Firefly Hill Farm

Firefly Hill Farm Firefly Hill Farm is a small organic farm using regenerative practices. We don’t have a public store.

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Don’t forget to cook your edamame- our appetizer tonight. So good! Washed in pod, Boiled in very salty water 4 1/2 minut...
08/26/2025

Don’t forget to cook your edamame- our appetizer tonight. So good!

Washed in pod, Boiled in very salty water 4 1/2 minutes; Cooled a little by running cold water over colander; drip dried then dried a little more on a dish towel; liberally sprinkled kosher salt.

It sure feels like fall with these cool nights and school buses on the roads - and the next to last Firefly Hill Farm ve...
08/24/2025

It sure feels like fall with these cool nights and school buses on the roads - and the next to last Firefly Hill Farm veggie bag.

Some penultimate bag excitement - the aforementioned edamame and our biggest corn harvest of the year! The 2nd to last bag has a few more surprises- with 12 things and 17 pounds there’s a lot to “unpack”

Here’s the rundown
1. Edamame - I posted about it yesterday if you missed it. A favorite of ours we thought might not make it this year
2. Corn! I was very premature in warning you guys we might not get corn this year. Our last planting was our most abundant
3. Purple beans - new debut - they turn a dark green when you cook them
4. Kale is back for a final appearance
5. Lettuce is hangin in there 😀
6. Cucumber - surprise! - thought they were done
7. Tomatoes- this may be then end of them
8. Cherry tomatoes - ditto . .. we’ll see
9. Peppers - excited to see enough red bells to have most of you get at least one.
10. Yellow potatoes (Yukon gold type- a variety we love called Satina)
11. Onions
12. Garlic

Filled the table! And the corn couldn’t fit in the regular bag so I’ll give it to you separately- don’t let me forget!

Yes, this does mean the last bag is next week! I can’t believe it’s already here.

But for now this should keep you busy!

In most great bingeable series the next to last episode - the penultimate episode - has a surprising twist. Our penultim...
08/23/2025

In most great bingeable series the next to last episode - the penultimate episode - has a surprising twist. Our penultimate bag’s big surprise is edamame! After some difficulty getting it going due to somebody eating the bean sprouts, we persevered and are rewarded with one of our favorite humble veggie.

As many of you probably know, edamame is just fresh soybeans - they are more and more available these days but fresh from the garden they’re even better!

Our favorite way to cook them is boil them (in the pod) in salty water for just a few minutes and then sprinkled with coarse salt. (Don’t skimp on the salt)

https://simplegreensmoothies.com/how-to-make-edamame/

But there are lots of other methods too … roasting, dips and there supposed to be good for your health too.

https://www.thespruceeats.com/how-to-cook-edamame-2217370

So maybe not as exciting as Game of Thrones red wedding but it’s exciting to us! Edamame will be one of the stars of the penultimate bag.

With schools starting up again or getting ready to start soon, back to school vibes are in the air! Our bag to celebrate...
08/17/2025

With schools starting up again or getting ready to start soon, back to school vibes are in the air! Our bag to celebrate back-to-school has our favorite “surprise“. For the last few years we’ve tried to grow watermelon away from the bugs…we never broadcast it in case it doesn’t work but lately it always has (so it’s becoming less surprising). This year it worked! We have a little over half of it to give this week!!! Enjoy your “surprise” watermelon for your back to school bag.

Here’s the full list of 10 things for this week.

1. Watermelon- as per above. so glad it worked!
2. A new bean - Dragon’s Tongue beans - cook them like green beans or wax beans (or eat them raw). Here’s a recipe to inspire https://soilborn.org/recipe/dragon-tongue-beans-with-onions-peppers/ but there’s lots more on the internet
3. Onions
4. Garlic
5. Tomatoes - dropping off fast
6. Cherry tomatoes
7. Peppers
8. Hot peppers
9. Napa cabbage is back
10. Purple potatoes are back!

Enjoy!

This is the “salad” bag 😀 Every season I try and make it that we have one bag with all the classic salad ingredients. Us...
08/10/2025

This is the “salad” bag 😀 Every season I try and make it that we have one bag with all the classic salad ingredients. Usually it’s early in tomato season before the lettuce gives out. But this year the carrots were off schedule so it didn’t come until August!

So here’s the run down with your salad ingredients first (plus a bit more of course!)

1. Lettuce - need it for a classic salad and grateful we still have it.
2. Tomatoes - the pinnacle of a garden salad
3. Cherry tomatoes- see above 😀
4. Carrots
5. Radishes
6. Peppers
7. Cucumber
8. Red onion (if you like that in your salad)

Voila! Everything in a classic American garden salad!

Plus
9. Corn! Yay! This is a white variety (plus a few of you got some laggard ears from last weeks bicolor)
10. Hot peppers - jalapeños big enough for poppers and bright red Fresnos
11. Summer squash - the last gasp from our first planting before we pull them out for the next ones.
12. Potatoes (I told you it was a bumper crop this year!)

So have fun with all these - whether you make a proper salad or not.

Just harvested lettuce mix. It germinated and grew during heat wave after heat wave. It’s confirming we are starting to...
08/09/2025

Just harvested lettuce mix. It germinated and grew during heat wave after heat wave. It’s confirming we are starting to figure out how to use our shaded beds. The yield is substantially less than full sun (100’ for a weekly harvest versus 50’ (or even 25’), growth is substantially slower, and lettuce still bolts in the heat - but at a much slower rate. It’ll just be a bit more than 7 ounces for our regular size bag - but happy to have it at all!

The beginning of August bag is another celebration of summer! 11 things at 14.5 pounds and not much room left on my pict...
08/03/2025

The beginning of August bag is another celebration of summer! 11 things at 14.5 pounds and not much room left on my picture table!

Here’s the rundown
1. Corn! After my warning last week, the next planting looked great and had minimal squirrel damage. Hurray!
2,3&4. Tomatoes three ways … tons of regular tomatoes, cherry / small tomatoes, and Roma type tomatoes… must be summer
5. Cucumbers - the bugs are especially intense this year and the cukes are succumbing. We’re hoping the new ones we planted grow fast!
6. Lettuce … 🤷🏼‍♀️
7. Onions
8. Garlic
9. Peppers
10. Pepperoncini hot peppers
11. Potatoes - yellow variety this week - we had an amazing potato year so eat your potatoes! More are comin’!

Plus - lots of free “uglier” tomatoes (they’re all a little ugly by now) for sauces, salsas, juices, sub-drying, freezing, etc.

Happy tomato & corn season!

Two updates. One. The broody hen wasn’t a very good brooder. No chicks just rotten eggs, so experiment done and she seem...
08/02/2025

Two updates.

One. The broody hen wasn’t a very good brooder. No chicks just rotten eggs, so experiment done and she seems relieved to be free.

Two. A new to us kind of hot pepper this week. Pepperoncini! The kind Peter picked a peck of to pickle. 🙂 and the kind you see all around pickled. As you probably know - they are milder as hot peppers go. And can be used for other things besides pickled peppers but they’re especially good pickled. You can “quick pickle” them or pickle and can. Or make a flavored oil or use them the way you would any hottish pepper. Here’s some recipes but you can also play around and anything you do will likely be good.

https://www.growforagecookferment.com/pickled-pepperoncini-peppers/

https://www.daringgourmet.com/pickled-pepperoncini-peppers/

https://www.slenderkitchen.com/article/pepperoncini

It’s the bag to inspire you to cook a batch of something - the salsa bag, the sauce bag, the pickles bag, the pesto bag....
07/27/2025

It’s the bag to inspire you to cook a batch of something - the salsa bag, the sauce bag, the pickles bag, the pesto bag. Pick your project - you have most of what you need!

There are 12 things this week, weighing in at over 14 pounds.
1. Tomatoes - for eating, making salsa, making tomato sauce …. In other words a lot (plus there’s optional extra when you pick up)
2&3. Onions & garlic - needed for all your projects!
4. Basil (for the pesto project or the sauce!)
5. Dill (for a pickle project!)
6. Peppers - need those for salsa!
7. Jalapeños - definitely need those for salsa!
8. Corn!!!
9. Potatoes - russets this week
10. Lettuce (hanging on!!)
11. Cherry tomatoes
12. Cucumbers - can’t have a pickle project without cukes!

Or you could use it all for good eating every day - no projects necessary 🙂

Plus - if you’re serious about your projects - there are Extra tomatoes for $2 a pound and extra “ugly” tomatoes for free (all are welcome for these not just subscribers)

Happy project-ing!

Some of you have been asking and I’m sure others have been wondering … what about corn? Those of you with us for awhile ...
07/26/2025

Some of you have been asking and I’m sure others have been wondering … what about corn?

Those of you with us for awhile know corn has been a love-hate crop. Many small organic subscription farms like ours don’t even bother with it because it takes up so much space. But it’s so beloved and we still get such a kick out of how great it can grow here compared to other places we’ve grown things.

But, it’s been tough some years - raccoons have been a real issue - even with the electric fence we put around it. Drought years have led to weak crops. Trying to plant early has left us with poor early crops. The list goes on. So we’ve almost stopped a couple times and last year we kind of said “one more time” and it did great.

This year it’s a struggle again. 1st - our first two plantings germinated very poorly because it was so cool and wet in May / June (I know hard to remember). But more significantly we’ve been bedeviled by squirrels eating the ears before they’re even ripe. It’s hard to keep raccoons out but it’s very hard to keep squirrels out.

So … we were able to get some out of our 2nd planting this weekend. And we’re hopeful the next couple plantings will be plentiful enough to share with the squirrels (& Nox is working on keeping them out) but can’t promise a bountiful corn harvest this year from us.

There’s a lot of great corn in the area so get it everywhere you can!

This is the bag we give tomatoes a proper hello. We went from a taste to eight in a week(& there’s more comin’)!We have ...
07/20/2025

This is the bag we give tomatoes a proper hello. We went from a taste to eight in a week(& there’s more comin’)!

We have 11 things this week, weighing in at about 10 pounds. Here’s the run down:
1. Tomatoes!
2. Cherry tomatoes!
3. Cucumbers!
4. Zucchini/ summer squash. We are losing our battle with the bugs faster than usual this year so I just planted some more zucchini but we might already be tapering off
5. Lettuce (wha?!)
6. Napa cabbage
7. Peppers
8. Hot peppers - mostly Fresnos - they’re the beautiful lipstick red ones (with a few jalapeños thrown in)
9. Radishes
10. Onions
11. Garlic

Plus we have a few free green and “ugly” tomatoes

Tomatoes season has officially arrived for real!

The mid July bag is a 1st taste of some exciting summer treats!!! And we’re extending our color spectrum quite a bit wit...
07/13/2025

The mid July bag is a 1st taste of some exciting summer treats!!! And we’re extending our color spectrum quite a bit with purples and reds.

We have 12 things this week including:
1. 1st taste of TOMATOES
2. 1st taste of cherry tomatoes
3. 1st taste of cucumbers
4. Seasonal Debut of purple cauliflower
5. Napa cabbage makes a return
6. Lettuce still hanging in there - this is the thinnings from a direct seed bed so small heads and loose leaves. Thank goodness for our shaded upper 40.
7. Basil
8. Garlic
9. Summer squash/ zucchini
10. Seasonal debut of Purple potatoes - a firefly hill farm favorite
11. Green beans
12. Peppers - bell & banana this week

Welcome to tomato season. 🍅

Address

5386 Hanley Rd
Cincinnati, OH
45247

Opening Hours

1pm - 5pm

Telephone

+15135127689

Website

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