Well we just had another spring soaker, but before the rain I managed to get a bunch of ground work done and begin the regular outdoor plantings.  This spring has been warm, but its been wet.  My field was just barely dry enough, but I new there’d be more rain coming, so I went for it.  I started by mowing and disking the ~4.5 acres of cover crop and spreading lime over everything.  With only a few days for cover crop breakdown, I spread rock phosphate, some azomite, cow manure, and chicken manure over the ~1.5 acres that I’ll be planting between now and the beginning of May.  Over this area, I then chisel plowed, rototilled, marked beds, and began sowing and transplanting!  More time for breakdown, and a slightly drier soil would have been ideal, but now that the field is soaked again, I’m glad I got in when I did.

Our standard beds are 100’ by 5’ (with ~3.5’ of bed top between the tractor tires).  We were able to direct seed 3 beds of carrots, 3 beds of snap peas, 2 beds of beets, 1 bed of spinach, 1 bed of radish/turnip, and a 1/2 bed of cilantro & arugula, then transplant 3 beds of broccoli, 1.5 beds of lettuce, and 1 bed of baby bok choi.  We just managed to get all the direct seeded beds covered with rowcover before the rains began.

I was hoping to get more pictures of field prep (especially the manure spreader in action), but I was working solo that day.

The winter is gone in the pacific north west and spring is officially here, although I believe our spring started about three or more weeks earlier this year.  My eyes have been focused on the soil and what a privilege it is that my wife and I are learning to be stewards of the land. Read the rest of this article »

Things really kick into high gear on the farm when the harvests begin.  The bi-weekly CSA harvests don’t start for a while yet, but just the little bit of harvesting we’re doing for Saturday farmers market reminds me of how much time it takes.  My elusive goal each spring is to be totally current on all ground prep, planting, weeding, etc by the time the multiple weekly harvests begin.  We’ll see how we do this year. Read the rest of this article »

There’s been a lot of action around here this week due to the short break in the weather.  Good days of dry sunny weather are very few and far between here in the cool spring of the Pacific Northwest, so when you get a dry spell you work as much as you possibly can.  More about what we’ve accomplished in the sun later(hello Flip Video!), but for right now I’d like to introduce you to our Heirloom Tomato Operation! This year marks our second year growing and selling Heirloom tomatoes… Read the rest of this article »

We just had to run down to the farm and put lots of stuff away into the greenhouse, as there were suddenly large rain drops falling from the sky…  It was cloudy all day, but the weather report said no rain until Sunday, and I foolishly trusted some all-knowing meteorologist rather than my own eyes.  I think it’s over now, but it rained enough to make a difference. As far as fungus goes, I really want to learn how to inoculate our soil with this miracle fungus tea that Billy learned… Read the rest of this article »

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 »

One of the biggest challenges this first year of farming has been building all the infrastructure required to start a small farm.  We are leasing one acre from our neighbors, and in order to make farming possible, the minimal amount of building we had to do was a deer fence, a small hoop house, and somehow get water down to the field. I was originally planning on using NID (Nevada Irrigation District) water which is a network of agricultural irrigation ditches that run throughout the county, and… Read the rest of this article »

We wanted to start discing a couple of acres today.  Instead it rained yesterday and today, so we’ll wait a little longer until it dries out again. I’m itching to prepare some land right now.  The spring crops are ready to be planted.  We’ll try for 1/2 acre each of broccoli, peas, and potatos.  And in addition we want to seed a slew of leafy greens, lettuce mixes, spinach…the works. Have you seen all the other freshman farmers.  I’m a face in a crowd now.  I won’t… Read the rest of this article »

Just wanted to say hi.  The farmers’ market went well today.  We keep selling out of food, so that is a good thing.  I am so happy that our Saturday Morning Market is so well attended.  The people are great - the other growers, shoppers - they are all happy to be a part of the market.  And so are we. I think the big hit this week was a toss up: the spring mix, or the lettuce mix.  The spring mix has mixed leafy-brassicas - tat soi, arugula, kale, big mustards, mizuna.  The lettuce is… Read the rest of this article »