In July, I had the pleasure of attending my cousin’s wedding in Oregon. It was a beautiful ceremony in the Willamette Valley. It was the first time I had been back to Portland since we moved in January. It was nice to visit friends and family and of course, Powells. For those of you who have never had the opportunity to visit the City of Books, Powells spans an entire city block and has four stories of new and used books. Their selection is quite impressive, including categories such as “sustainable farming”.

As usually happens at Powells, I happened upon two very useful books, “The Vegetable Grower’s Handbook” by Frank Tozer, and “The Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook” by Richard Wiswall. I also picked up an out of print copy of Wolf Storl’s work, “Culture and Horticulture: A Philosophy of Gardening”, a great read about the history and practices of biodynamic farming. Matt is thoroughly enjoying it.

Tozer’s book highlights “everything you need to know” for cultivating over 80 different vegetable crops. For each crop he details soil needs (pH, drainage, acidity), when to plant for each season, how to accomplish succession sowing, whether to transplant or direct seed, how to care for the crop (watering, mulching, fertilization, pest, pruning, and frost protection). He outlines harvest techniques, storage seed saving and recommended varieties. He even gives a few recipes for each crop. As a first year farmer, this is an excellent resource, allowing access to tons of useful information in one location. Most websites or books focus on a specific topic which means you are constantly searching for answers to additional questions for each crop you grow. It is great to have one text to consult for all your growing questions. Highly recommended for new farmers and backyard gardeners.

The Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook touts the subtitle, “A Complete Guide to Managing Finances, Crops and Staff - and Making a Profit”. It almost sounds to good to be true. I have perused a lot of similar works about business planning and data management for farming and running your own business. However, this book drew me in because it comes with a companion CD that includes all of the spreadsheet templates. What a time saver! Not only do you not have to recreate the date sheets, Wiswall’s data tracking systems are accurate, thorough, and useful for small farmers. I have already created a marketing chart to track our projected sales for the next year, a production plan of how much we have to grow to meet our marketing plan, and a map of where everything will go and how much seed is needed. Since Wiswall himself is a vegetable grower this information is relevant and necessary for grower’s looking to make a profit. I can’t imagine how I would have had time to create the custom spreadsheets in addition to tracking all of the data. I am especially looking forward to using the Crop Enterprise Budgets to figure out profit margins for specific crops and eliminate crops that are not financially productive for our farm.

I also picked up a few “Rite in the Rain” notebooks. Perfect for working in the field or greenhouse as they are impenetrable to the elements. I bought a large gridded one that has served us well for laying out our crop rotation plan for 2011 and a small one to fit in Matt’s back pocket for ideas and notes in the field.

This summer has been quite busy on the farm. Farmers markets, cultivation, harvesting leave me with little time to breathe.  Even tho there is one official month left in summer I know that the time will fly by before I know it, so here is an update while the thoughts are still fresh in my head.  you may wonder what busy means for a farmer, because aren’t we always busy, always have tons of things to do?  Yes, and yet we manage to get even busier in the dog days of summer. My schedule: … Read the rest of this article »

We learned last year that rabbits do not eat basil.  What we learned this year is that rabbits will eat basil if there is nothing else to eat. We learned that our corner of the world likes to grow tomatoes of these varieties:  Sungold, Super Sweet, Black Cherry, and Stupice.  It is not kind to many of the larger varieties and hates Romas.  Their performance could be ameliorated by experience and education on our part.  Growing a new vegetable is like learning a second or… Read the rest of this article »

When trying to understand different weather patterns and the effect they have on different micro-climates it is always helpful to get the 1000 foot perspective…...Ellwood Canyon Farms is located in the mouth of a canyon running off a southern facing coastal mountain range.  I did some exploring this weekend and found my way to the top of the canyon looking back at the coast.  Directly behind the farm is 70 acres of certified organic farm ground, not in production….  Behind that are… Read the rest of this article »

I remember reading somewhere, at some point, an author’s view that gardeners (and by extension, farmers) are intrinsically optimistic due to the nature of their work.  In the interest of full disclosure, among my friends and family I am not particularly known as an optimist.  But I’m already happily planning for next year, as well as planting for this winter.  We’ve been slowly increasing what we can bring to the farmers market, as well as increasing our sales.  Truly,… Read the rest of this article »

This summer has been flying by, I can hardly believe its already August.  With my schedule these days I hardly have time to think, I guess its like my dad says….“you gotta make hay while the sun shines”.  Well I’ve had my head down and hands in the dirt making as much hay as possible. Here is a breakdown of my weekly schedule the last month and this is what it will be through October when I end the CSA.  Monday is CSA day where I am harvesting from 6am - 2 getting… Read the rest of this article »

We currently sell eggs to a handful of regular weekly customers, and it’s great to have a reliable market.  However, we want to resume selling eggs at the Farmers Market (especially after jumping through all of the necessary hoops to do so!).  For us, a small flock has been a worthwhile, reasonably-priced, enjoyable investment.  If you are starting from scratch (ha), you’ll have to spend a little bit more than we did when we recently expanded. Start-up: We had previously purchased… Read the rest of this article »

Working clay soil is a little bit of a pain. I’m new to this, but a little bit of applied research is starting to show promising signs.  Although there is a lot of potential nutrition locked inside of clay particles, its dense physical structure and relative nutritional unavailability demand some attention.  As is the solution for many other soil problems, adding compost has certainly shown off its efficacy.  The added organic matter from our soil block transplants has also helped… Read the rest of this article »

Hey there web-o-sphere, farmer Dusty here with an update from Orleans. This week I finally feel like the abundance is ON, we got 100 pounds of tomatoes today, 25 pounds of tomatillos, many onions, lots of flowers, and blackberries galore.  I will get back to you again soon, but for now time is tight.  Until next time I will keep on farming. Read the rest of this article »