Magicland Farms 2005 News

December 23, 2005

There is now a changed look at Magicland Farms. First off, as you can see in my November 10th update below, there was a strong gust that came up and blew down our dead Bolleanaea poplar tree. Actually, we were pleased since we were going to cut it down anyway! Also on December 12, a car knocked down part of our sign. Apparently it was a single car accident. There was slush on the edges of the road at the time and the sheriff's deputy thinks this had something to do with it. The car was totaled and the person had a sprained wrist but nothing else. The deputy, as well as we at Magicland, were grateful for the lack of severe injury. The deputy commented he just hates to go to an accident scene when people are hurt badly--so he was a bit happy with it. We can speculate here but it looks to me if that post wasn't there and put in the ground just a foot or so, to slow down the vehicle, the vehicle could have hit the other trees with a lot more force and more serious injuries could have ensued. Whatever, we are pleased it was all mainly just property damage. We plan on designing and making a new sign. New and improved our motto is! Check out our new sign in June!

By the way, on May 28, 2006 my latest book is to be available for purchase. It is apparently now possible to pre-order the book from Amazon.com. For more information on the book , and a picture of the front cover, click on the Amazon link below.

Snowball Throwers, Giant Pumpkin Growers and other Cool Contraptions I plan on putting more ingformation about this book on the main webpage when it actually is published. (Hopefully, my work in editing the book is now over.) I want to call your attention to the previous update below which was written on November 10. Did anyone notice how cold it was on Thanksgiving? What do I think about the rest of the winter's weateh? First, I must mention I am sort of the reporter and my reporting doesn't mean I want that weather. Don't blame me if you don't like what I have to say--it's what I think. Remember this is just a general outlook for January, February and March and isn't meant to be a forecast. Don't even use this information to speculate on natural gas or heating oil futures--if you do don't blame me if you lose a bunch of money. Well, here goes. The first few days of January will be warmer than normal. Then a turn to colder will ensue. The whole of January wil be very cold, although we may have a January thaw right at the end of the month. Winter will set in with a vengeance and will continue to the end of March. In general, the winter will be a bit colder than even Accuweather's forecast showed (see main webpage). However, it won't be the coldest winter in 50 years, or perhaps not even the 5th coldest winter. However, despite the mild weather as I write this, it will be colder than the 100 year average, and March will be cold as well. Perhaps, my hopes here are showing through. A very warm March usually means a bad apple crop because the apple trees sometimes start expanding their leaves and flowers in early April only to be harmed by average cold weather in April. And if you have a real cold spell in April after a warm March--well...let's not think of that.

November 10, 2005

Watch out for brutal cold coming the week of Thanksgiving!!! Yesterday we had 1.15 inches of rain. Also, around 10:30 AM that dead Bolleanea Poplar (everyone thinks it was a Lombardy Poplar but it wasn't) blew down over across the road at the stand and hit the picnic table in the yard. No one was hurt, thank the Lord! Also no significant damage was noted. It is now firewood! Fremont reported a gust of wind at 48 MPH, which was a lot stronger than any gust on Sunday!

November 9, 2005

We had a really good rain on Saturday night (11/5) and wound up with just over 2 inches! This will help our winter rye. We planted 31 bushels of it, mostly for winter cover/green manure although we do get some straw from it which we mostly cut by hand. It also helps out our turnips. This year we have planted a red variety that many people think are beets because they look similar to them. Another really great variety we planted is a special hybrid, All Right, which we found is great for coleslaw. When these turnips are young we don't peal it just wash it well, cut off the main root and grate it like we do for Kohlrabi on a hand grater. Last year we tested different turnips for their "coleslaw" quality and this All Right won by acclamation! We have turnips and turnip greens for sale and we will until we close. By the way, winter weather is just a few days away. Right now it looks like the first day of deer rifle season (11/15) will be mild but then winter will start to settle in--perhaps set in faster than anyone (including moi) thinks.

If you read my October 25th update you might be interested to know that we did wind up picking more tomatoes! However, I was the one who really didn't want to, so I didn't get a kick! Two of my kids initiated the picking (they said our wonderful customers deserved to be able to get good tomatoes at reasonable prices for as long as possible, or something like that) and despite my protests (yes, my protests) we picked (mostly they picked) over 200 pounds of good quality tomatoes. However, we were all sold out by Monday the 7th of November and we won't have any more tomatoes until at least July of 2006!

As mentioned in my last update, we purchased a digital moisture tester for our popcorn and the fact we are planning on going into selling shelled popcorn ready to pop. Right now we are selling pint canning jars of shelled Ruby Red Popcorn that is ready to pop, for $2.50. You not only get great tasting popcorn but a pint canning jar and brand new lids and a rim! What a deal! As you know, canning jars can be used over and over! By the way, they are selling very well and we don't know how long our supply of popcorn, jars and lids will last!

We have red, white, blue and yellow popcorn. Each variety was chosen for exceptional taste and quality. However we have our favorites. So far we love the red and blue, haven't tasted the yellow yet (it needs to be slightly drier) and aren't overly enthused about the white.

Want to get a look at the cover of my new book? While it won't be available until May, Amazon.com shows the cover. To see it search the book section using the "cool contraptions" key words. Amazon also has a brief description of the book.

October 25, 2005

Despite the fact we didn't have a real hard killing frost (most of the tomatoes have been blackened but we still can sometimes find a few that are nice). By the way, while we were going through the tomato patch on Friday October 21 I told my kids to give me a kick in the you-know-what if I suggest next week to pick more tomatoes! Well, I don't have a big bruise yet! Most peppers are OK since we have been watering them on chilly nights. I think we will shut the water off today and let them go...Our main picking now is apples. We are now starting to pick the last of the late apples--Fuji, Grannies and Calville Blancs. But we still have Idared, Jonathan, Romes, Splendor and Senators to pick. We finsihed broadcasting yesterday many areas of the farm with (20 bushels) of winter rye. It not only looks good in late fall and early spring it improves the soil. The green stuff you see near the road is turnips. We plan on selling turnip greens and some new red turnips next week. This brings up something a bit interesting. It seems the coyotes are back. We have been seeing lots of their tracks and a fellow who hunts on the farm have seen several big coyotes early and late. While there are deer tracks, the deer seem to be staying close to cover like the woods. Also, while our general sales this year have (surprisingly--especially if you think back around labor day there was talk of gasoline shortages) been consistently better than the last few years, our apple drop sales, most of which we sell as deer apples, is down. There is no question that deer damage in the field (pumpkins, squash etc) have been down this year. Also, one other note! The Fall color is OUTSTANDING THIS YEAR! It's been the best in many years. I believe the TV pundits were figuring on poor color this year. They were wrong!

October 20, 2005

Yesterday we had barbecued chicken and squash. Throughout her life, Annemarie was never much of a squash person although she loved sweet potatoes. The past few years she ate sweet potato squash but didn't seem toreally relish it, still preferring sweet potatoes. Well she finally ate our special buttercup squash. She not only thought it was absolutely delicious, very sweet and tasty, but she said she wanted it for her upcoming birthday instead of baked potatoes. Baked Magicland red potatoes have always been her first choice so it was really strange she wanted squash. By the way, we plan on also having New York strip steak, which we bought last winter at Plumbs for $2.99 a pound. Why do I say "Special Buttercup"? Well, it is a special super-sweet selected strain. In other words it seems even tastier than the regular Burgess Buttercup strain.

By the way, the barbecued chicken was also delicious--everyone agreed. The chicken taste similar to those we experienced in fine restaurants. What's our barbecue sauce? Here's the recipe:

1 quart of our own tomato sauce
1 can tomato paste plus can of water
lots of French's Worchestire sauce (to taste)
lots of black-strap mollasses
garlic salt
black pepper
ground mustard
mix and boil for at least 5 minutes.
Cook chicken in butter/margarine, plus garlic salt and pepper, in oven and then put on sauce. Continue cooking covered at 300F for at least an hour(preferably 2) turning once in sauce. Take cover off , turn chicken and cook another half hour.
Serve with either Magicland's red potatoes or squash.

By the way, we recently purchased a popcorn moisture tester. It is really neat! It is digital and lists 40 different types of grains including white popcorn and yellow popcorn--the designers probably never heard of red or blue popcorn! We now have red, white and blue popcorn on the ear as well as yellow. The varieties were selected for the very best quality. We plan on the near future (probably in a week or so, to sell some ready-to pop popcorn in containers. By the way, apparently the very best moisture to have the best popcorn is 13.5%! If you love popcorn keep us in mind! There is a bit of disagreement in the family whether popcorn is a smart move financially but the two big honchos (moi and Annemarie) are in agreement so it looks like we are going to give it a try. I was recently talking to a friend who is into milk production and I mentioned this popcorn idea to him. His comment: "Try it, there must be money in something!" Like moi, he feels overworked and underpaid!

October 13, 2005

What's up this winter? Well, according to Accuweather and Joe Bastardi the northeast is going to be real cold--much below normal. Much of the west is supposed to be warmer than average. Here in Newaygo County we are suppose to be a tad colder than normal. NOAA's winter forecast is similar except they don't think the northeast will be as cold as Joe does. I am going to wait until early November before I say what I think! The founder of the weather channel use to say you can often tell how the winter is going to be by November 1 if you watch the tendency of the upper winds at that time. Well anyway, it looks like the next 10 days will be mild, which will likely allow Magicland Farms stay wide open until at least Halloween.

By the way, we set an all time sales record for Sunday October 9! WHAT??? you might ask "I thought you were closed on Sunday since the Sabbath is the day of rest!" Well, we do rest, just as the Good Book says. And while we don't open the stand door and we are mostly not around, we still leave most of our pumpkins, squash and some apples outside for those customers who enjoy visiting Magicland Farms at their leisure on Sunday. We have two slots in the building to make it convenient for our Sunday customers to pay for their goodies. We have done this for over 15 years and some people, I believe, prefer to pick out their pumpkins on Sunday since there is absolutely no sales pressure and they can take their good old time at it!

By the way, I just finished a big super delicious Jonagold. They are really scrumptious--they are crisp, juicy, flavorful with lots of sweetness and a nice good tang that I like. They are the best! We are near mid-season in picking our Jonagold although there still some slightly unripe Jonagolds on the trees. We try to avoid these although an unripe Jonagold is still better tasting than just about any other apple.

Do you think of Red Delicious as nothing but pretty red on the outside and wet sawdust on the inside? if so, you have purchased them at supermarkets. Our Red Deliciious are really great eating! This is especially true this year. Come and try them!

October 2, 2005

Yesterday, Saturday the first of October, was beautiful, with temperatures in the mid 70s. Around noon, I asked Annemarie what was up, customers were few and far between. She mentioned the Michigan -Michigan State Game (Michigan won in an upset) . It has affected us in the past. Well anyway, around 12:45 customers really started to come in--and they kept coming in consistently nearly all afternoon-- and customers that bought a lot! It ended up quite a good day in sales with big pumpkins and apples carrying the load. It seems our biggest pumpkin this year is the 156.4 pound one sitting in the front of the inside picnic table. This pumpkin was from our own seed and we don't plan on selling it--hope to keep it for seed. We do have at least two 110 pound pumpkins for sale and lots of them in the 60 to 100 pound range. Also, we do have more giant pumpkins in the field and some will go over 100 pounds.

We plan on digging potatoes again soon. While the potatoes we sold during July and August were all hand dug, the weeds got so out of control that it made that chore a real chore. We will be using a single bottom plow to dig them and then pick them up by hand. There is really very difference because we handle all our potatoes with kid (not really, they are brown) gloves.

October 1, 2005

Well, catching up with my writing life so I am more inclined to keep this website a bit more updated! Since the last update we had nearly 4 inches of rain! You can imagine what that did to ripe tomatoes! No frost though and it looks like the next frost won't occur until the 7th of October, if then.

We are really into apple, squash and pumpkin picking now! For those who are reading this on October 1 I have a surprise! We are planning on picking the last sweet corn patch again today. We went out on Thursday to get ourselves some corn and we found out there is a supply large enough to sell--the corn that was too young a week ago is just right today! We hope to pick up to 5 bushels today--but this is a one day only picking! I hope to include some new photos in the website in a few days so keep watching.

September 21, 2005

Wow! It's been a long time since I updated this update page. Well, I haven't been sleeping this past week- I guarantee that! In fact I've been up around 5AM most mornings! What's been going on? Well, there was Labor Day and we push to make a splash for that weekend trying to get the display area of Magicland Farms supplied with stuff. As usual, the week after Labor Day is also pretty darn busy...and then my other life as Workshop Editor for Boys' Quest/Fun For Kidz magazines showed up. I took a two month sabbatical from that work but I had a deadline of Sept 19 for an article, so that took a bit of time. In addition, I received a pleasant surprise 10 days ago. I got a call from an editor at Sterling Publications concerning my book I wrote a while back. The editor said she was sending me the revised MS to go over and needed it back pretty soon. They changed the name from "Amazing Stuff You Can Make"to "something, something...Cool Contraptions." Amazon.com is already listing it on their website although it has a May 1, 2006 publication date. Check it out by searching Amazon.com with the "Cool Contraptions" keywords. It is written by moi (Tom Fox). Getting back to your tummy...our sweet corn is about gone. We are picking only 2 to 3 bushels a day from the last (26th) patch. The big story right now has to be tomatoes--we have a huge supply of those beautiful tasty red things. The foliage is still nice and green and their quality is superb. (Tomatoes from dead vines are not the best eating...) We are into the last (and best) patch of beans so we will likely have great beans until frost. Our cucumbers were wiped out about 2 weeks ago by Downy Mildew, like most cukes in the state. Our peppers are increasing in quantity and we will be able to sell them by the bushel late next week. We still have startlingly beautiful cut sunflowers. Our winter squash are plentiful and of the very best quality. We are really into apples and pumpkins right now. We have good supplies of Macs, Cortland, Gala, Stark's Jumbo (the "big" apple) and smaller quantities of apples like Macoun, Wolf River, Baron, Spartan, Tompkins King and others. Our Snow apple will be ready in about a week. We just started picking my favorite apple --the Empire. (By the way, our Honeycrisp are already been sold out.) I plan on getting a new update written in a few days.

August 30, 2005

We received 3/8ths (about a third of an inch) of rain Saturday morning (8/27). The rain was over by 8AM and the sun was out by noon. It turned out to be a beautiful day and sales were brisk.

The last week or so we have been selling Silver Queen and Magic Bi-Color corn. Fifteen yuears ago Silver Queen was one of the very best tasting corn we grew. This isn't true today. To be honest it is only so so compared to the new varieties we grow. We are considering the possibility of no longer growing this variety in the future. (Silver King is much better quality so we probably will substitute that.) This doesn't count this year since we are done with Silver Queen. Today we will start picking our second planting of perhaps the very best corn in existence --Whiteout. I first learned about this luscious variety from taste tests run by MSU about three years ago. I guess they were right! About 10 years ago we discovered Magic Bi-Color (our own name for a variety we keep hidden down in Magicland's archive). Until we planted Whiteout this, our family agreed, was the very best corn. The two taste similarly although Whiteout edges out Magic in the sweetness department by a hair. I feel bad for those who are biased against white corn. They have no idea what they are missing. By the way in New Jersey, they can't sell bi-color or yellow corn--everyone wants WHITE! We have another corn just about ready -- it is Tendertreat. This corn has a huge ear and is yellow. The big thing about this variety is that it is BIG! Not only the ear but the plant. Much of our Tendertreat is over 10 feet high--and this is on our sandy soil, not our loam! The stalks are nearly three inches in diameter! We planted this variety about 11 years ago but we didn't get much out of it because someone helped themselves to it. Since we had lots of corn that year we really didn't get hurt by the swiping of between 20 and 50 bushels of corn--this year we would be! This patch of Tendertreat is the second from last planting!

We plan on picking lots of small to tiny pumpkins the next couple of days. We have such a huge crop of pumpkins and gourds of all sizes we want to let everybody know about it so they will know where to get their fall decorations. Our squash crop is also huge and we are already selling lots of acorn, butternut and buttercup.

August 20, 2005

We received three rains over .25 inch since last report. Soils are in nice condition. We have two corn earworm traps out. Around August 10 we started finding moths in the traps. These moths lay their eggs on the silk of the corn and then the eggs hatch had they crawl down to the ear. They are also referred to as "tip worm" since generally they only damage the tip of the corn. We should start to see corn earworms in some of our corn in the near future. Hopefully, the traps will reduce the population at least slightly. By the way, our Tendertreat sweet corn (all yellow) should be ready in about two weeks. Some places this corn is 10 feet high and you have to reach up to pick the ear! We should have a continuous supply of corn until mid-September. However, supplies will be diminshing and the supply at the stand may go down if demand exceeds expectations. For a while, a few weeks back, we had a huge supply.

August 9, 2005

While we received over an inch of much needed rain on the morning of Thursday August 4 things are starting to get a bit dry again. We have been very fortunate with timely rains this year. (Before that June 11th rain, things were on the verge of being desperate. By the way, we have saved a gallon of water from the wonderful Dennis the Menace remnants that blessed our farm on the 16th of July.) Our corn crop shows this. It is very good. While we would still have good corn crop without irrigation, we now are blessed with a great crop of corn becaus of the combiantion of irrigation and rain. By the way, I haven't yet mentioned our popcorn crop. This crop wasn't watered and it still looks great. We have red popcorn, white popcorn, blue popcorn, as well as yellow popcorn. The varieties were selected for exceptional popping and eating quality. Of course they are also quite decoarative. Tomatoes are now increasing in volume. However, it will be another two weeks before we start selling them in 1/2 bushels. Also, our Acorn Squash crop will come in another two weeks. Our watermelons are doing fine. We hope to have ice box size melons for sale by the 20th of August. We are picking muskmelons now. They are tasty but a bit small.

August 1, 2005

Well I promised to let you know and I'm doing it! We started picking tomatoes for sale today. Most were sold by evening but we plan on picking more on Wednesday August 3. We should have a good supply by Friday. However, they are expected to go quick so I am unsure of the supply at the stand. Actually, we picked several different varieties--not just the early ones. For instance, we have Amelias and Orange Blossom already ripe. By the way, it seems the "picture perfect" tomatoes start to ripen about a week after the first ones. But the first ones are still real tasty!

July 31, 2005

Yesterday (Saturday), was beautiful and a very busy day down at Magicland Farms. Actually, we set records for a non-Labor Day Saturday. We picked and sold a whole bunch of sweet corn. We had three varieties for sale, Bon Appetit (yellow and white), Kandy King (yellow) and Temptation (yellow and white). Our Bon Appetit corn is huge! Many customers commented on its spectacular size and good looks. We were also delighted by its size. It also is tender and nice and sweet with good flavor. It looks like we will have a good supply of the Bon Appetit on Monday and Tuesday (8/1 and 8/2) and then run down. However, our unbelievably sweet and delicious Whiteout (white) corn will also start this week and we may even be able to pick our famous Magic-Bi Color the end of the week! Our third (and best yet) planting of green beans will be ready this week so we are hoping for a better supply. Of course the big question we've been getting is about tomatoes. Well it looks like we will be selling tomatoes this week. (Our family has already been enjoying them in small quantities.) We won't be selling them until we can pick about 50 pounds of ripe and nearly-ripe tomatoes in a day. Which day? We don't know yet. I promise to let our web fans know within 24 hours after we start selling tomatoes!

July 27, 2005

More rain! We got another 1/2 inch of rain on Saturday night the 23rd and another 3/4 inch on early Tuesday morning the 26th. Our super dryness has turned into a slight overwetness! This saves us several hours of day in moving hoses although it does take time to keep everything, especially boots and sneakers, dry! The 6 to 14 forecast, by the way, is for more heat and dry weather. Actually, this should be good for ripening tomatoes!

We are really into picking our Bon Appetit sweet corn. Several customers, in addition to Annemarie and Sarah, have mentioned its huge size! We plan on picking Bon Appetit for over a week since we have three patches.

July 23, 2005

SURPRISE RAIN! Believe it or not but we received over an inch and half of much needed rain on Thursday evening the 21st! It started really coming down at 9PM and just got harder! It rained for over an hour. This much rain was totally unexpected. The Weather channel showed 0% chaince of rain for both Thursday and Frisday. Several customers were absolutely shocked that we got that deluge since they received no rain! Also, the National Weather Service radar indicated we received much less rain--say a half inch. But we have two rain gauges as well as a small lake in our normal "wet spot! to prove we got the rain!! By the way, on Thursday July 14 we started a Novenna (9 days of prayer) to St. Isidore who is the patron saint of farmers and farm workers. As you can tell from our updates, we received two "big" beneficial rains during that time period of the Novenna! The July 21 rain was really strange! AS you can imagine, our corn, squash and pumpkins reeally look great right now. BEans are still disappointing but the next palntings, which start next week some time, really do look great! I still think that the heat we had (plus the dry weather) much of June and the first half of July has a lot to do with it! Next week we will be into our BIG Non Appetit corn and our really sweet Kandy King yellow corn. Our Quinte apples have started!

July 20, 2005

We got about 1.65 inches of rain shortly after I wrote my July 16th update where I asked to pray for rain! Tells you something, doesn't it? We have ceased irrigating for at least a few days. Suddenly, just about everything looks great and much of the corn we couldn't irrigate also looks great! The only important crop that is a bit disappointing are the beans. The first two plantings are only fair. The third, which we will start picking next week, looks great! The only thing we can think of is the excessive heat. Last year, which was on the cool side, we had fantastic beans. In 1992, which was about as cool a summer as they come we had nice beans--but few tomatoes and no melons. Perhaps, beans don't like excessive heat--or perhaps it was too dry... Well we have beans but so far there is no bumper crop of them. Our melons, (both watermelon and muskmelon) which love heat, are doing really great with many melons on them the size of baseballs. We have made a small planting of sweet potatoes, but we planted them very late. They are mainly a test crop for my book I am writing on vegetable production. Sweet potatoes are grown commercially to a limited extent in Michigan. In Ohio they are grown quite widely. I'll let you know in September how we make out with them.

July 16, 2005

We started picking our first patch of sweet corn yesterday. It looks really great! Very little borer damage. Raccoon damage is there but is less than in some other years. Our BIG corn-- Bon Appetit (means good appetite) will start in about a week! We NEED rain. Please pray for rain!

July 12, 2005

We now are in desperate need of rain. We are irrigating as much as possible but we can only get to about half the farm--there are 30 acres of crops that need irrigation! The intense heat we've had made even the well watered corn curl in the afternoon! I hope that I can mention a good rain on my next update. It really does get discouraging seeing the plants wither in the hot sun knowing all they need is rain!

We still plan on picking our first sweet corn on the 15th--we irrigated this at least once, some of it twice--so it looks good. We know it's almost ready--the raccoons are enjoying it already!

Honeybees are abundant in the corn patch--this seems a bit unusual but it must mean there are a lot of them around the farm! While we haven't actually spotted any this year, we KNOW there are many, many coyotes around. For one, they seem to go on a rampage near some of the sprinklers. By the way, we can tell by their tracks! Well, there are plenty of rabbits and deer for them to eat but no road runners!

July 7, 2005

We had a quarter inch of needed rain on the 4th. Some of our early planted corn is over 6 feet high, but most is between 4 and 5 feet. Of course, our last planted corn is only around 2 inches high! In order to keep a steady supply of great corn you must make many plantings of varieties of many different maturities--extra early to extra late. The customer must remember this...truly ripe corn--even sweet corn is nearly impossible to eat. Corn is only truly ripe when it is hard! Because of this it must be picked immature. One trick to growing corn is to pick it at the right maturity--two young and there isn't enough to eat and too old will make it inedible!

July 3, 2005

Well we had two nice rains-- about a quarter inch on Sunday morning the 26th and over a half inch on Thursday (6/30) morning. The problem is the plants, with the heat and growth, suck every drop up and ask for more--actually a LOT MORE! We have provided additional water with our supplemental irrigation system but we can irrigate less than a half our vegetables for several practical reasons.

Our early corn has ears and we plan on selling it on the 15th. I really think we may beat this target date by a day or so but I've been wrong in the past. Keep watching. By the way, we were able to get our last corn in on the 26th. It is already up!

The heat in June has been cruel. Many days either approached 90F or exceeded it by several degrees. And the humidity... Air conditioners have been blooming in the windows of people you'd never expect! The hot nights have been the worst--reminds me of the stifling hot nights in Chicago. Friday July 1st was not only cooler but almost chilly with cloudy daytime highs in the 60s although officially it was about 74 at midnight so it still reached over 70--but it was at night. Saturday the 2nd of July was incredibly beautiful!

June 25, 2005

(I almost put down July 25 because it seems more like it with the heat) -- Well yesterday we had another 90+ day. This, I believe, is the fifth this year. The strawberries are done for the year as well as the snow peas. We've been irrigating the last week nearly continually. However, one must realize we have nearly 30 acres in field crops (sweet corn, potatoes, etc.) and we can, at most, irrigate an acre at a time. In other words we NEED RAIN! Irrigating stuff is also intensely time consuming although moving sprinklers and hoses on a hot day isn't that bad of work! But it does take time. While its a nice sort of job it takes us from weeding and picking and cleaning up and takin' care of the equipment and... We still have one more patch of sweet corn to plant but the ground is too dry so we must wait for rain--the field is too far for us to reach with water--with any pressure anyway.

June 19, 2005

Thursday, Friday and Saturday have been startlingly cool. Its been a real refreshing chnage not only for us but the crops. Don't be lulled into thinking this is going to be an "average" summer. Even back in the stifling "southern" summer of 1995 we had a nice cool spell right around the 4th of July. At the time we weren't grateful for it ... looking back we should have been. Isn't that true with life in general? In general the crops look outstanding! The few minor disappointments are for some of the very minor crops like carrots! The crop that stands out at this time are the potatoes. Also, its been years since the cucumbers, pumpkin and squash fields looked so good. If you look good you can see tassels coming on the early corn (some is over knee high) and you can see the blossom buds on the first beans. Our peppers are also doing much better than normal. There are tiny green tomatoes on the tomatoes and there are probably tens of thousands of blooms on them as well. The apple crop is clean but not lean--there are lots of small green apples out there. We thought our Quinte apples (our earliest apple sometimes ready by July 20) was decimated by frost but there may actually be too big a crop of them! The older leaves on the Spartan apples looks like they may have anthracnose or that frog-eye fungus but the new leaves look fine. We'll see.... One planting of our watermelon and muskmelon looks just fantastic...a planting we made way, way in the back field of watermelon is fair, at best. Can't have everything.

June 12, 2005

It has not only be exceptionally hot this past 10 days (average highs over 90F) at Magicland its been completely dry for over 3 weeks. Until Saturday June 11 the crops were suffering. For an interesting story titled "The June 11, 2005 Delightful Romantic Rain that almost Turned Tragic"

We expect to pick the first Sugar Snap peas and Snow Peas on June 13. We also are selling strawberriies and radishes. There is another close-by strawberry grower at 4144 S. Ferris. If you stop by and find we are already sold out of strawberries for the day, why not check if they have any strawberries for sale!

June 11, 2005

STRAWBERRY UPDATE -- Magicland Kids will start picking strawberries on Saturday morning June 11. The price will be the same as last year -- $3 a quart. The quarts of luscious strawberries will be placed on the red picnic table underneath the White Ash. While someone will likely be around most of the morning, we plan on being on self-serve.

May 30, 2005

Also see my related note about the summer weather in the May 25th section below.

According to NOAA, the summer temperatures in Michigan will be normal, fall will be normal and winter will be much above normal. If you think NOAA is right, ask me about buying a small orange grove I have back in the field in a nice protected spot. For a more likely scenario see my May 25 update below.

Its interesting to note that the warming trend in the next few days will come with north and northeast winds. This is supposed to bring the "heat" from northeast Canada (that area between Hudson Bay and Greenland). I wrote about this Canadian heat wave in the May 25 update. This area of Canada is normally the last to warm-up. Interesting...

Well, the warmth will increase the dryness. Right now this dryness is a bit of a blessing. It makes planting easier and helps keep diseases out of the apples. The main worry here is the stuff we still have to plant. Will it have enough moisture to germinate? I think so but I am eternal optimist--which means I am optimistic about eternity. Also, we will likely have to irrigate our newly set-out plants. By the way, we have completed our tomato transplanting--around 5000 tomato plants. This year we have planted, in addition to our regular red slicing types, orange tomatoes (Orange Blossom), yellow tomatoes(Plum Lemon) , pink tomatoes (Summerpink), gold tomatoes (Carolina Gold), cherry tomatoes (Jolly) and things like Brandywine and Brandy Boy. We also have a large planting of Giant Valentine tomato, a huge plum type.

May 25, 2005

The summer in lower Michigan will likely be.....hotter than normal! What is normal? Normal maximum temperatures in Grand Rapids are 80F in June, 84F in July and 82F in August. We will likely be between 2 and 4 F above these. Chief long range weather forecaster at Accuweather, Joe Bastardi, has just come out with his forecast. I concur because of several factors one factor has to do with abnormally high temperatures in the James Bay and Hudson bay regions of Canada and unbelievably warm water in the straights between Greenland and Laborador. (Up to 10F above normal!) The cold Laborador current seems to have vanished! Likely the NWS will come out shortly with their forecast. They have a bad track record. My buddy Joe is sometimes wrong but his forecasts are about as accurate as you can get.

May 16, 2005

Well, we had a third of an inch of rain on the 11th and another 3/4 of an inch of needed rain on the 13th. Also on the 13th our first planted corn was just starting to emerge (come out of the ground so you can see it without diggin'). There is a frost warning out for tonight. It doesn't seem like it will be damaging. I've seen frosts come and go and this doesn't "feel" like a noteworthy one. Most late damaging frosts 'round these parts come in from the north or even northeast--the high is moving in from the west which rarely causes real trouble in mid-May. Of course, if we already had our tomato plants planted at the farm I would worry. However, there could be some damage to the strawberries since they are blooming and so low. We should try to put sprinklers on them and run them all night. I'll tell this to the kids since this is their crop!

May 11, 2005

This morning it is starting to rain. (That's why I'm writing this!) We hope to get a good soaking since it has been exceptionally dry. The apples, pears and plums look like a full crop. The apple blossoms reached their peak yesterday, but there still are a lot of blooms out there. If you drive past the orchard the next few days you will notice one light pink tree at the south edge of the orchard--that's a Surprise apple. The apple tree with dark pink blooms close to the road is a crab apple.

Last year we planted a fairly large planting of those luscious plums. Next year we should be able to get enough of them to sell. So far it looks like we will have a good crop this year of our famous early golden plum which is real juicy and the Burbank plum that isn't quite as juicy but has more flavor. Both have been very popular in the past. The problem is we only have two of the yellow plums and one Burbank--but they are good sized trees so we usually get a lot off them.

We have planted beets this year and they are up so is the cole-slaw (aka kohlrabi)! Good news this year for many of our senior citizen customers! Project Fresh coupons will be distributed this year in Newaygo County to many of the senior citizens. Check with the Newaygo County Extension Office at 924-0500. Of course as before, Project Fresh coupons are still being distributed to many of those with small children.

May 5, 2005

We have had two hard frosts since I last reported. However, the plums which were in full bloom didn't seem to be hurt and there was only minor damage to the apples. (Keep in mind you can have 80% damage to apples and still have a full crop!) We planted our early corn (some is already sprouting) and have our potatoes, onions, beets, peas, kohlrabi and some other stuff already in the ground. So far so good even though April was one of the driest in 100 years!

April 26, 2005

Winter returned for the weekend! Temperatures on Saturday afternoon were only in the low 30s. We wound up with an inch of snow Saturday. Far eastern Michigan--Detroit and north--had up to a foot of snow! Despite the winter-like weather it doesn't appear damage was done to the plums and cherries which were in full bloom. This is to be expected since the temperature didn't seem to go below 29 or 30 F.

The peas are growing like all getout! Many are over 3 inches high! Yesterday, April 25, I noticed the very first open blooms of the Quinte apple--one of the earliest apples there is both ripening and blooming.

Our carrots, parsnips, dill, beets, kohlrabi, sunflowers and, of course, onions, potatoes and peas, are all in the ground. We also did plant a small planting of lettuce (Buttercrunch and two types of Bavarian) but this is just for our family (unless we get a bumper crop then we might sell some) along with the book I am writing on my vegetable gardening/farming experience. This brings up something funny--at least to everyone except moi. Well a couple of days after we planted the four rows of the lettuce I was disking with our MF1085 tractor (85 HP) and oops, I inadvertently disked up about 2/3rds of the lettuce! Well, we replanted the Buttercrunch and ordered more of the Bavarian. We still have to mark the rows better, however!!! Sort of serves me right for trying to "garden" with a big tractor!! It gets the job done in a hurry though...if I'm paying attention, that is!

April 17, 2005

Yes, we still have some nice apples for pies or sauce available. They are still on the red picnic table and we are normally on self-serve so bring a few singles (3 or 4 of them are needed per 1/2 bushel depending upon variety and quality.) By the way, the temperature of Pickerel Lake's surface water at 11AM on April 10 was 52F, not 45F that I guessed at!

Well, we planted our potatoes and onions! This year we not only planted Red Norland, Red LaSoda and Red Pontiac but RedGold, Allred and Huckleberry. Every variety has red skin and the last two have pinkish-red flesh! Getting these seed potatoes today in quantities at reasonable prices is more difficult than in the past. We took an expedition to Zeeland to get the Norland, LaSoda and Pontiac. (No one around here seems to sell the LaSoda--a really great red potato!) We ordered the other, rather unusual varieties, from Moose Tubers in Maine. The RedGold may be a new winner! It has nice red skin and a luscious looking yellow-gold interior flesh. It is one of Moose's top sellers! Allred and Huckleberry both have reddish flesh, mixed in with some white. I bet fried Allred or Huckleberry will be real tasty and look good too! I don't know if pink mashed potatoes will be a big hit though!

We also planted RedBaron onion sets as well as two types of sweet onion seeds (Ailsa Craig and Riverside). We are new to planting onions sets although this is a fairly common way that home gardeners grow onions. By the way we planted about 6000 sets--which took our crew of 6 around 2-1/2 hours of constant work!

On Thursday April 14 we planted 50 peach trees (including that new donut peach) as well as 10 more Honeycrisp apples.

The daffodils started blooming on April 12th and they are nearing peak now. Forsythias are blooming abundantly which normally indicates that peach flower buds came through the winter alright. (Forsythia flower buds are about as hardy as peach flower buds.) The apples are in tight cluster to pre-pink. This is earlier than normal. While winter seemed to continue nearly unabated until late March, Spring has really sprung. Now, of course, we are fearful of a hard frost. Temperatures below 25F can be damaging. We are still real busy transplanting our tomatoes and peppers into peat pots.

April 10, 2005

ICE IS OUT! ICE IS OUT! The ice went out on Pickerel Lake on Wednesday April 6. This is about as late as I have ever seen it. The last 10 years it seemed to go out before the ides of March. Some years it was gone by March 1. Well, as my sister (who lived much of her life in New Hampshire) informed me way back when, the ice out time is the start of true spring. I believe she was right. Some false signs of spring are sights of Robins, the snowdrop or snow crocus blooming and pussy willows unfolding their catkins. By the way,I noticed from NOAA's ice and temperature maps, most of the ice also disappeared from Lake Erie and western Lake Erie is warming up real fast with water temperatures in the low 40s. The extreme southern tip of Lake Michigan is about that warm also. I hope to check the water temperature by shore of Pickerel Lake today--I bet it will be around 45F. We'll see.

Our peas are in the ground--planted them on Tuesday the 5th of April. We planted sugar snaps, snow peas and regular peas--about 40 pounds total. We hope to get our potatoes and onions in this coming week. Our sales of apples from our common storage is fairly brisk. I think we will be out of them in about a week. We are still hard at work hauling prunings out of the orchard. We pruned very heavily this year and we have an unbelievable amount of brush. Its one of those thankless jobs that has to be done even though sometimes the brush makes you mad by slapping you hard on the face!! I HATE THAT!!

Our tomato and pepper plants are growing like crazy and we are busy transplanting in to peat pots . I still think we planted our tomatoes (not our peppers or eggplant though) a bit early. By the way, our plant lights are now all off and some of our plants are outside--we take them in to the greenhouses on exceptionally cold nights.

April 2, 2005

Unfortunately, we will be unable to open today to sell the apples mentioned below. We are planning on having them available on Monday, April 4 instead.

April 1, 2005

Opening? Yep! Spring is here! We plan on making a preliminary opening of our roadside stand tomorrow April 2. We have some nice apples that we will have for sale. Most are Mutsu and most will be $3.00 a 1/2 bushel. Please bring change since we will be on self-serve and it isn't likely that you will find any of us there--but who knows?. The apples will be in plastic bags so you don't have to bring your own containers although that never hurts. While I most likely won't see you, I still want to wish you a great spring and summer. I sure hope to see everyone soon!

March 25, 2005

Ice fishing is still going on on both Pickerel and Kimbal lakes. This is one of the latest seasons for ice fishing in memory. We have already planted over 30 flats of tomtoes, peppers and eggplant. Since there are roughly 250 plants per flat you might have some idea on how many plants we will have this year. We haven't started transplanting them to peat pots--it looks like we will start in about 10 days. Tomato prices in the store, at present, range from 1.99 to 2.99.

The weather has warmed slightly the last week--most days are now 40F or above. A significant warmup is expected by the 28th. We have heavily pruned our orchard--we recently purchased two new Stihl chainsaws--the 170 and 180C. The deer have been feasting on the prunings--if you want to see lots of deer just slowly drive by our orchard. They are there night and day!

April 1 we will take a good look at our stored apples and make a decision on whether to sell them. I will hopefully post here the evening of April 1 and let all of you know what's up!

We are uncertain how the cold winter has affected the strawberries. I am sure they would have been damaged except for the fact we put leaves on most of them. Should we change the name to "leafberries"? The leafberries should be ready the first part of June.

We have already have our pea seeds which means we will likely be selling peas again in June.

February 22, 2005

After shoveling snow yesterday, moi and most of the kids had a little snowball fun on the frozen surface of Pickerel Lake. The snow on the lake was absolutely beautiful; brilliantly white, soft and real nice. It was a true dream and, no doubt, provided a hint of how heaven is! After we had worn ourselves out Rebekah commented “Too bad it has to melt.” Mark replied, “If it didn’t we would have trouble picking sweet corn!” That's true! One trouble is that before that spectacular snow melts away it often becomes soaking wet and its true beauty leaves before it disappears. Au revoir.

February 21, 2005

Yesterday (Sunday) we received about 8 inches of snow. This is one of the largest single day snowfalls hear at Pickerel Lake in 20 years. The temperature was about 20F in the morning and rose to about 30F by night. This snow was predicted by the NWS as well as moi. By looking at the weather maps it was real, real easy to predict this one. A winter storm watch was issued 24 hours before the snow started.

February 19, 2005

Ice fishing for pike has been quite active this year. I haven't mentioned it before since on the surface it doesn't seem to be closely related to the farm, but it is in a way. Matthew has been the primary pike man and he uses a tip up. Most northern pike he caught have been between 20 and 24 inches, while legal size is 24 inches. In other words, he hasn't needed to clean many pike and our freezer still isn't full of delicious pike filets! On February 15, Matt caught one of the biggest pike he ever caught. It was over 6 pounds and was 30 inches and was full of roe. By the way, the biggest fish always gets away and this year has been no different! By the way, moi has caught many pike out of pickerel lake that were over 6 pounds. The biggest I caught was 15 pounds. My parents and relatives caught several pike between 16 and 22 pounds. Ernie Iacovoni caught a pike in Kimbal Lake that was over 19 pounds. I have "heard" of pike over 25 pounds being caught!

We have officially registered magiclandfarms.com as a domain name. Now you don't have to type that long name to get to the website. Most browsers will get you there if you simply type "magiclandfarms.com", although it is better to type "www.magiclandfarms.com."

For those who are keeping track, about 50% of our Patriot peppers are coming up but just a few of the Karma ones. Also, we planted a flat of Debut tomatoes on the 17th. February 16, 2005 -- On Ground Hog's Day I planted about 650 Patriot peppers and 650 Karma peppers. Today, at 9AM five Patriot peppers broke through the soil. I estimate in another week 90% of the peppers that will someday germinate, will be up. We will see...

By the way, it got down to -11F at Pickerel Lake this winter. It is estimated it was down to -9F at Magicland itself.

Notice: This update page has been changed. Only news that has happened in 2005 will be mentioned. For those who are interested in 2004, I will include a page of 2004 archives. All you will need do is click "2004 Magicland News archives." Thank you.

January 20, 2005

While at work on my new book, tentative title "Grow With a Pro -- A Professional Dirt Farmer's Advice to the Home Vegetable Gardener" I came across two of my articles that have been published on the internet. Both were originally published in the Mother Earth News magazine. Reading over the internet articles I noticed a number of typos. Be assured that these typos were not in the original printed articles. They are neither the author's error (moi) nor the error of Mother Earth News editorial staffs. Click here for my Northern Pecan article.

January 7, 2005

We received about 5 inches of light snow, Wednesday (1/5) night and Thursday (1/6) morning. This is a relative big single day snow for us. There was no snow on the ground before this moderate snowfall. This snow is really great for the strawberries, but really the pits for ice fishing! The coldest it got this winter so far is -4F. Our peach trees can generally take it as cold as -14F so they should be just dandy! We are continuing to cut and burn firewood and have already started fertilizing and pruning trees in the orchard. We are also doing thinkin' and doin' reasearch on our seed order. In just over a month we plan on planting some pepper seeds!

January 1, 2005

Our family celebrated ringing in the new year, like usual, sound asleep in bed! It was a bit unusual not being wakened by fireworks. Perhaps, people still had in the hearts the terrible catastrophe that occurred on Christmas Day, in the coastal areas of much of southeast Asia and northeastern Africa as well as the continuing disasters in the mideast.