A Homegrown Weekend on Long Island

The Long Island Apple Festival - Sunday, September 23rd @ Sherwood-Jayne Farm in East Setauket

Just want to let folks know about a couple local (Long Island) Homegrown String Band shows coming up this weekend. On Friday, September 21, 2012, Erica, Georgianne, and I will be performing as a trio at the Levittown Library Coffeehouse Concert Series. The show starts at 7:30 pm. "Light refreshments served in a cabaret atmosphere" Call ahead to reserve free tickets.

Levittown Public Library

1 Bluegrass Lane

Levittown, NY 11756

(516) 731-5728

On Sunday, September 23, 2012, the full band (including "The Amazing Annalee) will be returning to Long Island's premier apple festival at the Sherwood-Jayne Farm in East Setauket. We will be splitting the bill with Larry Moser and Mary Nagin. The music, along with many other activities, will be going on all day from 12 noon to 4 pm.

Sherwood-Jayne Farm

55 Old Post Road

East Setauket, NY

631-692-4664  

Sheep and Fiber Festival

Hunterdon County Fairgrounds

9AM - 5PM  September 8 - 9, 2012

This weekend Georgianne and I will once again be taking our Homegrown Two show on the road as we assume the role of wandering minstrels at the Garden State Sheep Breeders 18th Annual Sheep and Fiber Festival. We will be entertaining the visitors, vendors, sheep, and alpacas as we roam from barn to barn playing acoustic American music on guitar, dulcimer, harmonica, banjo-uke, doumbek, and banjo. We did this last year and had a lot of fun; there is so much going on, including sheep shearing and sheep dog herding demonstrations, a parade of breeds, sheep and fleece competitions, spinning and knitting workshops, and much more.

Erica and Annalee won't be performing, but they will be there as vendors "manning" (womaning?) our tables stocked with Erica's hand dyed yarn and knitting patterns, Annalee's hancrafted soaps, Georgianne's copper, brass, and aluminum shawl pins, and my Navajo spindles, copper bowls, and wooden spoons.

Come on out and check out this wonderful festival. If you have any interest in, or curiosity about, animal husbandry or any facet of fiber arts you are in for an enoyable day.

Hunterdon County Fairgrounds

Routes 202 & 179

Ringoes, New Jersey

We had a great time at the NJ Sheep Breeders 18th Annual Sheep & Fiber Festival. A big thanks to all the peeps and sheeps who made it possible.

Citico: An Oldtime Fiddle Tune

I was just listening to some of our old recordings. I had forgotten about this one. It is an oldtime fiddle tune played in an open tuning. This was recorded in July of 2000. Erica had just learned this tune a couple days earlier from fiddler Bruce Molsky who was passing through and took time to give a few private lessons. She was fifteen years old at the time. It's one fiddle recorded live no overdubbing.

Ed Pressnell: Dulcimer Maker

Photo by Paul Macatee

Georgianne usually plays her dulcimer on a song or two in each of our Homegrown String Band sets. She received her first mountain dulcimer as a fifteenth wedding anniversary present, from yours truly, in 1994. Over the years she has developed her own unique chording style that fits in well with the band and gets a more featured role in our Homegrown Two duo shows.

The Appalachian dulcimer is a type of zither developed and popularized by folk musicians from the southern Appalachian region of the United States. This unique instrument owes much of its beauty, both visual and musical, to its elegant simplicity. Audience members are often fascinated by the look and sound of this traditional American folk instrument.

Here's a short film profiling traditional dulcimer builder Ed Pressnell, produced by Thomas Burton and Jack Schrader in 1973.

Putnam County 4H Fair

Our Homegrown Two show in Herald Square scheduled for this afternoon has been canceled because the threat of thunder and lightning was just too frightening. Hopefully we will be able to reschedule another date later this summer.

The full band will be performing two sets this Sunday at The Shady Grove Ampitheater on the grounds of the Putnam County 4H Fair in Carmel , NY. Our sets are at 1:00 and 3:00 pm. We will be sharing the stage with other local, regional, and nationally known performers. Music runs from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm.

Putnam County Veterans Memorial Park

201 Gipsy Trail Rd.

Carmel, NY 10512

Summer Tails and Tales from the Garden and the Road

Strange Tail from the Homegrown String Band Garden

Well, we are deep into summer now. The garlic is cured and the tomatoes, including this funky little plum tomato with a tail, are making their way to the dinner table.

The band just got back from a hot trip to Delaware and the Jersey Coast. We played a concert at Stango Park in Lewes, DE, on Tuesday and another in Ocean City, NJ, the following day. On Tuesday afternoon in Dover, DE, where we spent the night, the mercury hit 107 degrees. By the time we took the stage in Stango Park that evening the temperature had dropped to a "comfortable" 98 degrees. It really wasn't too bad, we were well shaded and there was a nice sea breeze coming off the ocean. The audience and concert presenters in Lewes were a pleasure, as always. In Ocean City we played to a lively audience in a nice theater style room located in the library section of the Ocean City Community Center, which also houses a cafe, a museum, an art gallery/studio, and a fitness center.

This Friday, July 27th, Georgianne and I will be doing a Homegrown Two show in Herald Square Park at 35th Street and 6th Avenue in NYC. It's a free lunch time concert in the park and runs from 12:30 to 1:30. On Sunday, July 29th, The Homegrown String Band will be doing two sets at "The Shady Grove Theater" during the Putnam County Fair at the Putnam County Veterans Memorial Park in Carmel, NY. Our set times are 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm.

Photo by Rick Jackofsky

Ophio Garlic Harvest 2012

2012 Garlic Harvest photo by Rick Jackofsky

Our show at the Ossie Davis Theater last night went very well, and I'd like to thank everyone who came out on a holiday night to see The Homegrown String Band in action. I hope you all had as much fun as we did.

I harvested my garlic today, about a week earlier than I had planned. We had a very warm winter this year and I'm not sure if that helped or hurt the garlic. We harvested our garlic scapes three or four weeks ago. This year, I lost about 10% of my crop to some sort of root rot and the 90 bulbs I dug up today were all small to medium size. People often ask me when they should harvest their hard necked (ophio) garlic. I usually go with the rule of thumb (green thumb, of course!) that you should harvest when half of the leaves have turned yellow. The remaining green leaves represent the layers of protective "paper" that will protect the garlic during curing and winter storage. If you let all the leaves die back there will be no paper wrapping the bulbs. You also run the risk of the heads over ripening and beginning to open up, which creates an opening for moisture and disease that will drastically shorten the storage life of your garlic. We were eating garlic from last year's harvest into March this year. Another thing to remember when harvesting garlic is that you should never harvest from wet ground. I usually stop watering my garlic patch a week or two before I plan on harvesting. Now I will dust off the loose dirt and cull out any damaged heads, which we will use uncured, then I'll let the rest of the garlic cure in a cool, dry, well ventilated area (our kitchen) for about two to four weeks. At that point, I will cut off the tops, trim the roots, take off the outside layer of dirty paper, and store the bulbs in mesh bags in our basement. When we perform at the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival in September I will try to find some garlic with bigger cloves to use as seed garlic for my fall planting. If not I will pick the biggest cloves from my harvest; "plant the best and eat the rest!"