New Life Springs Forth

Just had to share a little glimmer of hope we got here on the farm. Our first starts have taken off as you can see. So exciting! Thanks for letting me share with you.

The onions emerging

The first of a couple dozen pumpkin plants

Farm Update II

We've slowed down a little this last month since Scott started working off the farm more. We've been more focused on outdoor stuff - the house is pretty much done - the bathroom will need to be completely gutted and re-done, but we'll safe that for a winter project. We still did get some house things done though, including ...

Re-painted a bench for the kitchen that Scott's dad had made for us
Finished re-upholstering the kitchen chairs (love them!)
Put together some Ready to Assemble furniture ... a new, larger desk (man that was heavy!) and a matching printer/electronic station and a comfy new office chair.

Towards the end of April we saw weather warm into the 80s and 90s for just a bit. Unseasonably warm, but we are sure enjoying drying out.

The Visiting Barn got a lot of work this month ...
We added more bracing to fully support the roof
New stall front openings and doors were made and a couple installed
We added a little landscaping to the North side of the building
Completely rebuilt the south wall along the barn
It still needs paint - it's gonna be pretty! - new, longer paddocks and the roof panels to be re-aligned. Maybe next month it will be finished...





Ended up with a sick horse that was not only in pain and extremely itchy, but also causing heart ache and trauma for us as well. If you missed Krystall's story, you can read it here. Still no good resolution.

Lochlann - what a bull

BOUGHT OUR FIRST COWS! Lochlann and Roxanne, our new (and long awaited) Irish Dexter cattle!


The Breeding Barn got:
  a couple extra tons of hay :)
  foaling stalls were stripped and actually had horses in them (happy horses with 14x24 stalls)
  all the ugly, black plastic covering the windows was taken down - Sunshine in!

The stallion paddock was finished. The shelter and panels were there, but it was an ugly, weedy mess not fit for anything other than maybe a goat that likes dry, pokey weeds.
And then OLE ARRIVED to use his new paddock!
And he arrived with WHR Beylah. Once again, we have an Erlend daughter for our breeding program.

Beylah, like most Fjords, thinks she belongs inside your back pocket. Here she is "working with" Scott.

Created an herb garden by the house
Built 4 raised beds for the garden area
Started the summer garden with tomatoes, basil, cabbage, beans, corn, lettuce, mint, parsley, cilantro, 
Planted 7 fruit trees (3 apple, 2 plums and 2 pears)!! I see pear buds but no plums. Apples are just finishing their flowering.
Installed our first row of our Vertical Garden. I've been planning this for over 2 years now! Organically raised strawberries coming soon.


Sprayed for those nasty, goat head weeds. Yes, we resorted to using chemicals for those nasty things. This will NOT be a regular occurrence on our farm though. With at least a year - maybe up to 3 or 4 years - worth of weeds and neglect, this one time application was the best option for the field.
Had a tractor malfunction, which set back a few projects by a week.
Irrigation!! We went in with one of our neighbors and purchased enough irrigation pipe to get water to part of our property ...

We had a few homeschool playgroups and field trips with the boys (lots of other boys too!)
Had an amazing visit from my dearest girlfriend back in the Seattle area- thank you Kristi P. for coming to visit the new farm!!
And then made a trip back to Seattle for a doctor appointment, work on our farm there and some COW shopping. 

Raised Garden Beds

An easy way to create a functional and attractive garden area is with raised beds.

This is our display garden area that, once filled, will be a nice example of what you can do in your own backyard with just a few supplies and a few hours. This garden area will end up providing our family with enough frozen/canned/dried tomatoes, green beans, peas, pumpkin pulp (we LOVE pumpkin anything!) as well as dried herbs for the year, as well as fresh all summer and fall long.

first layer on

We do not use pressure treated wood, nor do we use plastic to line the sides so it's important to pick something that will last. We ended up using Redwood, which is a great hardwood and has passed the test of time over and over.

We only went 2 high of 2" x 6" x 8' boards and make the entire box 4' x 8' in size. A little wide for comfortable reaching, but it's a very efficient use of the wood with no waste. Outdoor wood screws into the corners and we also used a 24" long piece of rebar on the outside middle to help give support once the boxes are filled with all that soil.

Instead of trying to dig out all the grass and weeds, we recycled in honor of Earth Day. We used old newspapers and layered about 3 sheets all over the bottom of each box and then added the soil. 


Speaking of soil, this is probably the most important part. Getting good quality topsoil MIX or a composted manure will feed your plants - and in turn you - is vital to the home garden. I remember my mom using old tractor tires, filling them up with semi composted horse manure and putting the tomato plants right in. They liked the heat and the nutrients and we had great tomatoes.  Thanks mom for all the gardening advice!

boxes done and filled with soil

The Herb Garden

It started it's life as a big weed patch, but today, we have the start of The Herb Garden.

We added a few scoops from the compost pile. The compost pile we un-earthed while scraping weeds off this "mountain" we found. Underneath, a small gold mine of well rotted, very nice composted manure.

It's not big by any means, but it gives us a small area for kitchen use herbs.
For the moment we have: chives, rosemary, lavender, basil, oregano and Italian parsley. We bought most of these as starts and will be adding more in that we've grown here on the farm soon. We've left room for access to the air conditioner (I can't believe we have an AC) and the propane tank, all neatly tucked into an area about 8' x 10' with tons of room for more.

 

Vertical Gardening

I've been waiting for my Vertical Garden for at least two years now. Right after I saw them in British Columbia on a farm tour, I just knew this would be an amazing addition to our micro farm operation. They had a small farm in which they raised many things, but they had these amazing, vertical gardens - rows and rows of them - for their organic strawberries. [photos and instructions below]

Given the extensive use of pesticides and fungicides on today's strawberries, toxins which end up being consumed by our bodies, organic strawberries are top on my list. Yes, you can buy organic strawberries. They are on many of the "Dirty Dozen" lists (see this one as a great list); produce to always look for organically produced. Locally, they cost about 6 bucks for a quart size container. OUCH! That hurts most people's pocket books, but the alternative is expense on the back end in the form of added health care costs. So, here is my long awaited answer to both organic strawberries as well as a new alternative to gardening in general. Vertical baby. Sky's the limit.


We used:

3 - T-posts (available at your local farm and garden store)
1 - hog/horse panel, cut to 8'
2 - 10' long, 3" round drain pipe (white only - NO black. it's too hot)
2 - 3" end caps
4 - screws, self tapping
Potting soil mix and compost from the farm
Hole saw, drill and 1/4" drill bit

Start by drilling your holes evenly along the top of your pipe with your hole saw. How far apart really depends on what you're going to be growing. For strawberries we are going about 11" apart.
Turn over the pipe and in between the big holes on the top, you are going to drill the smaller 1/4" holes for drainage.
Attach the end cap and with your self tapping screws, one screw on each side.
Take your pipe, with the holes on top, and fill it with whatever mix you decide to plant in.
You'll want to keep tilting up the pipe so the soil mix will all fall down to the end. Keep filling, but do not take your hands and "pack" the soil in. Once you are full to the end, attach the other end cap with the two other screws.
Now it's time to place it. Two people are better on this job.
Place your T-posts 8' apart with the 3rd in the center.
Now you can lift up your pipe and attach it however you wish. You could use zip ties, but we're using up some bailing twine. We've got lots! Ask someone from a farm, if you can have some baling twine. They'll try and make you take 12 pounds of it. :-)

We packed bareroot strawberry plants in each hole and THEN packed some extra soil around each plant. Water very well and watch them grow. And produce.

We've started with just the two pipes for the moment. We'll add 2 more on each side, giving us a total of 6, yes, SIX rows of strawberries in the same space of one row horizontally. Talk about efficient! For those of you who have slugs and bugs eating your strawberries before you get a chance, this will drastically cut down on those guys! And really, it was pretty cheap. We recycled old T-posts, the panel and twine. We bought the pipe, caps soil and plants. That's what I want for my farm. For your garden as well.

What is your most efficient garden tip or technique? I'd love some more projects to add to our list ;)

Ever Have One of Those Weeks

WOW, has it been a busy week. Started off having to have our brand new mare tested and skin biopsied as her hair is falling out if tufts. We had one of the vets out early last week, but just didn't see any improvement at all. She has been diagnosed with Pemphigus Foliacious - an auto-immune disorder. Lovely. The vet said she has only seen a handful of cases in her 30 some years as a vet. Truly a disappointment and so sad to see her so miserable. We're working on a few paths simultaneously, but for now, she's on daily steroids.

On the positive side, we finally got a desk to fit in our house and start unpacking the office supplies, we built a couple dutch doors for the barn as well as finished supporting the barn in areas where it was really desperate for it. We celebrated 2 birthdays, Good Friday, Easter and some family movie time. We've also found a great little place here on the farm for our herb garden. It looks so nice and is a happy spot on the way to the barns.

We also built 4 of our raised beds this week and look forward to planting seeds this weekend. We also picked up 3 apple trees and 2 plums. Oh, how I can hardly wait for late summer! What is the most exciting part of both the herb garden as well as the garden/orchard, is that it will become a showpiece for teaching others about gardening and how little space really is needed.

It's funny how we hear so often from people about how they don't have room to grow anything. We're here to tell you - and show you - that YES, you can. It doesn't take nearly as much room as you would think. Tired of mowing your yard? Guess what? You can turn all that mowing time into weeding and harvesting time! And then go inside and truly enjoy the benefits of a little bit of work!

Enjoy the sunshine!

Garden Design

Joy, oh joy it's really almost here: Gardening Time! This year, it's also garden designing time as well. Every year, about the end of January, I get the gardener's itch to start planning and preparing for the seasons bounty. I dig through the catalogs, which interestingly enough, come at just the right time! This year though, instead of a few, smaller raised beds for our family, we're going to step out a little and go for the College Fund Farm.

Yep, the boys are so excited and have been asking on their own about gardening, that we are going to let them set up one of the long beds for themselves. To sell on their own and save some money for their future...college funds hopefully.

This is the area where we are going to start with our new garden design ... it will have a total of 3 or 4, 4' wide by 40' long, slightly raised beds. It will also be the area that we will put in a few dwarf fruit trees as well as our vertical garden are for the strawberries (and who knows what else).

We've already started by using the tractor to scrape the grass and weeds, but before we put down one shovel full of dirt, we'll also put down some of our leftover newspapers to help kill off everything in the most natural way we can. We found the prior owners manure pile, which has been sitting for at least a couple years, and is perfectly rotted. Yes, there will be weeds, but easy enough to control as they start out.

Is the spring garden bug getting to you yet? How are you preparing for your garden? And remember - a garden can be anything large, but most assuredly, it can also be a few pots on your patio! Don't think you don't have room. Go for it!

Gardening While on the Road

What? No garden? I just don't know if I can REALLY live without something growing. We're probably not going to be growing our own tomatoes this year, but there are a couple things that we can grow while we're traveling around the country.

First, and really the easiest thing anyone, anywhere can grow are sprouts. While I'm not going to make a big salad out of sprouts, they are a great, tasty veggie to add to sandwiches and salads.

Spinach. Easy to sprout and quick to grow. Spinach is a very easy veggie to grow and fast to harvest. Really, an old bowl with some decent soil will make for a nice growing medium.

Next - lettuce. Sounds harder. I'm thinking though that I will start out with some of those "6 packs" you can buy at the local hardware store. They will be organically fed and set in a sunny window. They will be transplanted into 4" pots and when traveling, can be set in the sink to be safe. When we're at a destination for a bit, they get to go outside in the sun and grow a little more naturally.

What are some other fast growing veggies that I'm forgetting about?

First Signs of Spring

Flowering currant

I love to see the first signs of spring around the farm. This year, although it is very late, it is also a bittersweet feeling.

Chives getting ready to flower

Seeing things starting to bloom is a reminder of a budding future growing season and yet, we won't be here to see so many of the plants come to full bloom with our upcoming move. 

Perennial Pansies

And yet, here I am, sharing one of my loves with you. Seeing them bloom just can't be kept all to myself. I am taking pictures all around the farm so I will have a focus and drive for the next farm. Are yours blooming late too? What do you have in your yard?

How much can one suburban family grow or Resolution No. 5

Not sure if it's actually number 5, but it is one of our families personal goals ... let's plant a full garden!

Did you know that in the US (and I'm going to do a big stretch and say North America) there is not ONE single county that is totally self sufficient for their residents food supply. Scary, huh? Can you imagine that ... the richest, most powerful country in the world and not one county in the US can sustain itself.

No, we're not going to try and feed a county or even just our own families food, but we are going to grow. A lot. And hopefully enough for a few dozen families.

There's nothing I love more than pulling a can of green beans out of the pantry in April knowing that we grew it. We used our own compost, watered and loved our gardens and the gardens gave back to us.

We know we have more land than most, but take a look around your yard. Do you have a small patch that you could kill the grass off (you know, that corner that is hard to mow anyways), bring in some great compost (give us a call), and plant something?

Love coleslaw in the summer? How about cabbage, lettuce, carrots and some chives then. How about you talk with one of your neighbors and do some cooperative growing. You grow the cabbage and goods and they grow potatoes, onions and tomatoes. And you share. And share with your local food bank or family in need. There's no shortage of those right now unfortunately.

Now, I've always been told that goals must have specific, measurable and time oriented objectives. You've heard that, right? We've done it with every part of our business and have had great success. Well, let's get down to business then.

This is the first part of a series that we'll be working on in which we make a very clear plan for this season, how to get an area ready for planting as well as what to grow and why we are growing them. That is actually probably the easiest. Our family loves salads with romaine, buttercrunch, coleslaw and iceberg lettuces. We love carrots, onions, green beans, snow peas and this year, possibly shelling peas and celery. Don't forget zucchini and sugar pumpkins and of course one of our staples, tomatoes. Yum!

Can you keep a secret? I think I may sneak in some chioggia beets. They are pretty, red and white striped and not nearly as sweet as common beets. I want Scott (and the kids) to try something from his past that he totally hates. Or at least thinks he does...

Aren't they pretty?

Possibly some feeder corn as well - as much as we love a good corn on the cob, we're not big corn eaters. We will get ours from Bob and Sarah instead. See?

Then onto the herbs. Love those herbs! They bring so much flavor and another layer to the palate. Chives, basil, oregano - ahhh.  Lavender and mints make a lovely iced tea and what garden would be complete without parsley? Funny reading all this. The big farms would laugh at the thought of even 3 different crops. No mono-cropping here though. We work with nature to help take care of pests, not pesticides.

So this is the plan so far this year. We'll have more details in the coming weeks, including a list of what we are going to plant, time table and re-planting schedule.

We're buying heirloom seeds this year and will have more than we need of some varieties. Drop us a note and let us know what you are interested in and we can co-op some seeds.

See - another great sharing opportunity!


Gardening this year? What are you planting?

Time for a little brightness

It's time for a little change and tonight it starts with the blog. A little brighter, eh? Watching the rain pour down and now in the darkness of night, listening to the water pour down the gutter, I have to go somewhere else. Somewhere else in my mind at least. So today I've been dreaming about spring and gardens. And vegetables. Which ones will do well with my "new" garden designs.

Sunflowers and blue sky. Ahhhh.

Yep, this time of year, typically between Christmas and mid January, I start thinking about gardening and what to do for the next season as we are by no means a mono-crop farm. This year I have apparently started early. I think it had to do with the lack of a "real" summer here this last season. There were at least 2 days of Farm Life Camp that instead of having our normal, fun popsicles, we had hot cocoa. I'm really, really ready for a warm summer again.
So next season, we have talked about creating a "green house" area to start some plants early and get a jump on the season. Tomatoes, snow peas, green beans, colorful nasturtiums. All for my vertical gardens. This season, we will be doing about 4 times as many vertical rows - exciting and scary! Scott also has plans for a sunflower garden. That sounds bright and sunny and right about now, it actually sounds amazingly beautiful.
Now to start dreaming of the horizontal gardens...