Feels Like Spring

It has been getting more and more like spring. It's still cold, but it's been sunny and almost warm in the daytime. The daffodils are just amazing

The glen is pretty, although the forsythia hasn't bloomed yet.

And the irises are starting to show a little color.

The apricot and plum trees are in bloom now. Look at the progress from this picture taken last Thursday (2-21)...

... And compare to the blooms as of yesterday (2-26). That one new plum branch is determined to set fruit! It's absolutely covered with blossoms.

The apricot bit of that tree is blooming well also. The peach tree is just showing some color around the buds, the lilac is leafing out, and the cherry is still just in bud phase.

This is a welcome sight! We're seeing the first signs of aphids, but the ladybugs are on the job!

We are STILL getting broccoli. This is row 8, which I planted in late August. This row didn't flower until now, but that's perfect because the others, while still putting out a few small shoots, are really finally almost done. I know I've been saying that for months now... What a great crop. This summer, I'm planting twice as many! I need fully 6 flats of starts.

I also harvested this lovely bunch of radishes. We left them in a little long, so they got a bit woody, but they are still tasty.

The boys hang out with the chickens while Amber looks on.

Catherine found this cute chicken ceramic, and gave it to Buddy as an award for all his hard work with the chickens.

Buddy was appropriately honored...

Over at 9th Stree, the camillias are in full bloom. Sarah and Nathan had to move out. Chico is such a hard town to get a job in. So we need to find another tenant. I hope we get someone nice...

The favas went from showing a suggestion of bloom on 2-22.

To being fully in bloom by 2-24.

We're going to have a lot of favas!

This shows the rest of the garden space, and is part of my sun/shade data gathering: taken 2-24 at 3 pm.

We have a new fun thing to do! Lori, Buddy, and I have been walking in the park for exercise. We walk for about an hour and a half, and usually do about 7,000 steps. It's not too strenuous; we just stroll along, stopping to look around and enjoy the park. Here we're exploring the cork forest.

The corky bark is weird and pretty.

We also saw a hawk. Buddy spotted him. He's one of our sharpshinned/Cooper's hawks, and he was completely unconcerned that we were walking around below him.

Seed Room Progress and Seed Decoder

We've been making a ton of progress with the seed starting room. Rick has been a real champ, working hard every day after work. After he rewired it all, he put up plastic sheeting to provide a vapor barrier and try to keep it cleaner.

Here he is wrestling it into place.

And now it's fully operational. We've already moved the lights around a little to make a more L-shaped area. We'll continue to fine tune it, but I've already taken the seedlings over. I think the box I was using was a little hot, because the center rows of tomatoes didn't come up. I reseeded it all yesterday to start over.

Great job Rick!

I also started a flat of peppers on 2-26. Then yesterday, I started a whole new flat of tomatoes and peppers, with an eye to salsa gardening.

Here is the secret decoder ring for the plantings.
Flat A Tomatoes (2-17 and again 2-26)
1.  Gold Medal
2.  Persimmon
3.  Hillbilly
4.  Pineapple
5.  Ananas Noire
6.  Sweet Tangerine
7.  Cosmonaut Volkov
8.  Better Boy
9.  Tumbling Tiger
10.  Principe Borgese

I also planted 3 six-packs:
A. Prince Borg
B. San Marzano
3. Tri Color Cherry (red, orange, yellow front to back)

Flat B Peppers (2-21)
1.  Biker Billy
2.  Sureno Serrano
3.  Pizza Pepper (1-3) / Red Thai (4) / Orange Thai (5)
4.  Ancho
5.  Pasilla
6.  Padron
7.  New Mex Joe Parker
8.  L. Paprika (1-3)  / Alma Paprika (4-5)
9.  Black Hungarian (1) / Red Peter (2) / Cayenna (3-5)
10.  Padron

Flat C Peppers / Tomatoes (2-16)
1.  Biker Billy
2.  Sureno Serrano
3.  Ancho "San Luis" (this and next two from a Renee's mix)
4.  New Mex "Joe Parker"
5.  Jalapeno "Sierra Fuego"
6.  Better Boy
7.  San Marzano
8.  Cosmonaut Volkov
9.  Prince Borg
10.  Tangerine

So this is 150 seedlings, and I realize it's nowhere near enough...
... so I planted another flat. I got a few tomato seeds from Karen.

Flat D Tomatoes / Peppers (3-2-13)
1.  Indigo Rose tomato (K, Territorial)
2.  Beaverlodge tomato (K Territorial)
3.  Purple Russian tomato (K BC)
4.  Beefsteak tomato (freebie from BC)
5.  Pizza Pepper
6.  Padron
7.  Pimento
8.  Alma Paprika
9.  L. Paprika
10.  Paprika

Chicken Feed

With organic feed prices going through the roof, we've been looking at natural alternatives. And, we always need to know what is and isn't good to feed chickens. This post is a really useful compendium, so I'm linking it here. 

chicken treat chart

Probably the most important is the list of what NOT to feed them:

Avocado, raw green potato peels, citrus, anything salty, dry or undercooked beans, candy, chocolate, or sugar. Also, never feed them anything not fit for human consumption, meaning moldy, rotted, etc. I also noticed they said only to feed seedless grapes, something we'll have to bear in mind come grape season.

We've also been sprouting seeds for the chickens, but I need to find a seed source and get a bigger setup. I like the idea of using five-gallon buckets with slits cut in the bottom. I need a source of organic grain seeds to sprout without having to buy a pound at a time and pay shipping.

Pre-seeding Prep

We need lots more seed starting room, so Rick starts rewiring the laundry room. He and Buddy took out lots of nasty garbage so we'd have a space to work. Rick didn't like the old decrept wiring, so he put in new, safe power.

And new switches.

Then he built a table bottom out of scrap wood from pallets.

Rick C. contributed the lights he bought for seed starting last year. He had discovered that his attic got too hot too fast sometimes. So we'll try using the lights in this area instead and see if we have better luck.

Rick shows off the completed table. We vacuumed and even sprayed bleach solution all over that end of the room to make it as clean as possible.

 Everything's inside out of the rain.

Springboard to Spring

We've been watching the signs for spring. By Valentines Day, the blossoms were just starting to open on the apricot.

And the daffodils are starting to bloom.

So, it must be time to start thinking about spring planting. We got the strings up on the trellis and planted snow peas, both Oregon II and Golden.

We prepped rows 4 and 5 A, adding compost and new mulch. We planted 5a in garden peas ("Spring" garden pea, from Burpee) in a double row on 2-14.

We finished off with row 4a on 2-16. I think the plants on the front are rescued Johnny Jump Ups. If they're weeds, well...

Meanwhile, we're still harvesting broccoli. I brought these lovely heads home to make pizza for our Vday Rock Band gig. We had a full complement of both Somebody Push X and Alien Peace Wave.

Last Sunday (2-17) I started the tomatoes. I only planted 68... probably not enough... Actually, I planted about 5 of each variety (with some exceptions) with the hope of getting two really good starts for each. I planted extras of the small determinate sauce tomatoes that I will put over at 9th.

I did the planting on the back patio, and I had my lil pegleg hen out. She was so fascinated by what I was doing, she actually flew up to the table to check it out. Of course, she wouldn't pose for me there, but she showed off on the ground. She's a pretty bird, and she's laying steadily now.

And by the 17th, the apricot has numerous blossoms, and even the plum is showing color in the buds.

And the daffodils in the glen are in their full glory.

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Weather Note
It's been our typical glorious early Feb. weather, with cool temps but sunshine, and even a few vaguely warmish days. I went out with no coat at midday one day! Then today, it tried to snow on the valley floor and there were tornado watches... We got a bit of rain, and its predicted to be cloudy with possible rain for the rest of the week.
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Rick got to work on the grapevines. He and Buddy tore all the old chicken wire, and generally got it all cleaned up.

Rick shows off a particularly gnarly pruning. Delina came over and gave us a ton of help with the pruning. Rick and I both learned a lot from watching her.

Meanwhile off the farm... We gathered at Tom and Nancy's for a cornhole game. Oddly enough, there was also music, and good food, and great company, and a fine sunny day.

When we brunched at Sierra Nevada, we saw their newest glasses. These are for IPAs and are intended to concentrate the aroma, much like a wineglass. They served us these glasses when we ordered the Ruthless Rye.

Dean also paid us a visit at the Farm. Buddy shows off his curmudgeonly cameraderie in a totally appropriate way.

Longing for Spring

 It's that time of year where we're just longing for spring. It's so close and yet... Well, we have a lot of work to do before planting time, so we'll just have to keep plugging along. At 9th, we got a couple loads of compost, courtesy of Rick C. Because this is such a large area, we're just improving the actual row area to start. Our plan is to get more compost this weekend and till up the rows with Rick C's tiller.

We lined out the rows with enough precision to be able to put in standardized irrigation. The fava bean rows are just wherever we put them, however. The favas are coming up nicely, although they need a lot more weeding.

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Weather Note
It's been above freezing (mostly) for the last couple weeks, after that crippling long period of freeze. It was dry until today, when a rainstorm blew in from Alaska. We're getting some significant rain today, which should really help the garden.
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There was a nice full moon at the end of January.

It was so nice we decided to walk to Titus and Jane's house to play Catan. On the way, I noticed that my neighbor has a cannon! Fortunately it isn't aimed at our house...

Over at the farm, we've been working on the laundry room some more. Rick got the door put on and rewired it so we can actually use the electricity safely.

I've been reading about using sprouted grains as fodder, so we decided to try it at the farm. I got a simple sprouting system from Sproutpeople. The chickens do love the sprouts, although I'm not sure this is a cost-effective way to augment their feed. I'm going to look at whether I can get much larger bulk purchases of sproutable grains instead of having to mail-order it by the pound.

The "true" daffodils are just starting to bloom, and Rick C says the flowering tree by his house is flowering. We use these seasonal cues to decide when to plant starts. It's still just a tad early for tomatoes and peppers.

But we started to think about peas. Here Rick and Buddy demonstrate our new trellis idea. We'll run strings down from the top piece, but that should keep the row from sagging. Look at how wonderful and black that dirt is.

It even has a beer stand! We made sure to leave plenty of room in the back so we can easily pull the chicken tractor along the back fence. We're hoping to get another spring crop of side shoots from the broccoli, even though the chickens had a feast of them.

 In our backyard, the onions are garlic are thriving. They looked a little unhappy during the super cold weather, but they have bounced back. I'll fertilize them as soon as I'm sure we're past the ultra coldness.