Post May Day

We have two more CSA members bringing the grand total now to six.
We made our first sale of the year besides subscriptions. Summer Jo’s bought some broccoli raab.
The greenhouse, after a year is in full operation. It is glorious.
We planted then it rained. Mother nature has finally backed us up. It is green like freakin Ireland with clover to boot.
Why do We love farming? Dogs running around with machetes
The flower pictured here is butterfly weed. It smells great and attracts butterflies too

Mid April

The greenhouse is overflowing all over the property. Still I seems like there is not enough plants. The eggplants and peppers germinated almost as poorly as the cauliflower. We need to take another recount to see if we have enough of these plants to fill the allotted space.
We have room for more peppers and eggplants than last year. There is 130 row ft set aside for both of them. We better fill those rows so our members a good amount of each.
Speaking of members, we are no where close to filling up the 20 openings we have available this year. We really wanted the CSA to be primary source financing farm operations. We believe that it is the best way to interact with our customers, and provide farm fresh food of the highest quality.
We are prepared to go to market, and sell our vegetables in other venues if everything goes as planned and we get all the members for the CSA. If that does not happen, we will have to shift focus to go to market to generate income this season. We are all pulling for the CSA to work.
Today we planted 4 varieties of potatoes for our CSA

plant the tomatoes just to kill them

I think that I might have killed all of the first two rounds of tomato transplants. It got really cold last night. The second round of tomatoes was just planted yesterday. Weak from the transplanting, the freeze last night finished them off. They were inside the greenhouse. Today’s warm sun might revive some them. Tomato Power.

Slugs?

We may have a slug problem in our greenhouse. We have row after row of seedling flats which have been diligently soil-blocked, seeded, watered, and warmed for the seedlings to come up. 2 or 3 days after their emergence, they have been chomped down.

This is a bit puzzling since the flats are on top of a table. These have to be some industrious slugs. So tonight, a reconnaissance mission is planned. We are heading down to the greenhouse well after dark to check out what has been devouring our brassicas. We will do what needs to be done to save the remainder and to prevent the future seedlings from becoming slug food.

February Chaos.

So on Friday I met up with local farmer, Chris Jagger, owner/operator of Blue Fox Farm in the Applegate Valley. I spoke with him briefly about the greenhouse that he was installing. This is his fifth greenhouse that he has erected, and with contractor background he has a lot more practical experience with this sort of thing.
Since the debacle of putting up my greenhouse last year, and this year’s major corrections to it, I used this chance to learn and relate my mistakes to someone with expertise. Chris and I chatted it up, and it was relieving to hear that he had dealt with a lot of the problems that I encountered. Problems such as the baseboards on the greenhouse, endcaps, leveling, why the prefabricated holes never line up, and just the general process of getting the greenhouse structurally sound.
Now I just need to get my hands on another greenhouse frame so I can practice what I have learned.
After this pleasant chat, I went to the Enchanted Forest. Oolala. It was actually a really nice old growth forest. Luckily it was near the vineyards. After a brief hike, I met Gabrielle at her place of work for a nip of port. I watched Sadie till Gabrielle was ready to leave.

It was actually oh so nice on Saturday, as compared to right now. It is snowing. Lee helped me get the tiller working. We really need a bigger tiller, but all we have is a 5hp walk behind. It struggles with the fescue grass that grows in very tight clumps. We really need a tractor to get this initial till underway this year, but this small one is all we have at the moment. We are creating a new flower bed, a wildflower/cover crop bed, and extending all our rows from last year by at least 20 ft. Some rows will be extended up to 40 ft just to even things out a bit.
It has been extremely dry this winter, and that gave me the opportunity to till up a new 4ft wide by 130ft long bed for tomatoes. After a painfully slow process with our small tiller, I limed the soil to add calcium and balance the pH, and then I planted more crimson clover.
The soil that I tilled up looked really good. It is closer to a big pine in the middle of our field and there is a more noticeable amount of organic matter in the soil. It has a darker richer color than the soil in other parts of our field.
We really need to start planting. We just haven’t had the mojo yet. Sadie doesn’t want to sleep. And on Sunday shit went a little bit crazy to say the least.
So Sunday was nice. Gabe was at work, I was watching Sadie the whole day. Sadie sleeps seldom, and it takes incredible patience to get her down for a reasonable amount of time. As she slept I handed the monitor over to Kirby, and went out to do some chores. When I checked on the goats, something was terribly wrong with Rodeo, our male Boer goat.
He was twitching, shaking, and could barely stand. I really did not know what to do. No friggin idea. I am generally kind to animals, and this poor goat was no exception. He was in bad shape, and if it was up to me, and I owned a gun, or I knew of a humane way to kill a goat I would have done that immediately. I do not own a gun, and I do not know how to painlessly euthanize a goat.
However, it was WAY more complicated than that. I have on many occasions wished death upon our two goats because of their annoying behavior, and the focus of the farm was not coherent with adequate care of these goats. The goats under no conditions were to be killed because when Gabe and Ben obtained them from a rescue, they signed a contract not to kill them. I did not sign it, but I honored that contract.
Before the shit went down over the weekend, and after much internal debate we decided to return the goats to their previous owners. We would not get our money refunded, but we learned a valuable lesson that we had no time for large animals on our farm (yet). The owners were going to find a new home for the goat pair. They were going to pick the pair up today and deliver to a new owner. One side note, goats are easier to sell/give as a pair because a herd mentality promotes good health among them.
Back to Sunday; I really had no experience in goat health, and I did not know what my next options were because I was required not to kill this goat. I got a hold of Ben and Gabe to ask for ideas on what to do. They had little to no help for me. I proceeded to call the previous owners about the status of the goat they were rehoming for us. The were alarmed about his health, but I do not think that they understood what was actually happening. Rodeo was dying.
He went from being healthy on Saturday, to barely able to stand on Sunday. I kept the previous owners in the loop about his health, but know one knew what was really going on. They were sure he would snap out the state he was in, but both Dr. Calvert and I had serious doubts. We both saw that Rodeo needed to be put down.
Sunday night I tried calling emergency vets to no avail. I carried Rodeo’s unstable body up to the covered porch so he would not get rained on. He was in pain, and barely conscious. At this point I think that was inhumane to keep him alive. But we wanted to return the two healthy goats. By the look of things that was just not going to happen.

We woke up Monday, Rodeo was still alive.  He was worse.  He looked like he wanted to die.  I avoided him all day, and made Gabrielle check on him.  The optimism of the previous owners was hard to combat over the phone,  they said, “he will just snap out of it, goats can go from looking really bad to fine in no time.  All they need sometimes is a shot or two.”  The goat was miserable.  Dr. Calvert said he was seizuring more.  All from being perfectly normal on Saturday.  All Monday we looked for  a vet to treat him.  We finally got a local vet who had a good knowledge of goats, our appointment was at 5:20.  Until then, Rodeo suffered, and I sympathized.  It seemed like I should have done more.  During all of Sunday and Monday Sadie screamed and would not sleep.  It was extremely stressful.

When the time came  around to go to the vet, we had to pick Rodeo’s seizuring body up and put it in the back of our station wagon.  On the way there Rodeo had a nice rain shower, a rainbow, and beautiful sky over the mountains.  His seizures were long and frequent.  The vet advised us to put him to sleep.  We did just that.  We communicated to the previous owners of Rodeo and Blossom that Rodeo was put down, and they were in complete shock.  Gabrielle and I were beat.

We don’t know what happened to Rodeo, but the onset was so quick.  We didn’t know how to treat him, and we had to draw the line somewhere on whether to save him.  He was not our pet, he was just a goat to us.  Now we need to regroup, put Sadie to bed, receive our soil blocker in the mail, and start bringing plants to life.

Peas in the pot

I think it is getting warmer. Tomorrow is February. The Alyssum continues to grow. About 20 ft of peas were planted in the greenhouse.

Nice Solar Power

So yesterday I went to this 8 hr lecture by John Jeavons.  It was interesting, but nothing to write home about.   It was a good networking opportunity.  This silly old man became slightly preachy though and the talk became annoying.

So in the middle of this blurry picture is a splotch that is kinda greenish.  The iphone camera would not focus on this Alyssum sprout.

This is some rhubarb that was planted as a seed.  It was one of the few that survived.

Compostin it.  At this temperature the compost is mesophilic.  Too bad it is hard to read the thermometer.

Tonight we catered the OSU Small Farm Business Class.  The food was most excellent, and way local.  This is how it goes; Gabe and Chad cater, while Kirby and Ben pay to attend the 8 week class, Sadie does her thing.  There was a quick lecture about renewable energy in Oregon that concluded the class.   The speakers were Elizabeth McNannay and Karen Chase.   They were both very enthusiatic about the future of renewable energy in Oregon,  especially for small rural businesses.   The ladies both had different roles as facilitators through the bureaucatic rigatoni of getting grants and tax incentives for small businesses that want to use renewable energy.  The money is there, and no one is using it.  There were about 30 other agriculturalists there that seemed equally optimistic about what these positive and progressive speakers had to say.

1/14

It might be a little bit early to start planting outside.  But for seeds that can germinate in the cooler climates, we are attempting to provide them hospitable conditions outside.  By outside, I mean inside.  We are going to passively heat them with this smaller Greenhouse that is inside our larger greenhouse.   There are examples of using low tunnels inside greenhouses to help extend the growing season.  Using what we got, this is our version of that technique.

The seeds we started were some herbs such as cilantro and parsley.  We also planted some alyssum.

We are excited for the greenhouse to be operating during these slower months to experiment more with season extension.

In an attempt to grow more things in our greenhouse, we need to the raise the temperature of the air and soil.   Again, we have two compost piles working inside the greenhouse.  With passive solar, and heat from biomass the greenhouse will stay warmer than outside.  However, I am not so good at making compost piles.  Visually getting the feel for the Carbon to Nitrogen ratio has been tough.  I have yet to get a pile to stay “hot” for an extended period of time.  The fear is that all the pathogens and weed seeds will not be killed.

With the greenhouse on greenhouse action, we planted several flats of the above mentioned herbs and flowers.  Soon, hopefully, vegetable seeds will get planted.

Beside getting the farm together, Gabrielle and I are catering a class with the OSU extensions office.  We have courageously taken up the challenge to source as much food locally as possible.  Since it is all going to be local farmers, gardeners, animal husbanders, and the like attending this class we wanted to display the winter flavors the area had to offer.  None the less, we were exploring the freezer of one of our fellow farmers, Lori Campell of Blackberry Lane, to see what we could use for the catering gig.  So I present to you, LORI CAMPELL’S FREEZER.

Before we arrived at Lori Campell’s house we dropped some of our brochures off at the Kitchen Company in beautiful downtown Grants Pass.  We are hoping that most of our advertisement is by word of mouth, but a little extra never hurts.

Jeremy and Ashley hacked down a lot of brush and blackberry brambles, and the goats are picking through what live foliage there was.  All the piles of brush were picked up and moved to the field where they will burned.

And the goats still suck.  Whiney whiney goats.  For those who don’t know.  Rodeo is on the left, Blossom is on the right.

These are some of the seeds that we got last night at the seed swap during this month’s the League of Women Farmers.  These are real women, none of that whiney goat, dependent, eating sedatives because my emotions hurt kind of woman you find so often in the city and suburbs.

The field.  In the two rows closet to you, we put composted horse manure, and then planted red clover on top.  We will see what that does.

Report from the Field (homecoming guest post)

I flew into Portland for a high school buddy’s wedding… it all went down at McMenamins – Edgefield outside of Portland. It was really great, lots of black and super casual. I ate a mushrom spinach canneloni the size of a loaf of bread. If you haven’t been to any McMenamins in Oregon you must check them out. This one in particular used to be a sanitarium and was converted into this resort type grounds… they make wine there, garden, have a whiskey distillery, brew pub… everything. Oh yes, a nine-hole golf course also. What a blast they must have had getting their hops to climb up the old water tower and showing old movies in what looks like the old lecture hall. It’s inspiring how they’ve transformed this place into a lush, green, lush, vibrant, lush compound of happiness and giving back to the earth.

Inspiring for us where we are now:

In case Gabrielle hasn’t gotten this across in previous posts… the list here never ends. I mean… as an outside witness… it never ever ends. What was that Bush Admin. quote? From their press secretary… ‘It doesn’t matter, because while you’re reporting on these realities, we’re making decisions that create new realities…’ It is like that here… except, ya know, we’re farming. One thing done and another thing creates a new reality.

Each day there are five projects (or more) going on, and then because the way the land is laid out you try to make yourself the most efficient for each one. You start to work on a greenhouse door, the battery for the power tool you need runs out but the new one is re-charging back at the house. So you run up there, and while your there you clean off the old deck and power wash it… then water gets on the automatic safety shut-off so it stops the power washer and the sun comes out so since your up at the little house you pull some weeds in the Landscape Gone Wild of a front lawn and stack some firewood in-between downpours. Remember that greenhouse door? Back down there with charged battery… only to find out that you can make a semi-finished cut with the ‘power’ saw until it quits. You finish with a handsaw and you’re starting to get tired.

But you think you’re wiped out now? You put your door to the greenhouse up and it’s totally FUBAR. Improvisation is a must, yet the more people that get around you with ideas, the more tired you are. You send faithful helpers along to finish other tasks and start dinner… and then it’s you and the door. And you have it figured out… and it weighs a ton… and you screw it all together, the plastic is on the wrong side, get the damn hinges put in for the third time, dig a trench so you can move it along the un-even ground and then… yes… the door is up… and you have crossed off, more or less, one thing from your list.

You eat dinner, and as the light goes down you check in on the PA Primary… and decide to power-wash some buckets so you can get a white-wash mixture made and some chicken nesting tubs prepped so they can get out of your damn dining room.

It is like this every day from 7:30 in the morning until 9:30 at night. In case you haven’t read this article, check it out… ‘Why Bother?’ it’s called.

Pretty much sums up why people want to do what Gabe and Chad are doing. And Kirby and Lee. And me. And why not you? Start small, because the list is really long people, but when you are doing things like this because you know it’s what makes us humans… and deep down, for me at least, it feels oh, so good.