Sod

Back at our house, I made a roaming pen out of poultry netting and green stakes. It works great to give the chickens more room to graze.

They've done a superb job of clearing out the weeds. Even the edges of the walkway have been carefully and fully weeded.

The baby chicks are thriving, and starting to show more feathering on the wings. They will be beautiful birds, and I hope they have unique markings so we can tell them apart.

Karen and I finished all the transplanting, and we have more radicchio than we'll know what to do with. I didn't take a picture of it, but the lettuce starts in the cold frame are really doing well. It's about time to plant those in the ground. I plan to put some in my newly weeded and de-bugged beds.

Yesterday was the "nice" day this week. Instead of incessent rain like the rest of the week, including today, it was only cloudy. So we tried to get some work done. Early in the afternoon, I pruned the grapes some, and planted another row of peas (Paso). Buddy worked on cutting up the apple wood. That will be just the ticket when we get the pizza oven built. In the meantime, we'll stack it and let it age. Then Rick C showed up, and said he had access to some nice sod. We decide to use it as a path in the flowerbed. Here Rick and Buddy are digging up the irises. They badly needed to be thinned anyway.

Rick runs the tiller lightly over the area.

Rick bravely went and got the sod. He was the only one who hadn't had any beer yet, a situation he had been hoping to remedy. In this shot he's wheelbarrowing rolls of sod into the work area.

Rick lays the sod.

And becomes... the Mud Monster!

Chicks

Well, I went down to C Bar D feeds and got some chicks. I got a dozen Barred Rocks. They will be beautiful. Right now they are cute as can be.

I have them in the bathroom in a dog kennel. The bathroom can be kept warm with a light on them, and the heat fan running. They need to be kept at 80 degrees until they have feathers. The spaces between the wires on the dog kennel are actually too big, and the chicks can get out. They should outgrow that in a few days. In the meantime, I put some tinfoil around the bottom to discourage them from leaving the pen. We'll also keep the bathroom door closed. Here they are, roaming around, eating and drinking. You can see all 12 in this shot. No... I'm not going to name them.

Karen came over today and we planted some more seeds for her: Three pots of Black Cherry Tomato, one Biker Billy Jalapeno, a Serrano, and a Red Thai, a Sweet Tangerine tomato, a Buck's County tomato, and one Prince Borg (Principe Borghese). We planted 3 seeds in each pot.

It's raining today, although it was lovely yesterday. Yesterday I planted more peas (Paso) at the farm. I used the fake bamboo poles and they work great. I also got my roses pruned and mostly weeded.

Blooming Trees

We got the usual, and glorious, mid February warm spell. All the trees burst into bloom. The temperature is all over the map: sometimes rising to the high 70s by midafternoon, but plunging back into the low 40s and even high 30s at night.

This weekend was Gwen's memorial, so Rick and I weren't able to do much at the farm. We did sneak over for a few minutes on Friday morning, before the ceremony.

The apricot is entering full bloom. Flowers are fully open on some branches, while others are still just budding.

The Burpeanna Early peas have sprouted. They were planted on 2-6.

The chervil and parsley in the pot are doing well. We'll have to watch the chervil because it bolts when it gets hot. If we plant some in the shady areas it should reseed itself.

The onions are about to transplant size, which is good because I'd like to use the box for carrots next (baby carrots of course).

The pansies are starting to bloom again.

Then we didn't get back to the farm until Sunday afternoon, after the organic gardening class. We had wanted to show off the garden to David and Mary and Dale and Vikki, but we went on the Bidwell Mansion tour, and that took up most of the afternoon. When we got to the farm, we saw that Buddy had been busy. All the fire blight is gone and so is most of the apple tree. If it doesn't regrow, we'll just take it out and plant more appropriate trees.

We were too tired to do much besides hang around, but it was great to relax after a long weekend. It was really great to see family, but it tired me out. Catherine had showed up to Gwen's memorial, which was very sweet of her.

It's hard to see, but this picture shows huge flocks of geese, flying VERY high, and all heading north with determination. This is not their usual winter circling around, looking for the next field to glean. They're going home. This is another clear harbinger of Februation.

Also, as of yesterday, the plum trees began to blossom. The sequence, in our farm at least, is almond, apricot, forsythia, plum. Our cherry isn't blooming yet, but the ones at Vallombrosa are. The lilac is leafing out strongly, but not showing any blooms yet. And the roses are all showing new red growth, and need to be pruned and fertilized.

The rose of Sharons are still leafless.

Peppers Planted

Yesterday I got busy and planted the pepper seeds I had ordered, mostly from Karen's wonderful catalog, Gourmet Seeds (GS), and some from Baker Creek and Burpee.

I had planted the Biker Billy jalapenos early last week (I guess I never wrote down exactly when). But I moved all the last of the lettuce out of the hot box, and filled it with peppers and a few tomatoes.

Starting at the top left, I planted 4 pots each of: Serrano (Burpee), Red Demon Thai (original Renee's seeds), Cajun Tabasco (GS), Red Peter (GS), Pasillo Bajio (GS).

Bottom Left: Chile de Arbol (GS), Cayenne (GS), Sweet Tangerine tomato (Burpee, same seed as last year), and Principe Borghese (GS) a sun drying tomato (8 pots),

Top Right: Biker Billy's (Burpee) (18 pots)

Bottom Right: Big Jim (GS), a New Mexico type for drying (12 pots), and Quadrato d'asti Giallo (Baker Creek), a large yellow bell pepper (8 pots).
Off to the side in the clear pan are 9 Ancho Giganticas (GS).

I wish I could remember when I planted those Biker Billy, but it was sometime last week. I sort of expect them to sprout any minute, and if they don't sprout soon, I'll check for germination.

Spring!

It really feels like spring now. We've had a few dry days, and it approaches 80 degrees in the afternoon. Nights are still cold, dropping to the mid 40s. But the birds are singing, and the air smells like flowers. The trees have taken advantage of this bit of warm weather to burst into bloom. Here's a blossom on our almond tree at the farm, on Feb. 14.

And here it is two days later. All around town all the trees are blooming, and the bees are hard at work.

There are other signs of spring, such as when the comforter starts to make you uncomfortable, but nothing is a better indicator than Rick C. When he comes out of hiding, it must be spring. Look how sunny the farm is! We were working on our tans.

I'm really enjoying the daffodils. These are Katinka's favorite flower, so we think of her when we see them. Hi Katinka! We love you, Sis.

These lichens on the apricot are neat looking, but a bad sign. Also, the apple tree has fire blight all over, and probably should come out.

I thinned a few onions. They are just at scallion size now.

Totally random weirdness... saw this across the street from our house.

On Tuesday, the moon was just past new, and oddly sideways.

Wednesday I cleared more space for peas. I planted the Paso peas in row 1, and Maestro peas here, just behind the rose. The other shelling peas are Burpeanna Early, which went in Feb. 6, about the same time the snow peas sprouted.

Rick C. got busy and dug a trench for the irrigation. Rick J continues to work on the chicken pen. Here he admires Rick's work

The apricot started to bloom yesterday, Feb. 17.

And the forsythia is blooming as well. This is the very first flower opening up, but it's about to be a solid mass of yellow.

This little daffodil came up right in the walkway. We're trying not to step on it because it's so cute.

The mustard, which had put out a few leaves here and there all winter, hit a big growth spurt. I picked some more.

And we put it on pizza bread made from my homemade sourdough bread.

Mmmm. Rick likes it.

The last lettuce I planted is well up. I'll take this over to the cold frame, but it's all about ready to go in the ground. Ok... that got me all caught up for the week (except for the Organic Gardening Class notes but... sigh. I'll compile them later.) I'll do a separate post for the pepper seeds

Daffodils and GRUB

Once again, I've managed to get really behind on my blogging. Sunday was another great Organic Gardening class. The GRUB folks spoke and we got a lot of good information. I've included a summary at the end.

Monday was rainy, but on Tuesday, I went over to the farm for a bit. I took pea seeds and stuff, but all I ended up doing was drinking beer. But it was nice to see that the daffodils have bloomed. In other blossoming notes, the quince has been blooming for at least two weeks, and by last week, the camillias were in full bloom. These are good harbingers of Februation.

These are some Green Towers romaine. I planted them in the fall, but it was too late and they never really took off. Still, they are growing and should provide lovely heads of lettuce soon.

These babies in pots will catch right up. These are Blushed Butter and Rouge Gren. I moved these starts to the cold frame. They aren't growing as fast as the ones still in the hot box but I need that space for germinating more.

These are Karen's fava bean on Tuesday. I brought them back for planting, because they gotta go in the ground soon!

It's time to pull the broccoli out, but there are still a few harvestable side shoots. We ate one with dinner last night and it was unbelievably sweet with a complex flavor

I've been making a sourdough starter, and I finally cooked some bread with it. It came out great! I was worried because I don't expect success the first time, but it was delicious. Again, a very complex flavor, and it was well leavened even though I used a lot of wheat flour (freshly milled from Massa Organics).

Here it is served with shrimp salad. We ate the same thing last night, but with a fresh fried egg instead of the shrimp, and lots of greens from the farm.

And...Rick says it's the cold weather that's keeping him away from the farm, but we know the real reason!

Ok now that we've had fun with pictures, here's the GRUB synopsis

The GRUB folks gave a very enlightening and information-dense presentation. I'll try to summarize.

Lettuce: October is the last lettuce planting, with planting resuming in January. They like Concept, Jerico, Lolo Rossa, and Lockhart. Red leaf loose lettuces are more cold tolerant.

Tomatoes: It's time to start them now. They stagger putting theirs out but admitted that the ones set out about Labor Day did the best. They recommend Big Beef and said don't get Red Ace. They set them 2 feet apart in rows set 3 feet apart, and water them for 5 drip hours every 5 days. They weave twine between stakes to hold them up.

Corn: They liked Sweet Chorus, a bicolor. Corn takes a lot of room.

Garlic needs side dressing with compost or foliar feeding.

Carrots: They use Scarlet Nantes carrots in the fall, and Mokum, which is a quick, 50-day carrot, in the spring along with the Nantes, which gives them a staggered harvest.

Peppers: They use pole beans for shade to keep their peppers from getting sunscald. They like Valencia (an orange bell), red marconi, and quadrati asti giallo. They don't fertilize until the peppers fruit. Otherwise you just get too much vegetation. But after fruiting, you can encourage the extra leaf growth with nitrogen to also help cover them from sunscald.

Potatoes can go in March 15. Don't use compost! But they cut them to one to three eyes, and then coat them with gypsum. This seals the wound, and they plant the next day. Don't use supermarket potatoes. C-Bar-D has baby potatoes in stock now.

Fall Crops: They had good luck with Romanesco Veronica and grew huge cauliflowers.

Fertility: They use organic inputs like Cal Organics 7-5-7 granular fertilizer, plus kelp meal and compost teas. They also use cover cropping, and they explained that you don't want to let your cover crops go to seed, not only to avoid weeds but to retain the nitrogen in the soil, which would otherwise go to seed production. They mow the cover crop, then till it in and leave it for 2 weeks in summer, 4 weeks in fall to allow the stems to compost. They are beginning to experiment with foliar feeding.

Seeds: They get their seeds from Fetco and Totally Tomato, among others.

Watering: They use all drip and run them for many hours per day, from 5 hours every 5 days for tomatoes, to 3 hours every other day for carrots. They water in the heat of the day to cool the soil.

Peas Up!

The big news is that the first peas have sprouted. This got me excited about planting more... but first things first.

Wednesday wasn't THAT rainy, so we snuck in a little farm time. We picked some lovely daikons. Rick and I ate ours sliced with just a sprinkle of salt, mmmm.

I also tranplanted some of the arugula right into the ground.

I was transplanting other seeds too: the rouge gren and the blushed butter, into their own paper pots. But it got dark so we took a chance and set the umbrella back up so we had all the light over the table.

Thursday was rainy, but on Friday, I transplanted Karen's fava beans to 4-inch pots. Well, what I call 4-inch pots anyway :) They're beer cups with a hole drilled out. They are nice and deep, and they're all recycled from parties.

Yesterday rained in the morning while we had brunch at Sierra Nevada with Glen and Karen. But then it cleared up and we set out to the farm to get some things done. I was all excited about peas, so I planted another double row of Burpeanna Early garden peas.

I also put strings up for the second double row of snow peas, to the far right in this picture. The garlic patch in the middle is doing really well.

And I'm planning to put the cold frame in this space, right out in the garden. I can put lettuces in the ground, and put pots of summer starts on the mulched pathway part.

Rick and Catherine showed up. Catherine did a ton of weeding, while Rick scoped out his next project: the water line.

Bill came over to give us a hand.

Or was it a finger?

With all this help on hand, we got the pole barn put up.

Everyone helps

We also got the chicken pen put up on sawhorses so Rick can work on making the bottom for it. He's pleased with the prospect.

Later we make a fire.