Solar Farming

We were just featured on Residential Solar 101. There are some nice shots of the farm towards the end.

Three Little Kittens...

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From L:R-> Casper (named in honor of his late Uncle Jasper), Chloe & Luna. Casper is male, the others are female. They are still nursing, although they're spending more time independent of Opal. We're trying to handle them on a regular basis to domesticate them. They're still unsure what to make of that...

Summer Approacheth...

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Much has happened since our last update. The cover crop on the avocado slope finally got its summer haircut this week, and the entire citrus slope was remulched today as my birthday present to myself. We have completed our spring plantings of both annuals and perennials at this point. Estelle's flowers are enjoying their home in her new plot, and our peppers are taking nicely to our new beds as well. Onions, tomatoes and potatoes are all sizing up. (The prickly tomato pictured above is the fabled Litchi). All of the table grapes we propagated from cuttings this winter had great root balls on them by the time they went in the ground. Our landscape is fully in bloom right now before the the crush of the summer heat overwhelms its efforts.

Although Sartaj has shed his winter coat, he actively seeks the shade throughout the day and gophers by night. Our ducks turned 1 a few weeks ago. They laid 878 eggs in their first year of life, and we commend them for their efforts! Finally, in an extremely bizarre turn of life's wheel, our cat Jasper was taken out by a predator earlier this week. Then his sister Opal gave birth to three kittens three days later. She had a rough time of it, getting skunked in the process. We now have her and the wee ones safely indoors however and will post photos in our next update.
Happy harvesting!

Spring Planting Update

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We continue to have a wet spring over here, but it has been punctuated by nice long dry spells, allowing us to get a significant portion of our planting done. We only have a few beds of peppers left to transplant. We have already planted out 28 varieties of tomatoes, 4 varieties of potatoes, 2 varieties of tomatillos, 3 varieties of onions and 2 of 4 varieties of peppers. We've also put in 110 new trees so far this spring and have 5 more to go, along with our new grapevines. The updated version of our site plan now includes these new plantings. A great thanks to Aaron Dillon at Four Winds Growers and Larry and Shelly at Brokaw Nursery for working with us to make it all happen. One other great development this spring is that we have an apprentice, Katie, who is a neighbor's granddaughter and has lived overseas in agrarian communities most of her life due to her mother's ongoing Peace Corps deployments. In addition to learning about irrigation systems and gopher trapping, she has been weeding and mulching up a storm as I mow and weed-whack, and the place looks terrific because of it. In other news, I have a sculpture in the upcoming Sculpture Is 2010 show at Sierra Azul Nursery, which commences on May 31. And last, but far from least, our second child is due October 12!

April Showers...

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Without fully retracting the "Spring Has Arrived" declaration of my previous post, I will say that the inclement weather made its case over the past couple of weeks. We tacked another 5" on the rain gauge, giving us a 45.5" season total to date. While the clouds have slowed things down a bit in the greenhouse, the on/off rain has given many perennials and our cover crop a nice boost. The roses are gargantuan right now, and are beginning to flower, as evidenced above by Gold Medal, Angel Face, and Distant Drums. Our kiwis are all leafing out, and the wisteria is in full bloom. Unfortunately, the rain has given the weeds quite a push too, and the broom is in full bloom already as well. There's lots more to pull and mow if we're going to avoid a big seed drop this year. We did take advantage of the longer stretches of sunny days to incorporate some of our cover crop, and even planted out Red Pontiac potatoes in a bed dug previously, where the cover crop had already broken down. Rainy day activities have included making posts for a new grape trellis, making more tomato cages, and expanding the number of nest boxes for our ducks. Hopefully the weather will stay calm, and we can get back out there for the rest of this week. It does look like we're in for quite a squall next Monday-Tuesday however. The North Pole appears decidedly unconvinced of global warming this Spring. Lastly, I trekked up to Grass Valley to help christen the new "Dinner Bell Farm" recently and made them an apropos gift. I also stopped at Shooting Star CSA on the way back down. It is ridiculously gorgeous. Congratulations again Matt and Lily, and North Bay folks, please do sign up for their CSA.