oh I also planted sunflowers (heirloom), and some raspberry, black currant, and gooseberry bushes. Today I got the dward blueberry bushes that I ordered. Tonight my fiance rototilled another section of the garden one last time and we spread a thick layer of composted hay over the top. I planted 3 different varieties of watermelon in hills in this new section. I also finished mulching the rest of the garden with straw. It is really coming along!

2. Harvest something. About the only thing I have harvested so far is asparagus. This is pretty tasty stuff, I have a piece every morning on my way by as part of the garden tour. I have also been given rhubarb and made some delicious muffins with brown sugar topping. In fact I have more in the fridge waiting to be used.

3. Preserve something. My Mom and sister and I spent Saturday afternoon picking strawberries (Oh I also planted my own of these this year!) and making 72 4-ounce jars of jam as favors for my wedding. We picked the berries at a local U-pick farm and I plan to visit another farm and make atleast as many more jars before the season is over. I am hoping the jam will actually get used and maybe I'll even get some of the jars back. It will be better than some silly plastic favor anyway.

4. Prep something. Well I guess I'm doing more in this area than I originally thought. I'm reading Living With Sheep to develop my skills as a shepherd. I am thinking about requesting a sewing machine on our wedding registry so that I can make my own scrubs and I'm trying to figure out if it would be cost and time efficient to make my fiance's t-shirts instead of buying them. We sorted through all of our clothes and have a big pile to go to Big Brothers Big Sisters. Our winter wardrobe is going to go in a rubbermaid container in the attic to make room for the summer stuff. I have a large supply of shampoo and toothpaste (more than I'll ever use) so I was thinking of putting some of it on Freecycle and trying out the shampoo bars that FakePlasticFish found. We have tried to pick eco-friendly items for our wedding registry and avoid junk. I really want a food grinder to make apple sauce and a bean frencher but I'll have to buy them later because none of the stores with registries carry them.

5. Cook something. Well I tried to make homemade bread from scratch twice last week and it failed both times. I think I might have had some crappy yeast. I'll try again this week. I'll also be making more rhubarb muffins.

6. Manage your reserves. This is a neverending project for me. We have a great system for the pantry where each item goes on the grocery list when there is only one extra left in storage. So if a bottle of mustard goes in the fridge and there is one left on the shelf it goes on the list. Then I have time to watch for a sale. I'd like to make a grocery price book like I use to have where each item (bread, PB, etc.) gets a page and you note what you pay for it each time with a breakdown per ounce, etc. This made it easy to find the best prices. I also keep trying to eliminate processed foods and replace them with homemade items. I quit buying poptarts in hopes of supplying us with homemade muffins but have yet to make any that Brian likes (he's not much for rhubarb). There are a lot of jars of old canned food that were here in the farmhouse when we moved in. I need to dump them out and wash the jars someday.

7. Work on local food systems. This is not as easy as I thought. I found a Mennonite store in the area that sells organic, unbleached flour in bulk. I was very excited until I questioned them and found that they buy it from a company in Indiana that ships it in from Montana. :(
I am still looking for a local supplier of organic (certified or not) chicken and sheep feed. I guess supporting the U-pick farm will have to be my local contribution for this week.

One Day Weekend

After interning Friday and Saturday and picking up an afternoon shift driving carriages on Sunday, I was very ready for Monday to arrive. It seems kind of sad to me that more people don't recognize what Memorial Day is really about. I am proud of my relatives that fought for this country and when we have kids I want to take time and explain to them how important that is.

This year we didn't do anything special and like of lot of other people we took advantage of an extra day off to get a lot done around the farm. Here is a before picture of a little spot on our sideyard. There are a few big pine trees along with some large rocks and our Centennial Farm sign sits right in front, facing the road. Our garden ends just a few feet to the left of this picture. I needed a good place to plant my raspberry bushes and since this area needed a little sprucing up I decided to "kill two birds with one stone".

We don't have any hedge trimmers (I added them to the wedding registry list ;) ) so I used a hand saw and hacked off all the dead and hanging branches. I moved that rotting log and dug up a nice area for the bushes. I avoided most of the tree roots and was able to dig 8-12 inches deep. I had purchased 3 Everbearing Heritage bushes and some friends gave me a lot of "suckers" from their patch. They don't know what kind they are since they got them from a friend as well but their patch produces a bounty of large berries every year so I wasn't about to turn down their offer. Several of the plants probably won't make it due to root damage while digging them up so I planted them closer than normal. I mulched all around them with straw and watered them well.

The results is quite pleasing to look at, especially compared to what was there before. I also had yet to plant my 25 Strawberry plants. I found a great wooden barrel at an auction that I wanted to use for strawberries but that was a bigger project than I wanted for one day so I picked another spot. I can always buy more plants for the barrel later. When we first moved in there were overgrown bushes 10-20' out around the front porch. While pulling them out Brian found this great iron pot. Since it is still sitting in our front yard I thought it was as good a place as any to put strawberries. I planted them in a circle and mulched them with straw. Eventually we will move this pot and possibly even hang it. It should be a pretty sight with berries spreading out over the sides. I also planted some onions that I had started indoors and some carrot seeds.

I went back out tonight and covered everything with thick blanket of straw since, of course, they're calling for a hard frost tonight. Yesterday was 86 degrees and humid, today is 50-55ish and windy. I guess that's what we get for living in Michigan!

I ordered a couple books the other day and the first one arrived today. It is "Day Range Poultry" by Andy Lee. I'll report on it in a later post, sounds like a good night to cuddle up with the dogs and a big blanket and tear in to it!

Gooseberries and Currants

I'll just make a quick update here before I have to leave. On Mother's Day I went with my Mom to a nursery and purchased about $120 worth of plants. Here is a breakdown of what I got:

2 Gooseberry bushes ($8 each)

2 Black Currant bushes ($8 each)

3 Red Heritage Raspberry bushes ($4.50 each)

2 Himrod Green Seedless Grapevines ($6.75 each)

1 Bartlett Pear tree ($22)

1 Harold Pear tree ($22)

1 Dozen Red Seed Potatoes ($1.83)

25 Earliglow Strawberries ($11)

25 Jewell Strawberries ($11)

So far I have only planted the Gooseberries and Black Currants. Both thrive in a colder, shader area and can stand up to a North wind so I planted them on the North end of our shop. I mulched them heavily and they seem to be doing well so far. I'm waiting to plant the pear trees until we pull a few stumps around the yard to make more room. Hopefully I can get everything else in this weekend! The plan is to use edible plants as much as possible thoroughout our landscaping. I just am not motivated to work on plants that I can't eat! I'll have more on this later...