More Seed Starting

The earliest fall seeds I planted have grown into huge plants. These cabbages are heading up and almost ready to start eating. I may have started these a tad early, but hey, they seem happy enough.

I have 4 rows currently in broccoli and cabbage, and two more flats ready to put in, so I figure that's enough broccoli for now, and I better put in some other fall crops. The lettuce I started is languishing in the heat, but I think these greens will do ok. Flat B(2): 1-2 Winter Red Kale, 3-4 Violetta Pac Choi, 5-6 Dwarf Curly Blue Kale, 7-8 Peppermint Chard, 9-10 Win-Win Choi.

And, since it's summer, we're still doing beer tasting. This was Rogue's "Grow Your Own" brand. They grew their own hops and barley. We support the idea of "dirtoir"!

Per my notes, Rick said he tastes dark caramel, coffee, and chocolate, but the hoppy finish cleans it up. I noticed caramel, molasses, and, oddly, cinnamon. To Catherine it seemed a bit charred, with burnt sugar and molasses notes. 

Tuesday, I went to play Rock Band at Titus and Jane's. Jane has been making great progress on her dollhouse project. It's so groovy!

I feel like Goldie Hawn will open one of those picture frames, stick her head out, and giggle.

Wednesday I pulled out more beans, and got the chickens working on the row (3a). And I weeded, and watered, and cleaned eggs, and checked this, and tidied that, and harvested a bit of this, and observed a bit of that but... yeah, once again all I've documented is the drinking! Buddy got some Flipside, and we had our first taste of the season.

Thursday was Rock Band practice at our house. Somebody Push X! Seville showed up only because I bragged that he would like my zucchini relish no matter how much he hated zucchini. He kept saying he wouldn't like it, but I knew better. Sure enough... he liked it. He said it didn't taste like zucchini, it tasted like Indian food. It's all in the spicing! He and Melinda do the ebony-and-ivory thing.

And every week, the freeway gets a little closer to completion. 

Is It Fall Yet?

Why are we thinking about fall? Well, partly because all the fall crops are going in. I got row 6b planted last Thursday (8-15). The front half is Apollo, then two rows of Tenderheart cabbage, and back half is Summer Purple.

We've got three nice rows of broccoli and cabbage. I have two more flats to plant. I'll put one in 5b as soon as the Black Turtle beans are done. And I'll put the other on row 3a, which I'm putting the chickens on this week. We got a few handfuls of filet beans out of that row, but as was the case last year, by this time, we're so loaded with food that green beans don't seem that tempting. Yeah, I know... I should make dilly beans... in my copious spare time.

Instead, I've been making zucchini relish. Lots and lots of zucchini relish. I didn't even bother to can the last batch, as I was sure I'd eat it fast enough. I've been eating it daily, and I'm utterly addicted. I put this batch up in pint jars so I can give some away... maybe. You know you've hit on a great zucchini recipe when you start hoarding all your zucchinis! My zucchini! Mine! You can't have any!

I like the fact that beans can themselves up, sorta. Well, after you pick the vines, pull off the pods, and shell out the beans, you're all done! This shot shows the relative yield of different varieties of beans. Each variety was planted in almost exactly the same amount of row space, with the same spacing, so approximately the same number of seeds. And what a difference! The Cannelini's were the underacheivers here, with the Jacob's Cattle performing well (and looking lovely), while the Red Mexicans were the stars! Fully two jars from the same space. The fourth variety, the Black Turtle beans, aren't quite done yet. In this shot you can also see a bunch of my home-canned bounty: zucchini relish, tomatoes, pickles, tomatillo salsa, and preserved lemons.

We are also continuing to upgrade the chicken project. Rick built this clever feeder. The chickens have to step on the pedal to open the bin and access the food. The pedal and lid part is carefully balanced so that the weight of a chicken opens it easily, but a mouse or rat's weight won't.

Here you can see the new contraption in place. The bin holds a ton of food, and it has a separate bin part for grit/oystershell.

But... as we all know, what we REALLY do at the farm is drink! We sent this image to Catherine while she was away at band camp, and titled it "Drinking of You."

Last Tuesday, Karen and Glen came over to the farm. They had stopped by Feather Falls brewery, and got a growler of their beer. They shared it with us in exchange for some Kolsch.

Glen also brought ribs to share, and I put together some flavor bombs.

Then on Wednesday, Richard Roth showed up at the farm with a special beer to share. Notice the corkscrew: this drink doesn't know if it's a beer or a wine. It was both capped and corked.

The second fermentation involves cherries, so it's sort of a cherry wine beer. It had a sparkle like champagne, and a pinkish head. It tasted like fruit juice, but was pretty high alcohol.

We then proceeded to sample the Vindicator. It was fairly malty for an IPA, but tasty.

We also tried the Mission, which was quite nicely hopped, with a sharp, sort of piney-resiny back taste.

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Weather Note
Well... it could be nicer. It's quite humid, which is very unusual. It rained a little Sunday night, and sprinkled for just a minute yesterday morning as we were starting the walk. The clouds over Sycamore Pool make it look more like April than August. Humidity was 65%; fortunately, it never hit the predicted temp of 104. At 90 it was still miserable. There is a large fire burning outside Oroville, so we have a lot of smoke also. There's a chance of thunderstorms through tomorrow, and it's forecast to be partly cloudy all next week.

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And the wall for the freeway gets higher every day.

The Ides of August

Tomato-phobia continues! OMG that's a lot of tomatoes. You can see why canning was self-defense!

I'm also busily drying the cherries and Tumbling Tigers.

Last week I tried walking with my hand weights. It ups the workout some. I also got a new pedometer so I can track my steps. The walk sure makes a difference! I do a lot each day, but I don't log that many steps when I don't actually take a walk.

The freeway wall gets higher and higher. This looks to be almost road level.

Karen and Ed came to the farm to visit, and also to check out our irrigation system. We had fun hanging out with them.

We played a little croquet last weekend and we got to see Bill and Laura.

The melon patch is sure exuberent... we may have planted a few too many flowers "in between the rows"...

This was on one of the Chinese pistache at our house. I think it might literally be a clusterf#*k.

Nancy came to town and invited us to head to Siphos for Jamaican Independence Day. It was a rockin party. Pat and Anna were there too with Devin.

We were glad they had beat us there and saved a spot, because it was packed. The guy in front was playing some sort of odd instrument that had a unbelievably beautiful sound, very liquid and metallic.

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Weather Note

Last Monday, there were some pretty clouds. But yeah... clouds in mid August. It's been humid as well, and the temps, while in the high 80s most of last week, are edging back to the 90s this week.

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This beauty is a Gold Medal tomato, one of the yellow ones we trialed.

These are the pizza peppers. I only planted one, and they turned out to be great. I'll plant more next year. They grow like a jalapeno (meaning they don't whine about a little heat like bells do), but taste mild and  fruity, like a bell, but better.

Finally, this is my job for this afternoon: Row 6b is ready to plant with more broccoli. 

Tomato Canning

Last week, feeling somewhat innundated with tomatoes, I decided to can some in self-defense. I picked a bunch of Better Boy tomatoes.

They look so pretty in my purple kitchen.

The first thing you have to do is get the water boiling in the canning kettles. It takes a long time to boil that much water.

Then I cored each tomato and cut an X on the bottom.

 I put them in boiiling water for under a minute, then popped them in the ice water bath.

 And the skins come right off.

Then I just stuffed the meats in the clean quart jars, put on new lids and rings, and popped them in the kettles. I put 1/2 teaspoon citric acid per quart jar in the bottom of the jar before filling. That's because tomatoes, while pretty acid for a vegetable, are still iffy for canning. That's also why I processed them at a full rolling boil for 40 minutes, while pickled vegetables can be processed for much less time.

 And here's the finished product, ready for adding to winter soups or stews.

Tomato-phobia

By this time of year, we are almost afraid to go out in the garden and see what's ripe. Karen dubbed it "tomato-phobia" and we all suffer from it! Within the last week, I picked these lovely Tumbling Tigers from the backyard.

And these at the farm.

And more from the backyard.

And more from the farm.

And more from the backyard! Arrrgh! This shot shows three nice examples of the yellow varieties I am trialing to replace the Tangies. The three stripey ones in the front right are Hillbillies. These put out some good tomatoes after the heat wave wrecked the early fruits. Center back is Gold Medal, and that's a beautiful tomato. In the center front is Persimmon, and you can see why it's called that, as it looks just like one. The ones on the back left are Tangies, and ... well... they may be hybrid and sourced from a non-safe-seed-pledge company, but dang, they are a really nice reliable tomato.

What do you do with this many tomatoes? Well I've been drying the small ones daily, and making sauce as much as I can. I tried baking the sauce in the convection oven rather than letting it simmer on the stove. This worked pretty well because I just set it up, went to the farm, and came back to find it nicely thickened up.

Oh, and did I mention zucchinis? We had a couple... I made stuffed zucchinis, having been inspired by the ones Delina brought over on block day.

This was a truely magnificent Cosmonaut Volkov. This variety turned out to be a real winner.

One slice dominates a BLT. This is my homemade wheat bread, so it's a nice big slice of bread, but it can barely hold the tomato.

We're also getting the first of the drying beans coming ripe. The Jacob's Cattle came first; they were ready last week. I picked the Cannelini yesterday, and they are just done.

Jacob's Cattle are pretty beans, and they did well. We will definitely replant next year.

Last Friday, we did another installment of our beer a day tasting. This was the Rogue Black IPA, "Daddy's Little Helper." It was nice and hoppy, with lots of roasty notes. We also had zucchini relish with crackers and cream cheese, and tiny cherry pies, made with the homemade cherry jam from Delina's friends cherries. All this makes Melinda happy.

And if it's summer, it's time to be farming for fall, so I'm already hard at work getting the fall crops going. The transplants in 5a are thriving. We've already removed the shade cloth.

Last weekend I got 6a planted. These transplants were the cabbage and Apollo broccoli from flat B.We left the basil on the side (although we're not exactly short of basil).

Rick and Buddy took out the trellising in 7b, and I pulled up the last of the tomatillos and borage. We'd been using this row mostly to grow borage for the chickens, and we've been feeding them a plant or two a day.

Then we put the chickens on it to do their work. You can see how the first half of 6b is bare; that's where I pulled up the Jacob's cattle, and I hadn't pulled the Cannelinis yet. I dug and Rick composted yesterday, so I should be able to plant 7b today with more broccoli.

Also over the weekend, Rick got more paneling put up in the bar.

I also got some more seeds started. I'm sorta behind, because I need to get more starts in the ground so I can refill the flats! Since I transplanted flat a (into row 5a) I replanted it with mostly Apollo broccoli (rows 1-5) then 6-7 Fiesta, 8-9 Thompson, and 10 Tenderheart. Did this last Tuesday, 7-30.

Then last Thursday, 8-1, I planted flat F in lettuce. 1-2 Green Towers, 3-4 Continuity Butterhead, 5-6 Drunken Woman Frizzy Headed, 7-8 Montecito, and 9-10 Blushed Icy Oak. These had sprouted as of yesterday!

Also, this is right in the midst of peach season, which started a couple weeks ago and has almost run its course. The harvest was light this year, but the tree is healthy, and the fruit is delicious. We must remember to spray it again at the proper time.

Final bonus image: our friend the turtle again. We always look for him on our walks.