not archimedes.

The greenhouse is filled with starts.  In the middle of april tomatoes will be planted there.

Chickens have doubled in population.  We now have all these new chicken types: barred rock, black sexlink, light brahma, and speckled sussex, and golden wynadottes. Our two coops have been consolidated into the newer field coop.

Hops have been trellised using our natural surroundings.  Straight up a tree.

Irrigation is layed out.  Not perfectly, but there is water to the crops.  The crops which we seeded in Febuary, we are now planting.

Now we have a lot of marketing to do to get the CSA shares sold this year.  This upcoming weekend we are setting up shop at the Woodridge Wine release.  To everyone who is going to be out drinking wine in the beautiful Applegate Valley, and at Wooldridge Winery; stop by our booth.  We will be there on Saturday and Sunday.  On Sunday we will also be at the CSA Barn Dance at Hanley Farm in Central Point.

F-Word.

Free is the best price for anything. Today we got as many irises, day lilies, and strawberries as we wanted. We took enough. We just have to get them planted before we kill them. We also snagged some chocolate mint rhizomes.

Post-Ides

All the chickens have been consolidated in the coop in the field.  No more having to collect eggs from two different places.  Soon we are going to get another 25 pullets to add to this chicken palace after they grow into hens.  Somehow, we managed to lose 3 chickens when combining the two coops.  Well, shit.

The field is looking sandy.  But good nonetheless.  The drip irrigation lines are being laid down in their respective spots.  A flawless irrigation set up this year would be a blessing.  It is only a slightly more educated guess than last year.  It really looks like we could grow stuff well here.

Got some big lights to get a jump on our tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers.  We need to get our tomatillo seeds in the mail soon so we can plant them for transplant.

More drip line action.  More sandy ass soil.

BEAR CRAWL.  Hope she does the crab next!

Also, hailing from the Greater Chicagoland area, Tim has joined our outfit this growing season.  He lives in the garage.  Don’t get us started about the garage.

Slowly Gaining Speed

I went to another monthly meeting of the League of Women Farmers the other night. This is such an inspiring group; I love when we do farm tours. We went to Whistling Duck Farm, which is one of the longest running, most successful farms around here. Mary and Vince have been hard at work doing what they do since 1992! We wandered through their fields and Mary told us about how they do their cover crops, (which is definitely something we could use some pointers with) and looking down their 500-600 foot rows it dawned on me that we can do this.

In one of the classes I have been in recently, someone said, “It’s not rocket science. It’s just growing vegetables.” Everyone laughed, of course, but this is one of the main reasons I am out here doing this; I had the same thought in Chicago. “It’s not rocket science. How hard can it be?” Then I got out here and found out about water rights and farm insurance and succession planting and the cost of seed and irrigation line and fencing and how hard it is to do what we do without a tractor. There are a lot of impediments involved in the just growing vegetables part, so it is easy to get lost in everything else.

But this time of year is great because all we have to do is start seeds and watch them grow. There are row after row of soil blocks in the greenhouse with little sprouts coming up out of them. It is so awesome to see. We don’t have quite as many as Whistling Duck, but they also have quite a few more acres than we do.

Our neighbor who has an awesome tractor came over and turned over the rest of the field for us to start using for vegetable production and for planting forage for our chickens. Chad planted crimson clover into it to get a head start on all the newly uncovered weed seeds that will germinate quickly.

We moved all of the chickens from the backyard coop to the field coop. This was part of the master plan, but we had to hurry it along because one of the chickens escaped (we aren’t sure how) and the puppies killed it. So rather than let them get used to killing chickens, and us losing all our current layers, we relocated them to the field house. Now we just need to get another CSA membership or two to pay for the portable electric fencing we want to use to pasture them effectively.

Speaking of our lack of CSA memberships, we would like some opinions. Why do you think people aren’t signing up so far this year? It is not just us; a couple of the other women farmers and I were talking about it Tuesday. There is a general shortage of CSA customers across the board. Yes, yes. The economy sucks. But this is food, not designer handbags, as my mom said. What is holding people back from buying into the farms so far this year? Or do we all just need to chill and give people some time?

Almond and Prune

Just got these planted. Now we need more money to get some trees in their intended spots.

Juglans

A couple of walnut trees were planted where the goats mowed down the blackberries. Walnut trees excrete juglans from their roots and leaves which prohibits the growth of many plants. Blackberries are one of the plants that are severely affected. They better not grow back.
A couple dozen asparagus starts were planted to fill out the aspagus bed we planted seeds in last year.
We are preparing for the first big round of direct seeding of root crops and cool weather greens this weekend.

Farmer Chef Connection.

Today we went to the Farmer Chef Connection at the Medford Library (nice library by the way).  Gabrielle and I had to act out a skit in front of the audience of about thirty.  It was a good ice breaker about the relationships (or lack thereof) between farmer and chef.  There were several speeches about networking and distrobution.  Some farms and producers had tables set up to sample products and display information. This was all hosted by THRIVE.

After hearing much about iFarm Oregon, I finally got to understand what it is about.  It embodies the  concept of rejuvenating the farming industry in Oregon by making sure that new and or young farmers have the ability to get land to start a family farm before it falls into the perils or corporate agriculture or development.

We cleaned up the front yard today to make sure the perennials have space to grow, and that the annuals adequately reseeded themselves.  In the greenhouse I reseeded all the brassicas that were consumed by our unwelcome pest.  We think it is earwigs, but that is not totally conclusive.  I also planted a bunch of artichoke from seed that will be added to our perrinial gardens.

The tomatoes under the lights are doing freaking awesome.