Cider Time!

 The old adage tells us that good things come to those who wait. Well waiting this apple season is going to bring you a thing is is more than just good - it's a bright, tasty, wonderful thing - fresh apple cider from our organic apples!

We're waiting until all the apples are harvested so we have all the varieties (more than 50) included in the mix we take to the cider mill. The result will be an amazing mix that you can not find elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the walk-in cooler is filling with apples and Arthur works every day gathering more from our orchards. Today he's working on the golden delicious apples.

Prices will stay the same as last year. $8 per gallon, $5 per half gallon. You can order 5 gallons for $35 (a discount of $1 per gallon).

We're scheduling our first pressing for October 28 and the cider will be available for pickup beginning mid-afternoon that day. As in previous years, we ask you to order your cider in advance. That assures you of being first in line to avoid disappointment as we always have sold out quickly. You can email us at metzgerfarm@gmail.com with your order (and contact information) or call the landline at 814-274-8004.

Tater Tot(s)

Our Joe and Jennifer make their home on remnants of one of the Matanuska Colony Farms in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley in Alaska. In addition to gardens full of vegetables every summer, they're also raising three little girls.

The Mat-Su Valley is known for the Mat-Su Giants - giant vegetables that is!

Youngest grandchild
Juniper Jane with one of those
Matanuska Giants

When this photo arrived in the inbox, I traveled back in time to a previous blog post 12 years ago. Here's our eldest grandchild, Rowan who was photographed with potatoes grown by daughter Kate and her husband Jon (mostly Jon, I would reckon) in eastern Oregon.

This guy's now a teenager!

Change In The Air

 More than the seasons are changing this fall at the old Metzger/Matteson farm.

Perhaps if you've been driving up or down Dingman Run, you've noticed the big rolling fields have been mowed and recently giant bales of hay have been gathered together to eventually be hauled away on a flatbed trailer. That's the work of the new owners of that part of this old farm, Carl and Betsy Long, who are adding this Hebron Township acreage to their bustling farming operation.

Folks familiar with the farm will know that the Dingman Run Road intersects the farmland formerly owned by the Matteson and Metzger families. It's the place where Arthur and his sister Carol spent the early years of their childhood in a multi-generation small farm - with their parents, grandparents and great grandparents all living and working on the farm.

Time marched on and in the 1960s, Arthur Metzger Sr., his wife Wanda and their children moved away from the farm, though the close ties of the family continued with frequent visits back home.

Facing a time when they knew they could no longer manage the farm on their own, the elder Metzgers sold the farm to their granddaughter Karen Gooch and her husband Tom Gilliland back in the 1970s though some acreage around the old farmstead and the farmstead itself stayed with them and later passed to Arthur's parents and then to us.

We've lived on the farm since 1977, at first renting what we've all called "the little house" from the Gillilands. Grandma Metzger had recently died after a year-long illness and Grandpa Metzger lived in the farmstead with his faithful dog Peggy.

Death ended the dream of Arthur Metzger Sr. to spend his retirement years on the farm of his youth and soon after Grandpa Metzger died. Wanda Metzger eventually purchased the little house and a couple. of acres of land and we moved into the old farmstead and began the never-ending reimagining of this old house and our beloved organic farm.

Several years ago, we purchased all of the acreage on the western side of the road (where the farmstead is) as well as the original barn and some of the land adjacent to it from the Gillilands. Recently we've planted wildflower meadows that this year rewarded us with glorious blooms all through the spring and summer, an organic haven for bees and other pollinators. There's also a new planting of an acre of native trees on top of the hill.

It's going to take us some time to get used to hearing heavy equipment moving across the fields as the landscape changes from meadow to cultivated fields. It's going to take some time to adjust to the knowledge that conventional farming practices will be put in place on this land that's been fallow for at least 15 years. The caution that we may want to keep our bees sequestered when the inevitable spraying happens is chilling.

Carl and Betsy and their little girl stopped by one summer evening as Arthur and I were enjoying our dinner on the back porch. They shared their excitement in adding this piece to their 21st century farm as they look to the future. We know they intend to be good neighbors.   

And so this fall, when the goldenrod and purple asters fill our fields and the potatoes are unearthed and the squashes reveal themselves from underneath their sprawling leafy vines, we are feeling more than a little melancholy facing this change in our Crandall Hill landscape.

Here's where we post pictures to share the history of farm.

August 31

So much portends the end of our summer in northcentral Pennsylvania - the calendar to be switched to September tomorrow, the daily transit of the school bus which I often hear climbing the hill on its way up Dingman Run before spotting it from the bedroom window, goldenrod waving in the field and the red apples at the tops of the old Northern Spy trees behind the house. A few colored leaves scatter across the lawn and leaves are turning on the trees that line the road to town. Mornings are foggy this time of year and the sun's rising later each day.

We had a vacation at my beloved Chautauqua Institution last week and returned home to tomato vines laden with fruit, overstuffed green beans clinging to their tired vines and a pepper patch taking on the beautiful red tones that signify that special sweetness.

A Selection of Hot & Sweet Peppers
Poblanos, Czech Black, Jalapenos, Jalora,
Bangles,Sarit Gat, Osmarko Kambe

Canning after a week away - sauce and jarred tomatoes

Sunflower Stories

 

Anyone who drives past the farm will notice a proud stand of sunflowers in the Mama Wanda garden patch this year, keeping guard over our winter squash patch.

Many of those sunflowers started life as volunteers in our high tunnel. At one point in time, several years ago, someone (me) thought it was a good idea to plant a few sunflowers in the high tunnel just to add some late-season color. I carefully selected the seeds, reeled in by names such as Lemon Queen, Autumn Sunset. Santa Fe Sunrise, Velvet Queen and the exotic Soraya.

They grew well, some reaching well above the tomato lines. They were beautiful and colorful, full of bees and a treat for the birds who came inn through the open sides and ends of the tunnel.

And in the spring of the next year, hundreds of little sunflower plants sprouted all through the tunnel. And thus began the annual sunflower transplanting. They go at the end of the corn rows and in the squash patch and at the ends of the potato rows. They go in the flower beds and sometimes next to the kitchen door.

The thing is - they don't seed themselves outdoors, likely because it's just too cold to keep the seeds viable. But in the protected high tunnel environment, it's like a sunflower nursery.

I vowed this year to remove nearly all the sunflower plants that volunteered - thus the squash patch sunnies! Some went to my mother's garden downtown. But I wasn't nearly ruthless enough for the high tunnel is once again a sunflower seed nursery!

front porch bouquet of sunflowers
catching the August sunrise

 

The Joy of Shell Beans

 

We've planted a variety of shell beans this year and here's a sampling of yesterday's harvest. We shelled them this evening, remembering the always-wise advice of Mama/Grandma Wanda who always waited a day after picking before shelling. "It's so much easier!" she opined.

Pictured are Cannellini, Vermont Cranberry, True Cranberry, Painted Pony and the family heirloom Bird Egg Beans. (Click on the link to read the history of our family bean from a blog post in 2011 - my most-read blog post ever!)

Still filling their pods on the trellis are the Tolosa black beans which have a longer growing season.

August Bounty

 The old graniteware canner has been pulled off the pantry shelf and put to work this week.

first of the 2022 tomato crop

pickled beets

Though we no longer grow vegetables for the Farmers' Market, it seems we have planted copious quantities of peas, beans, tomatoes, peppers, beans, cabbage, broccoli and the ubiquitous zucchini. I am hoping we were more restrained in the corn, potato and garlic departments.

Grandchildren Matteson, Juniper & Sadie Metzger

While I tended growing things of a different sort in Alaska, Arthur and my mother prepared the peas and the bulk of the beans  for the freezer - though later bean plantings are yet to yield their goodness.

The old pressure canner will be coming down from the attic to be put to work this week because of its efficiency in processing the tomatoes that are straining the vines in the high tunnel. Less water and less time - both good reasons to use it!

The apple crop is modest this year, likely due to the dry conditions we've experienced for much of the summer but watch for more information about cider and apples here.

Joe and Jen's garden spot on a former
Matanuska Colony Farm in the Mat-Su Valley