Deckle Edge Farm

12/06/2024

Good morning farm friends - we have updated our online farm stand with our full line of products, including holiday gift baskets! We are offering delivery rates for orders over $35, but of course you are always welcome to pick up orders and visit for a bit with the chickens and goats😀

Click here to visit our online farm stand:

12/02/2024

I wanted to give y'all a little insight into what we've learned cooking sorghum cane syrup this fall so that you can see what goes into the process! We press the stalks of cane and can feed the pressed cane to livestock if it hasn't frozen yet, because once it freezes it isn't good for them.

We strain the juice before putting it into the pot to get out bits of pressings, and then as the juice heats the chlorophyll starts to coagulate, especially between 150 and 200 degrees. It is important to constantly skim this off as leaving it in will result in a bitter syrup. We turn the heat down a little to keep the temp around 200 until it has stopped forming, because if you turn it up to a boil that will just stir the coagulation back in.

Next we turn the temp up and also fire up the copper pot. As both pots start to boil something in the copper reacts with the juice and makes even more chlorophyll coagulate to the top! As both pots boil down we transfer liquid from the big pot down into the smaller one, and eventually end up with one copper pan full of syrup.

Because we started with 25 gallons of juice and are now down to just over 2 gallons, a different kind of foam starts to happen - it's almost like melted marshmallows! We skim this off and keep it for ourselves - this foam will eventually settle into a stronger syrup than most folks would like to eat, but farm boy Colin loves it!

We know the full kettle of syrup is done because there are a few indicators - the temperature raises to about 227 or 228, it gets thick and coats the back of a spoon even when hot, "frogs eye" bubbles start to form, and we can use a refractometer to measure the brix. We're looking for about 74 brix, and this syrup is right on the money!

11/30/2024

Sometimes folks ask us if we are planning to grow crops like citrus or sugarcane. That's when I have to explain that Cedar Creek is a special place in the midlands, a cool microclimate that can make it difficult to grow the semi-tropical plants we often associate with this part of SC and heading down to the coast! We are also prone to late spring freezes which are detrimental to blueberries! Sometimes we are more like the foothills, and we like it that way.

11/29/2024

We are boiling down some sorghum syrup today to have for sale next Saturday, come on out!

11/29/2024

Today we are boiling down the last of the sorghum juice from our test patch, and should have about 30 jars of dark syrup available for the holidays! I will add them to our website this weekend if you want to order some for pick up or delivery!

Https://www.deckleeedge.farm

11/23/2024

11/22/2024

While our logo might be blackberries, they are only one of the many crops we hope to grow for the local community. More than 2/3rds of our land is hardwood forest, and one of the best things to grow when you have lots of oak trees is mushrooms. We are currently inoculating logs with oyster and shiitake sawdust spawn and will have them available for purchase at the holiday markets we are attending so you can try your hand at growing your own!

11/16/2024

We are looking forward to joining some wonderful artisans for the holiday market at One Hubcap Farm, LLC on December 7! Come out to see us and pick up some of our farm-made preserves or FabelFarms honey for stocking stuffers.

11/13/2024

Thank you FabelFarms for helping us plant the first phase of our future fig u pick! We have been nourishing these plants in pots since early summer and are glad to get them into the ground for some fall root growth.

We have 30 fig trees in many different varieties, including the southern favorite Brown Turkey, as well as some exotics such as Violette de Bordeaux, Exquisito, Olympian, Maltese Black, Brooklyn White, Colonel Littman's Black Cross, and others. We can't wait to share all the delicious flavors with you in the future!

11/11/2024

We are proud to announce that we have a limited amount of pure sorghum syrup available for sale at the last few Blythewood Farmers Market dates! This was a trial crop for us and we plan on growing a lot more next year using the knowledge and experience we have gained. Grown, harvested, pressed, and cooked into a delicious dark syrup right here in Blythewood, SC.

10/08/2024

If you are fleeing hurricane Milton or know folks who are, we and farmer friends of ours have land and spaces for tent campers or RVs. Please message or call 803-608-3934 if in need.

09/04/2024

We had a great homeschool farm morning on Tuesday and are looking forward to the 10th for our next one! We learned about blackberries, chickens, goats, and looked at wild mushrooms!

08/12/2024

We were visited this morning by an eastern tiger swallowtail, the state butterfly of SC!

07/29/2024

For July 25th, we printed Christmas cards - message me if you are interested in purchasing some for the holiday season!

07/24/2024

Now that berry season is slowing down, we are shifting gears to work on infrastructure projects, such as trellising and getting ready to plant new perennial crops.

On the days when it is still super hot, however, we are happy to announce that we will now be making farm-related letterpress greeting cards! While other argritourism farms might spend their marketing budget on flashy websites or even billboards, we do things a little bit differently around here: we create each design ourselves, lay out individual letters of type, and print them by hand! I will have some of these Keep Calm & FARM On cards at the Blythewood Farmers Market today and you can always message us if you would like to buy some - $4 each!

We have lots of farm-related greeting card ideas, but if you have some suggestions please put them in the comments - if we like it enough to print we will give you 5 free greeting cards with your suggestion on it!

07/20/2024

We are closed for u-pick today, and probably most of next week, due to inclement weather. Will keep you all posted on the ripening of the second crop and hopefully we will be able to open in a couple weeks for some more berry goodness!