Farm Journal

Posted on by Heather

Thank you, Mary!

Today we picked about 50+ lbs. of seedless grapes

Our friend and neighbor, Mary, has been a bountiful supplier of all things fruit. Plums, pears, apples, blueberries, blackberries, and both seeded and seedless grapes. If she had a pineapple plant she would share it with us.

Today we’re reaping the grape harvest by drying raisins, freezing the grapes (they’re a fun treat!) and making grape molasses. It’s all making me so happy.

The Lord will provide us with more harvest as long as we use the harvest he’s given us. We feel so blessed by our neighbor’s generosity and the country of the Pacific Northwest.

Posted on by Heather

This is our first big tomato harvest. It makes me happy. We have some paste tomatoes, some heirlooms, some “dollar store tomato seed” tomatoes, and some volunteer yellow pear.

Tomatoes have to be a part of any happy garden because they provide the visual and flavor payoff of all your hard work. I’m the beginning, everything in a garden is green–peas, lettuce, kale, beans, herbs–up until the first blush of the first tomato. It’s a magical moment.

Posted on by Heather

I’ve been using our herbs to make a salt and herb mixture that preserves the color and brightness of the herbs. Not sure what to call it.

I blend about 1-2 cups of herbs, 5 garlic cloves, add the zest and juice of one lemon, and 2-3 Tbs. salt. Sometimes kosher, sometimes gentile.

Posted on by Heather

Look at this beautiful waste of space.

A tomatillo plant with hundreds of flowers

It’s a flower-filled tomatillo plant that will never bear a single tomatillo. We didn’t know that it needed a second tomatillo plant in order to produce fruit. The person who gave it to us only gave us one plant, along with a bunch of tomato plants in exchange for wood chips. Now it’s taking up precious garden space.

I am going to rip it out and plant lettuce, because i know that Josh wanted to plant lettuce this year. Hopefully it’ll stay cool enough for the lettuce to not bolt.

Ground control to Major Tomatillo, goodbye…
Posted on by Heather
Kale choppin’ school is in session

This morning I harvested 12 ounces of dinosaur kale (lacinato). I chiffonaded it and bagged it up in 3 ounce portions.

I like the dinosaur kale because it’s a beautiful color, it’s sturdy, and when it’s sauteed with butter it turns a deep green.

Kale is wonderful. Swiss chard is terrible, but we have to keep growing it because the birds like it more than the kale. It saves our kale from the birds.

Posted on by Heather

Today our friend gave us a dozen baby quail and 18 quail eggs.

The little chicks are adorable. They’ll be ready to eat or lay eggs at 6-8 weeks. They are 2 weeks old this Saturday.

Posted on by Heather

Alden and I made seed tape today with our carrot seeds and beet seeds. They’re both root crops that do best if perfectly spaced. This year I was sloppy with my beet planting and got a really dumpy harvest of smashed together beets. Lesson learned.

I amended the soil where I’m planting the carrots and beets. I bought a 50 pound bag of sand and worked it lightly into about a 3×10 area. Hopefully it’ll help the root veggies to grow.

Posted on by Heather
Boom clap

Today we picked the rest of our beets. 18 ounces of dirt-flavored goodness. We’ll sow more seeds in the next week or so.

Posted on by Heather
Happy August! And hello tomatoes!

I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with this clutch of cherry tomatoes. There’s enough for everyone to have one or two at dinner.

Posted on by Heather

I harvested 1 lb 3 ounces of kale this morning. Actually, I washed and deveined the kale, then weighed it (minutes bowl weight), so we probably got a little more than that.

I’m going to portion it out into 3 ounce bricks, wrap them in plastic wrap, then freeze them. They defrost really quickly and make for an amazing accompaniment to any dinner. Kale + butter + miso paste.

The Everest of kale
Posted on by Heather

This is our first harvest of cherry tomatoes–or any tomatoes–this year. They are sweet, round, and perfectly ripe. Happy End of July!

Posted on by Heather

Last Thursday I started a single pint of lacto fermented green beans. Just water, salt, green beans, garlic + dill. It’s just sitting on our wire shelf, literally collecting dust. I could make a lot more lacto fermented green beans, but I don’t want to do up a whole bunch until I know that they’ll be good. Tonight I tasted them. They weren’t boozy at all and they weren’t flavorful either. They’re supposed to be done next Thursday. It’s a two week ferment.

In the mean time, we’re still harvesting more green beans, which are great for raw snacking. I also started another jar of lacto fermented green beans without garlic, just to see if the beans can make it on their own without a rock star in the jar.

I have quite a few lacto ferments going on right now. Fun project!

Posted on by Heather

Welcome to our 2020 garden! Let’s take a tour, shall we? I’ll share some of my favorite garden spots.

Nature’s watercolor. Look at the gorgeous colors that are created when green turns to orange.
Our three kale varieties. Like a mom, I love all three equally, but for different reasons.
I love this trellis of pole beans! By the end of summer it’ll be a beautiful arch of lunch greenery–I mean, lush greenery.
This diminutive plant wins the prize for fruit to leaf ratio.
One beet…
Many beets…
These sunflowers were little volunteers that I thought were squash plants. Now they hold up our volunteer tomato plants. Btw, say hello to one of our honeybees!
Three bees!
Spent pea plants create a tangle of parchment-like tendrils and leaves.
Corn. 100% American, but the tassels give off an exotic Middle Eastern vibe.
From a distance you would never guess that beneath the large, drapey zucchini leaves are some of the largest, most beautiful flowers in the garden. #modestishottest
This tomatillo is delicate and spindly.
These teeny, fuzzy beans will someday be on Josh’s dinner plate (or get eaten on his walk home from the office)
It’s not dill… It’s parsley that bolted. Teeny little parsley flowers!
Another beautiful contemporary watercolor from Mme. Nature. Title “Baby Broccoli in Wood Chip Mulch”
Posted on by Heather

Today we got 6 ounces of the curly leafed kale and 12 ounces of the dinosaur kale.

I also did some maintenance on the tomatoes and saw four greenish-orange tomatoes, ready to be eaten this week!!

Posted on by Josh

I transplanted six broccoli plants to take over as my pea plants die back. Heather transplanted a Vietnamese coriander plant.

I picked the first two gypsy peppers of the season.

I picked the first plum of the season. It will be a smaller crop this year, but that’s ok — we had way more than we needed last year!