About Us & FAQ

About Us

We are Lauren & Garth. We live on Bainbridge Island, a 35-minute ferry ride from Seattle, and we are trying to learn how to have a farm.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s a dropstone?
A dropstone a large stone (often boulder-sized) that is in a place where a boulder has got no right to be. Usually it got there by being carried along by a glacier. And we have one in our woods.
Our geologist friend, vintner, and fellow (more successful) farmer Scott (who farms and … vintns? … with his wife Kate, who runs their local co-op, but is not a geologist) wrote us a long email about how we can be sure that our stone is a dropstone, and didn’t arrive in some other manner. He concluded that he is very confident that ours is a dropstone — confident enough for us to buy the domain name. I will get his permission to post excerpts of the email.
What are you growing?
Yikes. What aren’t we growing?
I am working on a more detailed page on 2008 plantings, but in the meantime, lists!

In the ground

  • broccoli: Packman; Early Dividend
  • cauliflower: don’t know the variety; got seedlings at the farmers’ market
  • pole beans: Scarlet Emperor (a beautiful shelling bean); a green bean
  • bush beans: a soybean for edamame-snacking; a green bean; Etna (a cranberry-bean-like thing)
  • Brussels sprouts: Roodnerf
  • leeks; Musselburgh
  • onions: Guardsman (a spring onion); a red torpedo variety
  • carrots: Mokum; Merida
  • beets: Chioggia
  • peas: Oregon Trail; Sugar Snap
  • lettuces and greens: Sylvetta arugula; Simpson loose-leaf; Capistrano romaine; Speckled-like-a-trout fancy-ass European heirloom delicious flavor; mustard greens; Nero di Toscani (?) and Winterbor kales; Perpetual and Bright Lights Swiss chards; cabbage (Parel, an early-maturing variety)
  • garlics: whatever came in my veggie box and sprouted before I could get to it got put into the ground

Yet to come

  • corn: a sweet and a popcorn (Calico?) variety
  • so many tomatoes
  • peppers: a paprika variety; anchos; pepperoncini
  • herbs: the usuals
  • asparagus
  • artichokes
  • fennel
  • summer squash: zucchini, patty pan
  • winter squash: butternut, delicata
  • a watermelon type
  • cucumbers: lemon cucumbers, a regular green variety I can’t remember
  • succession plantings of: peas; beans; all types of greens (overwintering); carrots (overwintering); beets (storage); leeks (overwintering); onions (overwintering); b. sprouts (overwintering); cabbage (overwintering or root cellaring); anything else overwintering that we can find …

What we aren’t growing

  • luffa (next year)
  • okra (someday, if it will grow here)
  • cranberries!!
  • blueberries
  • a bunch of other stuff that I can’t remember

Our house came with two apple trees, a pear tree, and an Italian prune tree (YAY), and I am also getting a fig tree, a Meyer lemon tree, a green tea tree, and a bay tree. Someday I hope to have more fruit and nut trees — I want apricots and peaches and nectarines, if they will grow here, and cherries and more apples, and almonds and hazelnuts (which I know I can get here, yay) and acorns if we can get them.
Really, there aren’t many things that we don’t like to eat, so we’ll try whatever we can get to grow here.

Why?
Why is sort of hard to express; there are many factors.
It is very important to us not to be dependent on food systems (US and world) that we think are unstable, unsustainable, and unhealthy. In that sense, it’s a profoundly political and subversive action.
And it is emotionally and personally meaningful to walk out to the garden, ten (or fewer) yards away, to pick the foods that we will eat for our meal in a few minutes.
Also, garden-grown food is more delicious!! and we love eating delicious foods.