By The Bantering Welshman
This is the first entry documenting our 14-month challenge to ourselves to prepare a Thanksgiving meal made entirely of food and ingredients grown, harvested, hunted and produced right here on Fain-XX Farm. Regardless of the outcome, subsequent entries, photos, recipes and social media posts will be arranged into a book format for publication.
Today is August 9, 2022, and it is the first day of our 14-month journey to plan, produce, prepare and serve an entirely Homegrown Thanksgiving Feast to family and friends Thanksgiving Day, 2023.
Normally, a delicious Thanksgiving feast would not be a challenge for us — I’m the turkey chef, because I love doing it, while Jessica does everything else — but one made entirely of food and ingredients grown, harvested, hunted and produced right here on Fain-XX Farm (pronounced fÄ?n’nÄks) will be. As a nation, we have grown so accustomed to having everything available to us, that it is easy for the common observer to oversimplify this challenge, but when one breaks it down to the foundational components, the level of difficulty is realized. It isn’t as simple as killing a wild turkey in season (the live bird not a bottle of whisky, though there may be a few of the latter consumed in the process), or growing pumpkins for a pie. Notwithstanding, the beer and honey that I use for basting my turkey, pumpkin puree is not very appetizing without the necessary sugar and spices, and unless one wants to slurp the concoction out of a bowl, it needs a crust, which can’t be made without flour, eggs, milk and sugar.
— Jessica reminded me that she only needs butter, flour and sugar for her crust, but I would like to point out that we don’t get butter without milk and though she may not use egg in her recipe, some people do. I also read that egg glaze can make the crust shiny and brown, so we’ll just make that a learning point to try on this year’s pie.
Regardless we have the ducks and chickens for eggs; for milk, we are considering a cow or some goats, but flour and sugar will require prior planning and preparation well in advance of Thanksgiving… Thus, why we aren’t doing it this year.
This year’s Thanksgiving is an important part of successfully executing the challenge, however. As we construct the feast this year, Jessica and I will have to carefully record every ingredient. The goal for Thanksgiving 2023 is to prepare a feast made only from ingredients procured on the farm by our labors, so this year’s feast will have to be artfully constructed and deconstructed to establish a baseline for 2023. Understandably, there must be substitutions. For example, I don’t see establishing a cranberry bog before November 2023, but as we discovered last year, we can stand buried to our eyeballs in silverberry; aka, winterberry; aka, autumn olive. A silverberry compote shouldn’t be that far removed from a traditional cranberry sauce. Although it would have a different look, blackberry or black cherry preserves would offer a similar side dish as well. Both, latter berries are also prevalent on Fain-XX Farm.
Sadly, I expect we may have to settle for a couple of exceptions to the challenge as well, although I’m only prepared to accept one for now, Salt. Salt will be a necessary ingredient in almost every recipe and a necessity for increasing the boiling point of water, which will also likely be required for some dishes. Unless I discover a salt mine on the farm between now and then, we will have to rely on accepted trade practices to procure the salt we need for the Thanksgiving 2023 feast. Alternatively, I don’t think squeezing the salt from my sweaty socks for a year will be appropriate or appreciated.
The catalyst for creating this challenge for us came two days ago when I was blessed to find a pawpaw patch on the back slope of our property, perfectly hidden just inside a grown-up forest canopy. I realize the connection from finding a pawpaw patch to producing a Homegrown Thanksgiving in 14 months might be obscure without an explanation so I will endeavor to do so.
Since purchasing the farm more than two years ago, we have wanted to produce something that we could enjoy as well as offer commercially to a local market. Unfortunately, our timing couldn’t have been much worse. Even though I receive a nice retirement income from 25 years of Army service, Jessica and I were both working full time to supplement that income so we could afford our dream, our 115-year-old federal-style home on 32 acres of fertile valley and forested hills. The original plantation home was owned by Richard and Eliza Fain but burned to the ground in 1897. Because our home was built over its ashes, we call it The Phoenix of Fain-XX Farm — Fain, of course paying tribute to the original landowners and the double XX for the year we acquired the property, pronounced as fÄ?n’nÄks reverting back to the mythical phoenix that represents our renewed spirits. The pandemic hit our employer hard. By the end of the year, I was out of a job and four months later so was Jessica. We’ve both found new jobs making nearly what we were making previously, but the damage had already been done. Now we are in a recession and the cost of living has gone up dramatically.
We are fortunate! I know there are many families hit much harder by the events of the last two years than we are. So, I’m not complaining, but circumstances have prevented us from fulfilling all our original intentions for Fain-XX Farm. Without the ability to purchase necessary material and equipment, and an innate, stubborn aversion to asking other busy people for help, we have had to be creative at finding ways to produce even for our own use. Still, the desire to do something bigger, something more, something we can share is there.
I grew up on a tobacco farm in the neighboring Greene County. Beside the fact that I didn’t want to go back into the tobacco business, tobacco is a hard and dirty job even when you have the equipment and manpower to do it. If we were going to produce, we needed to do something that required less of an initial commitment and an orchard seemed a viable solution. Of course, we knew it was going to take several years to establish fruitful stock, once acquired, and I’m no Johnny Appleseed, but manually digging holes is something I can do and tending to trees is something I enjoy. Still, another apple orchard in East Tennessee carries about as much excitement as another peanut farm in Georgia; I wanted something different, and that is when I had a vague recollection of the lyrics from an old nursery rhyme, “pickin’ up pawpaws, put em in your pocket… way down yonder in the pawpaw patch.”
I don’t recall ever seeing a pawpaw before last Sunday, and to this day I have never tried one, but I remember reading about how the American Indians used to cherish the pawpaw and that up until a couple generations ago, the pawpaw was a popular native fruit for its taste and texture resembling that of a banana. Recently, I saw an article by the USDA that indicated that young pawpaw trees are the most prevalent saplings in Appalachian forests today. With reviews like that, it would seem unfathomable that not only have most people my age never tried a pawpaw, the vast majority have never even heard of them. Nearly two years ago, I made the determination to change that, at least locally. I told Jessica back then that I wanted to turn the flattest, most fertile field in the front of our farm into a pawpaw patch and started tending to that field in preparation for the day I could acquire the trees.
Pawpaws are not cheap I learned. Even a dozen, gallon-sized potted trees could cost as much as $1000. I needed to find the trees locally, either on our farm, or on neighboring farms… with permission of course. Jessica pointed out that it was rather shallow to rely on only one fruit for a commercial endeavor, and I agreed especially considering the small harvest window for the pawpaw, the fact that the fruit needs to be purchased fresh and won’t do well to be shipped. Thankfully, I have a thing for persimmons too, another almost forgotten fruit. I remember as a child visiting a large persimmon tree at the farthest corner of my papaw’s farm. It was just the coolest fruit to me, a big juicy tomato growing on a tree. But persimmons are a fragile fruit as well, so there still had to be something else.
Pears, we decided would be a nice alternative to apples. I’ve always liked a good pear at just that right ripeness when you bite through a tough outer skin into a soft middle, bursting with so much juice and flavor it’s impossible to contain behind closed lips. Pear trees would require some capital for sure, as would plums, another option, but would be worth it when the money is there.
Finally, just because they were readily available, we added peaches to the desirables as well. Three springs ago, I purchased two peach trees for the old homestead in Greene County. The trees more than doubled in size during that time and have even produced a handful of peaches. This year they were so covered in suckers that I decided to attempt to establish some new trees, and it wasn’t hard. Nearly every sucker I planted in the small root incubator I made took hold giving me about 18 potted trees, of which I have put 10 in the ground to date. This far north, with the high probability of a late frost, peaches are at best a commercial long shot, but if I can salvage enough for our own personnel use each year, they are worth the effort.
Without knowing it then, we put the plan in place for the Quintessential P’s of Fain-XX Farm, but it was still only a plan without the necessary capital to bring to… FRUITion.
This spring, as time and weather allowed, I started searching our dense woods in search of pawpaw that I could transplant to the fertile flat in lieu of purchasing. Even if I could afford to purchase the pawpaws, most nurseries had very limited stock and the stock they did have wouldn’t ship until fall. Armed with a plant identification app on my phone and internet photos of pawpaw leaves that looked remarkably like shagbark hickory to me, I searched for weeks with no luck at finding pawpaws. Then, one sunny June afternoon while I was mowing a trail I keep through the grassy northwestern slope that hasn’t been Bushhogged for more than two years, I noticed a young tree slightly taller than the surrounding grass. It was obvious to me that this tree was some sort of fruit tree, but I had no idea what kind. I reached for my phone, opened the app and snapped a photo. After a short deliberation, the app identified the tree as a common persimmon.
“Holy crap!,” I know I said out loud over the sound of my riding mower.
I didn’t believe it, so I selected a new search and snapped another picture. Once again, the app read “common persimmon.” I was so excited to get back to the house and show Jessica, I almost didn’t notice that I was actually in the middle of a grove of dozens of young persimmon trees, all less than three years old. “I won’t even have to move them,” I said out loud again. There will need to be some thinning out, to allow the bigger healthier trees to grow, but with very little personal capital, my persimmon orchard spontaneously sprung up from nothing and in 3 to 5 years, will produce delicious fruit. As if that were not blessing enough, about 3 weeks ago I discovered just as many if not more persimmon on the south slope at the southern-most corner of Fain-XX Farm. We were blessed to know that we would not want for persimmons, but we still hadn’t found a pawpaw.
I felt as if a divine hand had grabbed me by the chin, turned my head in that direction and then a disembodied voice said, “look here!”
This past Sunday, as I was returning from a barefoot hike with my dogs to our large fishpond near the southern boundary of our property, I saw some thin saplings peaking around a young black walnut tree blocked by pokeweed, blackberry and wild rose. I felt as if a divine hand had grabbed me by the chin, turned my head in that direction and then a disembodied voice said, “look here!” I couldn’t get very close considering I was shoeless and didn’t even have a stick to beat back the brambles, but I had looked all over this stretch of trail and those trees were something I hadn’t noticed before. I hurried back to the house told Jessica I think I found some pawpaws and that she needed to grab some shoes and come back out with me. I slipped on my wet-dry boat shoes, grabbed my brush ax from the barn and together, Jessica and I went back to get a closer look.
I cleared the weeds, briars and brambles to make a path up to the saplings, pulled out my phone, opened the app and took the picture. An arrow spun around the center of the screen briefly and then… “Pawpaw — Asimina Triloba.”
From Jessica’s perspective, I’m sure I looked like an 8-year-old on Christmas Morning, but the best was yet to come.
“Hey! What’s that up there,” she said pointing to some partially exposed limbs emerging from the canopy. “Those look like the same leaves.”
The light was dimming, and my eyes aren’t what they used to be. I strained to get a better look at what she was pointing to while struggling to maintain my balance on a steepening slope.
“You might be right,” I said. “I need to get in there so I can look closer.”
About 15 feet away, I found a narrow path through the overgrowth and wildly swung my brush ax to widen the trail while trying to maintain my forward momentum up an exponentially steeper slope. Two invasive Chinese privets blocked my way. It took several swings from the ax, but I finally severed both bushes at ground level and I was in, standing under a substantial tree with speckled gray and white bark and leaves that did in fact look like the samplings I just found. Then I saw it, an olive-green fruit about the size of a walnut. As I broadened my gaze, I noticed more and bigger trees with more and bigger fruit. I was standing in a pawpaw patch.
I realize that I have rambled on about discovering pawpaws and identifying the Quintessential P’s, but I still have not managed to connect any of it to preparing a Homegrown Thanksgiving in 14 months. It is… elementary. Discovering the pawpaws on our property just two days ago was the recognition that our dream is within reach. I finally realized that Fain-XX Farm can be a producer and parallel to the dream of becoming a producer, was our dream of achieving greater self-reliance. When the Old World was inundated by feudal states and a man and his family labored for a lord, the New World offered a place where a man’s spirit was unbridled and the fruit of his labor was his own. America rose in the west as a nation where man was the master of his own empire, and second only to God. That’s why we want to make a Homegrown Thanksgiving, to give thanks to the principles this country was built on and to prove we can still do it today.
Coming next is Episode 1 of Homegrown Thanksgiving '23, Believing in Brussels Sprouts.
| Author Notes | This introduction to Homegrown Thanksgiving '23 was first published in August of 2022. I have added seven episodes since then, the latest published in April with Episode 8 coming out soon. |
By The Bantering Welshman
This is the second entry documenting our 14-month challenge to ourselves to prepare a Thanksgiving meal made entirely of food and ingredients grown, harvested, hunted and produced right here on Fain-XX Farm. Regardless of the outcome, subsequent entries, photos, recipes and social media posts will be arranged into a book format for publication.
Saturday, September 3, 2022
A staple in our home for just about every full-production meal is Brussels sprouts. I can hear the collective “ugh” from the reader at that last sentence. How can anyone like Brussels sprouts enough to make it a supper time favorite? Right?
Jessica has successfully turned about a half-dozen Brussels haters into believers over the years. Granted, for the Homegrown Thanksgiving, there may need to be some substitutions to her recipe or some old-fashioned bartering of goods, but first, we need the Brussels sprouts.
I haven’t really tried to grow Brussels before now. Brussels sprouts are a cooler weather crop that are best if finished to a sweetness by the first frost of fall. I performed a lot of amazing feats of gardening the dozen years I was in Colorado, but fall crops at 7000 feet wasn’t one of them. At that altitude on the edge of the plain, late summer is too hot and dry, and the soil doesn’t retain moisture, so watering doesn’t help. Then, fall lasts for about two weeks before a hard freeze inevitably kills everything.
Since returning home to Tennessee four years ago, and acquiring Fain-XX Farm two years ago, we’ve lacked the equipment to turn and till new ground. Additionally, the pandemic and inflation has prevented us from making the necessary acquisitions, but we’ve been pretty creative. The previous owners of Fain-XX Farm had horses and they left us a substantial amount of aged horse manure in the barn, excellent fertilizer. Filled with a layer of gravel from the creek for drainage, an ample layer of manure and topped with left over potting mix, a half-century old feed trough I rescued from the family homestead became a planter box for tomatoes, jalapenos and sweet peppers. We had some issues early on with blossom-end rot from a calcium deficiency in the planter mix, but I fixed that with some crushed oyster shell I feed to our hens. The peppers are still producing, but the tomatoes have run their course. Eight plants kept us supplied with fresh tomatoes all summer as well as enough for about a dozen pints of canned salsa with fresh jalapenos.
On the southeast corner of our home, a brick retaining wall terminates the addition of our garage and offers an elevated, triangular garden for our herbs. Thyme drapes over the tip of the planter like ropes over the bow of a ship. Greek oregano crawls across the bottom of the planter while sage, basil and lemon-balm bush out over six cucumber plants that drape over the brick wall in a cascade of bright green leaves and yellow blooms. Personally, I hate fresh cucumbers. I like pickles and relish, but I can’t even stand the smell of cucumbers. Jessica on the other hand, loves fresh cucumber so I grow them for her every year. In return, she makes killer relish to mix with her chunky salsa for a tasty topping over burgers and sammies… as a chips and cracker dip notwithstanding.
As often is the case, we can learn more from our failures. We had several volunteer pumpkins come up in a field next to our barn. Using some of last year’s firewood and old rotting fence post, I built a cradle to hold some of that straw bedding and manure then transplanted the best of the young plants to the cradle. At first, I thought I was going to have a bumper crop of pumpkins. The vines grew quickly, bursting out over the cradle walls blanketing the ground in broad leaves interspersed with spiky blooms opening to a bright yellow in the sun. But just as the first little bumps of a couple of pumpkins started to form, I noticed the vines were looking sickly and dying away. I watered if it didn’t rain, but the vines were still dying. I worried there was something in the manure or the straw. I wondered if the dogs were digging around or if rodents were gnawing at the roots or blossoms. I even imagined an interdimensional tunnel of rot running under the farm like in season two of Stranger Things because that is what looked to be attacking my vines. Though I found out too late, it turned out to be something more sinister than rodents, but not quite as fantastical as an interdimensional tunnel.
Squash bugs! Ghostly gray, disturbing little buggers, they gnaw into the vines, inject a toxin and then suck the sap right out of the plant, like the brain bug in Storm Troopers. I just noticed them two days ago as I was surveying the three underdeveloped pumpkins left in the middle of interlocking strands of wilting and rotting vines. The pumpkins appeared to have grown pale lumps on the outer skin. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the lumps were moving and they had legs. Less than five minutes later, I had them identified. These squash bugs are voracious. After devouring the vines, they turn to the fruit itself. If left untouched, I expect those three pumpkins will look a little like burnt orange prunes in a few days.
It is too late to do anything about the squash bugs this year, but next year, I’ll know what to do. It is tempting, however, to see if there are salvageable seed in those underdeveloped pumpkins and go ahead with a late crop this year. According to what I read, the squash bugs have run through their cycle for this year and not likely to harm Cucurbita plants this late in the year. We might be a little short on Jack-o-lanterns this year, but maybe we can still have some for fresh pumpkin pies.
Inherent to the challenge of a Homegrown Thanksgiving in 14 months is to prove that we can be self-sufficient beyond just one big feast.
Though we have developed creative ways to supplement our purchases of supermarket produce with a fresher variety, without a plow and tiller, we lacked the square footage of suitable planting ground for a more sizeable haul to store up for the winter. It was the desire to grow Brussels that finally led me to my epiphany. After cutting the drying tomato vines from the old trough, I decided I wanted to plant some greens, specifically Brussels sprouts. I pulled out my seed stores to see what kind of greens I still had. I’ve been storing seeds for years, partly because I find gardening to be essential therapy and partly because we used to purchase heirloom seeds wholesale to sell retail when we still had a shop in Colorado. As I previously mentioned, I never had much luck with Brussels; just never been in the right environment for it. As such, I still have at least a half-dozen unopened pouches of Brussels sprouts ready to get started. I also have cabbage, red cabbage, kale, collard greens, and a plethora of mustard greens, though I never really cared for mustard greens. I found Danvers carrots, parsnips, shallots and onions too. All the latter will overwinter nicely and might offer up some necessary fresh produce through the winter months. I once broke frozen ground in February in Colorado to dig up some of the sweetest carrots I ever tasted. If I can grow carrots in February in Colorado, I’m sure I can grow them over the winter here, but I still need the ground to put them in.
The trough, now devoid of gnarly tomato vines, was a good start, but even with its 7-foot long 18” deep tub, I wasn’t going to have much of a variety of greens. Still, a little more than a week ago, with pepper plants still dangling over the side, weighted by growing peppers, I planted Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower and some Glory of Enkhuizen cabbage that I will have to thin out to three or four heads because they are so large. For one large meal with family and friends, this trough might cradle more than enough greens, but inherent to the challenge of a Homegrown Thanksgiving in 14 months is to prove that we can be self-sufficient beyond just one big feast. I needed more raised beds, but if I was going to spend thousands of dollars on building materials, I might as well go into debt on a tractor and plow. Fain-XX Farm has plenty of wooded space with invasive species like the princess tree, tree of heaven, and Chinese privet I could take down to make log cribs, but that would take weeks of back breaking work. That might be a good plan for end of winter to get ready for spring planting, but I needed something much easier and much quicker for now, and that is when it donned on me, hay bales!
When we had a primitive shop in Colorado, I sold seeds and gardening materials and taught a few classes on straw bale gardening. I’m sure most think of Colorado as a wild country of wide-open spaces, fast moving streams teeming with trout, and massive, gray mountains rising to the heavens. That is in fact an accurate description, but only because the vast majority of the population of the state are squeezed into within about 10 miles of the I-25 corridor from the southern border with New Mexico to the northern border with Wyoming. The average Coloradan has a deck or patio, then about 30’ of back yard before the privacy fence they share with their neighbors. With a couple bales of straw, and a commitment to water every day, because Colorado is dry, any Colorado urbanite can have fresh tomatoes, beans, greens and etc.
I certainly did not want a bunch of straw bales scattered all over the yard with stuff growing out of them, and it wouldn’t be a very economical solution either — once I purchased all the straw bales, but it did lead me to remember that our barn loft had quite a substantial amount of old, leftover square hay bales.
I should mention here that hay bales are not a good substitute for straw bale gardens. This following article does a good job of explaining the difference between hay and straw, Using Straw vs Hay in the Garden: Which is Ideal for What Purpose? — Garden and Happy. The simplest reason to use straw over hay is that hay generally has lots of seeds while straw does not.
I would never try to garden in haybales anyway, though these bales were likely old and dead, but if I stacked them end to end, I could build a rather large, elevated planting bed, fill it with the ample material and get seeds in the ground before the first of September. Easy, right?
On August 31, exactly one week before the anniversary of my first COVID experience, the virus decided to hop on board for another ride. Fortunately, it isn’t as bad this year and I got out in front of it this time, but it slowed me down considerably, nevertheless. I have enough hay bales for at least two planters. I wanted to get both built and planted by the first. As it was, I managed to get one built and seeds planted on September 3.
The first thing in the dirt was two kinds of Brussels sprouts followed by broccoli, cauliflower, and celery. I had one pouch of leaf lettuce, some kale, collards and three kinds of cabbage before ending the column in onions, carrots, and parsnips. Depending on weather and the course of this virus, I may try to build one more box for some squash and pumpkins. After all, a steaming pot of spicy butternut squash soup when the cold weather starts rolling in, sounds pretty good.
For the sake of sharing the best tasting Brussels sprouts ever, I’ve annotated the instructions for this recipe as Jessica makes them under normal circumstances.
Because anybody who has ever broke bread with us demands it, I’m certain that Jessica’s Brussels sprouts will be a featured dish for Homegrown Thanksgiving ‘23 as it has for nearly every previous Thanksgiving. The reader will note, however, that some of the ingredients may not be attainable under the stipulations of “homegrown” for Homegrown Thanksgiving ‘23. This is the first recipe we are adding to this documented challenge, so we still have 14 months to work it out, but Jessica and I are already discussing possible substitutions as well clarifying the rules. More on that after the recipe.
Cook bacon to crispy, not burned. Drain grease and retain about 4 tbsp of bacon grease.
Clean, cut off the ends, then quarter the Brussels sprouts.
Place in a pan (seasoned cast iron is best) with bacon grease and olive oil and fry over medium heat for 5 minutes.
Add in balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and seasonings.
Turn down the heat and let simmer in sauce for about 5 minutes.
Cover and leave on low heat, turning the mix frequently for about 15 minutes until sprouts are tender and bright green.
Add in Cranberries, Pecans and crumbled bacon.
Stir, recap and leave on low heat until ready to serve.
Sprinkle with fresh ground Parmesan cheese (optional)
It is, but this recipe presents us with some concerns if we follow the principles of the Homegrown Thanksgiving ‘23 to prepare a Thanksgiving meal “made entirely of food and ingredients grown, harvested, hunted and produced right here on Fain-XX Farm,” as indicated in the Homegrown Thanksgiving ’23 — Introduction to the Challenge.
The first concern is bacon. Bacon is certainly something that can easily be procured on the farm — if I wanted to raise pigs, which I do not. We have discussed raising goats, especially for milk, and there is goat bacon, but not sure we will be ready to harvest a Billy by Thanksgiving 2023. Dark turkey meat, giblets, liver and heart fried up crispy might offer a strong flavor to substitute for bacon, as might a squirrel or a dove. I don’t think there are wild boar in these parts, but as long as I’m thinking about game, I suppose venison will work too.
Finally, on the topic of bacon, we are considering an old-fashioned barter agreement. If we can locate and establish a relationship with a local farmer that does raise pigs for meat, perhaps we can perform a trade of goods, something we produce for something he produces. It’s a thought.
Next, I’m not raising olives in East Tennessee, and I don’t have an olive press if I could. Truly, the olive oil can be left out entirely. If we aren’t able to use bacon or some other fatty meat that produces grease, we can always add a stick of butter that we will make on the farm.
| Author Notes | As I go back and look at these early editions of HGTG23, I'm able to add some updates. The squash, carrots, parsnips and most of the greens did not make it due to an exceptionally early Frost, Oct 6. We did manage to harvest a substantial amount of leafy greens from the Brussels though the individual heads just did not have enough time to form. In the empty hay bale planters I scattered rye and barley and now as we enter June, I have a prolific stand of both. |
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