Deckle Edge Farm

02/06/2025

Old Blue is back together again! Over the past week and a half we have: replaced the entire cooling system including radiator, hoses, pump, and thermostat; installed new injectors and replaced the fuel return lines; rebuild the injector pump with new seals; replaced the valve cover and oil pan gaskets; cleaned and rebuilt the air intake system; and replaced the seals and o rings in the top lid hydraulic system!

Time to install the rest of the vineyard posts!

02/02/2025

Newborn kid alert! Everybody meet Mark, who arrived last night around 11pm. Once we are sure he has a strong start we will begin booking birthday parties - we'll either come to you, or you rent the party barn FabelFarms and ask for Mark to make an appearance!

01/28/2025

This week and the next we are taking a break from working on the muscadine vineyard to work on our tractor - old blue started overheating, and while we have it apart are fixing what we can! One reason we like old machines is that they are usually pretty simple to repair. The hardest thing we are going to attempt this go around is replacing gaskets and seals in the injector pump!

01/10/2025

If you've been to our farm to pick berries, you know that we have a lot of big trees - some of our pines are almost 200' tall and nearly 3' diameter at the base! As we have been clearing out for new farm projects - including a muscadine vineyard - we have been carefully felling trees full of valuable lumber. We also lost some big hardwoods to hurricane Helene and we don't want to just turn those into firewood for the wood stove.

We are happy to announce that to make the most of this forest bounty, we have ordered a Turbosawmill from New Zealand, and beginning late spring will offer rough sawn lumber and custom sawing! These swing blade sawmills are capable of quickly producing very accurate dimensional lumber and boards: we will be able to offer sizes up to 8"x8", including 1x6, 1x8, 2x6, 2x8, etc.

One of the most exciting things about this mill is that we will also be able to produce weatherboard siding! All of our lumber will have the classic circle-saw look, as opposed to modern band-sawn lumber. Once we have it set up, running, and tuned, we will be milling a LOT of wood and selling it at very reasonable prices!

12/25/2024

Merry Christmas Eve: from our family to yours, we hope this season is filled with joy.

We spent today harvesting cedar logs for vineyard posts and look forward to sharing pictures of our progress soon!

12/14/2024

Come see us today at holiday pop up market in Irmo today from noon to 5!

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.