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Black Dog Acre Farm, King William, VA (2026)

08/29/2025

Peppers coming to West Point tomorrow!!

I'll have jalapeños, habaneros, shish*tos, and maybe a few green bell peppers 🌶🫑

And I'd like to show off this little pepper box I built today! Folks often ask if they can buy just one or two jalapeños instead of a carton of them, so I built this to offer mix and match peppers

08/06/2025

Hummingbirds are a beloved part of our farm ecosystem, and I especially enjoy them because we have an actual friendship

I've been putting out a hummingbird feeder for 4 years now, and they've become accustomed to being waited on, so when the feeder goes empty the hummingbirds come find me!

This little lady was drinking nectar from a rosemary flower earlier, but she was having some trouble since the flowers are so tiny. So now she's on the porch, pestering me to refill the feeder

The same hummingbirds come back to our area each spring and they remember us; if they get here before I've put the feeder out for the year, they will buzz around in front of our dining room windows looking for us!

Its really special to be able to do what I do, and interact with nature so closely 💕

07/19/2025

Nightlife on the farm!

This tree frog's throat appears to be stuck puffed out, maybe he got stung or bit by something he tried to eat?

This gigantic moth is a five-spotted hawk moth... this is what tomato hornworms turn into!

And this is our cat, Cider. She doesn't get much screen time, it is Black DOG Acre Farm after all....

We keep our two cats inside because we want to keep them and our wild birds safe. Cider is our chief of bug management though; if a bug breaches the boundary, she will catch it and eat it promptly. She also specializes in catching the rare mouse or lizard that finds its way in our house

Tonight she is hanging out in the living room, anticipating any bugs that might sneak in when I open the door

07/14/2025

This year I've become interested in biodiversity. Did you know bird and insect populations are declining? Its estimated that we've lost 45% of insects in the last 40 years, and roughly 1 in 4 birds have disappeared since 1970!

You might call me a delusional optimist; I decided to personally do something about it!

Starting with birds, (bird watching is easier and more popular than insect watching) I'm paying attention to the species we have on the farm, and what we can do for them

First step: identifying birds. I'm new to this, but Cornell Ornithology Lab has a couple helpful apps. Merlin is an incredible ID app that listens to bird songs and tells you what birds are nearby, in addition to visual identification. eBird is their app for tracking birds; you can log bird sightings and provide data on bird populations. Citizen science! 👩‍🔬

I've identified several birds on the farm: chipping sparrow, barred owl, red tailed hawk, scarlet tanager, mourning dove

I noted the Merlin app heard goldfinches nearby, so I put up a bird feeder with their favorite food: thistle seed. Soon, I saw our first goldfinch!

Today I walked past this old rabbit hutch, and I discovered this adorable nest of carolina wrens! And I spotted their mom grabbing a cabbageworm off my kale this morning 🐛

My favorite bird that we've welcomed is the chimney swift. This spring our chimney cap blew off, and swifts moved in before I could replace it. In the past I would have freaked out, but I want to help birds so I researched chimney swifts. These funny little birds have special feet that can only grip vertical surfaces, so they nest in chimneys and large hollow trees. I also learned that a swift family can eat 5,000 insects per day, including mosquitoes!

Unfortunately they are losing habitat; there's fewer old forests, and chimneys are less common with homes having central air. So we're embracing our chimney swifts!

And if we're good landlords, they may come back next year!

I know y'all are here for veggie content, but I hope I can encourage some awareness for our native wildlife. Healthy food comes from a healthy ecosystem!

07/06/2025

This Friday, I went out in the morning to harvest chard and discovered one of my most annoying pests... blister beetles!

These guys irritate me more than anything because they sneak up on me. I know there's going to be cabbage worms on the cabbage and hornworms on the tomatoes. But blister beetles show up one day between July and August, and they will eat anything, so I never know where I'll find them. Last year they were in my kale, and the year before it was the tomatoes. This year they moved into the chard and started chomping away!

Blister beetles aren't picky about which plants they eat, but they like to hide in w**dy overgrown areas, so it feels kind of personal when summer has just started and I'm starting to become overwhelmed with w**ding, and the beetles move in. Its like they're saying to me, "hey you missed a spot!"

They're also at the top of my list of hated pests because they have a big set of jaws and if I reach in to harvest a leaf of chard and accidentally grab a beetle, they'll give me a good little nip. And they're called blister beetles because their bite includes a toxin that causes a blister! 😖

Luckily, blister beetles show up for a short little while, remind you to w**d your garden, and then they move on. So I spent this weekend tidying up the chard and mowing the grass extra short around the garden edges. You can see my before an after- big difference! And maybe next year I'll learn my lesson and get everything w**ded before we get to July

07/04/2025

Happy 4th of July from Black Dog Acre Farm! I hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday 🎆🇺🇸

But don't sleep in and miss the West Point Farmers Market tomorrow! 8am to noon!

06/30/2025

Sweaty day in the woods today!

I wanted to share how our new farm is coming along!

2nd pic is how it looked the first day we visited, almost two years ago. Nearly eight acres of dense, untraversable young pine forest; the result of being clear cut for lumber about 10 years ago. The three stumps in the front are the first trees I cut down!

3rd pic is July of last year. This was when I was off work recovering from surgery and I wasn't allowed to lift heavy things but I could walk as much as I wanted, so I started walking the dogs to the property several times a week to cut some of the smaller trees and brush. I started to let some sunlight in and mark the area for my first growing space. And you can see those same three stumps at the bottom!

4th pic is today! I'm halfway done with the first bed, and have started to amend the soil. I planted some squash as a trial to see how they grow... and there's a few volunteer tomato plants from the compost I brought over from the house. This first block of growing space will eventually have 5 beds, 200 square feet each. You can see the start of the second and third bed in the background!

And lastly, I wanted to share this teeny tiny frog I found 🥺

Later on I'll share some of the sketches I've drawn up, and more of the plan for the farm overall... How I'm planning to make it a place to grow food but also support biodiversity and make habitat for important local wildlife

06/29/2025

This is one of my quickest week night dinners, so quick in fact that I forgot to post it this last week, and almost forgot to even take a photo 📸

This is a turkey and kale melt! Sandwich bread, swiss cheese, deli turkey, bacon, and a big heap of chopped up kale... the kale will wilt down so put more than you think you need! Spread butter on the top and bottom, and grill it in a pan like a grilled cheese 🥪

Tip: I put cheese on the top and bottom, so it melts and holds everything together

Sometimes I spread mustard or mayo on the inside when I assemble the sandwiches, and sometimes I skip the condiments and we dip our sandwiches in some jalapeño ranch

You can make this as a dinner and have a simple side dish with it, for example chips, fruit, or some roasted carrot fries. You could also just have the sandwiches and make it a lunch! One of our favorite things is to let them cool a little bit, and wrap them up.... so we can take our dinner to go and do some weeknight fishing in the evening 🎣

These are very versatile too, you can add or substitute almost anything you like or have! For example: chopped up leftover chicken instead of deli turkey, a hamburger bun instead of sliced bread, or some bell pepper slices along with the kale... its the ultimate, whatever you have, easy fast meal

And that's it for our week of eating our leftover produce! Let me know if you were inspired to try something new!

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06/26/2025

I'm mostly staying out of the garden this week... its too hot for me and its too hot for the plants! They don't want to be disturbed while they struggle through this heat ☀️

I wanted to share a couple photos though:
1) Our first couple paprika peppers! These went into the dehydrator to make paprika powder 🌶
2) Just a photo of some of my garden this morning before it gets hot and everything looks like it's dying 😅
3) I planted a little block of sweet corn, I don't know if we'll get any since we've been unsuccessful in the past. But I keep trying! This week I got the idea to try grass clippings as mulch, so you can see my corn all tucked in under a blanket of grass clippings 🌽

And lastly, I wanted to shout out Grower's Paradise in Mechanicsville! I was in their store the other week picking up some fertilizers and soil, and I asked if they had Alaska Fish Fertilizer

They put in an order of it and had it on the shelf in two weeks!

I really love having a local store where I can pick up a lot of the things I use regularly. I can order them online but then I have to wait on shipping, and I've had a lot of problems this year with liquid products arriving leaking and almost empty, and Amazon sellers advertising an organic product but sending me a completely different product that's not organic. I prefer shopping in person!

If you do any gardening yourself, I recommend checking them out. And I recommend buying the fish fertilizer! Its stinky but its really good stuff

06/26/2025

Tonight's dinner! This is what we call "salmon bowls," its my take on Korean bibimbap, and I make it almost every week

So we've got a bowl of what I call "kale rice," topped with a pan fried salmon filet and Korean marinated cucumber salad with my leftover cukes. My bowl has homemade kimchi that I made year before last with my homegrown cabbages; Patrick doesn't like kimchi so I put some sautéed carrots in his instead. And garnished with sesame seeds and my leftover green onions ✨️

Looks fancy, but it takes less than 30 minutes!

Now if you're not a fan of Korean food, don't scroll away too fast! You can use different vegetables and seasonings and make this many different ways

My main trick: the kale rice. Its just chopped kale added in with rice and water in a rice cooker. Its a quick and easy way to eat your veggies and use up leftover kale 🥬

Some of the salmon and veggie variations I've tried:
- Lemon pepper salmon with roasted brussel sprouts 🍋
- Honey marinated salmon with a Greek dill and cucumber salad 🥒
- Baked salmon and cherry tomatoes with Italian seasoned green beans 🍅

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06/23/2025

Tonight I made pork chops with a mushroom and onion gravy, and we had my leftover swiss chard on the side

I always get questions about how to cook chard, so here's my method:

Cut the whole bunch of chard in one inch pieces, but keep the stems and leaves separate. Sauté the stems first on medium with a little bit of oil or butter. Add some garlic, salt, and pepper. When the stems are soft, add the leaves to the pan and a drizzle of lemon juice. Cook for another minute or two and serve!

If you want to make it a little more fancy, you can top it with some crumbled bacon or parmesan cheese (or both even!)

This is my favorite side dish because it only takes about 10 minutes 😊

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06/21/2025

I get a lot of questions at the market about how to cook the veggies I grow, so I thought I would take y'all through a week of eating our leftover produce!

Today, Patrick made homemade gyoza dumplings with ground pork, chinese cabbage, and my leftover green onions. I helped fold some of them!

We made enough to cover a whole baking sheet, and we fried a couple up to try (they were delicious), and froze the rest. We like to have these in the freezer for a small lunch or snack, or sometimes we have a plate of them for dinner with a soy dipping sauce, and a bowl of miso soup with fresh kale added in 🥟🥬🥣

We normally buy a bag of these from the frozen section of our favorite international grocery store; this was our first time making them ourselves. The folds look intimidating, but it was surprisingly easy! We watched a couple techniques on YouTube and we were off to the races

And don't worry, I will be sharing a variety of meals! We tend to make things that are more complex on the weekends, and when we get into the weekdays I'll share some of my quick work day dinner tricks ✨️

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Black Dog Acre Farm

08/29/2025

08/06/2025

07/19/2025

07/14/2025

07/06/2025

07/04/2025

06/30/2025

06/29/2025

06/26/2025

06/26/2025

06/23/2025

06/21/2025

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