Kachin State Water Buffalo
Soon I’ll in asia for a couple of months, and will not be updating this blog until my return to Quadra in early February. 2012 promises to be a very exciting year on our fledgling farm, and I’ll have lots to share on this blog, so please check back in a couple of months. Thanks for reading.
Tagged: Hiatus
Not long after we arrived on this land, in the late winter of this year, we experienced a period of heavy rain and snowmelt, after which parts of the field flooded. We accepted the possibility that we would perhaps have to dig a series of surface ditches to prevent future flooding. We decided we’d work the land for a year before building any sort of drainage system. This morning, after another period of heavy rain and snowmelt, parts of the field were flooded again. In the spring ditches will be dug. The presence of standing water is made particularly dramatic by our partially-completed pathways, which are below-grade. They filled with water first, creating islands of soil and vegetation in newly-formed Nassichuk Lake. I’m uncharacteristically not upset about this minor setback, as it was expected, and is curable.
Tagged: Drainage
this carrot reminds me of something, but I can't put my finger on it...
carrots and spices, before adding brine
brine added, ready for processing
finished pickles, cooling down
Tagged: Food Preservation
collard
kale and chard
Italian dandelion
purple sprouting broccoli
purple sprouting broccoli
winter-hardy crops under snow
Tagged: Plants
'Autumn King' carrots. sown on July 1st, harvested this afternoon
Tagged: Plants
I don't know which is prettier - Jessica, or the turnip! (I'm joking of course, but it is a really nice looking turnip)
the proud parents hold their adorable four-month-old
Tagged: Family Memories, Parenting, Plants
a mixed bed of fall and winter vegetables, mulched with shredded maple leaves
Tagged: Plants
immature radicchio, nine weeks old, mulched
The Rouge de Verone radicchio I direct-seeded on the 3rd of August hasn’t formed heads yet, which is a minor disappointment. The spinach and romaine lettuce I planted in the same bed grew beautifully, and have now all been harvested, and now I’m left with a bed of immature radicchio. My plan had been to have mature heads by now, which I’d have then covered with a low polytunnel. That plan has been changed, and now I intend to skip erecting a polytunnel, and cross my fingers that the radicchio plants will survive to form heads in the spring. I have my doubts this will work out, and if it doesn’t, I will consider it a lesson learned: Next year I will direct-seed my winter radicchio in early July, rather than early August.
not-yet-headed radicchio await the approach of winter alongside other winter vegetables
Tagged: Plants
winter peas, two months old
Tagged: Cover Crops, Plants
an early October sowing of fava beans, four weeks old
Tagged: Plants
you can fit lots in if you dance around on them as you load
Here is part two in my four hundred part series entitled “things we put in our truck”. Today I approached a young man raking leaves in his yard, and offered to do the raking for him, in exchange for my getting to haul the leaves back to the farm. He probably thought I was a fool to make such an offer, but that didn’t concern me, as I was about to get a bunch of truckloads of brownish-gold gold. Boring story short, the yard in question is enormous and I raked and hauled for hours. I’m going back tomorrow, and we are going to have lots of mineral-rich leaf mould to use as mulch in the coming years.
Tagged: Things We Put In Our Truck
Jessica with the spare radiator and our new truck
We bought a truck for one thousand dollars from a very motivated seller in Campbell River yesterday evening. He had more need for an envelope full of cash than a vehicle after his fourth DUI charge, so we took it off his hands, along with five spare tires, a spare radiator, and a bunch of other parts. The truck is a 1993, 4-cylinder, 5-speed manual Chevy S-10. We took it for it’s inaugural trip to the beach this afternoon, where we filled it with seaweed. By the end of the afternoon, we’d brought three loads back to our field. Soon we will take it for it’s inaugural trip to the manure pile. I think it is really going to like living on our farm.
three truckloads of sea plants
Tagged: Peak Oil Peak Everything
mache grows with lentil volunteers and miscellaneous weeds
In early September, I broadcast-seeded some mache/corn salad/Valerianella locusta into a small section at the end of one of the main beds. This section had been growing lentils, which we cut down and harvested in late August. Currently, about two months later, it doesn’t look like the corn salad is doing much to suppress the growth of the bed’s cool season weeds, though it is not being outcompeted, either. Mache is a miracle plant, capable of growing without protection all winter, and producing salad greens that, while a bit of a pain to harvest, rival lettuce in deliciousness any day. While our main mache sowing this year was in four rows across a thirty-six inch bed, I expect I’ll broadcast-seed it into reasonably weed-free land next year, to save time and effort, while producing much more greenery per square foot.
a dense planting of mache
Tagged: Plants
a load of leaves, transported to our field with gasoline (the jerry can reads "R.A. Nassichuk and his life partner")
We borrowed our friend’s truck this morning to transport some leaves and seaweed to our field, and we were having great success until one of the spark plugs decided to violently eject itself out of the place where spark plugs are supposed to be (I have some fairly large gaps in my understanding of automotive mechanics). It sounded like a gun firing inside the engine, then everything stopped working. We opened the hood and found the delinquent spark plug sitting on top of the battery, broken, never to spark again. Even I know that spark plugs don’t do their best work on top of the battery. I realized then and there that we need our own truck. We had a really old one last year, but we sold it because it only went 6 kilometers for each litre of gasoline it burned and we could see the road through the holes in the floor. On the off chance anyone reading this has a truck they wish to sell for three thousand dollars or less, I’ll buy it. If it works well, and is reasonably small, and has all it’s spark plugs in place. And isn’t made in America. And is purple.
Tagged: Peak Oil Peak Everything
A Bountiful Barrow of Beets
Pictured at right are some of the ‘Lutz Winterkeeper’ beets we harvested today. They were sown on the first of July. The roots in the photograph are the grade-A specimens, which we have now packed in sand for winter and early spring use. Smaller, less-perfect specimens are being eaten now, rather than stored, as they are less likely to survive long-term storage.
Tagged: Plants
a bed of september-sown oats
My limited experiences with oats as a late-summer-planted cover crop have led me to conclude that they (usually) don’t survive the winter, an attribute that makes them a desirable part of no-till and reduced-tillage crop management systems. They are also much more beautiful than the more commonly grown fall rye, with a more graceful, taller stature and the ability to dance in the autumn wind.
Tagged: Cover Crops, Plants
Bok Choi and Spinach for autumn and winter harvests
The bok choi pictured at right has started to form flower buds, which is somewhat disappointing. I had hoped it would wait until spring to begin it’s reproductive cycle, as we plan on constructing a low polytunnel over it’s bed for winter protection. It is ‘Ching Chiang’ from West Coast Seeds, flanked by ‘Tyee’ Spinach. Both were direct-seeded on the 17th of August.
Tagged: Plants
Italian dandelion flower buds
Tagged: Plants
an autumn-sown broad bean gets ready to wait for spring
For years I’ve been hearing about how well fall sowings of broad beans work in our coastal climate. For years I haven’t gotten around to trying this out. This year is different, as I’ve reached a new level of seriousness with regards to broad beans. About two weeks ago I sowed a 100-square-foot trial bed of, into un-tilled buckwheat stubble, with the beans planted on 12-inch centres. They are now up above the mulch of buckwheat straw and shredded leaves, and I have high hopes for a plentiful, early, aphid-free yield of delicious broad beans next July.
Tagged: Plants
my cousin Michael with a turnip
In late July I sowed some ‘Purple Top White Globe’ turnips for our turnip-loving friend Bruce. If I were in charge of naming this type of turnip, and it may be worth noting that I do one day intend to be in the sort of person who feels eligible to name turnip and other vegetable varieties, I’d have selected something a little more poetic than ‘Purple Top White Globe’, though I must admit it is an accurate description. Awkward name aside, I did not expect a late July sowing to produce such large roots, and am very pleased with the results. Next year I will experiment with early and mid-August turnip sowings, which I expect will fit conveniently as succession crops following garlic and early pea harvests, amongst others.
a turnip grows next to some italian dandelion
Tagged: Plants
autumn and winter vegetables
Tagged: Plants
a cluster of Shaggy Manes make themselves at home in a road
Tagged: Fungi
Jessica's newt wakes up in her gloved hand
Jessica found this adorable newt while working in a perennial border this afternoon. It seemed to be asleep, and slowly woke up as we looked at it and took it’s picture. It may or may not be Taricha granulosa, the rough-skinned newt.
Tagged: Wildlife
