Sun!

The sun came out! More rain is due, so this is only a short reprieve, but we made the most of it. And here's proof--shadows! And another rare pic of me :)

Amazingly enough, even Rick came out because of the sunshine. He didn't want me to take his picture but I did anyway.

There really isn't that much to be had in the garden, but we still get a few bits of greens. Unfortunately, it looks like our gopher has been munching on our onions. We ate these greens on top of a homemade pizza, and it was wonderful.

Still Raining

Yep, it's still raining. It started raining Saturday night (fortunately after we'd done our work at the farm), and hasn't really stopped since. It's been getting into the high 30s at night, and the snow level is pretty low. It's 47 right now at midday... sigh.

Very little is blooming except the very first wintery plants, such as these violets.

The seeds in the starter box are coming along nicely. The second set, planted a week ago, are sprouted.

Karen's are up too.

And the lettuces, at about 2 weeks are sturdy.

We went to the Organic Gardening class on Sunday out at the Grange. That is an interesting old building, and it was fun to see who came to the class. A lot of people were "our age" i.e. older, but I guess that's to be expected. Older folks have more land and leisure for gardening.

The two speakers had slightly different approaches. The flower farmer had different needs than the fruit tree farmer. The fruit farmer tested his land regularly and added precise amounts of amendments. He also avoids tilling. The flower farmer builds his soil by plowing in his flower stalks and using cover crops, which means lots of tilling. He also relies on the look of his plant to tell him if he needs to amend. It was interesting because both approaches have a lot of validity, and probably work best for each farmer's particular crop.

One thing I was sad to hear them agree on is that mulch provides good habitat for slugs/snails, earwigs, and sowbugs, all of which we have in abundance. I don't want to give up the mulch, so I'm hoping the chickens will help. We don't have enough room to put some areas in cover crop, but we do have land that isn't gardenable that we can use to make compost on. So we'll build our humus that way. Because we have very limited land, but plenty of labor, we can use approaches that wouldn't make sense over a larger farm.

They talked about a good organic amendment mix: Three-quarters cottonseed meal, and the rest a mix of alfalfa meal, kelp meal, and bat guano. The flower guy said he loves kelp because it puts in so many trace elements. The bat guano is only if extra nitrogen is needed. We won't have a problem having a nitrogen source once we get the chicken manure composting. But I think we should get this stuff and amend with it.

We can also bring dirt samples to the next class to get them tested. That is... if it ever gets dry enough to take the sample!

Reed Fence

Yesterday, I wasn't gonna go to the farm. It was cold and damp, and I had videos and indoor projects. But... the sun came out for a second, and off I went. This is what we're calling "sunny" weather.

We're noticing the very first bits of bulb bloom beginning.

I picked a lovely daikon. They needed thinning anyway. It was delicious.

The new daikon seeds have sprouted too. Given the long cool spring we're expecting, I should probably plant some more.

Catherine came over for a bit. Here she is telling some fanciful tale.

Today we got serious. Rick went to Lowes and got a bunch of good stuff, including a wealth of reed fencing. I put another piece behind the tub to close off that view from the front. With leaves up it doesn't matter, but these days it was looking pretty transparent.

Then we got after putting it up on the side fence. This is the "before" pic.

We cut the fencing to fit between the panels, and it came out looking really nice.

Rick staples it up.

And I restrung the lights. You can't really tell here, but we did the next couple of panels too (the ones you see behind Rick in the above photo), so that whole fence is covered. It looks really nice.

It started to rain again. We were just glad we'd had time to get some work done. Rick also fixed the gate, so it hopefully won't go flying apart in the next windstorm. We set it up so only the right side opens most of the time. The left side has a stake driven in the ground for extra support. We can always pull that up when we need to open both gates.

Storm Damage

Well El Nino is here finally, and it's cold and wet and stormy. Rick had last Monday off, so we went to the farm even though it was pretty cold. While it all looks a bit bleak, there are subtle signs of spring, such as the swelling buds on the cherry tree. I love the textures in this photo.

I noticed this bug, and took a pic so we can try to identify it. I see a lot of this sort of bug around.

We actually got Rick C. to come over. I didn't even bother trying to call him, but Buddy did, and he came over. He was... displeased by the cold weather, and when it started to rain, he left. We are made of sterner stuff of course, so we just took cover in the playhouse, finished our beers, and watched it rain. As a prize for sticking it out, we got to see a lovely rainbow.

Then on Tuesday, Karen came over and we planted some seeds to go in the seed starter box. She planted raddicchio, endive, and fava beans. I planted a little raddicchio and endive from her seeds, but mostly planted more lettuces: baby star, bibb blend, buttercrunch, and arugula.

Then on Wednesday, the storm really hit hard. We had high winds with gusts up to 60 mph and driving rain. At one point, the wind was so strong I got up and went to my "safe point" in the house, away from windows and as far as possible from the big trees. My heart was really thumping. Fortunately, no trees fell on our house. Unfortunately, it was the last straw for the fence posts. Here you can see that the whole back fence came down. What a mess! Nothing inside got broken, but some of the plants got a little squished.

The power went out also, so I was unable to work. The only sensible thing to do in a situation like this is to drink beer! Power was out all over the south side, so Buddy came over to drink also. And Bill got sent home from work due to loss of power, so he came over as well. And it was a good thing! Rick got off work early and struggled through streets with no streetlights to get to Osh and buy poles. The guys helped us stand the fence back up, and we did a temporary fix with the poles.

Obviously, we'll have to wait for nicer weather to fix it for real. But hopefully this will hold it up until then. It sure was a good thing we had Buddy and Bill to help us, and we're quite grateful for their assistance.

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Weather Note

El Nino is back, and forecasters are saying we'll be having this wet stormy weather "until spring." It's also getting cold again this week, dropping back into the mid 30s at night. Highs are in the 50s, and it's cloudy, foggy, and wet wet wet. The creeks are full and there is standing water everywhere. "Lake Fetter" is completely blocking the garden gate (which the storm broke anyway).

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The verge outside the broken fence is covered in debris from the dead tree that the city refuses to take out, but at least most of that tree is still standing.

Once again, our reward for suffering through the storm was a lovely rainbow.

I haven't been to the farm in a week, but at least I'm starting seeds in the meantime. Here are the seeds I started on 1-14. I have excellent germination rates. They came up by the 19th. This pan is the Rouge Grenobloise.

And this is the blushed butter.

None of the other seeds are up yet of course.

What's Growing Now

It's another rainy day, and it's supposed to rain all week. But even though it's wintery and wet outside, we still have a lot of things growing in the garden. On Saturday, I went around and noted everything that's in the ground right now. It's an amazing list actually.

This is everything that you could eat right now:

Onions (Walla Walla, Stockton Early Yellow, Cipolini Red, Cipolini Yellow, Hamburger Red plus the red and yellow onions in the starter box, and...*)
Leek
Shallots
Garlic
Mustard (green and red)
Kale
Bok Choi
Daikon
Radishes
Lettuce (Master Chef Blend and Green Towers)
Cabbage (Chinese and red)
Broccoli
Parsley
Chervil
Oregano
Mint
Swiss Chard

* I guess I never wrote down what onions I put in the second location. I'll have to be more careful! I bought all the starts that were left at the Farmer's Market.

Other things growing at the farm are:
Fennel (that crop is probably lost from the freeze, but we're waiting to see)
Apricots
Plums
Cherries
Oranges
Apples
Grapes
Snow Peas (just planted)

All the citrus crops were ruined in the hard freeze this year. I lost almost all my lemons, and the oranges at the farm aren't edible. We even tried to juice them to no avail.

Things available to the co-op from farm "annexes" are:
Lemon
Grapefruit
Asparagus
Eggs
Rosemary
Sage
Thyme

That's 16 things we can eat right now, and 31 total crops. That's amazing! And the farm's row crop area is only 700 square feet. If we dig up our whole back yard, we can double that space.

Snow Peas

Well, the serious rains have started. We have a big series of storms coming in, with a lot of rain expected. So we tried to get a few things done beforehand.

On Thursday, when I was planting the lettuce in the pots, I managed to spill some of the Rouge Grenobloise seed. I picked up what I could, and tossed it in this plot. It's just behind the daikon planting in the first onion row.

The cherry tree is showing swelling buds.

Then on Saturday, we had some sun, so we got to work. We weeded and cleared the mulch from some area and put up some fencing bits that we had. Rick helps make furrows.

Buddy helped me drop in the seeds so I could take pics. We planted snow peas in two double rows. The second row only has poles at the moment, but I'll put strings up later.

Lettuce

The sun came out yesterday, and I burst out of my enforced hibernation with glee. I cleaned up all the fallen lemons at our house, then made some paper pots and planted some lettuce seeds. I planted Rouge Grenobloise and Blushed Butter, both from Park Seeds. Neither is listed on their current website, so I can't put up pix or links. But here are the seed packets.

And here they are in the seed starting box. Notice the original Amberglen sign underneath. I'm still trying to find a way to preserve the old paint. I think I need to use some major plastic, like envirotech.

So since it was sunny, of course I went to the farm. I didn't do much except chat with Buddy and drink beer. After all, that's what the farm is really about. Rick rushed over after work to catch the last few minutes of sun, and Catherine came by after work too. We made her take some bok choi home. I dunno when we'll ever see the other Rick again... not until it warms up I think. Buddy harvested some broccoli, which he and I shared. Here's my piece. Isn't it lovely?

I picked some of the narcissus blooming in my front yard, and their scent is just heavenly. I was able to open the windows yesterday and run the fan, so the house is full of new air. I just hate how stuffy a house gets in winter when the windows are closed. All the air gets stale and seems like it's been breathed too many times. But with fresh air, lovely flower scents, and sun coming in the windows, my house is much nicer. And yeah... I know... I have really wacky taste in home furnishings. I made the curtains and chair cushions myself. Crazy quilt meets animal prints... wild!

Chicken Pen Progress

It's still winter! Sigh. It's been in the 40s day and night, with plenty of white fog. Or low clouds...it isn't foggy on the ground really, but the sky has been uniformly white. This is the view looking up 17th: pretty dismal and gray.

So, I had to do a few indoor chores. I fixed my chair situation by reupholstering an old chair I had, making it suitable for the living room. My zebra chair looks great now. And no, this has absolutely nothing to do with the farm.

Saturday, while Rick gathered up his tools, I amused myself by looking around our front yard for a few signs of impending spring. The narcissus are blooming in the verge.

And a few bits of paperwhites are fighting through the oxalis in the front.

And the unmistakable sign of spring: the first violets:

Then we headed to the farm and got to work. We needed to move the red cage thingy to where the chicken pen is going to go. But... it's big, heavy, and unwieldy, and we only had Rick, me, and Buddy. So

Buddy had the clever idea of using rollers. We had some big stakes and we used them to roll the cage acrss the lawn. Rick had the hand truck on one end to help propel it, while Buddy pushed by hand. And I ran around taking the poles out from the back and putting them in the front.

Here it is, set up where it's going to go. We'll raise it off the ground on metal poles and make "chicken feet" cement supports. Our current thinking is to just use a plywood bottom for the pen. The cage is 4x8 so one piece should make a fine floor. This will protect the hens from drafts and be easy enough to clean out. The whole thing will be under a shade structure, and we'll just use tarps to keep it warm and dry in the winter.

It's hard to notice in the above picture, but what we spent the most time doing is weeding the area that the pen is stitting on. We also spread all the rest of the straw out. In fact, that little patch of green in the foreground is the only remaining weedy bit. We got REALLY tired and decided we had done enough for one day. So we sat, drank, and planned.

We'll be running a water line out to the garden edge anyway, and we'll run a spur over to the fence. That standpipe will run the float-fill automatic waterer for the chickens, as well as provide water for another sink.

We'll put in a table and sink under the shade structure so we have a good place to wash both eggs and produce. We can clean our veggies and toss what we don't want right in the chicken pen. And it also makes sense to have composting going on near the chickens. I want to have a series of wire enclosures, like tomato cages but with just bungee cords or some such holding them closed. We'd fill these with the chicken waste and veggie scraps, and when one is full, we move on to another. After a while, when the first one is cooked, we can open it up, and spread it around or turn it. The plan is to really work the compost, rather than let it take a year to make. We'll probably still have a "slow" compost pile for the big stuff, but if we accelerate the chicken waste, we'll have more usable compost faster.

Sunday we stayed in and watched football. Today, it's more of the same cold, clammy, gray fogginess. It's not enticing to go work in the yard. However, my Burpee seed order came, so I've got peas for the world.

We got some bad news: Renny and Cindy's landlord is selling their house, and they have to move. So that means no cornfield for us! /Cry. And of course, we hope Rennie and Cindy can find another nice place to live. But I have a plan... we'll just dig up as much of our backyard as we can. It's big enough for a 3-sisters field, and it has irrigation already in. The "lawn" is mostly weeds anyway.

The other thing I'd really like to do is put in an earth oven at the farm. Then we can bake pizza and bread, and generally use it to warm ourselves as well.

Happy Hour with a Hawk

So, even though it's been cold and slightly rainy, I was jonesing for some farm time. I just have to be outside every day, even if it's wintery weather. So I headed to the farm with a jug and a knitting project. When I first got there, for some reason I was looking in the thicket, and noticed another dead rat. Like the first one I found a couple of weeks ago, this one had its throat slashed as if by clippers. Again I suspected a hawk kill, but the ratty carcass was tucked in the thicket, and that's not where you'd expect a hawk to feed.

Then Bud came out to join me, and we started chatting. We wandered over to the playhouse, and then I looked up at the tree over the washhouse, and saw this hawk.

It was perched there, watching us. We hung out and it flew closer and closer, and it finally hopped onto the chair and then went down into the thicket. It grabbed the rat and started eating it. We could clearly see it happily standing on the rat, tearing bits off.

All I had was my phone in my pocket, so these pics aren't that good. Anyway, once the hawk had gone into the thicket, Buddy and I slowly walked back to the table. We drank our beers, and the hawk feasted on his rat, in a companionable manner for quite some time, until a noise startled him and he flew away.

Later, just as we were about to give up and go home for the night, Catherine came over, and we told her about it, and decided to have one more beer...

So this morning, I'm trying to identify the hawk. It's rough because I have two candidates. To my mind, our hawk looks like a Cooper's Hawk. Compare the tail of our guy above to this image of a Cooper's Hawk.

At first I thought it might be a Northern Harrier, which nests on the ground, perches low, and eats rodents. But Northern Harriers have a white rump patch, and our guy does not.

Another hawk that looks very much like a Cooper's is the Sharp Shinned Hawk. These links below list both Cooper's and Sharp Shinned Hawks as mostly eating birds, but other sites say they eat rodents too. Our guy was definitely eating his rodent. This is a Sharp Shinned.

While this is a juvenile Cooper's Hawk.

Cooper's Hawk

Sharp Shinned
Northern Harrier

Here's another good site for Sharp Shinned.

Sure Is Winter

We're definitely in wintery weather. It's been getting up to the 50s, with lows in the 40s, and morning fog. It's also been damp and slightly rainy. Yesterday the sun came out for a minute, and I headed over to the farm to have a beer in the sunshine. Buddy was out too but we didn't do much. I fertilized the onion starts in the raised bed, and de-leafed the rose. There is more pruning and thinning to do, and I need to move and divide a lot more bulbs and rhisomes. I also need to get out and pick up all my dead lemons. That is a sad task: a harvest with no fruit. But it has to be done, and I'll just face up to it.

Since I was at the farm yesterday, I indulged myself and picked some of the mesculn lettuces. There is just a tiny patch, but I got a nice handful of lettuce. I added a little store-bought romaine to buff it out, and it was utterly delicious. So much more flavor! The bok choi didn't mind being transplanted at all, especially because I did it while it was sprinking, so they stayed wet. They've really responded to the extra root room and are growing fast and looking very vigorous. I am expecting to have lots of bok choi soon. I did pick a leaf or two for my salad, but in general, I think it needs a few weeks more to fill out.

My Burpee order shipped, so I should have seeds soon. Karen and I are going to have a seed starting day next week, and we'll put them all in the starting box.

Coop Fun

Sunday was the last of the second long weekend, so we tried to get a few more things done. Saturday and Sunday were not all that cold (it got into the high 50s) and it was sunny. Rick and Buddy got the trailer cleaned out. Rick intends to put this old truck body back on the trailer so he can move both.

Here it is all cleaned out. The cage part will be the chicken coop.

That task seemed pretty icky, so I busied myself in the garden. I had moved these bok choi the other day, but hadn't gotten a shot of it in daylight, so here it is. That is the row the cabbage used to be on. I'm gonna pull those cauliflower plants because the heads are all rotten.

 

The daikons are still small, but definitely forming roots.

Daikon can supposedly be planted all winter, so I put some more in yesterday. I had left small patches between each variety of onion. I had seeded these, but some didn't come up at all. In this patch, I put in more daikon.

The lettuce that came up was doing ok, so I planted some more here, just in front of the rose.

Behind the rose, by the first daikon patch, I put in some red radishes.

And I realized I hadn't put in a picture of my cheese except on the pizza, so here is a pic taken on 1-1. It's all gone now, although I did give a small wedge to Karen and Glen.