Garlic

Rick C had planted some garlic in his yard, and it didn't really get enough sun, so he sort of forgot about it. Checking that area recently, he noticed that some heads had survived and begun to sprout. So he dug them up and brought them to the farm. We decided to till up this spot, in row 6, where the peppers had been pulled out. The green you see is borage seedlings. I moved some of them, and we just tilled in the rest.

Here Rick runs the tiller over the space.

Now it's all tilled up and ready to plant.

We put in the first bunch, and Rick said he had more, so he went back and dug up the rest.

Rick feels triumphant.

Rick and Rick even made me get in the picture. This whole fat row is stuffed with garlic starts. We're gonna have lots of nice garlic.

This broccoli is almost ready. Isn't it gorgeous? I wish we'd planted more.

The mustard patch is thriving too, and I picked some for our dinner tonight.

The beer garden looks lovely in the afternoon light, with the last leaves still on the trees.

Yeah, it's winter

Although it's been an amazingly gorgeous fall, with excellent leaf color and crisp sunny days, we're now edging into wintery weather. We had rain off and on all last week, and didn't spend much time at the farm except on Tuesday night, when we gathered around the fire pit. On Thurs. I took some plastic over to the farm so Rick C could tack it up to protect our stucco, but since I had the guy installing a new water heater, I couldn't stick around. I did snag another napa cabbage that looked ripe, and found that a mole had eaten that one's root also! We'll just have to watch, and harvest them when they start to open up a little. I made a slaw out of the cabbage.

I did take a couple pics last Tuesday before it got dark, which is by 5 pm nowadays. The broccoli is coming along nicely, although we could have planted MUCH more. The heads are about as big as my palm now.

This is the bok choi tat soi, which I thought would be the baby bok choi, but looks more like it will be the kind where you just harvest the leaves. Nonetheless, it will be tasty, and there's lots of it sprouting.

And the naked ladies are shooting up everywhere.

Mud

Despite dire forcasts of rain, and other than a few late night sprinkles, last week was absolutely gorgeous fall weather. The trees are in full color all over town. Just the drive from our house to the farm is stunning. Still it's been cold, and we've had frosts.

**********************************************

Weather Note

By mid November, we're having serious frosts. Forget planting anything, and plan to pull up any summer crops that are still straggling along. However, August was none too soon to have put in the winter crops, which are just where they should be: ripening up as the weather turns cold.

**********************************************

But, when the sun was out at midday, it was lovely. So we got going on the mudding. Rick and Rick met on Saturday morning to go buy mud. Here they are mixing the stucco in the wheelbarrow.

Rick checks out the first section.

They keep going.

Clear up to the top. You can't really tell in this photo, but they took turns having one person on the ladder, and one person handing up new trowels-full of mud.

I declined to help move mud, although the guys very thoughtfully offered me the opportunity. Instead, I ripped out the peppers. We had mostly harvested them by now anyway, and the frost caused significant damage, making it clear that it was time to take them out. This is where some of them used to be. I still have more to rip out.

The last dregs still make quite a haul. I don't think we'll plant quite so many next year, although we have some definite favorites, and not-so-favorites. For the record, next year, we'll do plenty of those fine fat jalapenos (Biker Bobs), and not a one of those lemon peppers, which sounded great and looked pretty, but fell down on taste. We all have soooooooo many peppers stored away, either dried, canned, or frozen in puree. It's true that we use a lot, but we have... abundance. I took some across the street and dusted off my Spanish enough to ask "Quieren jalapenos?"

By this time, the guys had finished the first layer of stucco. There are three separate coats. This first base coat is to squish between the lathes, and generally provide a base surface for the next coat. Then there will be a middle coat and a finish coat.

After they got the first coat on, we ran off to play croquet, where Rick C won again! A three-peat, yikes! Catherine showed up just as we were leaving, and she hung out and arranged for Ed to get the wood that's too big for our firepit. Then there was Titus's party over at Lori's where we also got to see the amazing fish murals. Oon Sunday, not particularly early, we came back for more punishment. Here the guys put on the second coat.

We decided that was enough for now. It's dark before 5 pm now, so weeknights aren't much use for farming. We can hang out around the fire, but... all in all, we'll probably be focusing most of our energies on the weekends. I did manage to roast the remaining jalapenos and serranos, and string the last of the Thai red peppers. Buddy's been checking on the watering, and watered everything down thoroughly on Sunday, because it's stayed surprisingly dry. But once again, the forecast calls for rain later this week.

Camera Test

With the weather being cooler, and dark coming so soon, we hadn't been to the farm in a couple of days. Fortunately Buddy looks after things, making sure stuff is watered. But yesterday was a glorious fall day, so we went out for a bit. I wanted to test the camera in my phone. I don't think the pictures are as good as the ones I get with the real camera, but lets see how they look in the blog.

Buddy and I surveyed the garden, and he found a ripe tomato! In mid-November...

The oranges are showing the first blush of color

The broccoli is still forming heads, but it needs more time.

We noticed that one of the napa cabbages was looking different from the others. We thought it had just ripened fully, but when we inspected it....

We found that our mole had eaten the entire root! The cabbage was loose in the ground and starting to wilt a little. Here is the evidence.

We figure the cabbage is still good, so the we and the mole each got our share. And you can't really tell here, but the onions have perked up, and this last section is just starting to show some sprouts.

And... I actually played FarmVille at the Farm... is that funny or what?

Firepit Operational

So the biggest news is getting the firepit up and running. Once again, it was a communal effort.
Buddy had the firepit left over from SCA days, and he bought sand to put in the bottom. Rick dug out fire bricks from the ones scattered around. We cleared some overhanging branches to provide a "chimney." That's when we also found the great view of the maple and dogwood trees in the neighbor's yard. We're burning all the dead fruitwood that everyone helped cut off. And of course, Rick C was on hand to tell me I wasn't starting the fire correctly. And Buddy got us some long fireplace matches so we wouldn't set ourselves on fire trying to reach over the sides with a lighter.

Speaking of that maple... a week ago it was a glorious pillar of pure yellow. Now every leaf is gone (and most of them are now decorating our yard).

We've really hit full winter now, with it getting dark before 5 pm, making weeknights rough for farming. We can still sit around the firepit but it's not going to be as pleasant. Fortunately we had a good 8 months, and it will really only be a couple months of cold and wet to get through before it's nice again. The leaves in front of our house are still lovely, and I went out to try to gather leaves for waxing, but while they are in full color, they aren't dropping much yet, limiting the amount I could collect to the lowest branches. Of course, the pistache trees are dropping plenty of berries. In fact, that's a good seasonal signal: the berries start to drop just when the rains begin.

***********************************************************

Weather Note

Mid November is definitely into wet winter weather. In fact, when the pistache trees start dropping berries, that's usually when it rains. After a glorious sunny week, we got some rain starting last night, and today is cloudy. Temperatures are getting into the high 30s at night, and not warming much past 50 in the day. By now, anything fall planted should be at maturity because there won't be a lot of growth. This is when we hope to have things "holding" in the garden.

**********************************************************

I took advantage of the mild weather last week to plant some pansies. I put brick rings around the fruit trees, and put in some pansies and alyssum for spot color. This looks nice against the mulch, and on the lawn sides, the bricks are set in nicely to form a mow strip.

The oranges are fattening up. The tree is so laden that we had to prop it up with a stick in one area. We'll probably prune it a bit to even that growth out so it can better support itself.

The broccoli is coming along nicely, with nice heads forming. The cabbage is also almost to harvest size. This is just about exactly the time the fall harvested crops should be ready, and honestly, we could have put them in even earlier. It just doesn't seem like time to plant "cool-weather" crops when it's 105 out.

The greens are thriving and should be a good source of food over the winter. Late last week I planted the last section of new area in a mix of greens: mustard, chard, and bok choi. And I finally got the last of the onion and leek starts in. We are going to have a LOT of onions, which is fantastic because just about every recipe I make starts with "Saute an onion and..."

Here's Rick surveying the farm on a recent sunny day.

************************************************************

Camera Note

Rick and I just got new Droid phones, with built in cameras that seem pretty nice. I'm hoping to be able to just use the phone camera from now on. We'll have to see if the picture quality suffers at all. The phone camera is 5 megapixels, while the camera is 7.5 but I don't think that will make much difference for the blog. And I pretty much shoot on automatic settings anyway. We'll just have to see how it works out.

************************************************************

First Greens

Fall doesn't mean the harvest stops. While the summer crops are about done, the greens are thriving. I harvested this small bunch last night, and we put it in homemade chicken soup. It was delicious.

We pruned back the plum tree a bit to make room for the fire pit. In the process we got a serendipitous borrowed view of the dogwood backed by a lovely yellow maple.

Here's another shot of it taken a couple of days ago, showing how vibrantly blue the sky has been. Look now because the forcast is calling for rain by Thursday.

October's End

I wanted to take a "snapshot" of the garden as it is at the tail end of October. It's now 7 months since we started this project.

We got as far as tacking up some boards on the playhouse before Rick C got sick (and we got extra busy with Halloween and all). Here Rick C tacks up some boards over the felt backing.

Rick, Rick, and Catherine survery the progress. The moon in the background shows how long ago this was taken, because the moon is full today.

The broccolis are broccoling.

Don't they look lovely next to the red cabbage?

The cabbage is heading up well. We hit all the crucifers with BT earlier, and the predation seems to have dropped off.

The chervil is still very small, but settling in.

The fennel is bigger and starting to bulb out. It has a way to go before harvest size though.

And the parsley is thriving.

*******************************************************************

Weather Note

It's been unseasonably warm all last week. It was in the high 70s for Halloween, and warm well into the evening too. We're having perfect fall weather, and it's supposed to continue for another week or so. There's definitely the feeling that we better make the most of it because we expect it to turn cold and wet very soon.
*******************************************************************
The Thai peppers are still setting and ripening fruit, but most of the others are about done.

Karen and Glen said it's not time to prune the grapes yet; you have to wait until early spring, as with roses.

The mustard and kale patch is going strong and should provide lots of greens, especially if we keep it cut regularly.

The first onions that I planted have adjusted well and are thriving. The second set is languishing a bit, but should pick up as well.

The onion seedlings came up even better than I expected.

******************************************************

What We're Eating

Anything with pumpkin! Wonderful fat pumpkins are filling the farmers' market, and they cook up in many delicious ways. For Halloween I roasted up this big fellow and turned it into Pumpkin and Black Bean Soup and Pumpkin Bars (liberally studded with fruit and nuts). I also cooked up mini pumpkins stuffed with sausage and sage.

Roast Pumpkin Puree

For small pumpkins, just poke some holes in the rind. For larger pumpkins, cut into wedges. Put on a baking sheet and roast at 350 until soft through. Let cool. Scritch off seeds and strings, then spoon out the meat and use an immersion blender to puree.

******************************************************