It’s been a while since we’ve written, and perhaps the only reason it’s happening today is because it is raining.

My pickup truck has a shell on it, so it’s not good for hauling compost.  We have the tiny John Deere for cutting grass for compost and the 18 cubic foot trailer it tows for hauling manure.  While Dan picked out the last of the starthistle, I brought down load after load of manure (each to their talent) into the 2400 square foot veggie area.  Our neighbor has a collection of horses, steers, and llamas that kept us well supplied as long as we could move the stuff.  It would have been simple except for a particularly steep and canted section of the road that had me doing controlled slides on the later trips in the day.  Yeah.  Don’t tell my dad.

Lovely rain.  Weekend after weekend of 95+ degree heat was great for the cherry tomatoes, but bad for the larger heirlooms.  Now the cherries are backing off a bit and the heirlooms are coming out.  They’d better hurry because we’re going to cut down the vines in a week or two so we can compost that area too.  Along with 3-5 inches of compost went 350 pounds of gypsum to battle the clay.  Next year’s soil is going to be a huge change from this red hardpan!

We’ve learned the lesson about gopher cages.  Of the 16 trees we planted in our first year, 9 of them died from a long frost.  They would have been alright, but we planted them in an area where the cold air pooled and did not run off.  The other 6 that were planted on a slope did better.  However we did not use gopher baskets.  They did okay the first year, but half of them died this year.  All the trees we planted the second year went in with gopher baskets, and they are doing fine.  This winter we will be planting 40 new trees and each one will get a basket.  Cheap insurance.

The deer figured out my fishing line fence trick.  Next year it’s going to be electrical fence.  If that doesn’t work, I’ll be hiring lawyers.

Today I built a second solar panel.  The field shed is all set for the winter and all the basic facilities are in place.  Dave, our son, is planning to live on the farm next Fall as part of a university exchange program.  He will definitely be factored into the 2011/12 farm plan.

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 »

The tomatoes are starting to provide a return on the ridiculous amount of water they demand.  In successive weeks we saw “harvests” of ½ lb, 1 lb, 1 lb, 4 ½ lbs, and 5 lbs.  They’re coming in, and in the right order (we have about 7 varieties), but just slowly.  We can see that soon we’ll be in full swing. We’ve seen some splits but not too many.  The Romas get a little mushy on the end, but that’s expected with that species.  The heirloom breeds we have coming… Read the rest of this article »

With the seeds in the ground and the timers set, the routine for the next few weeks has turned from planting to building, weeding, and checking on the infrastructure.   This is the sweet spot at our place where the rain has tapered off and the snake desiccating heat has not started. Our son Dave came with us this weekend.  He turned 18 a couple weeks ago and is getting ready to go off to the University of Alaska at Fairbanks in the fall.  We’re going to miss him around the house and on the… Read the rest of this article »