Its been a while since our last post, but we have been keep’n busy on the farm.

We have stored some of our harvest this year like freezing strawberries, sun drying tomatoes, many seeds saved from herbs to beans.

Still in production are the greens; Mustard greens, Kale, Chard, and the baby lettuce in the greenhouse. 

Last year there were many additions to the property, mainly permaculture like strawberries and trees. These were investments that will only produce more as the years go on. 

The additions were from reproducing the current strawberry plants from the offshoots, as well as buying some new breeds that we bought from our son’s school, which bought them from a local organic producer. 

Then we bought many trees mainly from Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, which were two almond trees, Lisbon Lemon, Improved Meyer Lemon, Valencia Orange, Brown Turkey Fig (which produced figs the first year), Cherry, Lemon Guava (also produced first year), Peach, Plum, and Olive trees. 

We already have a well established golden apple tree, and a four year Fuji apple tree that do very well, with Concord grapes and Ruby Red grapes, blackberries, and of course the strawberries. 

Recently we’ve been working the beds to prepare for planting; covered some of the bases of trees with bamboo skirting and hay, to help with frost on new trees; winterized the bees, with wind breaks for the entrances and reduced the entrance and fixed any damage from animals like skunks and raccoons, possible domestic cats too. 

Currently in the ground as well are shallots, garlic, yellow onions, various potatoes, asparagus, artichoke, and more. By no means are there acres of each crop, some are small test plots, some are larger areas, like the strawberries and calendulas. 

We also have many herbs, medicinal and gourmet types, like Marshmallow, Echinacea, Rosemary, Eucalyptus, Roses, lemon balm, lemon verbena, Cilantro, Oregano, Thyme, Dandelions, plantain, mints, and many more, which will all be available for the CSA soon. 

About a 1/3 of the chickens are still producing in this cold winter time, which is roughly 10 eggs a day, I could improve on this by adding a heat lamp.

Also we have six ducks that should be lay’n full swing in spring. 

There is much more going on: we are mainly focused on greenhouse planting of early spring plants, and working the ground to prepare for warm weather crops. We will try to keep this updated in the future. 

Please feel free to ask questions, if you’d like further details on this down and dirty lifestyle.  Peace Out       -WM-

  Today as the sun shines, in what has been the driest, sunniest most beautiful wind free winter in our 9 years on the northern coast of California, I feel myself wanting to get a jump start on the planting season. I am reminded however of an incident that took place this past summer, whose beginnings were rooted early in the season last year. In mid August several farms in our area were lamenting the fact that a large portion of their onion crops were bolting (going to seed) instead of bulbing.… Read the rest of this article »

The New Year has arrived, yes January 1, 2012, and I was outside in the SUNSHINE picking fresh PEAS for dinner. The northern coast of California has had an unusually mild winter and I am reaping the bounty of it. So very thankful! Read the rest of this article »