One Month Mark

It's been about exactly a month since we started working on the farm. And what a difference! We've removed 10 truckloads of privets and weeds, pulled up a ton of stumps, got rid of 3 cars, fixed the fence and added a gate, set up a new composter, pruned the fruit trees, hand spaded and then tilled the entire garden area, pruned and trained the grapes, set up the girls' privy screen, cleaned out and organized the shed, contributed tools, brought in furniture and rugs for the beer garden, met a lot of the neighbors, installed art and decorations, drank a ton of beer, and generally wreaked havok!

We had a few last stumps to remove. Levering out the big one by the grape was a four-man job.



Notice the green waste bin in the background. That just came this week, and it was promptly filled.

Batch proudly displays the stump.



Then we did the last bit of tilling. We worked every day last week, getting in the tomatoes, peppers, and tomatillos.



We planted at the dark of the moon, and the temperatures were in the high 70s by day and still in the high 40s at night. We'd had a full week of warmer temps just before that, so the soil was warmed. We added a sprinkling of Osmocote under each baby plant. The plants had been started on Feb. 18, but that was too late for the tomatoes and peppers, and we'll start sooner next year. Still the plants are healthy and well rooted, if not as big as they could have been. I'm not sure we could have started the tomatillos much sooner, seeing how big they were when they went in. They were already starting to flower.



Here are the tomatillos lined up, ready to go in.



We put in some GREAT irrigation. RickC really knows his stuff, and the system should work very well for us, giving us more time to drink beer! First we lined out the main lines.



Then we inserted burbler heads at each plant. Yeah, we needed a lot!



And... it works!



And here it is, all planted and ready to produce lovely salsa.



By the next post, I'll try to work up a nice map of what's planted where, and showcase some pics of what's in bloom right now.

Friday's finish

By now we've worked hard all week, and we're starting to get pretty tired. But we are so close now! With the cars gone, Rick rebuilt the fence. We still have to finish the gate, but we have the sides up at least, and now it's lockable. We moved the lock to that gate.



On Thursday, Rick got the stringers up, and on Friday he bought and put on the boards.



I burned again on Thursday, and we pretty much filled RickC's truck to the brim for another airport run. The yard is almost completely cleared now, and Rick walks like an Egyptian to prove it.



Catherine shows off her art:



And Bill is once again triumphant in his fight against all that is privet in the world.



Fortunately, we also spend time doing what we do best:



We knocked off early and went back to our house for chicken, potato salad, and fresh focaccia-style bread. Tomorrow is croquet, so we'll take that day off too, and maybe feel like planting by Sunday.

Cars Gone! 4-15

Unbelievable but true! All the old dead cars are towed away.


That was the first one going, and here go the last two:



That's huge news in and of itself, but it's only part of what we accomplished on Wednesday the 15th. The big winds we had earlier in the week knocked off a lot of baby fruits, with the plum tree seeming especially hard hit, but there are still baby fruits to be seen.



Cherries above and apples below.



Rick got some tilling done.



And we have a few serendipitous blooms: poppies and the dogwood from over the fence.

Tomatillos transplanted

Well, since yesterday was so windy, we took a day off from farming and drank beer at my house. I covered the butcher block with a cloth and repotted all the tomatillos right in the kitchen. The tomatillos were already 5-6 inches tall and the roots were bursting out of the newspaper pots.

I didn't have 50 or so 4-inch pots, so I used plastic beer cups. They might not be super eco-friendly, but they were cheap and readily available. I drilled a hole in the bottom of each one for drainage. All the repotted tomatillos got set up in the cold frame.



Compare the size of those tomatillos with the size they were on 3-27 when I separated them.




Next I will move all the pepper starts to the cold frame, and I'll have room for starting all the other seeds I bought.

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What We're Eating

Peas are fruiting strongly now, so we ate linguine with peas and lemon-caper sauce. Here's the recipe:

Linguine or other fresh pasta noodles
As many shelled peas as you have
2 TBS flour
2 TBS butter
several TBS lemon juice
1 teaspoon rinsed capers
salt and pepper to taste
handful of grated parmesan

Start a big pot of salted water boiling.

In a small saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour. Cook for a minute or two, then slowly add 1 cup of water, stirring constantly. Add lemon juice to taste (as much as 1/4 cup if you're brave), capers, and a pinch of salt (to taste). Let this sauce simmer for a minute or two to thicken.

Toss the fresh pasta in boiling water. Cook for about 4 minutes and add the shelled peas. Cook for 2-3 more minutes (until pasta is al dente and peas are just cooked), drain, and return to warm pot. Add the sauce and parmesan, and toss thoroughly.

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Last night we ate that with some fresh quiche (made with eggs from my chickens of course, and stuffed with onion, bell pepper, asparagus, fresh chard, and shallot greens) and Karen's green garbanzo hummus spread on homemade rolls. Mmmmmmm!

My home garden is producing lots of lettuce right now, both in the lettuce table and also the romaine style plants that are in the ground.

Here's what the lettuce looked like on 3-27



And what it looks like now:



Also, we cannot forget RickC's asparagus! We planted them end of March. Here's the rows right after planting.



I'll try to get a pic of what they look like now. We can't eat them for several years but once they start producing, we should be getting a lot.

Further Farming

So after our initial foray, we were tired but not discouraged. There was still a lot of work to do, but it was fun and companionable. We spend at least as much time drinking beer as working.

Our plan is to keep it fun while creating plenty of food. I said I refuse to be bullied by vegetables, so whatever we can't eat and don't feel like processing, we'll just give to coworkers, friends, or food banks. Nobody is going to starve if the crops fail, but any fresh food we add to our diets is a bonus. And because there's really no money involved, and there will be plenty for all, I don't think we should have any of the typical co-op "issues." I also think everyone should be self-directed. That means everyone comes and goes as they please (thanks to the co-op combo), and does whatever work suits them.

Because Rick and I are the landowners, we do want to weigh in on decisions that have any kind of permanent effect on the land, but by the same token, we've offered to pay all out-of-pocket costs. I'm really excited about this and think it's going to be great.

So, as of today, the farm is mostly cleared. We hauled off most of the brush, tree prunings, and old rotting lumber. Rick C. came in this weekend with a highlift jack and levered the privet stumps up.

Catherine dug in with tons of weeding around the orchard. Here she proudly points to her pile of destroyed velcro weed.



I pruned the grapes up (although they need more work), and Buddy dug out all the grass clippings from the old compost pile and spread that as mulch around the grapes. So now we had "found" the fenceline. We set up a big metal thingy from CARD to use as the new compost heap.



Part of the old fence was falling down, so Rick C got after it and tore out the old boards, dug new post holes, and cemented in new posts. We are adding a double gate there, between the almond tree and the old red grape. That's what we'll use as the main garden entrance, so folks don't have to go thru Buddy's yard. We used some chainlink gate pieces we had, but we'll cover them with boards to match the fence.



Rick C has this week off, and Rick J has off from Wed. on, so we hope to get that fence finished this week. Rick C had some starts, so he planted the first tomatoes and squash yesterday (Apr. 13). He says you can tell when its warm enough for tomatoes when the bermuda grass starts growing, because bermuda is dormant until the soil temp is 52. I think that's a great thing to know. It's better to go by the seasonal signs rather than calendar dates.



Notice the huge posts by the tomatoes. Rick C has a plan...

My tomato and tomatillo starts are still in the cold frame, and the peppers are still in the light box. I desperately need to transplant the tomatillos. Maybe we can work on that this afternoon. It's windy today, so I'm very glad I got over there yesterday and burned up all the punky wood. It was so crumbled and rotten that it would have been a pain to haul off, but it was still too solid to just till in.



I started small with the fire, but I ended up burning up almost all of both those piles. This picture shows some of the grape structure too. The whole back fence is planted in Thompson seedless grapes, trained up to the top of the fence.

The orchard has a cherry tree, an ancient apricot tree, an apple tree, and two trees that used to be 3 or 4 ways, but that I think are now just plums. Still, that should give us a lot of fruit. The plums, apricots, and cherries have already bloomed and set fruit, and the apple tree is in full bloom now. It was just thinking about blooming at the end of March. And, if nothing else, the orchard makes a fantastic beer garden. Did I mention that we drink as well as work?



You can just see the new rug I bought for the beer garden. We're trying to recycle and reuse as much as possible, but I felt this was a good investment.

Farm!

Because the garden co-op was such as success last year, and because Rick C wanted to plant his area in asparagus (yay!), we decided to farm the back of the California Street house. Farmers are: me and Rick, Rick C and Catherine, Batch, and Buddy--the usual suspects.

When we first went over to take a look, the last weekend in March, we faced a huge mess. This is what it looked like:

So we got to work.



First we had to cut down and haul away all the privets that had grown up over the years. We hauled 8 truckloads to the composting facility at the airport, and we have a few more to go.



The soon-to-be Beer Garden needed work as well. Here's its "before" picture.

After a little pruning and clearing, and with the addition of some basic furniture, it became a shady place to rest and reflect.