More goings on down on the funny farm!

Cluck! Get that camera out of my beak!

Have you got a worm?
More blooming fuscias.
Today was a planting day for the garden.
We seeded more Lacinato kale, lettuce, pumpkins, and ...
Marigolds!
Marigolds are one of our favorite companion plants.
Did you know they help deter the little worms
that munch through radishes and carrots?
Our first snapdragon finally bloomed!

Our neighbors behind us gave us a basketful of colorful eggs this afternoon.

We responded with a harvest basket of herbs, veggies, and a mint plant.

I love community farming!

And the end of this feathery tail.

A Day in the Garden!

Here's the garden.
Our first big tomato is on the vine!

Flowers on the Pineapple Sage, a wonderful variety that smells just like,

you guessed it, Pineapple!

And here is the Thyme in bloom.

The yellow nasturium blooms,

and is delicious in my lunch salad!

The red nasturtium blooms,

and is also delicious in my salad!

The potato plants are flowering.
The fuscia have begun their annual blooming.
And here's a giant zucchini bloom,

delicious in stir fries.

And finally the first garlic harvest!

Versatile Pesto:

3/4 cup pine nuts
3 cups packed stemmed fresh basil leaves
1 and 1/2 cups olive oil
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
4 medium garlic cloves

1) Toast pine nuts until golden brown.
2) Put all ingredients into food processor or blender or chopper. Pulse on and off rapidly until coarsely chopped. Turn off and scrape down sides of work bowl. Process sauce until smooth. Add a bit of hot water if pesto seems thick.
3) Toss with cooked pasta as soon as the pasta is drained.
4) Options:
A) Use any other kind of nut; almonds, pecans, hazel, and walnuts all work well.
B) Use other stuff instead of basil; spinach, cilantro, parsley, sundried tomatoes, and roasted red peppers with black olives all work well.
C) Try another cheeses; Romano works.
5) All pesto freeze well in icecube trays stored in plastic bags.
Enjoy!

The Chicks Experience the Great Outdoors!

The coop is secured for day use.

We still have a few more things to do before we can leave the cluckers alone,

and we need to build the hen box for overnighting, but ...

the cluckers got their first taste of the great outdoors today!

They're not to sure what to make of it at first.
Peep! Peep Peep!
(Translation: Let us out!)
Peep Peep Peep! Peep! Peep! Peep!
(Translation: Don't let the dog eat us!)

Henrietta 2 makes a bolt it

Claudette follows close behind.

But Waltzing Maltilda beats them to the food and water first!

After a beakful of eating and drinking, the cluckers are ready to settle

down for a nap in the mottled sunshine.

Then seemed to really enjoy their time outdoors!

In other news of the day, I went to the market with my friend Lisa this morning. Today's finds were potatoes, tomatoes, spinach, rainbow carrots, yellow squash, walla-walla sweet onions, BBQ grilling sauce. Then I had a delicious breakfast of buckwheat pancakes and scrambled eggs out on the deck at Lisa's house. Yum!

Then it was time to brave the sun and transplant lots of mint to the trench around the coop.

Boy, did I ever get dirty!

Next: Harvest time in the garden. Today's bounty included lots of strawberries, peas, kale, zucchini, chives, basil, sage, parsley, and cilantro. Tomorrow, it will be time to add compost around the veggies and turn over the worm bin.

For dinner, I made a pasta dish with turkey medallions sauteed with the zucchini, kale, and roasted garlic. I served this up with a light sage "cream" sauce and topped the dish with a bit of parmesean and chives. The side dish was a bowl of broiled nectarines with sliced stawberries.

From the garden to the table, can't get much fresher!

And a final cluck:

Check out the new book finds.

A Slice of Organic Life edited by Sheherazade Goldsmith and

The Self-Sufficient Life by John Seymour.

These ones are great!

Both are DK books with terrific pictures and oodle of information,

everything from how to bake bread to grow box herbs to keeping chickens to making goat cheese to collecting food from the wild to brweing beer and digging a pond,

and much, much more!

Moving Day

Today was moving day, for some of the garden plants that it is. The lilac bush that was growing too close to the mini maple in the front yard was transplanted to the back yard, to the area that will eventually become the meditation circle.

This left a big hole in the front flower bed. In went a lavender plant, but there was still a bunch of open territory. Hmm, the pansies were threatening to take over the lettuce patch. They and the 3 viola plants were transplanted to the front bed.

Now, what to put where the pansy/viola plants vacated? I know the big lettuce plants on the deck that were out growing the planter pot. Out into the lettuce patch the 10 of them went.

This left the deck planter pots empty; a perfect place to put the mesclun seedlings. Now the deck seems a mite crowded. Hmm, these two pots of varigated boxwood could fit right in along the meditation path. Off the deck they went.

And finally, those 15 pots of mint we've been growing are ready to be transplanted around the base of the chicken coop. Out of the garden with them. Great! This leaves space for all those potted tomato seedlings.

I love garden puzzles!

PS: Uncle Mel, did you see USA soccer beat Spain? Whaahoo!

Reader Q and A

Responding to a reader questions:

What's growing in your Northwest garden currently?

The last of the spring lettuce is ready to be replaced with the mesclun mix.
The peas and strawberries are going like gangbusters.
The runner beans are just starting up.
The tomato plants are getting lots of green tomatoes (think sun!).
The tomatillo and potato plants are flowering like crazy.
The zucchini plants are churning out 1-3 a day!
The Russian kale is extremely prolific! We harvest at least 12 leaves a day!
The purple cabbages are heading up.
The chard produces a handful of leaves a week.
The celery, peppers, cucumbers, onions, leeks and winter squash are all still growing.
All the herbs (sages, thymes, chives, cilantro, savory, rosemary, lemon balm, parsleys and basils) and edible flowers (pansy, viola, nasturium, squash blossoms) can be harvested daily.
The garlic is ready for harvest as we need to use it.

How do you fertilize and pest control on the Funny Farm?

We use vermicompost (worm casings) form our worm bins, compost from our bins, and alfafa meal as amendments to our soil. To control pests, we use bird netting, beer traps for slugs, and hand inspection for caterpillars. We also use companion planting to discourage pests in the first place.

How do you preserve what you harvest?

Usually, we try to eat and share while the produce is fresh. Tonight we had a stirfry with veggies that were still in the garden a few minutes prior to being cooked! Occasionally, we flash dip veggies in boiling water and freeze for later use. Later in the season, we'll make more jams, jellies, fruit butters, chutneys, pickles. and sauces when the cukes, tomatoes and fruit are ripe.

What is your harvest strategy?

I'm not sure we really have a strategy. We walk through the garden daily and harvest what's ripe from each bed. This seems to give us a wide variety of veggies across the week. As a particular type of veggie is finished we replenish the soil and replant with a different variety that's compatible with the other veggies growing in the bed. One thing we are trying to do is harvest the zucchini daily. We don't want a counter full of zucchini troll clubs.

Keep the questions coming, and we'll keep trying to answer them!

One bad apple!

One bad apple don't stop the box!
My normally stellar CSA box arrived with this
apple today, a bit past its prime.
There were also a few hairy cherry tomatoes,
but have no fear the fine farm folks will make
right on the next order!
Here's the good stuff:
green peppers, carrots, apples, mango, nectarines,
plums, peas, potatoes, onion, green beans, arugala,
cherry tomatoes, muchrooms, and cherries.

Today's schedule was a bit wacky with phone calls.
So, I had to make the world's fastest dinner:
Whole wheat spaghetti tossed with garlic (homegrown),
arugala (CSA), and cherry tomatoes (CSA),
sauteed in olive oil, with cheesy chive bread (from the bread machine),
and a medley of sliced plums and nectarines.
Tasty and ten minutes!

Princesses, Nudibranchs, and Sniffles

Today the future farmers were all sniffin' and sneezin'. They all have a summer cold! Pass the tea and tissues. So for dinner, I made a big pot of chicken soup with loads of garden veggies, served up with farmer's market herb bread with a rhubarb crisp for dessert. Great cold comfort food!

Alex acted in his play over the past weekend. He had lots of small roles in a group of Princess plays. He wasn't to thrilled with all the girlie princesses, but all the princesses think Alex is "so cute!"

Ari finished up her spring college classes and she has a week off before she starts her summer online class. She's also thinking of taking a writing course or two with some other teens.

Anni is the sniffliest of the bunch, but she did enjoy our short outing to Edmonds Beach yesterday. It was a -3.2 low tide, which meant there was oodles of cool marine life to peek at on the beach. Our favorite were all the nudibranchs (colorful sea slugs) under the ferry pier, congregating for mating. We counted hundreds of them and 4 different species. (This is terribly exciting to a former biologist such as myself as these are usually quite hard to spot). We also saw baby sea cucumbers, zillions of hermit crabs, sea anenomes, sea stars and brittle stars, baby flounders and sculpins, sea lemons, chitans, and moonsnails. We also picked up a couple of larger red rock crabs. One was very grabby with the big claw! We also saw a heron catch a fish that was almost too big for him to handle. It took the bird quite a while to figure out how to hold and eat it. (Sorry, no photos. Camera battery died!)

I've been reading and writing up a storm lately. The garden is also keeping us very busy. The Russian Kale grows faster than zucchini! I'm sneaking it in to almost every dinner. The kids are becoming quite adept at finding it! We harvested our first runner beans of the season! Our sudden cooler weather seems to favor the strawberries and peas as we had pile of both in the harvest basket today. David is continuing to work on the chicken coop. Hopefully, we'll finish it this week as the chicks are growing bigger by the minute!

The farming finger

Today was a busy day down on the farm. The alder needed some serious pruning as it was casting a bit too much shadow on the peas. The berry patch needed some serious weeding as the dandelions were threatening to take over. We also discovered some volunteer tomato plants that popped up amongst the berry bushes and required immediate transplanting. The compost needed turning and replenishing. The chicken coop needed to have a 12" trench dug all the way around it. All the plants needed a serious long soaking of water since our weather has been cloudy but very dry. Now they could use some sun!

Now, this farmer managed to get through all those chores without a scratch; wielding shears, clippers, pitchfork, hoes, and shovels, all manner of sharp instruments. So how did I manage to have a thorough blood bath with the middle finger on my right hand?

No, not slicing an apple.
No mishap with the garbage disposal.
No critter (dog, cat, human, chicken, or fish) took a bite.
Not a paper cut!

After working out at the gym, I grabbed my gear from the car and slammed my OWN finger in the car door. Then I couldn't get it out for a couple of minutes, during which time I went from ouch to screaming! When I did get the door open, blood was streaming down both the front and back of my forearm, and I couldn't even see the finger that I smashed. After making through the front door and to the sink, I saw that I'd bisected the nail on that finger and blood was pouring out from the cut, below, and above. After running six miles at the gym, my heart was still pumping really hard. After smashing my finger, it was pumping even faster, and I began to feel quite woozy. So I grabbed an icepack from the freezer and proped myself up against the hall closet. My finger is now a lovely swollen purple and continues to bleed under the nail bed. This freakin' hurts!

Motto of this digital tale: Before slamming any door, know where one's fingers are or are not.

I'm going to stop typing now and go put more ice on my finger. OUCH!

Reading and Writing!

Today, the funny farmers were busy with artsy and literary aspirations. Alex had a dress rehearsal for his play. Anni watched the dress rehearsal. Ari was doing textbook buyback at the college. David read vacation info, and Julie Ann read 2 short stories, a book chapter, and wrote 1/2 a new story. We also managed to bang another few boards on the chicken coop and squeeze in some workout time. So here's so photo splurge to keep you going....
Another example of companion planting: lettuce, chard, peas, pansies, and violas. The flowers are edible and go great with the three varieties of lettuce. The chard is happy amongst the lettuce, and the peas provide a bit of shade which helps prevent the lettuce from bolting to seed and bitterness.
The lupine bloom! They are part of a bed full of flowers, attract pollinators to the garden. The lupine are always full of bees while in bloom! (Yep, I do have my epi-pen on standby)
A couple of weeks ago, David threw out a slightly moldy squash, the very last one from last year's crops. Now its decendents are happily growing in the middle of our compost bin! I see the need for transplanting these babies!
And speaking of interloping veggies. This potato decided to take root in the recycled recycle bin that was sitting next to the compost bin. The R-R bin is where I usually do soil mixing, but now it's playing host to this spud! And I think that's another squash growing in the corner! (All my friends and neighbors better like squash!)
And finally, this is Hootie our decoy owl perching on the alder bush overlooking the garden. The reflective flash ribbon was added to make him extra imposing! Since he's been the overlord of the garden, my strawberries have been unnibbled. Yea Hootie!

Lot of fun work!

Now before you say that's an oxymoron, this was fun work!

Here's David up the ladder, putting the roof on the chicken coop.
Not so fun for him, very fun for me photographing.

Alex had the fun job of trying out the icecream maker.
For its debut run, he made strawberry icecream.

Ari had the fun job of taste testing the icecream.
(And yes, she is still with us!)

Today's haul from the garden:
zucchini, broccoli, cabbage, Russian kale, peas, edible floweres, lettuce,
green garlic tops, cilantro, chives, Italian parsley, basil, and squash blooms.
Not showing are the 20 strawberries we harvested this afternoon
They didn't make it to the photo.
They made it to Anni's tummy!
I had the job of turning lots of this into an incredible veggie pasta tonight - yum!

Here's Lisa, Judith, and the some of the cast and crew
from this weekend's writing workshop in Lincoln City, Orgeon.

Beauty and a hmfff!

The hostas are getting humongous!
Barkley retrieving his beloved tennis ball in the sunshine.
The CSA box came today!
It was another good one from Full Circle Farm,
with oranges, a cantaloupe, nectarines, roma and vine tomatoes,
baby carrots, asparagus, lemons, mushrooms, apples,
avocados, red onion, red chard, radishes, & spinach.
Anni among the flowers in the front garden.

And finally a freshly watered garden rose.

Today, after running the gauntlet of appointments,

we worked on the chicken coop. Today, we finished the rafters

and the purloins for the roof. Tomorrow time for the actual roofing panels!

And a big HMFF!!!

to my washing machine which decided to die this evening.

It's spinner is decidedly unspinny.

The repair man has been contacted!

With 5 family folks, 2 cats, and a big dog,

we NEED our washing machine!

Coping with Cooping!

Transforming this...
into this!
Our chicken coop is taking shape!

In other news, the garden is going wild!
We harvested the last of the baby bok choy today,
and then replaced them with beans!
We are also getting a steady supply of peas and strawberries now.
Tomorrow, we'll be replacing the spinach with our pumpkin starts.
We're munching through the last of our spring heirloom lettuces,
and our summer mesclun starts are almost ready to go out under the tree.
We harvested another bag of greens and herbs today!

Heat, Markets, and Coops

We've had record heat this week, in the 90 degree range for a couple of days. Besides watering the plants, we hid in the shade! We're not used to the heat, here in the Northwest, and there is a definite lack of air conditioning. Pass the ice water!

But the marine air eventually pushed in and cooled things down on Thursday evening. Today was the farmer's market. We found garlic and dill sheep cheese, homemade spicy salsa, garlic greens, butter lettuce, tomatoes, and French breakfast radishes this week. We didn't need too much from the market as the garden is going nuts, especially with spinach, peas, and greens!

Then it was off to the home depot for chicken coop supplies. Thanks to Lisa for the use of her truck or we would never have gotten the long boards and plywood back to the farm. We connected the four wall; so the coop is now 3-D. Tomorrow we sink the foundation blocks and build the roof! Wish us luck!

Sunshine in the garden!

The garden bench seedlings are up!

These are Lacinato kale, broccoli rape', & sugar pumpkins.

This evening's flowerful salad, fresh from the garden this afternoon.
Anni and Alex in the garden...
checking out the pepper plants and ...
waving cheerio for this warm and sunny day!