At the end of the week of the 13th I looked at the NOAA weather report and saw that we were going to get a bit of heat in the North Valley.  I took out my trusty EVo spreadsheet and laid in a course for an estimated average daily EVo of .25 for the week.  That gave me back new timings for the watering:  9 minutes daily for the vegetables and 2 hours 11 minutes for the trees on Wednesday and Saturday.  All watering is dripped at 4:00 am to avoid any annoying evaporation that does not show up on my spreadsheet.

I took a look at our veggies before we left.  The radishes, planted as companion crops and consolation prizes (I could grow them when I was in kindergarten.  I should be able to do so now, no matter what came around.) were showing some leaves and looked okay.  The lettuce was coming up.  Some cover crop we did not turn under well enough was also coming up, but we planned to pull that out once we could see our veggies well enough to avoid hurting them.

But when we came back on Sunday, you’d think we’d been away a month.  The radishes had popped up like so much popcorn and the lettuce was not far behind!  The apricots gained a few brothers and the pluot and peach got some fruit.  3 of the citrus are flowering in earnest.  The avocado dropped all of its big leaves and started on a new crop of healthy, shiny ones.

So far the fishing line deer fence has held.  There have been deer in the area since a few cherry branches have been munched.  Some of the radishes had nibble marks, so we get to deal with the rabbits, too.  “This is all according to plan,” I keep reminding myself.  We went small this year to test the palate of crops and problems.  So far stone fruits and radishes love it here (duh).  The catnip is nowhere to be seen, which worries me.  I have plans for that and our special class of cat lovers out here.

We also worked on the field shed roof.  My dad is back from Mexico and helping out like he did with the irrigation main and the rest of the field shed work.

When people are careless enough to ask me about our farm I say it is “20 acres of math problems,” which to us is a good thing.  However, I admit to sweating the channel sales at this point.  All this testing is good and we are learning a lot.  We already have observations and notes that have saved us from some expensive wrong turns.  Next comes the scaling up to production levels.  Even on a small scale, the production chain has to have an out spout, and I don’t want it to be my compost heap.  I just need to get some work in on market segmentation, customer identification, and sales calls.  I know I have some time and I know I can do the work, but the number one occupational hazard of the Project Manager is premature worry.  But it will all be okay, unless it isn’t.

bed prep for onions/leeks transplants under agribond (notice the plastic is blown off our row cover) snow in March Farming in the wonderful Pacific Northwest is a good way to become mental.  We love it; the weather really keeps things interesting and your “plans” ever changing.  Here in Washington State it rains in spring.   We are hunters and hopefuls for a mildly sunny, dry day.  Last season in a single day we experienced sun, rain, sleet, and snow.  This year back in February we experienced… Read the rest of this article »

Okay, now I think that the garden is that part of the farm where the vegetables and flowering plants/herbs grow.  The farm is the entire entity, sometimes with animals, orchards, refrigeration units, housing, ponds, etc, and the garden is where the veggies are growing.  Unless the land is entirely devoted to some mono-crop veggie production, in which case the garden is non-existent and that is the industrial-age farm. There isn’t a whole lot to do on the farm right now, aside from harvesting. … Read the rest of this article »

The honeydew melons are just beginning to ripen.  It is delicious to have a fresh, well-grown honeydew.  The sweet corn takes too much water.  I wonder if it’s worth it? The days haven’t been too hot here.  That means slower ripening, but still a good amount.  The tomatoes are still going strong, and I hope they do all the way through October.  We’ll see about that. I am planning and planting all of our stuff for late september/october.  That includes Kale, Chard, lots of… Read the rest of this article »