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Magicland Farms 2006 News

December 12, 2006

Tomorrow is the feast day of St. Lucia, the patron saint of blindness. My grandmother mentioned St. Lucia's day and said that the days start to lengthen at this time like chicken steps--which simply means the day lengthens almost unnoticeably. Actually to be more precise the "evenings lengthen" after this date--the sun starts setting later each day-- but since the sun rises later the actual day continues to shrink until December 21. IT ISN'T UNTIL THE END OF THE MONTH THAT THE SUN STARTS TO RISE EARLIER. One other note. The sun is closest to the earth the second week in January. This may seem strange since this is the coldest time in the US but you got to remember the sun's low winter angle and the short winter days.

Oh yes, we closed for the season on November 30. Even though the weather now is mild, we packed everything away for the season. By the way, our sign was knocked and destroyed on December 3 by a car that skidded out of control on snowy roads. While I don't have the details, there may have been a deer involved. While the car was demolished, I do not believe the man who was driving had life threatening injuries.

November 5, 2006

Except for one Indian Summer day (October 30) and a few mild days its been consistently cold here at Magicland Farms since October 15.

October 26, 2006

Wow! What a cold blast! It arrived on Thursday October 16 and its unwelcome stay was for two more days. The big thing about this is not simply the snow but the fact it brought below freezing temperatures on strong winds! While the actual low temperature was far from the record, the fact it didn't occur with clear skies and calm winds was almost unbelievable! Here is a copy of how I started out the website which was updated on.

October 15, 2006

Last week I mentioned it was expected to turn colder and, oh boy, it sure did! The upper air did a huge swing toward the north through Alaska to the arctic ocean and since it didn't have any other place to go it headed straight south toward Iowa and we got the east end of the Arctic ocean weather. We not only had snow but temperatures slightly below freezing with strong winds--this is perhaps the only time this occured so early in the Fall since White settlers moved into Newaygo County!

October 8, 2006

Today is the third straight day of absolutely beautiful weather. While there were frost warnings out for Friday morning, there wasn't any significant damage. Again, we've have exceeded our normal growing season--it normally ends on October 1. We will have to recalculate the "normal" first fall frost date here at Magicland Farms. It looks like, adding everything together, it will now be October 2 or October 3. By the way, this September was slightly below normal in temperature and much above in precipitation.

Yesterday (Saturday the 7th) our sales were very good--much above last year. The sales earlier in the week were below last year and just a shade disappointing. However weather most of the week wasn't very nice at all. We live and die by the weather here--not just because we rely on it to produce good crops but since we are priamrily an open air market, we also rely on it for sales! We are very pleased Saturday was such a beautiful day--oh yes, "Go Tigers!"

While we have been growing popcorn for several years, it primarily was sold for decorative purposes, with the gourmet taste being secondary. However, last year we made a decision to get into the popcorn market. Last year we purchased a digital mositure tester and this year we purchased a hand crank corn sheller which can shell over 4 bushels an hour. We also purchased a sizeable quantity of pint canning jars, lids and bands.

We planted turnips again this year and are starting to spot harvest them--at the edges they are getting big sooner than in the rest of the patch. This week we will be picking apples when weather permits. We still have winter squash, pumpkins, gourds and potatoes to harvest but they can be picked in more inclement weather, We also are going through the tomato patch and finding a few fairly nice tomatoes we are selling as slicing tomatoes. Picking is real slow and we are not willing to sell them at canning tomato prices--to be honest we'd be nuts to sell them at 20 cents a pound (which is canning tomato prices) even if you don't figure in all the costs of growing tomatoes!

One other thing, Amazon.com inow has my book Snowball Launchers, Giant Pumpkin Growers and other COOL CONTRAPTIONS now in stock AND they are starting to ship them! I would really appreciate it if you would consider purchasing a copy of my book for a gift for a child you are fond of. The book is suitable for both boys and girls from 7 to 14 and beyond. One of the purposes of the book is to encourage the young person to become interested in science without them even knowing it! If you get what I mean! Also, if you happen to purchase a book and find it worthwhile I would appreciate it if you could write a review for it for both Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble (www.bn.com). Remember, you don't have to purchase the book from the company to write a review. By the way, if you want to find out more information about moi the back of the book provides more info on moi than even my children knew!

September 25, 2006

The real highlight at our home this past week was the package from Sterling Publications we received on Thursday with 6 gratis copies of my book "Snowball Launchers, Giant Pumpkin Growers and other COOL CONTRAPTIONS" which were right off the press! The book should be available in bookstores shortly. Remember, even if you don't get it from an online store (like Amazon) you still can write a review for the book on their websites. Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble online are the two most popular online stores where people look for favorable reviews before purchasing an item. The more books I sell the better chance we will stay in business at Magicland Farms!

Right now it looks like their is a fair chance of a killing frost the end of this week--September 28-30. We will be planning on it and getting stuff that can be damaged under cover. Remember, our average killing frost date here is October 1 and over 90% of years a killing frost has occured by the 8th of October. Only rarely have we escaped frost to the mid and late October and I guarantee you we won't this year!

Apples are only damaged when the temperature approaches the low 20s, and this doesn't normally occur until sometime in November. So they will be fine--actually the cold seems to improve their color and flavor, as long as it doesn't kill their leaves!

September 17, 2006

Our watermelons have been obviously a big hit this year and have accounted for some increase in our sales, so far, this year. We hope this increase in watermelon sales will make up partially for our reduced apple crop. Yesterday, on average, over 50% of our customers bought at least one watermelon! Too bad we are almost through picking watermelons for the year!

We are nearing the end of our sweet corn season, although we will still be picking some of the yellow Tendertreat corn this week. Our last planting of beans grew well but the deer have been heavy browsers on them, which gets one depressed. Our cucumbers/pickles have been destroyed by downy mildew but it hasn't hurt our other curcurbits like squash and pumpkins. We have an outstanding squash crop this year and are selling most varieties by the bushel (acorn, butternut, buttercup, spaghetti, mini hubbard) for $8 a bushel or $5 a half bushel. We also have sweet potato squash but aren't selling that by the bushel. We will really be getting into apple picking this week. On average, our apple crop isn't as big as last year although our Spartans are bigger in both size of apple and quantity of apples. We still will have a big crop. We also should be picking our pawpaws soon. It really is surprising how many people are looking for pawpaws this year! Remember with pawpaws they aren't just good eating you can grow your own trees by just planting the seed in the ground in the fall.

September 9, 2006

We continue to pick sweet corn, we are starting to pick the last planting of magic Bi-color. The very last planting will be of the Tendertreat variety. Our Macs and Cortland apples aren't the nicest and of small quantity. We are picking through them so we will only be selling them in samll quantities -- no bushels. Our later apples, starting with Spartan, are mostly real nice and we should be picking them next week. Also, our Gala apples are a crop failure this year so we won't have any for sale. We still have really great, tender beans since we made 10 plantings. We will start picking our last planting on Monday. (We put this patch of beans in the same spot we had the first planting--we disked it down and replanted it in mid July. It did fabulous!) We will start picking Bartletts next week. For those Asian pear fans we have a nice crop of sweet and juicy Niji Siki (or something like that). They are ready now. If you like winter squash and/or sweet potatoes, make sure you try our Buttercup this year. Many are sweeter than sweet potatoes! We also have a really great looking patch of pumpkins coming as well as decorative gourds and Indian Corn. Make sure you check us out for all your fall decoration needs. We will be happy to help with suggestions. Keep in mind our Cannonball pumpkins. We keep them separate from our Sugar (pie) pumpkins because we don't believe they will make good pies--but they are really great looking and we think they will keep all fall and into the early winter..By the way, our late planting of tomatoes got eaten by the deer so we can no longer keep selling a bushel at $10--we will only sell at the $6 a 1/2 bushel price, sorry, I never knew deer liked tomatoes so much--we did plant them way in the back where deer are plentiful. Happily our main crop of tomatoes, which is located closer to the stand, hasn't been decimated by them!

August 27, 2006

As mentioned on the web page headlines, our supply of sweet corn is starting to decrease--we only have four new patches left. If you like watermelon, you have to try our Crimson Sweet melons! We have a great crop of deliciously sweet melons--and they are guaranteed to please. If you don't like one, or don't think its ripe, bring it back and we will give you another one! Many people express doubt that our large Crimson Sweet melons were grown right on our farm. WELL THEY WERE! Remember, our slogan "We only sell what we grow or make ourselves" is the absolute truth. Also, while large Crimson Sweet melons aren't widely grown in Michigan (small ice box Sugar Baby's, which we also sell, are the type one thinks of when they think of Michigan watermelons) they are relatively easy to grown during a normal or warmer than normal Michigan summer--as long as they are planted in sandy soil and get full sun! In fact, Crimson Sweet watermelons were the first produce I grew which I actually sold--I remember taking a car trunk load of them to a farm market south of Newaygo many years ago before I even purchased my first pickup back in '74! I believe I sold them for a buck each. The dog days of summer have turned into the waning days of summer which will soon turn into the first days of Fall. You will soon notice this because we plan on starting to pick our pumpkins and gourds. When does Fall start? Well, astronomically it is September 22 but meteorlogically it is now September 5 (it used to be September 1 but a bunch of weather honchos got together and decided to modify this date). Economically, of course, Fall starts the day after Labor Day! For us, it will start about a week earlier than the economic fall date since we've got to get ready for it!

August 20, 2006

We have always really enjoyed eating our sand grown red potatoes. They are great boiled, fried, mashed, in potato salad AND baked. However, last Friday evening we made a meal of large baked red potatoes and sweet corn--it was absolutely scrumptious!! Some in the family put grated cheese in the potatoes (sour cream and chives is also good) but I simply had a little butter. The potatoes were roughly 4 inches in diameter and baked at 350 for 2-1/2 hours. Since these are fresh potatoes you eat the skin and all! The potatoes' delicious flavor reminded me of eating fire blackened red potatoes way back in Chicago when I was around 6 or 7. As I remember, my mother, as a special treat for us, bought Wisconsin red potatoes from the peddler who went around the neighborhood peddling fruits and vegetables. As I also remember my grandmother helped me and my sister start a small campfire next to the curb in our concrete driveway. She then put in a half dozen medium sized red potatoes and after a couple hours, when the fire died down--and they were nice and black--we ate them--boy they were good! The potatoes I had last Friday reminded me of that!

Except for Tuesday (we were closed because it was a Holy Day -- the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin) it was another real busy week. Saturday was nearly as busy as the last Saturday and a whole bunch busier than the same Satruday of the month the last few years. On Saturday we had delicious white fleshed "Raritan Rose" peaches for sale--they are all gone although we may have a few left on the tree. We often try to put out "specialty" items like this on Fridays and Saturdays. This makes it even more interesting to visit our market on these days. We hope to have a few red haven peaches this week, although they will be only small to medium in size. We have planted a new peach orchard so we should have bigger crops of peaches in a few years. We also now are harvesting our watermelons--both sugar baby and Crimson Sweet. Our family prefers the Crimsone Sweet. We also have a few of the famous Sangria watermelons which are widely known as the top of the line among watermelons. If the seed was cheaper we were probably plant a lot more of this variety. Things are really getting dry again.

August 13, 2006

Another busy week just past at Magicland Farms. Tuesday and Wednesday, our normally slowest days of the week, were like a Saturday in 2002 through 2004 and yesterday was like a Labor Day Saturday beating even August 6th! One thing to keep in mind here--WE WILL BE CLOSED ON TUESDAY AUGUST 15 FOR THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN, WHICH IS A HOLY DAY. We have closed every Feast of the Assumption since 1987, if it was declared a Holy Day of Obligation by the Catholic Church. If it falls on a Saturday or Monday it is not normally so declared. so we don't close then. For those who have been following Magicland Farms' history, you might realize we started back in 1976 across the street. Mildred Van Buskirk was our kind and caring sales lady then. This worked out fine until I married Susan in 1980 and things weren't the same between us and "Shorty" -- Mildred's husband, since then. Finally, in 1986 Susan and I started selling from our farm, which is the same location. Things were really slow, in 1986 and started slow in 1987. Many people never realized that nearly all the corn and other produce Mildred sold was grown by us across the street and they felt we were trying to take over "shorty's" business. For a fact, "shorty" started growing corn and watermelons in 1986 and he "eased" us out and told us to sell our own stuff across the street. It was real slow for a while but we slowly got some customers. We then decided to close for the Assumption, feeling it wasn't right to be open on a Holy Day. Well, suddenly when we opened the next day, sales were brisk and they started growing rapidly and we kept growing until 1999 when my first wife Susan went to heaven. That year was really rough, as you can imagine, and this is the same year road construction hit us and our sales dropped 50% because it was physically hard to get to our place. Also, many customers felt really bad for us because of our family's loss of a wonderful wife and mother and this made it hard for them to come down to our place. The next year I married Annemarie and, to be frank, some of our customers weren't sure of her, although I was, and some didn't show up that year. Another thing was the road commission closed down the road, even though the construction was done in front of our place! This hurt really bad too. There was more road construction problems in 2001 and 2002 too! Well now most of our old customers realize what I realized all along -- "Annemarie is a good kind and caring wife and is great with the children too" and she is one of the reasons for our sales growth which started again back in 2002. Getting back to the present...our main crop of tomatoes are ripening now and it should be soon when we start selling tomatoes in quantity. I noticed in the USDA crop report on Friday that the market for tomatoes was strong and prices were higher. Well, we decided to sell canning tomatoes at $6.00 a half bushel and $10 a bushel as a limited time special, which is two dollars LESS for a bushel than last year. But, kep in mind, this is a LIMITED time special. If our supply keeps up we will stick with that price--if not we will only sell at the half bushel price, which means basically the bushel price will be $12. We feel we can do this because we have planted about a half acre of late tomatoes, which should keep us going until frost.

August 6, 2006

The big news yesterday was it was really, really busy at the stand. It was our busiest day yet this year and was nearly as busy as last year's Saturday before labor day! Our corn is coming on fast with our Magic Bi-color and Silver King reigning. The ears are big and delicious. Also going big time this week is slicing tomatoes and beans. Our pickles are winding down although another beautiful patch of cukes are starting so we should have real nice cukes for some time yet. Again this week we had more rain with over an inch and a half falling (Sunday and Thursday). We really don't need more rain for at least 2 weeks, but you know...Our watermelons are growing fantastically and we hope to have some ripe by the end of this week. Also really nice are our Melba apples and Shiro golden plums. other summer apples like Viking, Paulared, Tydeman's Red and Zestar will start shortly. Our peaches will be ready shortly but keep in mind they won't be sold in 1/2 bushels--we just won't have enough. We have made a planting of another peach orchard so in a couple of years we hope to be able to sell them in quantity again --winter's permitting. Our peaches were frozen out in 1984 and 1994. After 1994 it was 5 years before we replanted any.

July 30, 2006

Well, the next several weeks we should have a good quantity of great tasting corn. Also are beans are coming in nicely-- we are now into our 4th patch. The first patch has been plowed down, replanted and the new beans are a couple of inches high. This July has been weird- We actually got more than enough rain. Also, it wasn't as sunny as normal and the rain usually fell in the morning. usually it was at night.

July 21, 2006

We are now starting to pick our better tasting and slightly larger sweet corn patches. Also, we have stated picking our Quinte apples and yellow beans. The bean crop this year is really, really great. Last year was our worst bean crop ever! In both quantity and quality! Our famous golden plums will start next week!

July 17, 2006

Well we didn't start picking corn on the 15th but we are starting today! The first corn will be an xtra-early hybrid bi-color that has relatively small ears. We will quickly add larger eared yellow Spring Treat and then yellow Daybreak. We had great rains so far this July, in addition to that July 5th 1/4" we had over an inch and a half on the 11th and nearly a half inch on the 14th. We also had a few heavy showers scattered here and there that almost add up...

July 6, 2006

We had about a quarter inch of rain in the wee hours of July 5th. There is a fair chance we will start picking our earliest corn on Saturday July 15, although we can't promise anything yet. Check here after 9PM on July 14th.

July 1, 2006

We are still hoeing, weeding and cultivating and now we are really getting into the harvest season. We are now done with strawberries and snow peas but big in new red potatoes, beets and radishes. It looks like we can start selling green beans around the 8th of July and by the 10th we should have ample supplies. Our sweet corn (both bi-color and yellow) looks like it should start no later than the 17th of July. I will make a firm date in a few days and promise to post here the night before we start picking corn for sale. Get the info here first!

June 21, 2006

About a qurater inch of rain fell and, thank the Lord, we didn't have any severe weather! The kids are still picking strawberries although they are running down on size and quantity. Saturday will likely finish the 2006 strawberry crop. Snow peas are still being picked AND we will start digging our luscious Red Norland potatoes on Monday June 26th! Also we will start harvesting our beets next week and we might have a few sweet cherries for sale. Our Kohlrabi should start in a week to 10 days and the beans right around the 4th of July!

June 18, 2006

Strawberries have been selling well--we have been sold out each day before 5. The crop has to be rated excellent in quantity and quality! The Magicland Kids have planted a larger new patch with mostly Honeoye but also some new varieities they want to try. If things go as planned, this should more than double next year's strawberry crop. It looks like this year we will have sweet cherries for sale. There are quite a bit on the trees and we have already sampled some and they are gooood... However, birds and raccoons also think they are tasty so we never know...I've already had questions when the sweet corn will be ready. It will start on July 1? ! This is as close as I can come to making an accurate guess. By the way about 10 days ago we had a frost scare. It was a frost advisory issued by the NWS. It got up to 70F that day and I wasn't worried. It wasn't really close since it only got down to 40F at the farm and 48F at the lake. Sometimes the NWS are too cautious and worry some growers unnecessarily.

June 9, 2006

MAGICLAND KIDS STRAWBERRIES START 10 AM MONDAY JUNE 12!! Info: Strawberries will be priced at $3.00 a quart. Either pull up plastic quart liner and take it or take whole quart container and return the wood quart within a month. These quart containers cost us 35 cents. Most of our strawberries are of the Honeoye variety (correct spelling even though it don't look right) and were picked the same day we sell them. Our season usually only lasts 10 days to 2 weeks so we may be done as early as the first day of summer (June 21). Our hours now are from 10 to 5, Monday through Saturday. Closed Sundays. However, if we sell out by noon we will be closed for the day! The quarts of strawberries will be on the red picnic table beneath the White Ash tree.

June 2, 2006

Well I recently found out that my latest book, "Snowball Throwers, Giant Pumpkin Growers and other COOL CONTRAPTIONS" won't be out until September! What a bummer!! Oh well...I have written another book, this one juvenile fiction 9-14. It is titled "The Secret of Treasure Lake" which has its setting in Newaygo County although the specific State of the setting isn't mentioned--it was simply mentioned that it was driving distance from Chicago. I hope to hear from Walker Publications shortly about it. I've sent the MS out before and I have had a good personal response to it from an editor of a major publisher. According to her( the editor) they would have purchased it but they had just printed a somewhat similar book about adventure at a summer camp. If I get a rejection slip from Walker I would be tickled pink if someone reading this would have any idea for a non-vanity publisher for this book. I loved my Hardy Boys and yes, Nancy Drew and the book would be perfect for those lovers of this style of book

A few strawberries are just starting to turn. They should be ready for picking by the end of next week. Check the website on Wednesday to find the latest info!

Fishing Update! Bass up to 17 inches are in abundance near the shore. Several of the kids have caught severfal of thm and lost severfal more!

It was one of the hottest Memorial Day weekends in memory! I remember my mother mentioning that she and her family drove up to lake from Chicago sometime in the 30s for memorial day and service attendant at a gas station in Grand Haven said it snowed the night before! They wore sweaters that weekend and still froze!

By the way I want to mention that my magiclandfarms@yahoo.com email address is now getting lots of spam and I look back more carefully and I found that I have missed interesting emails from several of our good customers and friends. I hesitate in answering them now since they are rather old but I hope to keep a better look at my emails in the future so I don't miss stuff. If you sent me an email and it hasn't gotten answered it would be smart to send a cc to my other address at magicland@gmail.com.

May 27, 2006

It looks like our strawberries will start around June 10th and our snow peas which is the only type we planted this year) will start around June 15th. We will confirm these dates in about a week.

May 25, 2006

We are now officially sold out of our 2005 apple crop. Check with us the end of July to see if we are starting to pick our early summer apples such as Quinte.

May 13, 2006

Well it started raining about 1AM on the 11th and has been at it ever since although the "real rain" was over by Daylight on the 12th. It also has been real cool these last three days. However, it is expected to warm up a bit in the next few days and then summer weather is expected here in about 10 days. We noticed our first sweet corn was up on the 10th and some of it is as high as 3 to 4 inches! While we are winding down on our apple sales, our dried birdhouse gourds are not only selling well but we have had inquiries for trailer loads of them! If you want a good selection better not wait until summer! If you didn't already get to see our apple orchard in full bloom you are too late! There are only a few scattered blooms left here and there. My goodness we have bees! Honeybees AND Bumblebees! The Bumblebees are especially plentiful. I've heard that a single Bumblebee takes the place of 250 honeybees when it comes to pollination!

May 7, 2006

We have a lot of secrets here at Magicland Farms. One secret is our normal "target" planting date of first corn. Well, since we already planted around 10 patches of corn, it should be obvious we normally plant before May 6th! This year we planted our first corn two days earlier than last year and about 4 days earlier than our "secret target date." The good news is that this first corn is starting to emerge from the ground. I've been at this a long while and I've always gotten nice corn when I've kept to my target date. Since we pushed it a bit this year -- by 4 days to be exact -- we are a little unsure of our successs here. I remember one year, before I arrived at this target date -- and I planted 11 days before it, well, I had to replant!

May 7, 2006

The bluegills are on their spawning beds and they are big and in abundance! My kids, especially Matt, is getting loads of big, beautiful delicious bluegills. Many are huge! Real easy fishing! We notice some people fishing for them in the deep water and not getting much. That's because they are near the shore on sunny days preparing to spawn! I never new their were so many big bluegills in the lake! Matt's getting a bit tired of cleaning them and the freezer is getting full so he is likely going to slow up soon! I expect the fantastic bluegill fishing will end in a couple weeks but then the bass fishing will start in abundance. To be honest, the only thing that's keeping the bass fishing down now is that its not legal until Memorial Day weekend!

May 2, 2006

The potatoes are starting to emerge. It looks like we might start digging potatoes earlier than normal. In the past, we started selling Red Norland potatoes around the first of July, it looks like we may be a bit earlier this year.

April 27, 2006

There was a frost on the morning of April 26th. The temperature was approximately 28F at the farm and around 32F at the lake. We checked today and very little damage was done to the fruit. The only thing we found was some light damage to the sweet cherries--no damage to Apricots and plums. The peaches weren't checked but they are normally tougher than cherries. Also, it doesn't seem likely there was any damage at all to pears and apples because they aren't in bloom.

April 25, 2006

We no longer have our stored potatoes for sale. The next potatoes we sell will be brand spanking new red potatoes, probably around July 1. We still have some apples for sale but you better get them quick. They are selling fairly well and in about a week we won't be selling anymore until late July when our early apples start to ripen. If you or you know somebody who likes to do gourd crafting make sure you stop by and see our enormous selection of beautifully dried gourds. By the way, our Apricots are through blooming. Our sweet cherries and our plums are in full bloom and our tiny (but growing) peach orchard is now starting to bloom. The pears are about ready to bloom (the flowering pear trees in Fremont are in full bloom) also according to the TV 8 weatherman Craig James, apples are blooming in Grand Rapids. Here at Magicland Farms they are nearing the pink stage. Since it is supposed to be in the upper twenties tonight this is a real good thing!

April 17, 2006

We now have taken out our red potatoes out of storage. We planted some of them but so many of them looked so beautiful and tasted so good we decided to delight our customers with some of them. We now have put them up for sale right next to the apples on the red picnic table. They are priced at $2.00 a half peck and $3.00 a peck. For those who are interested in what we have planted so far here goes: red onion sets, all our seed potatoes, strawberry plants, snow peas, cabbage and beets.

April 10, 2006

We still have apples for sale. Stop by and take a look. They are on the red picnic table and we are usually on self-serve this time of the year before our official opening which will be with the strawberries sometime in June. As the temperature rises, the quality of the apples drops so get them quick!

April 8, 2006

I really hate to complain about something but I feel it is time. Some will laugh because of the triteness of the complaint but here goes anyway! (Did you notice this is turning into a Blog?) The Huntington Bank Big Digital Thermometer is off--usually way off! For instance yesterday afternoon I made my way to Fremont. The temperature at home, using a calibrated thermometer was 41F. The Suburban digital thermometer showed 41F and the more or less official thermometer at the middle school was 41F. The Weather Bug on the Internet showed the temperature in Fremont was 41F. What did Huntington's thermometer show? 35F! More than that, the air didn't feel like 35F it felt more like the low 40s! I know some of you will say that this is trite but temperature readings means a whole bunch especially when you get near the freezing point of water. For goodness sakes if the air temperature during that February ice storm was 34F instead of 30 or 31F, there would have been no damage! What if the actual temperature was 72F and the big thermometers around the area showed 62F? That info has the potential of hurting tourism. Ask the chamber of commerce people in Miami about all of this if you don't believe me! Summing up! Huntington needs a new thermometer!

April 6, 2006

We have finished our planting of tomato, pepper and eggplant. We have also started to transplant some of our early tomatoes. Since some nights are still dropping into the 20s and the fact that our two small greenhouses are unheated, we are going real slowly in our transplanting since we frequently have to bring the plants in to the basement at night. We have also planted our red onion sets and have a good start on our strawberry plantings--the strawberry plants were delivered today. While we are noticing more deer tracks, the deer population is still obviously way down compared to last year. While we didn't notice many coyote tracks this spring, we did notice they seemed to be good mousers.

Weather permitting, we hope to plant our potatoes, and fruit trees (if they get here) next week. We also will again make a small planting of beets this year as well as Snow Peas. The Magicland Kids are in charge of the strawberries, Snow peas and rocks -- they pay the expenses and get the money from their sales.

March 26, 2006

We have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of apples that we took out of common storage. I should define what I mean by "common storage." This is basically the "old fashioned" storage used almost universally for apples before there was mechanical refrigeration. Basically, it is simply a building where you put apples for the winter. It relies on cold weather to keep the apples. Because the building is chock full of apples they usually didn't freeze. However, when an unusual cold winter hits there often is damage. Because of this some storages (like ours) have a way to heat them when the apples are in danger of freezing. When refrigeration became economical, "cold storage" was developed. Cold storage is basically a huge refrigerator where the temperature is kept at about 33F and not 38F, like most refrigerators. The next advance in cold storage was Controlled Atmosphere (CA) storage where the oxygen level is reduced significantly. Some varieties, like Red Delicious, do exceptionally well with CA but there are certain varieties that do poorly with it.

We started selling our "common storage" apples on March 23. They are of very good quality--almost as if they were in genuine cold storage all winter. We have been really enjoying the Splendour apples this year. We discovered they are also known as Starksplendor. They remind one of Fuji but we like them a bunch better.

Notice our sign by the road. Last winter the sign was knocked down by a car that went off the road when the road was snow covered and slippery. We are making plans for a new, improved sign. We are hoping to get some compensation for the damage from the Insurance company . We have already made a real good looking apple sign we are keeping under cover until the new sign display is complete.

March 21, 2006

I awoke at 4:30 this morning, which is nearly a 1/2 hour earlier than usual, and started saying my morning prayers in bed--which is the usual way I say them. Nothing too unusual except shortly after starting prayers I wondered if we brought our flats of peppers and tomatoes from the unheated greenhouse to the heated basement. The temperature in the greenhouse still drops to below freezing on cold nights and it was a cold night. I flew out of bed, checked the temperature of the greenhouse with our remote reading digital thermometer, saw that it was 28F and flew downstairs and didn't find our flats of plants--we had forgotten them in the greenhouse! I expected to see black wilted tiny plants but was pleasantly surprised to see only minor damage as I hurried the plants out of the greenhouse into the basement! Well to make a long story short it appeared miraculous that only minor damage was done since some flats the soil had frozen near the surface! We won't do that again! At least this year!

The temperature today was only in the mid 30s and central Indiana was having a big snow, perhaps the biggest of the year. The crocuses are blooming.

March 13, 2006

The wind is howling outside and the temperature is dropping fast--it was 55F now is 40F and falling. There is a Winter Weather Advisory for tonight for snow and blowing snow, but spring is here! My sister, who lived many years in New Hampshire commented about when they all agreed there when spring arrived. It wasn't March 21. It wasn't when the first Robin appeared. It wasn't when the Pussy Willows were unfolding, nor when the first snow drops or snow crocuses bloomed. It was at ice out when the ice was gone from the lakes! Well today, the ice was gone from the lake--blown away by the wind, which is the way it usually leaves. By the way, snow drops and snow crocuses are blooming, although I haven't checked the Pussy Willows yet.

Last night we had lots of rain with many thunderstorms. Schools were closed because of some high water on roads. About a two inches of rain fell.

March 11, 2006

Well, the snow is gone and so is safe ice fishing. The safe ice lasted for only around two weeks this year. The coldest it got at the lake this year was -1F, I doubt it got to even 0F at the orchard. If this keeps up I might as well plant figs in the orchard. By the way, this year I found the planting of figs I put in when the orchard was first planted about 30 years ago. We cut down an old apple tree (some of the first planted apple trees are getting too big to care for properly--they do make great firewood!) and found the fig tree next to it. Figs are root hardy here but they normally die down to the ground during the winter. It is only three foot high but wasn't injured this year. Now that it can get some sun it might just take off if we take care of it by pilling snow or leaves on it in the fall/winter. We'll see, it's something different.

Our pruning is going well and if we keep it up we should be just about done in two weeks--just in time to start getting the ground worked up to plant. A good proportion of our peppers and tomatoes are coming up and we hope to move them to the greenhouse next week--at least during the day. This year we greatly expanded our varieties of tomatoes--last year we added Brandywine, Taxi, Carolina Gold, Orange Blossom and grape, this year we are adding eleven more types including the Green Zebra and Granny Smith varieties. Annemarie saw Plumbs selling tomatoes for $2.99 a pound. As you probably know, prices are shooting up all over the place. This is especially true with seeds. We search out the places for not only good seed but reasonably priced seed and yet seed is probably our biggest expenditure. It is more than all the fertilizer, gasoline and diesel we use! I think it is ridiculous and this is true even though we plant our own Indian corn, gourd and pumpkin seeds that we raise! By the way, it looks like my book "...COOL CONTRAPTIONS" will be out in late April--a month earlier than planned!

February 20, 2006

Well, I've done it! I recently purchased Microsoft's Front Page software to use in scribbling down these pages. The "theme" is nature. How do you like it? Well, as mentioned earlier, winter has again arrived--and boy has it! On February 16 we had an ice storm! We were out of power from about 4:45 PM Thursday until just before noon on Saturday. But, we had a little surprise on Sunday morning. Just as Annemarie was starting the French toast for our brunch, their was a big sigh through the house "Oh No!" was heard. Yes, power again was out. Happily, this was just for about 45 minutes--although we had no idea when it went out it would be a minor power interruption. We think the power was purposely pulled so the power crew could reconnect fixed wires in relative safety, but this is speculation because the power outage was so short. We always worry about the power crews. There are a lot of dangers out there and they aren't working in the best of conditions. Happily, most people realize this, despite their being inconvenienced!

Along with the power outage we experienced the coldest weather of the season. It got down to -1 F on Saturday and never reached 10 F! We were warm, though, since we have two wood stoves. We took the food out of the refrigerator and put it in the unheated annex where it was colder than the refrigerator when there is power. We also moved the ice cream in our freezer to boxes and stuck it on the pickup in the open garage. Our main problem was having water to drink and cook with. Also, when power was restored we had no water--the pump lost its prime. We removed the pressure gauge and used a plastic tube and funnel to get water into it. The filler cap was too rusted to try and open!

Did you notice that at times this update is turning into sort of a Blog! Well, let's get back to fruits and veggies! Shortly before the power went out on February 16, we started two flats of peppers--about 550 seeds in all! So, it has started...

February 6, 2006

Our new website Magicland Electronics is now up and running! Check it out. We plan on steadily adding to it. You also will find links to some of the boss's other non-farming ventures such as writing stuff for kids! Its amazing that publishers actually pay him money to do this! Believe it or not the boss still somehow finds time to be an electronic's hobbyist geek! No pocket protectors yet though! Visit Magicland Electronics and you can find out about the boss's latest book and his other career as workshop editor for the next crop of geniuses!

January 29, 2006

Remember Mark Twain's comment "The news of my death has been premature"? Well my news of winter's return, that I issued on December 23 was premature!. Right now it's 42 F out and rain. There is no ice fishing although there still is lots of snow on the ground from the January 21 eight inch snow. Don't be fooled though, winter will set in again in about a week. There is no speculation about this. It's coming and I still think (although I hope I'm wrong) it will be brutally cold this coming February. Prepare!

If you pass by the orchard you might notice we are removing some old apple trees by the road. These trees are Stark's Earliest (not to be confused with Stark's Earliblaze which is a great variety we also have). This apple is very early ripening, sometime in July, and disease resistant. It also has a nice sweet flavor when picked right. However, we seldom pick them because of several factors. First they are small. Second they last three days after picking before they get mushy, if the weather is cool for the season--less if it is normal or above. Third, they are in a forgotten part of the orchard--way out to our northwest. Fourth, maybe we forget them. Even after removal, we still will have around 7 Stark Earliest trees left and I hope to pick and sell them this year. Gosh, it would be nice if we had a nice cooler to keep our apples!

NEW THINGS COMING! In 2004 we made a substantial planting of several new plum varieties. They grew well and we hope to sample them this year and sell them next. Also in 2004 we planted more Honeycrisp apples as well as a small planting of Braestar apples, which are an early ripening Beaburn apple. In 2005 we planted about 40 peach trees. They survived the summer and we hope (if the weather is favorable) to sell a few peaches again next year. Some customers are amazed when we tell them we don't have peaches "I always get peaches here!" they often comment. Then we find out the last year they bought peaches at our place is 1993! Well it is true we had plenty of peaches back then! In fact we had lots of peaches from 1975 until 1983 (the 83-84 winter decimated them) we replanted them in '85 and again had plenty of peaches from 87-93 until the 93-94 winter came and destroyed most of them. We made a small planting again in 98, and for a number of reasons, it didn't do well although we might be able to get a few peaches out of that planting in 2006. We are looking forward to 2007 to get back into peaches again with out 05 planting.

Some notes on last year: Probably the single thing we grew new last year that I liked the best was the Butterscotch Melons. While I love watermelon, I never was a muskmelon lover--the muskmelon had to be real, real good before I liked it. This is a sign that the particular food is not liked much by the consumer of the food. Well Butterscotch Melons aren't a muskmelon, they taste like...well.. Butterscotch! Their flesh looks a bit like Butterscotch too! And you can it eat all the way to the skin! Well made a real small l planting of them but we had enough to sell a few. Mostly, they didn't sell fast because they look a bit like a small, under ripe muskmelon. So I was able to enjoy more of them than I first thought! The other real surprise was the yellow Taxi tomatoes. They ripened earlier than I thought and they were just wonderful on burgers! I'm not sure if they are low acid or high acid but they are good. We had a number of requests for them by customers who tried them.

Talk about surprises--it has to be the pawpaws! Although we had a poor crop in 2005 the demand was enormous--relatively speaking. I was flabbergasted, the last two years, with the people who came down to our place just for pawpaws! I had no idea so many people even knew about them. I've read stories that came from the golden state where they have a real hard time growing them there. Well, they grow easily here in Michigan, if you find the right spot. We now have hundreds of pawpaws trees, some are over 30 feet high, We hope to have an increasing supply (with a jagged straight line) in the years to come. What do they taste like? Well every tree produces a different flavored pawpaw. Our Muskegon River strain tastes like a mixture of bananas and pineapple with the consistency of sweet custard. They are also referred to as Michigan Bananas (also Ohio Bananas and Nebraska Bananas). They are a native fruit and are found as far north as Newaygo County in Michigan. There are a whole bunch of health claims for them but we only claim they are good to eat! (Not everyone in our family likes pawpaws, by the way, although moi does.)

I have already mentioned, on the home page about our Magicland Pecans which we grow. We haven't had them for sale yet but hopefully we will in 2006. What also are coming quick are our hickory nuts. We grow both the big Shellbark and the smaller Shagbark hickory. Both are very sweet. By the way, our husked Black Walnuts in the shell have again been a big hit. Matt, who is the Black Walnut guy, sold out early.

By the way, we DO NOT GROW any genetically altered corn or any other fruit or vegetable for that matter. I notice there is a big push this year, in some of the seed catalogs, to sell one of the genetically altered Bi-color sweet corn varieties (BT corn) this year. I have to admit I was tempted to get this variety--it contains a substance that kills corn borers and corn earworms, and other bugs, when they eat it--but I didn't. This means people will also get this stuff in them when they eat the corn! Just want to let everyone know WE DON'T GROW THIS BT GENETICALLY MODIFIED CORN!!! Since I don't want to eat it I can't see selling it!! I have a feeling most corn in supermarkets will shortly be this type of corn. What I am really fearful of it is that the news media will find out about this and give all sweet corn a bad rep! They hurt the apple business a few years ago when they reported on ALAR despite the fact few growers were actually using ALAR! We never used it nor saw the need for it!!