nothing like some time mixing soil in the greenhouse to restore my inner peace. Kinda feeling a little melancholy as I continue on with this years farming operation, suppose I'm missing Dad. But the melons, peppers, and tomatoes are sprouting good under the fluorescent lights in the plant room. Gonna eat my pork salad wrap for lunch then finish planting another tray of bell peppers and some ogen melons. After that the lawn should be dry enough for me to prune on the apples some more. Y'all have a rockin' great late winter day.

2014 underway

Tomato plants are a couple inches tall in the sprout room and the small greenhouse is prepared to receive them tho I still have some clean-up to do in there. Gotta get the seed order out this week, it's getting late with less than a month of winter left. There's been some snow in the hills but we're short of water. Nothing like the catastrophe faced by southern California and still a lot of rainy season left so I'm keeping my fingers crossed it will be enough.

So, so busy

It's still above 95 out there so I've taken a little time after dinner to flop down in the dark, cool basement. The season is finally starting to shape up. All the crops are dialed in so we'll have at least a little of all of our mainline products with at least 2 plantings of each variety. A few weeks ago I was on the verge of despair that we'd ever catch up but in the last week a lot of plants just sort of exploded. Now I'm in a panic to get my tomatoes staked and wired up before they sprawl beyond saving. With all the planting done my schedule has gotten simpler but every hour is still used up with things that should've been done yesterday. Stay cool!

Playing with the 21st century!

Donate Bitcoins Setting up my accounts and stuff to accept bitcoins. If I can talk mom into it we might be accepting these at the stand this year.

Minty wintery delight

Every few years I like to try a new endeavor on the farm. Last year it was beneficial herbs and teas. I even managed to get a tea Camilla which is still doing well. But last year was a pretty tough solo mission for the Guyman and I just barely managed to end up harvesting some miserly little piles and bags of leaf and flower. (nothing federally disapproved of, so don't ask) I was a little disappointed but I know these things aren't one-shots and settled my mind on other things while giving the tea thing a rest.

Just now as I came back from the greenhouse on a whim I stopped at the shelf where I dried my herbs. I gathered a nice bag's worth to half-fill a tea ball. Agastache, small leaf Japanese green tea [leaf and flower], Manuka, and Wintergreen berries. Agastache is sorta like minty catnip and Manuka has a sagey taste tho it's no sage.

YEAH! It's really good. Much of my disappointment has been washed away by this single cup of tea.

I hope your winter day has been surprised with some undisappointing delight too or will be soon. Rock on!

Sun, sun, sun!

Having such a great day. Started out kinda down but once the fog blew off and the sun warmed things up I really started going. Pruned a bunch on the apple trees and worked on cleaning out the pond. If the rain doesn't come too soon I might just get it lined in time to have some water put away for the dry part of spring. Hoping to get the tiller going tomorrow and put in our first row of spring onions, peas and maybe some spinach.

It so bright and warm for a late winter day, it really make me want to roast some hot dogs and marshmallows!

Ice, ice, ice

We've had a bit over a week of hard frost now. Great for killing garden insects but not great for outdoor activity. Our highest daytime temps have been around 36°F. Low nighttime temps have been 20-26.

Sadly I've also hit a patch of 'writers block' with my software design work. So turning my mind to work in the greenhouse and what field work I can get done when the sky melts for a little while.

Winter is always tough but my electric blanket is waiting for me at the end of each day. Keep out of the wind!

Rain, rain, rain

Gotta love it! Been inside so much I've finally had time to write something on here.

Fall cleanup is still majorly under way. Turning to the dusty confines of the basement and the winter greenhouse for places to put stuff as revamping the house for Xmas continues. Will post some pics when we're done decorating the tree.

Hope to get out this week and do some mushroom hunting. Getting a little late for some things like chanterelles but the more exotic characters like bluets might start showing up soon. Seen a lot of boletes and various agaricus in my recent wanderings.

Autumn auguries

teetering on the top of the orchard ladder as the last rays of twilight silhouette branches of the yellow delicious apple tree. Picking apples by feel from the spindly, gnarly, gnobby branches. Yes, autumn is upon us. 

We'll be out of sweet corn for about a week, until the weekend or the 8th or so at the latest. The last field is taking its time getting ripe as the days shorten and the nights cool. 

To fill in the gap we'll have plenty of large, ripe, red tomatoes some beautiful red and yellow delicious apples, sweet green grapes with a golden autumn blush and finally our usual unusual assortment of culinary and beneficial herbs.

Labor Day dalliance

We'll be laboring on this fine Labor Day.

Corn, melon, tomatoes, squash, cukes, grapes, apples, plums, peaches, potatoes, onions and maybe even some green beans in stock today.

I should be out picking corn already but the puppy sleeping on my lap is slowing me down.

Y'all take care and have fun.

Summer grind

My poor, sad, ol' blog has all but withered under Ra's Blazing Eye. Like one of my pumpkins being sucked dry by Coreidae.

Well, your loss has been the cantaloupe's gain. We've begun to harvest some really great melons and this evening I [finally!!] was able to pull in a whole bucket of tomatoes.

So you can understand why I've been so taciturn.

As we switch gears going into the height of summer I'm really hoping I'll have time and tech to take up my old hobby again soon.

Happy Birthday, Mom.

My mom's 75th birthday is today and she'll be celebrating it in Kansas with her brothers and sister. Hope you have a super great time, Mom. You deserve it.

End corruption of our government

A movement is afoot to return control to the American people.

Tough summer day in spring

2nd planting of corn put in today. Boy was it hot! Being a miser with an inflatable swimming pool (thanks Todd & Robin!) full of water for my little lettuce and cabbage plants. I sure hope I don't use it all up before the polywogs get their legs. The big greenhouse has some great looking bean, tomato, cuke, squash, cantaloupe and watermelon plants in the ground. I'll be taking that down in a few weeks when the danger of late frost is officially past and those little plants should boom up into big plants. If we're lucky we'll have production maybe as early as the 1st week of July.

A delightful spring Sunday

what a delightful morning. Rotten night's sleep but a delightful morning. Sparky's asleep in my lap, warm cup of tea at my elbow. I can hear mom snoring and a few roosters still crowing. There's some lovely sunshine out there but even though I've got so much to do I'm not gonna ruin such a peaceful Sunday morning with tiller noises. Oh! now I can hear birds singing in the front yard. Sweet music to you all today.

Surprise! a rainy spring day in Oregon

Just filled the bird feeders and we have quite a flock in the yard.

The greenhouse is filling up quickly with lots of little plants. Hundreds of tomatoes already putting on dark green growth and a big flush of new herbs and interesting flowers. Still waiting on a bundle of new plants to come in; they won't ship until the danger of frost has passed.

Sunday I plugged the next set of mushroom logs with pearl oyster spawn. One more round for the lion's mane mushroom and I'll have my 1st experimental runs going. Also have some cardboard spawn and some delightful sawdust spawn running in my sterile chamber from both oyster and a wild lion's mane I found in fall. The spawn from that wild mushroom is wonderfully aggressive, growing quick & bright white.

Next week I'll start planting the early melons. I'm also hoping the weather will moderate for a few days so I can get the 1st greens field rototilled and the big greenhouse inflated. Once that is up I'll be planting the early garden of summer squash, cukes and tomatoes in there.

Wishing you all vigorous growth and rich soil :)

A great winter day.

Rototilled our 1st two late winter/early spring garden plots this afternoon. Hoozah! Really nice to get the tractor out under the open sky and a bright yellow sun. Mom and I also managed a supply run to Medford this morning. Lunch at Tintin buffet. Just all around a great day. All is lined up to start planting lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, and other garden greens by Monday or so. Hope these late winter days are giving you each and all the same fine treatment.

Late winter frosty

25°F out there this morning. 42 in the greenhouse with 2 heaters running. Have reached about 1000 plants in there, another 400+ seeded in and kept warm in the sprouting room downstairs. I'm planning on trying to inflate the big greenhouse in the next 10 days, start getting it ready for more transplants plus early tomatoes, peppers, squash and cukes. If this sub-freezing junk will go away I'll start prepping soil to put out the greens, lettuces and cabbages.

Sorry it's been so long since my last post, just really busy here. Keep finding your happy place.

Winter struggles

Well, my cold decided to hang around some more & I didn't get the floating row cover down, darn it. Did manage a few baby steps on my job scheduling app though, that was nice. Hope you had a good Tuesday.

Greenhouse complete.

A view through the newly finished door. Mixing a little more soil next as you can tell from all the bags.