Frog Log

Frog Holler seedlings ready to grow ! "Locavore" was chosen by the New Oxford American Dictionary as the word of the year in 2007. The narrowest definition of a locavore would be a person who seeks out locally produced food. And the most local food would be right out your back door, or in your nearby Project Grow garden! So unleash your inner locavore and come see us at the Ann Arbor Farmer's Market for an enticing array of organically grown seedlings to get your garden off to an early start. We will be selling seedlings starting Saturday, April 10, and continue through mid-June. Sure, it's early, but Spring has been warm and many cool weather crops would be very happy to spread their leaves right now. Home gardeners don't need a Word of the Year to acknowledge what they have known for generations. Home-grown produce is the freshest, tastiest, most nutritious and usually most cost-effective food to put on your table. A Square-Foot Garden, a Lasagna Garden, a herb ...

I am a farmer, and I fear that my words will sound rustic and plain when I try to speak about our world situation. It is complex, experts say, and dangerous too, no fit subject for a tiller of the soil. And yet I have watched things grow, bear fruit and die under many circumstances and have come to believe that the health of my little garden and the health of this world bear a relationship stronger than analogical. - Ken King, found writing Wendell Berry and Ken King never met; it's uncertain if Ken even read any of Berry's writing. Yet both men, deep thinkers and lifelong "tillers of the soil," drew a resonant guidance from living and working in tune with nature's cycles. Berry published many thoughtful volumes of poetry and essays; Ken has left us provocative snippets. Each man, in his own way, expresses a wisdom inextricably tied to the "simple" act of working the land, and succeeding when working with nature. Berry's concern, in his essay, Life ...

Ken King, founder of Frog Holler Farm, passed away last year. A deeply thoughtful man, Ken left essays, fragments, poems behind - most unpublished - and many inspirational. Here is the introduction to what was apparently the start of a book. As Cathy and Ken & Cathy's sons - Billy, Kenny and Edwin - contemplate this new season without Ken's physical presence, these words provide a reminder of the basic ideals that always informed Ken's vision and actions; they also provide guidance for the choices that lie ahead. Untitled, by Ken King It is the last day of 2003. The seed catalogs have arrived, and tomorrow morning I will begin to look them over. As the process begins of contemplating the upcoming gardening year, the basic question always arises: Apart from the relative successes and failures of past years - good crops, poor crops, good or bad soil management, right or wrong seed selections, smart or not-so-smart marketing of plants and produce - apart from the purely...

Mulching the new strawberry patch - Check! And mulching the second strawberry patch - Check! Garlic mulched - check! Straw in my pockets - check!

Confetti leaves! Planting garlic. Spreading manure, hardhat in place. Kale palm trees. Spinach off to market. Hey, that's my crew lookin' mighty fine! Okay, Spike, not now, I need to get this posted.. Post "Hollerween" revelers. Drying calendulas, raspberry leaves, rose hips. Painting the house... green! An' I do approve of that color! Spike!! Can it! Oops, sorry, I mean please be quiet, this is my post! The new kitty.. awwww. ( An' just exackly what does this have to do with gardening I might ask...) Okay, Spike, I give up, you can have the next post!

yeah, as in Frost - oooo scary! Spike Spinach still here, but sometimes I wonder how long I can stick around this place after what I saw last week. Okay, so they gets this Frost warning and they starts runnin' around like th' sky was fallin'. They start pullin' out all this crazy cover stuff and it looks like they was trying to wrap up the whole blinkin' farm! Well, almost the whole farm - they did not, I am proud to say, need to put even a shred of pro-tective type cover stuff on my crew in the spinach patch. Here's the proof - and they's comin' along nicely - rain, shine or F! What the frog farmers seemed most worried about was, you guessed it, the pampered darlin's of this here spread - the lettuce patch. Now we been here before when I had to witness the embarrassin' lengths they go to in the spring to keep ther preshus poppets all warm and cozy.(May 15, 2008 Frog Log if ya want a little helpful educashun) But man, like them plants is all gr...

Yeah, Spike here. I'm back. Me n' frog lady been arguin' 'bout who's writin' this here blah blah blahg. She's all hepped up 'bout some festival here and some award there, and like I say hey - ain't there some farmin' to do around here?? Sometimes she seems mighty dee-stracted. An' I checked out that little festival of hers. Wasn't nobody around at the gardens so thought I'd better see what was up. Hitched a ride with this guy walkin' down the road. He was headed over to the food line so I jumped off before I found myself in a servin' bowl!They was dishin' it up as fast as they could - and lots of it! Downright dangerous - I didn't stick around. I tried to scope out the rest of the scene but man, it just wasn't safe around there! There was this green giant sort of stompin' around. I had to jump outta the way a couple times. I didn't get it myself but people seemed to like her - or it. So to save myself I hea...