A Country Woman's Journal

Blog Action Day: Seeds of Poverty, Seeds of Change.

2008-10-15T20:18:00.000-07:00

When I was in my thirties, I lived in a school bus for five years. I guess we were poor, but we were pretty happy. We lived in the back yards of various relatives and friends, or in the campgrounds, when I finally got production work, of the various shows we worked at.

Every spring, we camped at the foot of Cajon Pass, in Southern California, where we were on the live-in crew of the Renaissance Pleasure Faire. We would pull in our trailers at the tail end of the rainy season in early March, and stay through till the heat of summer baked us in July. We would see the short southern spring arise in the hills and mountains, and watch it fade all too swiftly into the brown of summer.

Our plumbing was primitive—outdoor bathrooms and showers—but we had a sink inside the bus, which we could hook a hose up to, and we collected the dishwater in a bucket under the sink, which made life easier in the 'kitchen' in the rain. When the bucket got full, we would take it outside to water the trees with.

Imagine our surprise when, one day when we were watering the trees, we saw some of the vegetable seeds from our dishwater had sprouted and taken root. My partner at the time, being an enterprising man who knew what a nascent tomato looked like, quickly potted them in some clay pots. We watered them, and they flourished in the little pots, and gave us 'free' tomatoes and peppers and eggplants. We took the pots with us when we broke camp, some salad and herbs had joined them by then. They lived on top of the fridge, under the little skylight, when we traveled, and we put them into a little garden plot when we got back to base camp.

This was the start of our fortune, taking care of the plants; each year we had more pots, and then a garden plot, and then, finally, 40 acres to farm. It also began a love affair with gardening that continues to this day.

I still have the bus, it's in our own garden now; it's a relic, but it stands as a tribute to hard work, holding strong, and the power of tiny seeds. I'm convinced that those first little seeds, the end result of some farmers labor, were the gift that got our farm started. The miracle back then was getting open pollinated seeds from the market, it's a little harder now.

Our unstable weather is pushing more people into poverty every day. I've been poor, and I remember the hope that came from those first sprouting seeds. So, if you've lost everything, or are poor, and have a bit of earth (or a couple of pots) find some seed, plant it, and watch your life grow. If you are broke, and in need, send me a self addressed stamped envelope, to 'seeds', PO Box 852, Laytonville, Ca 95454. I'll send you some open pollinated food seed, my choice, subject to stock on hand. All I ask, in return, is that you take this farmers gift, plant it, save the seeds, and then send some on to other needy folk.

Creator gave us clean air, water, good earth, and our own 'magic beans'. The giving Mother Earth brings forth abundance to those that believe, and plant their seeds, and work the work, and walk the talk.

We can feed the world.

2008-07-13T23:34:00.000-07:00

This has been one crazy year. Seems like the whole world sped up, and I'm behind on everything, not the least posting here. The first picture is of the last of the blue sky in my neck of the woods. This was taken on the day of the summer solstice, right after the leading edge of the "dry lightening storm" hit. We haven't seen blue sky here, since then. At night, the moon is orange like a salmon, and by day, the smoke drifts by. Some days here are like the worst of LA in the sixties in a poisonous smog. Visibility is about 100'. I spend much of my time taking my son to the beach so he can breathe. The rest is spent in maintaining the garden in the face of high heat. It's my way of prayer, praying that we will have moisture in our skies again, and that the good earth will bring rain or fog to help all the firefighters on the front line. It's how I pray that I will have a garden and home again next year.

The smoke makes it so it is hard to concentrate, and the extreme heat and smoke keeps us inside. We have patchy areas of clearing, and most of the work is done in the cool of the evening, well slathered with bug bane. Oh, here's a note. If you are out in the field without bug bane, grab a chunk of mint, and chew it up. Let some leaves hang out the mouth (it's not pretty, but neither's West Nile Virus!) If you breathe in through the nose (if it's not too smokey) and out through the mouth, the mosquitos are repelled.

What I have noticed is that the microclimates we create with our garden does affect the smoke somewhat. The water running over granite rocks (our pond waterfall) helps put negative ions back into the air. The sheltering pines contribute to cleaning a bit, and the oaks are hanging in there. The madrones are in trouble, with yellowing leaves. It may be the low light, or the water table has dropped.

There are more reports of bees going under, so I want to post these pictures, just in case we lose the place (although it seems not likely now, thank God). I noticed that when I 'shoot' pictures of the bees, the range finder (sonic?) of the camera on auto jolts them a little, so they are definitely sensitive to directed sound waves. However, this spring, they were gathering pollen from the white-thorne flowers under the high speed internet antenna without it seemingly bothering them. (Granted, it was off at the time, so that's anecdotal.)

The following pictures are of things bees like to eat. I have pictures of some of the creatures (we have lots of different kinds here) and thought I would post them. I believe if we plant bee gardens, we can nurture our pollinating friends, and keep their subtle (and oh so necessary) harmony in place in our fields and orchards. Note well, we have no GMO's, and we are organic in our gardening practices. We tend towards a permaculture interface with the natural wild environment, and we heavily intercrop herbs and flowers with food. This seems to provide a stable and nourishing environment for the little bees.

Some of the herbs that bees like to eat (which I haven't caught them on film yet) are borage, milk thistle, oregano, mint. I'll try to keep up with the posting of the photos as I move through the summer, God willing. I remember posting earlier, and would like to post again, that the mint family (and the comfrey and borage) will help the bees immune system against the predatory mites.

I've probably said before that the agribusiness mono-culture may be a dying culture. We have provided an abundance of food for the world, but we have paid a high price. I think we all need to become a little more involved with our food, and contribute to bio-diversity and living small. Remember, as the bees go, so does our world. Perhaps this is why some of the old Sufis were gardeners and beekeepers. Perhaps we should emulate them.

2008-04-07T12:21:00.000-07:00

It's been a crazy while since I posted last. The winter has been stretching on, and the spring is long and cold this year. We barely have a couple of tulips up now, where last year we had whole beds full of flowers. I'm grateful time and again for that planting clock.

The cycle repeats itself every year. I've managed to do the usual flinging of poo, and have dug and amended the beds. I'm thinking that this might be the last year that I import fertilizer. My honey finally got the chicken coop built, and we may get some of our own chicken fertilizer. The compost beds are also turning nicely, and we will finally have enough to cover the garden next year. I think that is one of the areas that industrial agriculture has rather run amok, i.e. the constant importation of chemical fertilizers. It has been my experience that even using organic fertilizers too freely can have an impact. I think that when you are building your soil, they are good to use to get it started, but I think also that it is best to move entirely to home-grown compost when you are able.

My garden has a lot of weeds of various types. I cultivate quite a few deliberately, such as nettles, dandelions, chickweed, plantain. I am an herbalist, so much of what is just plain weeds to some folks is medicine to me. Most 'weeds' are really high in bio-available minerals, which most 'civilized' foods are lacking these days. Weeds also add quite a bit to soil culture, and can tell you what type of soil you have, acid or alkaline. Did you know that dandelions send down a long tap root into the soil, which helps break it up, and leaves hollow tubes where the root used to be? The earthworms love dandelions, and the two in tandem really help nurture the earth. Makes me crazy when I think of the propaganda put out by the chemical companies...along the lines of "does your lawn suffer from the unsightly additions of common weeds? Try (insert favorite weed killer here) and watch your problems disappear." Along with the earthworms that take care of the dirt, which makes it fertile so you can have a lovely lawn. But that's OK, we'll keep charging you for fertilizer to make up for the lack. It's a real racket.

I take good care of my weeds. My husband likes to whack them down when they get too high, (something about manly men and weed-whackers). He insists that they come back hardier than ever. Mostly he's right. Me, I just like to watch the pretty flowers, and the bees that come to feed in the spring, and whenever there are blooms. Speaking of bees, we still have them. I left more brassicas going to seed this year, so we had some extra early spring blossoms from last year's plants. We are now a feeding station for the neighborhood bees at this point. Got to keep those little guys going.

Because spring is still quite chilly, most of our vegetable starts are still in the cold frame, and I must cover the lettuces and other fragile plants that were set out into the garden already most nights. I have an artichoke plant which froze down to the root-line last year. It is now coming back...it's sisters didn't make it. So, remay over the artichokes until the danger of frost is past. The peas, kale, and cabbages are quite frost hardy, and actually taste sweeter for a light frost. Anything else must be protected from freezing...still!

Got a good hot soup recipe for cold spring nights. Take some of the over-wintering beets, carrots, leeks, garlic and onions. Grab whatever greens are pushing up, including the beet greens, cabbage leaves, broccoli flowers. Add whatever edible weeds are poking their little green leaves up. In this case, we had dandelion, yarrow, plantain, and comfrey (leaf not root please!) Dice and chop the veggies into edible pieces. Put them in a big soup pot. Add water, and put on to boil. Throw in some salt, add a little dried pepper of your choice, (we had a lovely dried ancho chile) and a little thyme and tarragon. After the boil breaks, reduce and simmer about one hour. Makes a lovely deep red mineral rich soup. Top off with a little plain yogurt, and let it warm your bones.

From Snow to Go

2008-02-09T04:07:00.000-08:00

in four days. Hurray, hurray, the sun came today!

Gung Hay Fat Choy, happy Chinese new year,

and here's to a beautiful bright silver crescent moon tonight, so welcome after the dark of the solar eclipse.

Things are lookin' up.

We pulled out from under more snowy days then I've seen in a long time. Almost makes you disbelieve in global warming...time to take stock of what has made it through the winter. Time to look through the garden, pick up old leaves and fronds and compost them, cover over plants that are pushing up through the dirt. . Check out the bulbs, they're still laying low, the crocuses haven't put their head up...I think we have some time before spring yet,there is still cold weather ahead, and time yet before planting season but oh boy, that sun sure is nice.

We've been landscaping a little, here at the farm. That's what you do when you don't have money, you move dirt. I've wanted to put a pond in for years in the back, so we're taking advantage of the soft earth to dig in the hard clay for a while. Perhaps there is a zen po-ond in my future.

We have a few trees that have died over the winter. One we lay down in the south, and gave it back to the earth, we want the forest floor to mulch that one. The others we have cut down are the ones that fell over in the last storm we had. I am very grateful that it was the trees and not my house. I was a little worried there for awhile.
I read in Discover Magazine (I think)about something called "black gold of the amazon". They said they came across patches of dirt in the forest that were still fertile cropland from more than a milenium ago. After investigating, and, I think, talking to some native tribes, they delineated a process whereby these soils were created and maintained. They say these black soils came from 'bio-char', which is made by burning a fallen tree down to charcoal, (not ash) and burying the result under the earth
so it smolders in the dirt.

I thought that might be a good thing to try with our thick clay soil. So, my heroic husband chopped down the fallen trees with his trusty ax (it's more manly, apparently, when you don't use a chain-saw.) Next he dug a trench, and started the fire in the tree logs, no mean feat. (If you live in the country, make sure it's an authorized burn day, you don't want to smoke out your neighbors.) He got a good head of charcoal going. When this started to get down to glowing embers, I mixed in some of the clay we dug out of the trench and pond, and some black dirt from last year's container pots. We got a good smolder on, and you could see the smoke come out of the dirt. I am excited about trying this process out, because we need a way to grow more crops on a smaller area, and part of the raison d'etre of this blog is to create sustainable 'slow food' that will work in anyone's back yard.

It's a tedious process, bio-char. Light the fire,(and no, you can't dump diesel on it.) My admiration for my husband grows in leaps and bounds, as he has got this fire started and burning for some time now, with just the bare minimum of kindling and a spark of flame. Build up the fire, turn the logs, fan the embers, dig the dirt. This is really an investment in the future, I keep thinking about any grandchildren while I'm doing this, cause I 'm not being paid for this work; you build soils for future generations, at least if you have your head screwed on straight you do. On second thought, I'm thinking I'm going to be paid in gold for this, golden rows of corn, and maybe some more beets and squash...

Now, I imagine if you are more suburban or even citified, you could get the same effect with a couple of bags of good mesquite or non-chemically treated charcoal, as I'm sure the local parks dept. would frown upon cutting any of their trees, or burning them, for that matter. You know, come to think of it, in California I bet you could get lots of good mesquite after all those forest fires...it would be a dusty hike though. I think that you could put charcoal even in pots and container gardens. I know that charcoal filters out impurities, so I'm kind of fascinated as to it's possibilities in the dirt. I'll keep y'all up to date with the process.

Winter Snow

2007-12-29T19:36:00.000-08:00

≈

Here we are, one week into winter, and there's already snow on the ground. It's a lovely sight, virgin snowfall. We were off the mountain, picking up from the Christmas show, and got home late to snowfall that stretched from the pass out of Ukiah all the way home. Gettin' up the mountain was really fun, my truck may be a little ugly, but it gets the job done. The key to driving up mountain after a snowfall is to drive slow, steady, and whatever you do, don't stop!

We woke up to a world of white outside, and it stayed on the gound long enough to go build a snowfort to have the traditional snowball fight with my son. We walked out to the pond, which is starting to freeze over. Praise God, it is full again, and we should have enough water for the crops next year. That's a welcome New Year sign.

A light snowfall is really good for the plants and trees. One of my land partners, the ethnobotanist, says that it's like Nature's nitrogen, giving all the plants it touches a lift. It also acts like an insulator for the plants, so we know that plants covered by snow will not freeze hard. Most of our plants now are fairly frost and snow hardy. The roses seem fine, the olives are wrapped for the winter, and the chard and kale stick up however they wish.

The cabbages have a bit of frostburn from the freeze, but they are fine sitting in the snow. This is the lazy part of the year, in terms of rest in the garden. It's a little harder inside, dealing with cabin fever as well as all the organizational challenges that come from living up on the mountain. Maybe by the new year, the house will be put back together, and I'll be able to find all the paperwork for taxes and such. There's one more week til school starts again...time to catch up inside and then I'll think about seeds and garden cleanup.

If ya haven't done it now, get all the brass hardware off of the hoses and things, we're coming into the part of the year where it could suddenly freeze solid for a while, and brass hardware that's been frozen isn't worth much in the spring.

Here's a recipie for freezer surpise. Tonight, it's chicken curry ala Alwyn. Go into the freezer and pull out the meat du jour (we have chicken, any meat can be used, or this can be prepared without any meat at all for the vegans or vegetarians). Run out into the garden, and snip whatever's showing above the snow, in this case chard and kale. The broccoli seems to have reached it's limit, and will have to be restarted in the spring, luckily I have some from the store. Cut up an onion,grate some ginger, and sautee in coconut oil with a little olive oil added. Throw in a couple of those little chili peppers you grew over the summer. Then when that's simmering, put in those chicken breasts. Cover and cook for a while. When the chicken is good and mostly cooked, add the cut up greens. Cook those down into the oil, cover for a while. When the greens are mostly tender, add one can of coconut milk and some curry powder. Throw in some raisins and cut nuts, if you have any. Bring to a fast simmer, then reduce heat a little and cover. I throw some rice in the bottom of the steamer pot, and put the cut broccoli on top of it, and have that going together while the frypan simmers. When the basmati is done (about 20 minutes) and the broccoli is steamed tender, add the broccoli to the curry pot, and serve over the rice. The peppers are a nice memory of summer, and a little fire inside against the cold. Enjoy

Short Days, Long Nights

2007-12-20T22:00:00.000-08:00

Hey!..It's cold outside!

Comin up on solstice...been rainin' for days, the skies are gray, and I have the creeping crud in my lungs, courtesy of the boy's school, I guess. Pretty much everything in the garden is in that can be harvested...the only things left are the winter hardies, like the kale and broccoli and cabbage plants, and next years onions and perennials. Still, it's best to be prepared for the sudden snap of winter, especially after the last couple of days, when everything's soaked with rain.

I've been flat on my back along with the rest of the family, so when today dawned bright and clear, I figured I'd better be up with the sun and moving. First thing I've got to do is ream out the chimney, so we don't have a house fire over the winter, and then it's on to the household tsunami of dishes and laundry. My son came down from the exes for a surprise visit, so it was drop everything and say hi, and then hurry up, get the laundry together to go to Willits, got to get back before it gets too cold.

This is life without water, and we haven't hit the hard part of winter yet, when the pipes freeze. This is just the usual winter the-well's-too-low-to-waste-good-water-on-laundry, and the local laundromat in town only has three dryers and closes early in the winter. So, hi ho, hi ho and off I go, all the way to the next town, which is about 45 minutes away one way. Forget about the carbon footprint—I need to work this weekend and I can't do that without clean clothes!

Two hours out of the short afternoon spent with the boy means I'm two hours late gettin' home, and that's two hours after the sun went down, and the sky cleared and the cold snap hit. Hubby is still down with the crud, so after peeling up the gate and drivin' the truck into the driveway and hearing that telltale, heart-wrenching crunch crunch underfoot, I race around the yard like an idiot looking for any scrap of remay, because it's only going to get colder, and the stuff I was supposed to fix before I left came back to bite me on the backside now.

The problem with plants freezing hard like this is that the leaves tend to dehydrate from the cold, and then they wilt and die when the sun hits them in the morning. It may be possible to resuscitate the kale and the hardy plants by hitting them with a stream of water right before the sun hits—a job guaranteed to all but frost-bite your fingers because you have to scrub the ice off of each little leaf. Brrr....I can hardly wait! For tonight, all I can do (and I'd better) is to bed down the little olive trees, which are only hardy to about 20, and I'll wrap the geraniums that rooted out of their pot into the tomatillo bed. We'll see what is left in the morning.

Indian Summer

2007-11-05T20:34:00.000-08:00

Indian Summer

The sound of the bees is soporific in the late autumn sun; they are feasting on the late-blossoming tomatillos, the fat concord grapes, and the weeds, seeds and mint that are left in the garden. It's Indian Summer, the last golden days before winter, where the late afternoon sun pours down like honey and the bees are gathering their last nectar to fortify their hives for the coming cold. There is so much going wrong in the world today, with bees and with people, but at least, here, now, the bees still live and go about their business.

There has been much speculation as to the cause of the great bee die-off. Scientists have mentioned cell phones, pesticides, and mites. They have also mentioned something about bee nutrition. We still have many many honey bees here at the farm, and I stand by my earlier post. The bees need a varied and organic eco-system to survive. I have fed the bees this year, leaving much of the herbs,fruits and blossoms to run wild. I am relieved to see, at this time, the bee-busy fruits of my garden, and shall pray for their health and well being over the coming winter. I'm letting them keep their secret, those wild bees, and I shall not hunt down their honey this year. I'll let them fatten themselves and their brood, and we will see them again next year, ma'shallah...

These are golden days in the garden, the last of the grapes are hanging on the vine and the end of tomato season is in sight. There's a couple of pumpkins left on the vine, and the last of the late summer peppers are turning the fiery red of autumn. I've got to make like the busy bees, and gather up the last of the summer fruits, make the last pesto, gather the last herbs and dig up those potatoes for winter.

They call autumn 'fall' also. I've taken a hint from the common name for the season, and come upon a lazier and less time consuming way to collect seed. Just let the garden grow, and let those shaggy seed heads dry on the plant. Then, in the late autumn heat, take paper bags and a small bamboo wand. You may cover the seed heads with the paper bag, and hit them with wands, and, viola, the seeds fall into the bag....garden gold for next year, or for trading. (If you do it this way, be prepared to NOT to get the award for the neatest garden . On the other hand, it keeps the shallow away.) ;-)

We are still not sustainable at the farm, although we have been completely solar-powered since 1990. We can't quite grow enough food to feed ourselves without going down to the store and trading some money around, and, although there are times of harvest surplus, I don't quite have enough arable land to be completely self-sustaining (which I think is a myth anyway). We do have a wonderful organic food garden—what used to be termed a 'victory garden' back in the forties during WWII in America. Way back when, each family was encouraged to grow their own produce to further aid the war effort. I like to think of my little garden here as a Peace garden. Every thing I'm able to grow or make does not require someone else's slave labor to produce, be it from the Chinese prison factories or the Iraqi oil-grab.

So, string up the peppers, make apple juice, apple sauce, maybe I can get grappa out of the last of the grapes, after the bees leave...

Autumn is stretching out late this year. On some of the perennials we are getting a second season, although the water in the pond is low for this time of year, and if the winter rains do not come, we will be in trouble next year, but it does not look like a drought year yet...

I was thinking about global warming, and wondering if there is a transition that is more gentle, and less cataclysmic than the one that is being touted. What if global warming meant that we would need less oil to heat, because it was warmer? What if an extended growing season meant that we could get more food from our gardens? What if we all stopped fighting about scarcity, and learned to live a slightly smaller life, with a little more hands on experience of the food chain? Could we live on less, and help our neighbors? Could we have peace in the garden, and peace on earth?

Food for thought, this autumn.

Blog Action Day

2007-10-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

Just got a note about Blog Action Day, where everyone is to post about environmental issues, I guess to make more people aware of what they can do for sustainability...I'm glad that people are jumping on the bandwagon, so to speak.

I think the main thrust of environmentalism could perhaps be summed up according to an indigenous American philosophy: measure what your actions are according to how it will affect the next seven generations.

My eleven-year-old son was talking with me last night about how cities were formed. He said that he thought that it was perhaps farmers who had the initial idea to band together, and farm next to each other, and then the cities grew from there. I said that was a happy idea, and that I wish that more farmers were in charge of governments and cities, as they are used to looking to the land, and how to care for it.

The family farm is one of the cornerstones of sustainability. The part of California I'm from is at the forefront of the family farm movement, and is also pioneering something called the 100 mile radius. We endeavor to buy our products from local producers. We picked 100 miles because it seems to be the limits of sustainability in terms of fuel, transportation, and costs. It can be challenging to keep to this, but it gets the creative mind working. We encourage organic farming to take care of the land, and we support the small crafter. It is a wonderful thing to buy hand made products, and to know your shoemaker, or dressmaker or candle maker. It's great to be able to talk to the crafter; in this way, we can know what goes into the products, and we don't have to worry about, say, lead in our children's toys.

Many sustainability groups got started due to the peak oil problem, and more are showing interest due to global warming. We think that food production is probably going to be of paramount interest in the future, along with water issues, and, quite frankly, with the price of gas and food going up every day, it makes no sense to not grow what you can. Suburban America has yard space that can be devoted to food, and even cities have open or disused space which can be turned into community gardens. Maybe my son was right, and farmers need to take back the cities...

I think that community is also at the heart of sustainability. It's going to take all of us working together (much harder than it sounds) to solve the problems that are facing us. The myth of independent living is just that, a myth. We are going to have to learn to work with our neighbors, and we are going to have to learn to live within our means. I don't think it requires going back to the ways of our ancestors, and I don't think we need to throw out scientific progress. One of our 100 mile radius people said it best—"Amish with internet."

Happy gathering.

Harvest Moon

2007-10-03T21:57:00.001-07:00

It's the Equinox and the Harvest Moon this week. Time to pull in the pumpkins, put up tomatoes and other garden delights for the winter. This is a busy season, there's always too much to do, and not enough time to do it in. Happily, you CAN pick tomatoes one week, and process them the next...

It has been a good year for tomatoes. I've been canning and freezing tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce, and salsa. I like the salsa recipie. Chop finely: tomatoes, onions, red peppers, tomatillos, garlic, and a couple of chili peppers. Make a spice packet of cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, bay leaf, ginger, turmeric, cumin. Throw into the sauce. Simmer on the stove for about three hours, or until the volume is reduced by half., then hot pack and can...

This is the first year I've had decent onions. They like a long and hot season, so when I put them in the south-west of the garden, they flourished. I like the idea of all-home-grown, so I put them in the sauces and salsas. Warning, fresh onions will really make you cry—even if you peel them under water—but they sure taste good.

I string the peppers up to hang from the ceiling in the winter, bunch the rest of the onions and the garlic. They all like to hang out together, and they add color to the room.

The apples are ready, so I pick them and put them into a large bushel basket, and keep them on the north porch. I'm thinking about investing in some wine barrels, they say you can make a good 'root cellar' out of them. My boy likes to make apple juice, and my husband likes to make apple cider vinegar, so we will probably use them all.

I have many ripe muskmelons, these don't can or freeze well, so I stuff myself with these daily. They don't have that long a season, so enjoy them when you can, straight off of the vine.

Grapes are more difficult to take care of. We made some raisins last year, and I'll try to make some juice. The problem is time and storage. It's hard to get to everything with only one person to do all the canning, especially when you're working outside of the home. I am commuting quite a bit, to take my son to his new school, which is an hour away one way. (This is my ex's new wife's grand idea for my son's educational process. There's no accounting for tastes, and I lost that battle in court.) So, I try to throw guilt out the window, and remember that the food I can't get to will make wonderful compost for the coming year, when the cycle repeats itself.

Happy Harvest...

Mid-summer Seeds

2007-07-31T23:56:00.000-07:00

Mid Summer is here with a blaze of heat. It still cools down at night, which is a relief, it lets you catch up with all the chores you don't get to during the sun-hammered afternoons. Right now, all the spring perennials have gone (or are going) to seed. Generally, I will let the plant go through it's entire growth cycle, and let the seeds dry on the plant. This has the benefit of letting me get to them when I can.

Right now the front garden, which is closest to the house, is where I keep my spring and winter vegetables. (This has a lot to do with convenience, I'm constitutionally against trudging the equivalent of half a city block to pick my veggies in the muck and mud of winter.) Unfortunately, just when you want to have people over in the summertime, the front garden looks rather a mess, because of all the seed heads. It's a shaggy love affair, my garden.

Seeds are like gold, they are the wealth of the garden. I think the big brouhaha over GMOs (that's genetically modified organisms, to the uninitiated) has much to do with the fact that, while GMO seed-stock must be repurchased each year, open pollinated seeds are rather like a gift from nature. They will keep bringing you plant and seed, which you may plant from year to year, and you don't have to license them from 'the man'. The other really really good thing about open pollinated seeds is that they DON'T have any manipulated genes in them. I think the art of GMOs is far too young to trust it to not contaminate a food source in ways we can't even imagine. If you believe in tales of long ago and far away, one of the things that brought down the fabled Atlantis was genetic manipulation of both seed and human stock. So, I trust the way that natural farmers have been doing it for centuries, selectively breeding for traits and allowing Nature to do the rest.

One of the lovely things about Mendocino County is the fact that we were able to pass a people's initiative to ban GMOs in the county. We care passionately about our environment, and are in the forefront of the family farm movement. We have the largest number of solar installations in California, and people are actively trying to live with the things that they can find in a hundred mile radius of their home. So, local food, local power, living small, weaning ourselves off of foreign oil, and trying to disentangle the military from the domestic, that's us. Of course, the larger corporations couldn't stand it that we passed this bill, and they superseded it at the state level with a new one, but so far we are standing firm. We can truly say we offer no GMO open pollinated seed.

Speaking of seed, the broccoli that got us through the winter has set a fine crop of seed. Seed saving is a painstaking art. I'll detail it here: When the plant has finished its' growth cycle, and most of the food elements have been harvested, I'll leave the plant in the ground, while it sends up it's seed stalks or heads. Then, after the sun has thoroughly dried the seed on the plant, I take my shears and whack them off, leaving the root in the ground. On some plants, the plant will keep growing out of the same root, and you can keep getting broccoli and seed off of the plant for quite some time. Just how long it will do this is rather a mystery to me— at this point, I'm going on my third season with the current plant. It's a mystery because I just couldn't get broccoli to grow for quite some time, and now I can't get rid of it...good thing we all like broccoli.

Once the seed is harvested, I put it in baskets or brown paper bags to thoroughly dry on the stalk. Then, some summer evening, when it's really hot in the house, and rather cool on the front porch, I'll put on my gloves and strip off the seed casings, putting the resultant chaff into a big basket. Next I get to take out all my frustrations on the seed heads; rip, tear, shred, crush is the order of the day (or evening, to stretch the metaphor further.) Next, I line up a big fan, and drop the chaff in front of the fan.

The operating theory is that the fan will blow the chaff away, and the seed will hit the basket. In practice, this makes a huge mess, so do it somewhere you can make one. After throwing the straw all over, I got out a colander, and pressed the broccoli seed down through the holes. Pour this in front of the fan one more time, press through the colander, repeat, and you have triple cleaned seeds. Lots of them.

It's a tedious process, seed gathering and storing. I imagine back in the day the women did it together, and had the indigenous equivalent of the coffee klatch. I imagine women together, talking, sharing the day, the children helping, and the sounds of the village around. I imagine this, because I'm the only woman for miles doing this, (although my husband is an inveterate seed saver, he just doesn't have the hang of the woman gossipy 'thang'). My son is in visitation with his biological father, and it's a little quiet without him. On the other hand, I can catch up on lots of work that any mother will tell you is darn near impossible with kids around.

Once the seeds are cleaned, you can store them for the next season or market. I like to store in glass jars, but small envelopes work well. Just keep them dark and dry until you are ready to plant.

I'm going to call this batch of seed 'Black Cat Broccoli" in honor of our new kitten. We have plenty to plant, plenty to sell, and not too much time before I have to start in on the next batch of seed. But that's a story for another day.

The Limits of Technology

2007-07-15T23:45:00.000-07:00

Country livin' isn't exactly the easy life. On the one hand you get to garden and grow your food. On the other hand, life can be pretty serious sometimes. When you are your own power company, your own water company and your own food source, you don't want to make mistakes. Or, if you do, you really, really want to learn from them, and hope that both the immediate and future consequences are minor.

Speaking of consequences, we need to talk about the limits of technology. It is all too human, perhaps, to get caught up in the day-to-day events, and to fail to keep track of all the little details of farming. The next picture shows my borage/tomato bed, after a failure of the drip system.

The timer went kaput for two days. Oh well, I was out of town working, but they happened to be really hot days, and two days was all it took for the borage to go. Happily the other beds were mulched in enough to survive, and it looks like the borage will finish it's seed cycle and propagate next year, but I shall miss both the beautiful blue flowers and the bee symphony that went with the plants. I'm glad most everything else in that row was in it's seed cycle as well. The consequences were not too harsh, this time.

So, word to the wise from the been there, done that! Check the lines often. To err is human, to break down when you least expect or want it to seems to be the purview of technology.

It's a cooler summer on the whole, so far, punctuated by periods of extreme heat wave. I know this makes no sense, but neither does the fall plant blooming in the front of the yard, either. I'm alternating house mending with plant maintenance, juggling visitation with the ex, and hopefully, as the chaos passes, I can fire up the copper still from Portugal, and make some lavender oil. We'll see. Happy summer and happy gardening, I hope the micro-climates where you are treat you well.

The Tiger Lillies of Summer

2007-07-14T14:12:00.000-07:00

It's officially summer when the lillies come up. Tomatoes are greening, the grapes are heavy on the vine, and the corn is tasselling beautifully. The summer crops are coming along. We have cucumbers ready, along with the prolific zuccini, (keep picking those small, or you'll end up with baseball bat size squash!) The winter chard is gone to seed, the summer chard-volunteers are sprouting up all over the garden.

It's getting a little too hot for the lettuce. We'll try to move some down into the shade to keep it growing all summer.

If you look closely into the foliage, you can see the melons blossoming.

This part of the gardening year is one part madness, one part laziness, and one part just plain good eatin'. The madness is in trying to keep up with all the chores in the long, long days. It starts getting light at about 5:30 AM, and doesn't get full dark until 8:45 or so. The weeds are growing long and tall, and the grasses that invade every year are doing their best to take over the beds. Hoe; weed; water; this is the zen koan of summer.

The laziness is in the summer afternoon. It's best to nap or swim in the pond in the heat, otherwise you risk heat stroke. Afternoon is when you catch up on those household chores, braid garlic, make product. My personal favorite? Play on the internet in the afternoon, garden in the morning and the evening. It's a conundrum. My favorite time to garden is in the evening coolth, just when the mosquitos are at their most carniverous. (Did I mention keep all the water from pooling so they don't breed?) Happily I make a mean bug bane. My husband thinks I'm nuts, but I like working when it's cooler. I'll happily give him the mornings!

The good eatin' part? Well, right now there's stealing berries when you're working; there's blueberries, strawberries,and rasberries. I'd like to get a goat or two for some good yogurt to go with these, but I'm not home enough yet to take care of animals full time, and I need a barn. Maybe next year (that's the country mantra!) Meanwhile, there's lettuce and sorrel leaves to munch on, and to stick on the odd sandwich.

The rest of the summer produce is fattening up;right now we just have to stay on top of the water situation,keep up with the ferilizer for the veggie crops, and keep a judicious eye on everything. And that's harder than it looks. I'll post more on that later.
Stay cool, and happy hoeing!

Garlic Harvest

2007-06-30T00:05:00.000-07:00

June just flew by. The kid graduated fifth grade, the summer fairs are starting, and the garden is growing like gangbusters. The summer lilies are up in the bulb garden, the zucchini is coming in, and the winter vegetables have gone to seed. I'm working non-stop; making product during the week, and out of town just about every weekend now, selling my crafts at small markets. The garden tends to get away from me about this time of year.

Happily, there is a certain amount of lee-way built into the system. I can ignore the vegetables going to seed, and let the weeds go for a bit. They help hold moisture in the soil, and as long as they don't get too rooted, they can be harvested with the bulb and root crops.

Today I concentrate on hauling in the garlic. It likes to be picked around this time every year, and usually will hide amongst the chickweed and calendula. This year I have some invasive grasses; sword grass says the husband. Got to pull that up before it goes to seed. I'm really glad I have such friable earth in the beds, because it makes the whole process easy. I work at pulling the weeds up first, they're big, but because I worked so hard in the spring at clearing the beds, they are mainly top-rooted, and pull out easily. The garlic is ready to pick when the tops start turning brown, and the bulbs have a nice shape and definition to them.

Some of the cloves have little bulb-lets on them, I'll put these back into the soil when I get the bed cleared. Right now, the garlic will lay on top of the bed for a day or two, while the bulbs dry out a bit. When the dirt gets dry, I'll take a good brush and brush the dirt off, then braid the bulbs and hang them up for winter.

I can't remember the name of this garlic, (drat) I just know it's very rosy in color on the outside, and it keeps very well into the spring. I'll take the really small bulbs, and put them back into the bed for fall. I've had this particular strain of garlic for about 10 years now. It just keeps going and going. It seems to like the same bed from year to year, although this year I"m branching out and putting it around different pots to aid in insect control.

Here's an early summer grill. Take green garlic, mince it up, then slice your zucchini. Heat up the olive oil in a cast iron fry-pan. Toss in that garlic, don't burn it, then add the zucchini. Sauté until the zucchini is almost translucent. Add a little sea salt during cooking. Serve it hot, and eat a slice of heaven!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

2007-05-19T23:16:00.000-07:00

alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5066523455405154050" />
What a difference a couple of months makes in the garden! The picture above is my spring potato bed. It has been amended, but is pretty much in a state of perma-culture, the gift that keeps on giving, so to speak. There are a couple of potato leaves sticking up, and some volunteer Kale poking up through the cocoa bean hull mulch. (I really love cocoa husks, it makes the garden smell like a big chocolate bar when you first apply it!). Got to put that mulch down on the beds, it's a huge help when the summer sun hits us full on, and it will help keep moisture in the soil.

This next picture is what is happening in that bed after about 8 weeks. The potatoes have gotten huge, and the kale is sticking up through the potato fronds.

There are many books on companion planting, one of my favorites is "Carrots Love Tomatoes". I got the idea from them that potatoes like growing with cole crops (kale, cabbage and the like.) This bed is proof of that. It is also an example of french raised-bed-intensive gardening, in that the plants are close together and taking over the whole bed. Usually in our area, some of the cabbage plants will get aphids, but the potato leaves seem to be keeping them at bay.

Funny how the weather goes this year. The beginning of spring was so hot that I thought we would lose all of our cool weather crops. Now we are in an extended spring of cool weather. Good for peas and asparagus, and the lovely scented roses. The radishes are lasting a little longer, and the lettuces and spinach are still going strong, although the spinach is just about to bolt. Time to pick it and freeze it for later in the summer, and replace it with a warm weather crop. Same for the chard, perhaps I'll plant some more kale. It's about the only summer green tough enough to fry in our heat.

I love the spring in the garden, even though it is much work, the way the plants just burgeon out is incredible. Today the bees were singing a symphony as they made their way through the clover and dog roses, they were so thick in the flowers that the sound was soporific. It's a little bit of heavan on the mountain today.

And how does your garden grow?

It's May already? And how does your water flow?

2007-05-06T22:43:00.000-07:00

I blinked, and the month of April went by. Birthdays, Easter field trips, school performances, home school...every day's a new challenge of scheduling. The garden is an everyday job, still needs watering every day, unless it rains. We've been lucky this year, we got some late spring rain, and I like to say "God" watered while we were gone.

We visited the Verde Valley in Arizona over spring break. My son was studying geology, and we got to see pre-Columbian irrigation at work. Imagine, having all that water running by, and being able to just channel part of the water over to water the crops. We learned that the Indiginous Peoples at the time were of two types, those that channelled river water, and those that were considered "dry farmers" who just planted in the river bed, and used ground moisture to water the crops. Water is such an important resource; it is said that the Verde Valley civilization probably collapsed due to a period of extended drought.

Today, pure water is just as important. We've become so used to an on-demand supply that we rarely have to think about where it comes from in the city. Out here in the sticks, though, we think about water alot.

We have very dry summers here, and must conserve water for this period. More and more people have moved up to the mountain. Many 'gentlemen farmers' drill into the water table, grow some quick cash crop and move on, leaving the poor homesteaders with a falling water table. If we have good rains, the water table will recharge. An extended period of drought can be trouble.

Here at the broken toaster ranch we put in a pond about nine years back. Before we put this in, we ran out of water the first summer. We had to truck in water to make it through the summer, and, let me tell you, that's as close to hell as I want to get in this lifetime! Now, we are relatively water rich, the pond fills with rainfall in the winter, and we use solar pumps to raise the water up to the top of the hill for gravity feed into the garden. Still, even though it looks big, by season's end the level will have dropped. If we don't get rain for one year running, there is not enough ground water to keep the gardens watered, so it's a delicate balance. I try not to think about the alternative.

This year, we repaired an old water tank, and used it as a cistern; we caught rainwater off of the roof and channelled it down through the gutters into the tank. We had a huge storm right after we repaired it—well, I thought it was repaired. Turned out it was leaking at the bottom, and we had to drain it again and complete the repairs. Looks like we got lucky, and the late rain we had mostly filled it up, so we have some emergency rain water on hand. I like to fill up trash cans, buckets and barrels with rain water too. It is great on the vegetable starts. Just don't let the water sit into mosquito season without some olive oil on the top of it!

We've found that a drip irrigation system works best for us. It allows us to put the maximum raised beds under cultivation with the minimum amount of water expended. April and May is the time to make sure all the emitters are working, there is enough line, and no leaks (a constant chore if you weed whack in the garden). If you put in timers (an increasingly expensive option these days) you can actually take a couple of days off.

Check the fences, the deer are not quite as hungry now, but the bears are up, and sniffing around for food. The lettuce and spinach are up and running, the peas are starting to pod. The overwintered chard is the vegetable du jour, the broccoli has gone to seed.

Keep watering, keep a weather eye on the sky, and get ready for summer...when the bearded iris are up, it's time to plant tomatoes, peppers, and warm weather crops.

The Worms Crawl In

2007-03-23T22:43:00.000-07:00

Loamy dirt needs lots of live organisms, beneficial fungi, bugs, and lots of aeration. One of your best friends in the garden to create fertilizer and aeration is the little earthworm. The nice thing about the wormies is that they are self perpetuating. Once you get them, they keep on growing. If you dig them in half, you get two worms. When you find them in the roadway after the rain, you can pick them up and put them in your favorite beds. (This is a great job for the kids.)

Worms can take low grade dirt, and turn it into fine humus. So keep your eyes peeled for the critters. If you don't have any, sometimes you can buy them from earthworm farmers. Or, get earthworm castings. I know they say there are no worms in them, but it sure seems like we have more of 'em after using the stuff.

I remember a common taunt in gradeschool was eat worms...funny how we eat because of them.

Flinging Poo

2007-03-18T13:58:00.000-07:00

flinging poo

The sun's out like a hammer for this early in the year. The equinox isn't until next week, and already it's hats in the sun, and work like a dog in the morning, and until the light goes at night. In between, that's when you hang low in the shade, or in my case, clean the house (lucky kids!)

Today is the day to fling lots of poo. That's manure, to the uninitiated. We got chicken, we got steer, we got earthworm castings. Gonna add some kelp, oyster shell calcium and lime. Just a bit of volcanic rock phosphate. This is my spring weight loss plan. We don't make slaves of machines here! No sir! All our beds are hand dug, hand turned, and hand made, 'cause the natural topsoil (and I use that term loosely here) is hard clay. Must be some awesome moles around here, working through that.

I've heard with a roto-tiller, and enough gypsum, you can make real nice dirt out of the hardpan. Me, I'd just wonder how many moles it would take to eat my potatoes. So, first raise up the beds, hardwire cloth on the bottom to keep the moles out, at least two feet high, and start shoveling. We truck up good dirt from the nursery in the valley. It's an interesting agricultural style, for us 'low impact types'. On the other hand, we have to drive to town to take the kid to school, so just as well to make the load pay on the way back up. The theory is, if peak oil actually hits, and we are stuck on the mountain, at least we'll have some fine dirt and some vegetables.

All in all, between the various beds in the kitchen garden we've got about 700 square feet under cultivation. Not huge, but this is about 15-20 beds, and more in pots. It keeps us in fruit 'n' veggies three seasons and then some . But double digging and turning under, and mulching all the beds sure is work!

On the other hand, I can button the pants I couldn't last week, and am getting all buff again after the cold winter—at least about as buff as a 50-year-old woman can get! The whole family participates, and we each get to pick the foods we want to plant. 'Course, then we have to water, weed, and fertilize some more, but that's another day.

I have some beds that have been under cultivation for about 12 years now. (You know you're a gardner when you build the garden beds before you build the house.) There is a rich loam, and we have lots of perma-cultured food plants—it's a gift that keeps on giving. But first you have to fling a lot of poo.

Got Bees?

2007-03-12T18:47:00.000-07:00

There is great consternation in corporate farmland over the disappearance of the bees. Traveling Beekeepers, who are responsible for pollinating much of our nations food, are reporting the disappearance of their colonies of bees. So much of our food depends on the pollination of these creatures that this loss is both startling and scary.

There is no consensus, yet, as to what is going on with the colonies, but I had a 'wild hair' idea...what if the bees are going on strike? Maybe they're tired of living in boxes and being shipped willy-nilly all over. Maybe they just want a break!

Seriously, though. Out here at Blue Moon Farm, we have a good population of wild bees who, so far, are doing a great job of pollinating the crops. I think that this demonstrates the importance of keeping an intact and varied ecosystem. We have a large woodlot, which has plenty of places for bees to hide in. I plant plenty of herbs; one old woman herbalist and beekeeper (whose name I misremember) stated that when all around her farm there were losses of bees at hives, hers were fine, and she attributed this to the mints, from oregano and thyme to pepper and spearmint, which she planted all around her hives.

We are fortunate in being able to overwinter several types of vegetables, which are usually flowering in the spring when the bees come out. We also have the crocus, the grape hyacinths, and all the other flowering shrubs I've planted over the years.

I've thought, off and on over the years, about keeping bees, but I feel that we need our wild strains. After all, they were here first! Besides which, there is something really satisfying about fostering the untamed, untrammeled little pollen dusters. I'll just keep planting blossoms and herbs. It's a small thing, but quite gratifying, not only visually but gustatorily. So, feed your bees! And they'll feed you!

Spring's Comin'

2007-03-09T21:59:00.000-08:00

Snow's meltin'. The crocuses are blooming, and the daffodils are pushing up hard behind. Time to get out the seed catalogs, plan the garden.

When I first got my land here, I planted bulbs. I love the color, and wanted something just for fun...there's always more than enough work to country living, and I thought the flowers would give me something 'just for purty'. Turns out there's more to these bulbs than just pretty. I've learned I have a planting clock built in. Been watching this clock for about twelve years now, and it's never wrong.

First comes the crocus. Got to think about the seeds, and what you want to plant. Then comes the daffodils. Better make sure the beds are dug and amended. Put some seedlings in the greenhouse and plant the peas and radishes, the early, cold loving plants. When the tulips are up, lay out your starts. When the iris are blooming, start the tomatoes and peppers, the hot weather plants. When the tiger lilies are up, the garden is ready for pumpkins and melons .

Sometimes we get a spate of warm winter weather. I'm always tempted to run out and plant, til I look at the bulb bed. Just a couple of crocus winking at me...better wait. Good thing I waited this year...we had one foot of snow two days later!

This year the daffodils are pushing up hard behind the crocus. I'm thinking spring will come pretty quickly. I'd better not waste too much time dilly-dallying over the catologues. Spring's comin'.