Pipes, Pens, and Pruning

Ok first of all, apologies to Rick C. This image was supposed to appear in the last post, with fulsome admiration for his ditch digging and plumbing prowess. He hand-spaded the run to this standpipe, put in all the plumbing, and got rid of an annoying hose running across the pasture. So thanks Rick, and sorry for the omission.

Ok now that I'm done groveling.... Rick J worked on getting the pen glued together.

The potatoes are sprouting nicely. It's not quite time to bury them up with straw, but soon we will.

And the grapes are showing nice growth, all along the top of the fenceline, as planned. My pruning was amaturish, and probably not thorough enough, but it definitely helped.

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Weather Note

The weather is still damp and cloudy, and Buddy saw hail early in the week. So it remains perfect weather for the peas and lettuces in the garden. But the long term forcast was showing a big increase in nighttime temperatures, which are a key indicator. The nightly low went from 43 to 53 in a few days. Soon it will be warm enough for the first of the summer crops. In the meantime, we have a garden full of lettuces and peas, so we'll be eating well.

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Yesterday Rene and Cooper came over. Here he admires the huge carrot Rick pulled. These are carrots we planted last fall, and I was surprised how large they got. We'll have to do carrots again, but seed much more thickly, like we did in the small raised bed.

Rene and Rick work on zip-tying the pen.

While Buddy supervises.

Rick and Catherine work on the orange tree. Because it's budding out so much now, we want to direct all that lovely growth where we want it, rather than wasting it on pieces that have to come out.

Cooper was quite intrigued by the chickens, but he calmed down after a while. Here he is supervising.

Rick and Rene put the new pen up to the main coop to see how it fits. It's... pretty close lol. I really don't think we need to worry too much. Pretty soon the chickens will be eager to hop in there, as they'll know it means fresh food is coming.

And hmmm... what did I do? Well besides drink beer and take pix? I ordered all the summer vege seeds! So I spent the afternoon pasting images and descriptions in our lovely farm scrapbook.

I figure there's no point in growing the same varieties you'll see in the Farmers' Market, so I got all unusual and extra delicious varieties.

Water and Transplanting

Sunday was rainy, so Rick worked on the "remote" chicken pen in the basement. This pen is designed to let the chickens pasture in a specific spot, or conversely, to keep them out of a certain spot. Here Rick demonstrates the door mechanism.

We decided to make a quick run to the farm, thinking the rain might slack off a little. Hah! As soon as we got there, it started to pour! It rained so hard that water was standing in puddles all over the yard. Nonetheless, Buddy, Rick, and I hung out a bit. It was weird that I had to go out in the rain to water my plants, but the greenhouse and cold frames are full of starts that need daily watering.

The dogwood is even more spectacular. All over town it's the height of dogwood season.

On Monday, I brought over the starts I'd bought at the Farmers Market, and Rick helped transplant them into one gallon pots. Those are in the greenhouse now too.

Meanwhile, Rick tests his manifold for the chicken waterer.

And... yay! We have automatic water to the chickens.

Yesterday we picked our first carrot, and it was plenty big and amazingly tasty. Sadly, I wasn't quick enough to get video of Cathering dancing around singing, "We made this out of dirt! We made this out of dirt!"

I decided to transplant the biggest of the pepper starts: the Ancho, Big Jim, and Quad (yellow bell), While they were quite large on the top, the roots hadn't outgrown the paper pots. They probably had another inch before they'd be potbound. So I will leave the others in the small paper pots for now at least. The greenhouse is looking pretty full these days.

But even if the roots aren't at full depth yet, you can see that the tops need room to expand. They were getting pretty cramped in the little pots.

Once again, Rick joins in on the fun.

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Thought for the Day

Thomas Jefferson grew 330 kinds of vegetables, and 170 varieties of fruit on his plantation. He said he ate meat as a condiment to his vegetables.

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The ixias are getting ready to bloom. These came originally from Rick's grandmother.

Rick brought the pen to the farm and reassembled it. He had some excuse for the part that was left over... Today we'll probably glue it and ziptie the poultry netting on.

Busy Week

Well we had another busy week at the farm. Monday it was a little rainy, but that didn't stop us. We just sat in the playhouse. It may not be finished, but it sorta keeps the rain off.

Once again, we were rewarded with a rainbow.

The dogwood next door is in full bloom.

On sunnier days, we worked around the farm. Rick tilled the new area and got it all amended.

The snow peas are blooming!

Rick got some peppers, and we repotted them and put them in the greenhouse.

Rick says, "Wow! What a great bunch of tomato plants! Or maybe he was being silly... one of the two.

But it IS a great bunch of tomato plants. That didn't stop me from buying a few more from the Vogel's stand today. I got 4 Early Girls, 3 Better Boys, and a Lemon Boy (A yellow Better Boy, highly recommended). Al Vogel agreed that we should deep plant the new ones in one gallon pots, and keep them all in the greenhouse for another month or so.

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What We're Eating

Yesterday I took some Annies Goddess dressing (a new favorite) and the local Pistacio Curry Sauce to the farm and then picked a big bunch of our lettuces. We snacked on fresh lettuce leaves dipped in dressing, with a few sunflower seeds to round it out. It was unbelievably delicious, and couldn't have been simpler.

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The poppies are blooming. Catherine figured out that the little "mage hats" hide the budding flower. The flower sort of shrugs the "hat" off when it gets big enough.

 

The chickens are thriving too. They like their nice big pen, and we're working on the last few embellishments, like the dedicated water line and automatic waterer that I'm holding out for.

Mulch!

Rick C was able to get some chips, so we started spreading mulch around the orchard. We put newspaper down first.

Rick C. wheels in another barrowful. We cut a nice edge up to the "glen" and plan to work our way out to encompass all the orchard area.

We ran the chipline right up into the flowerbeds. This gives us a nice clean edge.

Afterward we relaxed. It's hard to tell, but we put chips all under the rug area. This makes it much better for drainage. Plus, we got to move a lot of the chips in without having to dig out that much grass. It's gonna go a bit slower from here, but we have easily half the pile of chips left.

In farm news, the potatoes are sprouting nicely.

And the herbs around the rose bush are thriving. The borage in particular has survived the winter and begun to flower.

The cherry tree is showing some nice fruit sets. We need to put some cds or mylar tape up to scare away the birds. They can have the very top cherries, but not ALL of them.

The grapes are nicely trained up to the fence top. They still need work, but they are focused where they can get the most sun.

This shot has my foot in it for scale, to show just how closely lettuce plants can be set. We can easily get 4 across, set on 1-foot centers (or even a bit tighter). This allows a lot of lettuces in a small space. These are the blushed butters.

We sheared this bit of mesculn, and had enough lettuce for 4 huge chef salads.

This is the only bit of red cabbage that headed up, and it wasn't impressive.

Chickens

On Monday, we moved the chicks to their new pen. It wasn't a moment too soon, as they were too big for their baby pen. Here they are in the truck, on their way to the farm. We'd ordered a tarp to cover the pole barn, but it hadn't come yet, so we had to get another tarp for a temporary fix. Of course, once we put up the temporary one, the other one arrived the next day. We'll change it when it isn't wet and windy.

Here are the chicks in their new pen. We didn't have any straw at first, so we covered the bottom in newspaper and wood-chip bedding. You can sort of see Buddy peeking in the back.

On Tuesday I took Rick's truck and got straw for them.

This shot shows the box end, the tarps on the barn and the pen, and the extra feed and bedding.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I transplanted most of the tomatoes. Unfortunately, I've managed to get them all mixed up. I guess we'll know what's what when they fruit. The stuff in the small pots is lettuce and some Toma Verde tomatillos. The lettuce in the ground is doing really well, the snow peas are big and should start flowering soon, and the potatoes have sprouted. The peppers are still in the light box, and they are thriving.

The dogwood next door is just starting to bloom.

And we had a great sunset on Monday night.

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Weather Note

It's been threatening rain all week, but today is the first day with any actual rain. The week has been classic Chico spring weather: cloudy, blustery, and pretty cold. March always comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion--opposite the usual saying. Night temps are getting into the low 40s or even high 30s. I worried about the chicks getting too cold, but they seem to be fine, especially with their pen covered with tarps, lots of straw for bedding, and some strategic bits of cardboard to keep out the drafts. The forcast for the next few days is showers between bits of sunshine.

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