My parents made a surprise visit this week, up from Oregon. They brought a goat stanchion my Dad had made for us as a holiday present. My Mother always insists on being put to work so I took a day off of work and we made quick work of some outstanding chores:
- Trim goat hooves: This has to be done regularly and has historically been a two man job because we didn’t have a goat stand. It’s MUCH easier to do with the stand and some grain to distract the girls.
- Clean chicken coop: We do a full litter change of the cedar shed chicken coop by the house about twice a year. We also scrubbed and sanitized their feed and water, scraped down the roosts, and refilled everything including their oyster shells and the bedding in the nesting boxes.
- Fence and reseed backyard: This isn’t really farm related but needed to be done. Last year’s leaves suffocated the grass and the chickens have been keeping it well turned and any hint of reemerging grass eaten. The moss was starting to take over as well. So we fenced it off from the chickens so we could add some garden lime and reseed. Once everything is established the chickens won’t be able to keep on top of it.
- Planted more seeds: It was time to start my tomatoes and peppers inside. So far the only real failure I’ve had for seed starting was some chives and onions, but I already have chives so that’s not a big deal. I may try starting onions from sets since starting from seed is so problematic.
- Scrubbed the back patio: Chickens traverse the back patio alot and even like to hang out right outside the back door. This leads to lots of “presents” on the patio. I still need to scrub off the front patio.
It wasn’t really on the chore list, but Mom tends to bring out the gardener in me. We broadcast a bunch of “wildflower” mix and seeds I’d saved in to the front flower garden now that it’s been fenced off from the chickens. Maybe I’ll have a cut flower garden after all!
About the only spring chores that are left right now are to do the spring cleaning of the goat shed (waiting on the tractor for that), finish the hoop coop, and to prep the garden. We are off work next week so I’m sure there will be lots of activity.
We celebrated the return of the sun this year with a dinner among friends and family and a resolution for the coming year. Our resolution is to not purchase any meat of unknown origin/treatment (and by that I really mean origin/treatment that we agree with). The big thing we are currently challenged by is pork. We don’t have any friends raising pigs that we are aware of and haven’t ventured in to that yet ourselves. It wouldn’t be quite so bad but our daughters managed to eat through the last three packages of bacon while they were here so we are out. It’s nearly impossible to find sustainably raised bacon because the demand far outstrips the supply and is completely out of balance with the idea of utilizing the whole pig. People just consume far more bacon than they do other pork products. We know of at least one farm locally that sells pork belly during the market season and year-round from the farm. Since it’s not cured or smoked people don’t seem to know what to do with it so it’s generally available. So we will probably embark on trying to make our own bacon in the near future to fill the gap and/or look to purchase a half pig this year.
We decided to set a “January resolution” as well. Partly out of necessity. We had decided we would wait until after the holidays and try to do some overhauls on our spending so we could try to save some money to reinvest in to the property. Couple that with the travel expenses, septic repairs, and truck repairs in the last 6 weeks or so and we could really do with a good dose of belt-tightening. So for January we have resolved not to buy any food or go out to eat. Realistically it’s not zero, but as little as possible (for example, we need flour so we will buy that or buy wheat berries to mill our own). Through the winter we often “slack” and get a weekly delivery of organic produce to fill in some of the gaps (it’s not all local, sadly). We are keeping the weekly produce delivery, but it’s a relatively low cost and good value. It also has the effect of keeping us out of veggie ruts and forcing us to try new things. We figure that the challenge should have positive effects on both our wallet and our waistlines. We also could use a little eating down on the freezer/pantry. I tend to buy stuff on deals and stockpile like the end of the world is coming. We want to make room in the freezer for a nice local spring lamb or two and that pig I mentioned. It’s also hard to justify growing/canning more food when we still have plenty from the previous year (or two).
I’ve been plotting and planning for this year’s back yard garden already. I’m using growveg.com which looks very promising. We are also discussing building raised beds for the front yard garden instead of using all of the containers. They work relatively well but look like a cluttered mess. I’ve resolved to only buy seeds that are really needed this year. The last two years I’ve gone browsing through the seed catalogs in the dead of winter and ended up with all kinds of things I don’t need (they are sneaky that way, sending the catalogs when you are yearning for just about anything green and growing). So far eggplants and celery are the only thing on my list that I need to buy. To help avoid the over purchasing I’m also going to pick them up at the local garden store instead of mail order so I can’t justify making the shipping costs worth it as a reason to buy more seed.
The new flock of baby chicks is just about a month old now and doing great. They are whizzing around the brooder box still and we had to upgrade their feeder and water fount to larger sizes to keep them from emptying them while we were at work. We were just discussing this morning where they are going to range and the housing situation. We may free range them even though I had originally decided not to, just because we really need to do more clearing before we have space to fence and the tractor has been out of commission for several months (seems like a trend around here).
So far this winter has been really good for our current laying flock. Of the original 13 purchased we have all but 1, but we still have 1 from last year’s flock. It seems like we’ve typically lost more than that. We started with 12 or 13 last year and by the time they were laying we only had 8 hens and 1 rooster. We currently have 11 hens and 1 rooster. Egg sales have been going very well and we have far more demand than supply most of the time. It always disappoints me to tell someone I can’t sell them eggs because I think they are just the most wonderful things and everyone that wants them should get an opportunity. So I look forward to the new flock starting to lay and giving me more inventory to work with.
We are still planning on getting another flock this spring and I’m hoping to include a few laying and/or meat ducks in the order as well as some chickens for meat again. We won’t be doing the cornish-x again so I haven’t quite decided on how I want to approach things. I can either get a straight run of the hens we want and hope the roo to hen ratio isn’t too far off, or we can order sexed roos and hens individually. I think it costs about the same either way. I’m also eliciting assistance from our oldest daughter (10 later this January) in helping to select some of the laying hens. I’m excited to see what she chooses. At some point we need to invest in an incubator and just hatch our own chicks. We’ll get there eventually.
I’m practically counting the days until mid-February when I can start my seeds!
- Sugar Snap Peas
…or more specifically peas really.
The garden is doing pretty well this year. Last year I didn’t plant enough cold weather vegetables and this year has been unseasonable warm so I didn’t plant enough warm weather vegetables. Mother nature is a trickster.
The variety of Sugar Snap Peas I planted are extremely tall. It’s a good thing I learned from last year and over built the trellis because they’ve climbed 6 feet and beyond at this point. The plants are heavily loaded with peas and blooms now. I foresee a lot of peas in our near future.
The radishes keep going to seed rather than actually creating radishes and I’ve heard radish seeds are tasty too so I’ve debated letting them. The mustard greens bolt pretty quickly so they went to seed before we ate much of them. I’m letting them go to seed so I can collect the seeds also though. The lettuces have all been hanging in there. We haven’t harvested very many, but the few we have are on their second growing at this point. The cauliflower, kale, brussel
Squash blossoms
sprouts, and beets are still growing but quite slowly. I don’t know if the heat has just been too much for them, but I haven’t given up on them yet. We did lose this year’s blueberries to the heat. The vegetable garden is on a timer to ensure it gets water but the blueberries are elsewhere and didn’t get enough water. We purchased a couple squash starters when I didn’t get seeds started in time and they are doing pretty well. The variety doing the best is the “eight ball” which we’ve already harvested two zukes from. I have to resist the urge to pull all the squash blossoms off the plants and stuff/fry them though. I could have planted things more densely again this year and I thought I had over last year but I still see lots of room to plant. I did make one rather silly mistake with my beans this year. I planted a variety I *thought* were pole beans and it turned out they were bush beans. Fortunately they seem to be pretty forgiving and are still putting on beans despite that they are rather crowded and have silly strings hanging above them.
In the front containers I have all my full sun plants and they are all doing fabulously well with the drip system we put in place (and is also on a timer). I have lots of green tomatoes (both small and full size) and the herbs are flourishing. The pepper plants are doing well, although I had to replant a couple the slugs demolished.
In the wild plants we had quite a showing of the alpine strawberries and even had enough to pick a small bowlful for strawberry shortcake. I don’t know if they are liking all the sun we’ve had or the fact that Bengt didn’t mow the hill side they are on. They seem to flourish the most where they are nestled in the tall grasses. The salmonberries are mostly done at this point and the thimbleberries are just starting to heat their peak. We seem to have two varieties of blackberries and the earlier, smaller variety is starting to ripen.
Currently in the garden:
Head and Leaf Lettuce*, Brussel Sprouts, Red Beets, Radishes*, Carrots, Walla Walla Onions, Cauliflower, Sugar Snap Peas*, Shelling Peas*, Green Beans, Kale, Potatoes, Zucchinis, and Cucumbers.
Currently in the container garden:
Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplant, Fennel*, Sage*, Orange Mint*, Basil, and Dill*.
Currently running wild:
Alpine Strawberries, Thimbleberries*, and Blackberries.
* Things we are currently harvesting.
Peas
Over the last few weeks the garden has really been taking off.
In the backyard garden the peas are waist high and showing no signs of stopping. The mustard greens are starting to bolt and we are debating letting them, to collect the coriander mustard seeds (confusing the mustard with the cilantro that keeps going to seed in the kitchen). The lettuces are all doing well and the cooler weather vegetables are holding in there despite some unseasonably warm weather.
In the front container garden we have several varieties of tomatoes growing. The ones I started from seed got fried in the greenhouse on an unusually hot day so these are from starts we picked up from a random person selling them at the end of their driveway. They were a stellar deal at $1.50 a plant when similar ones were going for $4+ at the farmers market. We also have fennel, eggplant, sage, orange mint and two peppers in containers. Unfortunately slugs got to two of the peppers before I found organic slug bait, but the remaining two and all the others are doing much better now.
We installed a drip system in the container garden that is fed by a rain barrel, although once we got it up we got one or two more rains and it hasn’t really rained since. So right now it’s hooked up to the well spigot. I plan to install drip in the backyard garden too but just keep procrastinating it.
My strawberries continue to do very well in the greenhouse so I haven’t bothered to move them out. We’ve been snacking on them each evening when we close the chicken coop and take the dogs out.
We’ve also have tarragon, 2 kinds of cilantro, and oregano growing in a pot on the kitchen counter for some time.
The salmonberries are coming in all over the property right now and as
Backyard Morels
always it’s fun to watch the chickens eat them. Even the new chickens go crazy for the berries when I toss them in their yard. The goats enjoy the berries too.
Much to our shock and pleasure while weeding around outside the backyard garden fence we discovered a little patch of morels growing. After much research and disbelief we confirmed that they were indeed morels. I can also confirm that they caused no ill effects when eaten either. We have no idea what we did to encourage the morels to grow, but we are hoping that it continues in future years.
I still need to plan squash if it’s not too late and start succcession planting the radishes, carrots, and peas.
Currently in the garden:
Head and Leaf Lettuce, Mustard Greens, Brussel Sprouts, Red and Yellow Beets, Radishes, Carrots, Walla Walla Onions, Cauliflower, Sugar Snap Peas, Shelling Peas, Green Beans, Potatoes, and Cucumbers
Currently in the container garden:
Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplant, Fennel, Sage, and Orange Mint
Currently in the greenhouse:
Strawberries, Basil, Oregano, Dill
Currently running wild:
Salmonberries, Alpine Strawberries, and Thimbleberries
Centennial Hops
How does your garden grow?
With Silver Bells, And Cockle Shells,
And so my garden grows.
We made great progress on the garden this weekend! We got the sugar snap peas, shelling peas, and green beans in the ground and the pea trellises up. I took a lesson from last year and have planted the peas and beans more heavily this time around. I also plan on doing some succession plantings of the peas in particular. In the backyard garden the cool vegetables are happy for almost the entire summer so I’m going to try to use that to my advantage. With the pea tendrils as well as the the actual pods being edible it would seem arguable that one can never have too few pea plants. We were also very happy with the harvest of green beans we got last year and have coveted the garlicky beans we canned through out the winter (only one jar left!).
Potato boxes at the end of the season
The seed potaotes are on the kitchen counter to start sprouting and Bengt pulled out the potato boxes, disassembled them, and put them in their spots. In doing so he discovered a secret clutch of chicken eggs hidden inside one. We had simply been storing the boxes on the far side of the house under the eaves for the winter. This puts them out of sight and doesn’t use up space in the garge or greenhouse. It also puts them very close to the dryer vent and across a small patch of grass from the compost pile, both favorite roosting spots for our free range chickens. We had noticed the egg count drop after the winter passed but just chalked it up to other changes. We don’t think the hen that left the clutch is still with us unfortunately, or I’d try to encourage her behavior. There were only five eggs and they were clearly undeveloped. We are honestly surprised that they weren’t in worse shape considering the cold nights we still have some what frequently.
There are still kale, cabbage, and herb starts on the kitchen counter waiting for a few more leaves before they can get transitioned out to the garden as well. The tomato starts in the kitchen need to be potted up and moved to the greenhouse. The hops Bengt planted last year have come back as have the chives, blueberries, and columnar apples. In the way of wild/forage around the farm the salmonberries and alpine strawberries are starting to bloom and the dandelions are out in full force.
Currently in the garden:
Head and Leaf Lettuce, Mustard Greens, Brussel Sprouts, Red and Yellow Beets, Radishes, Carrots, Walla Walla Onions, Cauliflower, Sugar Snap Peas, Shelling Peas, and Green Beans
Currently in the greenhouse:
Strawberries
Currently running wild:
Salmonberries, Alpine Strawberries, Dandelions
I’m sure you are familiar with the phrase, ‘more money than sense’? That appears to be my approach towards gardening.
In California I had picked my last apartment based on the fact that it had a patio, roughly as big as my one bedroom apartment’s livingroom, that got plenty of sun. That was the extent of my gardening experience going into this. I managed to successfully grow tomatoes, peas, peppers, herbs, and a few other random items in the abundant california sun in little containers from starts purchased at the local nursery. Gardening is easy, right?
I love our animals, but when we first moved I was more excited by the prospect of having dirt, real dirt, than anything else. I couldn’t wait to dig up swathes of it and plant to my heart’s content. Since we moved in the winter I had to appease myself with a local CSA and began counting down the days 
until spring and the farmer’s markets began to open. I bought numerous books on gardening including the well regarded Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades: The Complete Guide to Organic Gardening
. I attempted to pour over these books but they got so clinical and prescriptive that I abandoned most attempts to put their advice in to action. I felt like gardening should just be in your blood… or something.
I spent the winter pouring over the catalog at Seed Savers Exchange picking out every heirloom, organic seed that I fancied. Through my snow crusted view, I was unphased. I had ordered five kinds of corn, which can’t be planted together… oh. I had ordered four kinds of melons, which are generally left to the experts to grow around here… oh. My order arrived with a couple hundred dollar price tag and a large reality check.
When the weather started warming up I started making designs on where I was going to put my little garden and we purchased a walk-behind tiller and bags of organic compost. Once warm enough we tilled up a roughly 15 by 20 foot patch in the middle of the backyard. We didn’t bother removing the sod first because green stuff is good, right?
When the winter stretched on strangely, we got 4 inches of snow in April, I got paranoid and dismissed guidances about last frost dates and such things and ended up waiting until June to plant. Eager to get started I purchased warming mats, grow lights, and seed trays and set about trying to start my wide variety of seeds in the protection of the garage. Most of the seedlings did miserably being poorly suited. A few did well enough, mostly tomatoes, and in an act of desperation I moved them in to the house and on to the kitchen counter. Our kitchen has several large skylights and is 
closest to the woodstove and the remaining seedlings rocketed up towards the natural light. I’ve since learned that technology (at least in the hand of an amateur) is no match for a warm kitchen and good ol’ sunlight.
Eventually everything was transplanted to the garden, but in my overzealousness in all things gardening I had many more seedlings than I had space in my little garden. Out came the containers and a trip to the garden store to purchase lots more potting soil to accomodate the overflow.
Our harvest the first year was acceptable but I supplemented my lack of planning by purchasing starts in several cases and didn’t utilize the garden space very well. The summer was mild and had a delayed start which made it challenging for many staples (like tomatoes). Late summer I decided to purchase a small greenhouse and a small heater for seed starting in the spring and managed to successfully pull some of my tomato plants through the fall and early winter and still get a moderate harvest.
I’ve since found the Seattle Tilth’s Maritime Northwest Garden Guide 
which is much more suited to my unstructured gardening approach with month by month guides on what to plant, varieties for the region, and what to focus on for the month.
I’ve learned a lot about pests, weed suppression, and what to plant already and have largely avoided any large investments in the garden my second year out. I still need to learn better pest and disease maangemengt and how to better utilize space before we start identifying an area to build an expanded garden.
RSS Feed
