Dropstone Farms » spring

More making

Lauren — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 04:54:05 +0000

I have all these tabs open so I don’t lose track of the recipes, but my browser is starting to drag … so that I can close them, here is what we have been making, in no particular order:

Portuguese-ish clams and sausage, except I basically barely followed the recipe. I used soft, not cured linguiça from Uli’s, and more sausage and fewer clams, and I added kale. It was delicious.

Leibovitz’s marshmallows!!! with the egg whites left over from …

Goat milk ice cream, sweetened with honey, with a strawberry swirl. Except I am not very good at using the ice cream maker, so it isn’t really very icecreamey. But it is super tasty. I added some freshly ground white pepper to the strawberry mixture, which is pretty awesome.

Candied ginger (Leibovitz again) so that I could make …

Blueberry ginger jam, which turned out pretty dang good too.

Ramp greens kimchi, except I used onion greens and a bit of garlic scape, because that is what I had. I haven’t tried it yet, but it smells fantastic, and Garth made some fried rice with it and pronounced it “omg noms.”

Rhubarb liqueur, still steeping, and strawberry vodka (Lebovitz *again*!).

Garth’s home-cured and home-smoked bacon.

Garth’s home-cured and home-smoked HAM.

We’ve also frozen about 10 lbs of cherries, with more coming soon, and yesterday we blanched and froze a GIANT cauliflower in florets. A few weeks ago we had a good canning day, with pickled asparagus, cherry jam, strawberry jam (which didn’t gel, so it’s strawberry syrup), strawberry-rhubarb jam, pickled scapes, and sweet and spicy pickled rhubarb. There has been beef jerkying, and marinated and grilled top round made into burritos, and short ribs on the grill with homemade cherry-rhubarb barbecue sauce, and roasted chicken that later turned into chicken salad and also a tortilla soup with last year’s frozen corn and the last can of home-canned tomatoes. Fried chicken. Fresh potato and homegrown fava bean salad. Fresh cabbage and carrot coleslaw. And tonight, our four tiny ripe tomatillos from the garden, combined with with storebought avocado (only way we can get it), Laughing Crow garlic and Persephone onions (from the handy farmstand at Bay Hay), home-grown and -pickled jalapeños, and Laughing-Crow-intern-grown cilantro all combined to become approximately this avocado salsa verde, which we put on our grilled scallop tacos.

Oh yeah, and we’ve been gardening too. The fall brassicas are in, along with the winter’s carrots and leeks (I hope). If all goes well, there are 3 pigs coming in a couple of weeks (alive!).

A late, but bountiful year in our strawberry patch

Lauren — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 05:09:19 +0000

A late, but bountiful year in our strawberry patch, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

This is one of maybe 30 strawberry plants in the patch. And there are a couple other clusters like this on this plant.

When I was growing up we would always have strawberry cake for my sister’s birthday, which is in late May. So I always think of strawberries as a May thing. And the fact that they are just now really coming in in JULY just hurts my head.

Save the vines! Volunteers needed for a Bainbridge crop mob

Lauren — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 03:49:12 +0000

I grabbed this little flyer the other day at the market, and repost with Betsey’s permission:

Volunteers needed June 11 & 12!
Betsey Wittick needs your help to preserve 8 acres of Bainbridge Island wine grape vines!

Saturday 6/11 1:00pm-5:00pm
Sunday 6/12 9:00am-1:00pm
Sunday 6/12 1:00pm-5:00pm

To join the crop mob, contact Heather Burger at BILocavore@comcast.net.

I am volunteering/working for potatoes and learnings for Betsey a half day to a day a week, and last week she had me doing what the crop mob will be doing, which is thinning new growth on the grape vines so that they aren’t too crowded and the vines left behind will be able to thrive. It was totally easy and even with just me and one of her interns/apprentices in the field, it was fun and companionable, and nice to be out working and hanging out.

So — come to the farm this weekend! Bring your friends and family! The vineyard is struggling through this cold, wet spring, after just barely hanging on through last year’s cold, wet summer, and it could use your help!

Same ol’ same ol’

Lauren — Wed, 18 May 2011 03:55:32 +0000

We’re still here, just swamped with chickens¹, turkeys², goats³, the garden such at it is⁴, Grandma⁵, and Oscar⁶.

—
1. Yes there will be broilers, process date June 18. Order form coming … eventually. Another batch will be arriving on the 8th, so ready mid-August.
2. More hatchery drama this year — the bulk of our order, 50+ birds, just “didn’t hatch out well” so they didn’t ship them — but we found a guy breeding Narragansetts in Kingston, which is a huge relief. Wish we could get some Bourbon Reds though.
3. Mama Goat was tetchy about her left teat for a while, but it appears to have cleared up and I got 2+ lbs of milk on Sunday.
4. There are happy robust tomato, squash, pepper, and tomatillo starts in the greenhouse that are antsy to get outside, but it persists in being willing to go to, or below, about 40° here at night, and pouring rain during the day. Nothing else is planted except some lettuces and one potato box. I am behind on beans, corn, herbs, brassicas, and successions of lettuce and radishes and green onions. It’s hard to get motivated to plant the next batch of stuff when the first batch isn’t growing because it’s too cold and wet.
5. Pocket Grandma in Reno is pretty much at the end. We were able to get down to see her midweek last week (thanks Teresa and Lilach for covering the farm) and we are really, really, really glad we did. We love Pocket Grandma.
6. Oscar has lost 20 pounds in the last month or so. This is Not Good. Vet today, waiting on bloodwork. Could be simple, could be cancer. We’ll find out more tomorrow.

Also, yes, I’ve been reading David Foster Wallace‘s newly published unfinished novel … why do you ask?

Is it can be springtiem now plees?

Lauren — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 22:41:01 +0000

Today is pretty much the first sunny day in 2011. It is definitely the first day it’s been over 60. It’s fantastic.

I checked on the new beehives to make sure they got the queens out — they did — and are building comb — they are.

I pulled up all the toxic or questionable stuff from the downstairs garden, and protected the few things that overwintered (garlic and leeks) and we wrangled the goats down there to start weeding for us.

The little goat family. They are still working out their family dynamic — that is, Mama goat being a jerk to Middle Goat while they sort out their hierarchy — but I think they’re getting there.

This is Puzzle, who we picked up last weekend from the goat farm. She is also known as Peanut, Pickle, or Peaches.

This is baby goat, whose name may be Nancy Raisin, though we still seem to just call her baby goat.

I feel like I should be doing more chores, but there are worse things to do with the first sunny day of the year than sit and hang out with some goats who are doing some of your chores for you.

(When the goats are done we’ll spread compost and let the chickens loose, like we did last year.)

New news

Lauren — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 05:13:14 +0000

Here’s what’s up in Spring 2011.

Hmm, why on earth would there be a mouth-shaped chunk taken out of my Small-Scale Goatkeeping book?

The culprit

Her accomplice aka baby

Upcoming new newses: bees tomorrow. One more goatlet on Sunday, a yearling who we’ll breed as soon as she’s ready.

On a winter’s Sunday I go

Lauren — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:39:02 +0000

We had a productive day outside yesterday; it felt good to be digging in the dirt again. I had some lettuces I’d started inside under lights, and I planted them out in the greenhouse where the last batch of lettuce froze to death. I ended up with ~10 arugula plants (which I carefully marked with plant markers, since we have on more than one occasion pulled up an arugula plant thinking it was a weed, only to realize it was a very delicious-smelling weed … oops), and a total of about 20 lettuces of various varieties: Forellenschluss, our favorite; Pompom; Winter Density; Red Sails. I also had two little Lacinato kale seedlings, for which I am very excited.

While I was there I picked three bold little slugs who were munching on the very top of the radish leaves in the middle of the day! Jerks. To try to keep them away from the tender baby lettuces, I unraveled a couple of storebought copper wool scrubbies and encircled the new lettuce plot. We shall see if that makes a difference.

Then I put a bunch of new seeds back under the lights inside — some more Lacinato (I love it): some parsley, since we have had none for a while and it is frustrating; some cilantro; some catnip for the kitten; another succession of lettuces. I have also repurposed some segments of plastic roof gutter that we used as chicken feed troughs in 2009; I’m now using them to start root-ish crops, as they are relatively deep compared to seed trays, and if I transplant quickly enough after germination, they seem to do fine. I used up the last of my Nelson (hybrid) carrot seeds (58 days) as well as a couple packets of onions I found in the seed bucket — Red Marble, which I’ll use as a pearl/bunching onion, and Pacific Pearl. I’m trying to get rid of all the leftover seed, especially when I’m not sure if it’s hybrid or open-pollinated/heirloom, as I’m trying to move to only growing varieties whose seed I can keep.

Then Garth got out the chainsaw and the good loppers, and we started taking out some of the giant laurels in the garden area. This is opening up at least a 5-foot-wide strip of ground that we can plant in as soon as we figure out how to get the stumps out. Exciting!

Crop planning workshop this weekend

Lauren — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 02:17:25 +0000

I finally (a bit late) nailed down details for the crop planning workshop I coordinated (sort of). Here they are! You should come, and bring everyone!

Using spreadsheets for crop planning
Workshop led by Josh Volk, Portland farmer
http://www.slowhandfarm.com

When
Sunday, January 30
10am – 1pm
Stay after for a potluck lunch!

Where
GRuB
2016 Elliott Ave NW
Olympia WA 98502
http://www.goodgrub.org
There is limited parking in the parking lot and along Bing Court next to the farm house. More parking is available on Elliot Ave (turn left off of Division St.).

Workshop description
Learn a refined crop planning and record keeping system, and general principles for creating your own systems. The crop planning system presented will let you plan out hundreds of separate plantings and keep track of all of them with minimal effort. If you are a professional grower and you want to save time, improve harvests, and keep better records, this is the course for you. If you are a serious gardener and want to grow as much food as possible, this is for you too.

The course will use Excel-style spread sheets extensively and also cover shortcuts and techniques for using spreadsheets more effectively and efficiently. All of the basic concepts are equally applicable to those still using pencil and paper – although you may be converted.

To register
Tickets are $30 each.
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/154071
Registration is recommended; we can’t guarantee ticket availability at the door.
Ticket price is set to cover costs with 20 attendees; if more than 20 register, everyone will get a small refund at the event. Maximum 30 attendees.

Contact
Lauren Manes
lauren.manes@gmail.com

Chickens love pasture!

Lauren — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 06:07:27 +0000

We moved the chicks to pasture on Sunday during a slight break in the rain. They’d been on grass in their brooder, at home, but it’s been so cool and rainy that we kept them at home longer than would be ideal, and the grass at home was mostly gone — eaten, dug up, pooped on. So when we moved them, they were SO excited! They immediately started running around, digging holes in which to take a dust bath (that’s why there’s a chicken on its side in the foreground, with its foot on its neighbor — that is imminent dustbathification), and going crazy eating grass and bugs and whatnot (like the first two in the front).

Looking for tasty morsels of grass and bug. In the next 3 minutes I witnessed 2 games of keep away, once with a small slug and once with a worm.

We moved their chicken tractor on Monday evening and then again today, Wednesday — we were both busy out of town all day on Tuesday, and they are so small yet that the grass can take a bit of fluctuation in their schedule — and they have already gotten it down: when someone smacks on the back of the tractor, run a couple feet away from that, and then when fresh new grass appears ahead of you as the tractor moves, run towards THAT and eat it!! Moving them is now easily a one-person job — no need for a noisemaker behind as well as a tractor-pulling person in front.

Stay tuned for processed poultry orders to open very soon. If you haven’t signed up for the official email list, please do so!! The official list will get the, well, official notice when we are accepting reservations for chickens and turkeys. Sign up here: Subscribe to our poultry notification list.

And, as always, you can read more about our preferred breed of chicken, Colored Range/Freedom Rangers, and why we like them so much, here. I recently learned via Facebook (!) that Polyface Farms farmer Joel Salatin (the farmer in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, featured in the movie Food, Inc., and an all-around totally insane fantastic farmer) is trying some Freedom Rangers this year, and seems pretty pleased so far. I’m excited to see these healthy, happy, delicious birds getting some attention.

Tiniest pattypan

Lauren — Thu, 20 May 2010 14:27:03 +0000

Ups and downs

Lauren — Sat, 15 May 2010 05:02:01 +0000

First the good news! We’ve been getting back in to the swing of things gradually (or abruptly in some cases — when the baby chicks show up at the post office, you’d better be ready!). We’ve gotten rehabituated to the morning routine of opening the greenhouse, watering seedlings, and gathering eggs, and I’m doing better this year about staying on top of upgrading seedlings to larger pots or planting them out. The tomatoes we started from seed in March are planted out under plastic and are starting to flower already. The squash plants are still in pots, but are huge and the pattypans are already forming tiny tiny little fruits, so little that they are still fuzzy — I’ll transplant them this weekend and try to avoid damaging the teensy squashes.

This year we cleaned out the greenhouse, which is 10×20′, and moved all the seedstarting tables to one side in order to build a raised bed in the other half. So we now have a 4×20′ bed across the whole length of the south side of the greenhouse. For the summer, it is holding eggplant, hot peppers, cucumbers, a French melon, my Moon & Stars watermelon, and two luffa (loofah) plants that I am not sure will thrive, but I’m going to try. If they fruit, I’ll try eating them once maybe but mostly I want scrubbers. In the fall we’ll turn the bed over to winter leeks, lettuce, radishes, etc.

The disappointing news! Although we didn’t anticipate the demand for meat chickens from our usual hatchery — we left it too late and weren’t able to get our preferred chickens for the dates we wanted — we were able to place an order for some slow-growing red broilers from a different hatchery, with which we’ve had good luck for laying hens and turkeys. I was really excited to let everyone know about this first batch of chickens, which arrived about a month ago. It quickly became apparent, though, that the hatchery had sent us not the slow-growing red broilers we ordered, but some white chickens … after several phone calls, we established that there was apparently no way for them to say with confidence whether they were their slow-growing white broiler, or their fast-grower — which is literally (truly literally) the same type chicken you get at the grocery store, and the type we emphatically do not want to raise. So we sold them to Pheasant Fields Farm for the cost of feed, got credit from the hatchery, and sighed and wrote off Batch 1. So there’ll be no chickens in mid-June, as we’d planned.

Back to the good news section! Batch 2 of chicks has arrived and are about a week and a half old, and ~60 of them are scheduled to be ready for sale in early July. Batch 3 (fifty chicks, probably taking reservations for 35-40) will be here in a couple of weeks, and the turkeys are coming soon too!

The chicks are JM Hatchery’s Freedom Rangers — the same chicks as last year, although they used to be called Colored Range Chicks. The turkeys will be 10 Broad-breasted Bronzes and 40 Narraganssetts. Turkeys are more fragile than chickens, especially as babies, so we’ll take orders for 30 turkeys and keep a waiting list for the rest. We may also have a wide range of weights, so we’ll try to fairly allocate big turkeys to people with big Thanksgiving dinners, and smaller turkeys to those with smaller parties.

Overall, in addition to the turkeys, we hope to have four batches of 50-75 chickens at a time, ready in July, August, September, and October. If we time it well, we might have a fifth batch in late October.

You can sign up to be on our notification list for poultry news — that’s how we’ll get in touch when we are taking orders for both chickens and turkeys. Everything will be first-come, first-served.

More news soon, as I add “write blog posts” to my list of regular and semi-regular farm chores …

Growing shiitakes, step 1

Lauren — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:46:19 +0000

Yesterday we spent the day preparing to have mushrooms in the fall. Friends Joanna (who interned at a farm out here last summer) and Jacob came out for the day, bearing safety gear and two giant bags of plugs (basically dowels) inoculated with shiitake mushroom spores from Fungi Perfecti.

The first step (after eating delicious cinnamon rolls) was to find and cut down suitable hardwood trees and/or branches of 3-6 inches in diameter. I stayed out of the way for that, so no dramatic photos of timber falling (also no photos of Garth in his silly-looking hardhat with attached ear protection). But there were no chainsaw-related casualties, so that’s good.

The process is simple, if somewhat time-consuming, but once you get a rhythm down it goes pretty smoothly, assembly-line style … though we learned it would work better with a corded drill; the battery life on our 3 drills was our limiting factor.

You take your 5/16″ drill bit and put a bunch of holes in your logs, about 4 inches apart, in a diamond pattern. After you drill up a log, hand it over to the hammering section, where the next person puts one little plug into each hole and hammers it in. This was my favorite job.

Garth inserts inoculated dowels into drilled holes

Log with plugs

After it’s all full of plugs, the next person uses a little plastic syringe to suck up cheese wax from the dedicated wax-melting crockpot, and puts a little puddle of wax on top of each plug. This helps protect the log from being colonized by other, non-delicious spores.

Plugged log, with wax

And now, we wait, and keep them from getting too dry (water them or cover with burlap or shade cloth). And in the fall, we harvest (we hope) lots and lots of organic local shiitake mushrooms! I’m already planning lots of beef stew …

Simplifying

Lauren — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:09:05 +0000

We’ve been reviewing our successes and not-so-much-successes from last year, and our resources for this year (including personal levels of energy and time available, as well as space), and making some decisions about when and what and how.

One thing we know: we’re not going to grow produce for sale this year. We’ll grow to feed ourselves, as usual, but not worry about selling. This turns out to be very liberating! We can choose the varieties we want, rather than trying to make decisions based on what might be interesting and do well at market.

One thing we are pretty sure about (dependent on some decisions about pastures): we’ll be raising several batches of chickens and one batch of turkeys for sale. Keep an eye out here to hear more when we are ready to take orders.

Diagonal dinner (halibut cheek with asparagus, garlic scapes, and fresh garden peas)

Lauren — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 04:04:18 +0000

Diagonal dinner (halibut cheek with asparagus, garlic scapes, and fresh garden peas), originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

In a hot pan with bacon grease, started before the fish went on, went minced shallot and sliced asparagus and garlic scapes. We put the fat asparagus stalk segments in first, to get more cooking time than the skinnier ones, the flower buds, and the scapes. Partway through I decided it should have peas so I ran out to pick several pods, which I dumped straight into the pan as I shelled them.

Halibut cheeks went into another pan with melted butter. We worked from this recipe for the ‘but cheeks, lightly breading them with flour with salt, pepper, a bit of cayenne, and paprika. These cheeks were HUGE and took longer to cook than that recipe; I only bought three at the fishmonger today, and we only ate the two smaller ones, one each. The other will make fish tacos for both of us. HUGE. For reference, we often cook up 6+ normal-sized cheeks to make tacos — they are usually much, much smaller.

After frying and removing the cheeks, I deglazed their pan with some vermouth, lemon juice, and water mixed together, reduced a bit, combined that with the veggies in their pan, and plated (I’m like Iron Chef!).

All in all, a very successful meal. We are happy to have more than one way to cook ‘but cheeks now — previously we have exclusively grilled and served as fresh soft tacos.

Things that are new!

Lauren — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 06:01:06 +0000

Here are some things that are new this year!

Blueberries are … berrying, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

This year we are allowed to let our blueberries set fruit. We won’t get much, but I’m excited!

The Wyandottes are learning about the world, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

Our Wyandottes are fifteen weeks old, and all grown up! They are starting to venture out of the coop when we open it up to let them out. They have discovered they love the grass and the sun.

Crimson-flowered fava beans!, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

I sprouted these beans in a dish of water, which worked beautifully, and then I waited too long to plant them and I didn’t think any of them came up. I was sad. But then I noticed these lovely flowers! I know the replacement beans we got didn’t have beautiful red flowers, so I was very happy to know that I hadn’t killed the first batch.

Chive blossoms with honeybee, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

The chives overwintered, though I thought they hadn’t, and now they have beautiful purple blooms that the bees love.

This week we got the first batches of chicks and turkey poults (babies) that we will raise for meat and ultimately slaughter. They are awful cute but I am fairly confident that we will be able to dispatch them when it comes time.

Faceplant turkey faceplants, and narcissist turkey examines self in mirror, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

The turkeys, pictured here on their first day home, are so funny. The yellowish one in the front has learned about reflections!

Our first batch of meat chickens arrived on Friday, and Garth took this lovely video of the box before opening it. Starring: Ruby dog; box of peepers.

SQUEAMISH VEGETARIANS may not want to proceed — there are some non-graphic, at-a-distance pictures of chicken slaughter day below.

Laura at (not so) Urban Hennery raises a flock of chicks a couple times a year, and before ordering chicks she puts out a call to interested folks who can claim a few chicks. The deal is, you pay some deposit money for feed, and then you come help out on slaughter day too, and at the end pay a total for average weight minus the deposit you paid. It works pretty well. Slaughter day was this weekend, and pictures are below.

Kimberly, Jessi, and Megera at the eviscerating table, with Laura instructing and Garth lurking in the background, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

This weekend, we went up to Arlington to help slaughter some chickens that were raised by Laura. I did a lot of gutting, but I took a break to take a photo.

The guys are plucking chickens, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

While we were gutting and finishing up, the guys were plucking and queuing up birds for us.

Phew! We’ve been busy.

Gratuitous ducklings

Lauren — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 05:17:54 +0000

I have been taken to task by more than one person for the lack of duckling photos. So here are some ducklings!

Most of the photos have notes in Flickr — click through and mouse over the photo to see them.

This little girl arrived with her egg tooth still attached, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

Cutes, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

Handful of ducklings!, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

Stubby winglets!, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

OM NOM NOM DUCKLINGS, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

Asparagus!

Lauren — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 05:37:15 +0000

Asparagus!, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

The asparagus is coming up! We won’t have very many spears, but I didn’t think any would come back at all after the multiple sessions of scratching the chickens gave the asparagus plot. So I am happy to see these little spears!

How to make a hoophouse on a raised bed

Lauren — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 05:25:20 +0000

We have been meaning to write about this for a while, and today friend and blog-reader Melinda provided the impetus when she emailed to ask how our hoophouses are constructed. I know they are working with a raised bed, so I took some photos to illustrate how we have ours set up!

It was warm and sunny today, and when I looked under the hoophouses to see what was up, I was hit with a blast of glasses-fog. So I opened them all up to get some fresh air inside and reduce the moisture levels, since too much moisture leads to mold.

Opened up the hoophouses today to let them air out a bit, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

As you can see/guess, our raised beds are constructed of 1x12s. Due to paths and other constraints, many of the angles aren’t right angles, so we did our best to support the corners by screwing into sections of 2×4.

The hoops of the hoophouses are 1/2- inch PVC pipe (in varying external widths) in 10-foot lengths. Any size of pipe works fine, as long as you are using clips and pipe sized to suit each other. The hoops are held on with some brackety things that are very simple — just one screw on either side.

Anecdote time! As we were building the first hoops on these raised beds, last fall, Garth said, “I am envisioning a small bracket that holds the hoops and costs 25¢.” Then he went to the hardware store, and seemed a bit sad when he returned (though his pockets were full). I asked, “Did they not have the brackets you were envisioning?” He said “No, they had them. They were 29¢ each.”

This is how the hoops are attached, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

The brackets are easier to apply if you put one on each side, insert the PVC pipe, then have a helper hold it steady while you add the second bracket on each side according to where the PVC hoop wants to rest.

The plastic is just a clear-ish plastic dropcloth or tarp from your local hardware store. Ours come from Ace or whichever store we are standing in when we remember we need another one.

The plastic is held on the hoops by some very handy hoophouse clips that can be obtained from various sources. Territorial Seed has them, but only in 20 or 50 packs; Peaceful Valley has 1/2 inch and other sizes that are cheaper in large amounts. (Garth wants me to note: if any readers need a dozen clips, let us know, and we will give you some in exchange for coffee or beer next time we go out. If any readers need more than 50, let us know, and we will go in on an order of clips.)

Plastic is secured to each hoophouse rib with clips, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

Pro tip! If you put the two hoop-holding brackets far enough apart, you can put one of the plastic clips in between the two, as above. This clip, snugged up against the side of the raised bed, provides extra security, especially when it’s windy.

On our non-raised beds, we buy a larger diameter (1 inch?) of PVC and cut it into 12-16 inch sections. We drive these into the ground until about 3-6 inches are sticking out, and place one approximately parallel on the other side of the planting bed. Then we put the 1/2 inch pipe into each of those and bend it over into the other side. The hoops and plastic and clips are the same as above.

If it’s windy, you may need rocks on either end of the tarp to secure it. It will let you know by making a lot of commotion and flapping around in the wind.

It’s April

Lauren — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:29:29 +0000

It’s April, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

1. Tomato seedlings (we’re behind), 2. Swirly egg and speckly egg, 3. QUACK, 4. Garlic and mustard greens, 5. Impending artichoke, 6. When we pulled back the sheet on this hoophouse, it was like opening a present

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

Sprouting fava beans in a dish of water

Lauren — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:19:16 +0000

Sprouting fava beans in a dish of water, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

Local food friends Anne & Ryan got us a packet of crimson-flowered fava beans from Seed Dreams, a small seed company in Port Townsend. Yay! I have put them in water to chit, also known as pre-sprouting.