The No-Till Option... Pretty cool

Wow, I had a friend from the Mt. Vernon extension office come out and take a look at my plot. During our conversation he mentioned an interesting method for starting some of the rows I need to direct seed.

The idea was about using newspaper and compost to suppress weeds and germinate your seeds. I think I might need to try this on few rows, just to see how it goes... Lazy man's gardening!

Here is a video I found at Audubon Magazine.

Peppers and tomatoes are coming along nicely

So my peppers and tomatoes are growing nicely. In fact, I have a lot more tomato plants than I anticipated. I think I had something like a 95% germination rate for my Black Krim, Brandywine, Legends and Chadwick tomatoes. The peppers haven't germinated that effectively, except for my poblano peppers. These are growing like gang-busters so far.



Right now, I have them under three 150watt CFLs, and running on a 24/hour cycle. Growth looks good. At first I was getting a lot of spindly little starts, especially outta my kale and broccoli till up'd the light. The little guys were struggling to reach the light. Now, it is nearly on top of them.

Anyway, with the germination rate on all my other peppers, I think it is time to start more seedlings! But that is ok, this next planting will be a few weeks behind so I can have a tapered harvest for the peppers.

Sunday Feasts on Ebey

So now that we are living back on the Westside of the mountains Crystal has been able to see her family more often, including her brother and his family. They are big into food too, how it is grown, where it is grown and of course how it tastes. So last Sunday we inaugurated a weekly get together; I guess you'd say it was more like throw-down with cooking, eating, and drinking.

Whenever I think about the whole catering idea, I think about working with them. The food was incredible and I think together we could knock the socks off of most people.

Each of us had a couple of dishes we were meant to prepare. For their part, they tackled a baby artichoke and serrano ham dish, along with garlic shrimp in lemon aioli. I put out some roasted veggies with fresh herbs and beef skewers that had marinated in a guajillo chile sauce I'd made earlier that morning. What made all that much better was the food was cooked on a grill with alder we collected from the property.

Wow, it was crazy eats!

I look forward to more of these events, especially once we start harvesting something. It was very interesting to think nearly 80% of all the food we ate was stuff that I will be growing/producing on our farm this year. And that is what it's about, growing good food and eating good food!

Trying to keep on top of things!

Apologies for my long absence. I have been spending so much of my time juggling the duties of being a PhD student, father, and now farmer.

Nevertheless, it is time to take a break and reflect. For one, I know the gardens need to be finished. I need to plant my beets and greens! I have already started celery, three different varieties of tomatoes, kale, broccoli, rosemary, strawberries, walla walla sweet onions, and the peppers are now germinating in their little starter flats.

The chicken coop is nearly completed. Just need to finish the roof to their run (gotta keep the eagles out!), and bolt their nesting boxes to the coop. So things are coming along nicely, just haven't had much time to sit back and write about all the things going on up here.

I will say this, the biggest stress is less about planting and upkeep, but ensuring that I have enough operating capital to last till we begin harvest. There is so much one needs to accumulate in tools and equipment just to complete your tasks. Plus, there are the legal and certification hoops one has to jump through before you can even begin selling your produce at the local markets.

But we are plugging away, refusing to be deterred. And overall, this adventure has been fun and continues to be fun, even if it still just the beginning.

A short tour...

I was sitting here and just realized that I haven't posted any pictures of our new place. So I decided to share a few images from around the place. We haven't been here long so there is still lots to do, but we are going to get there. Come mid-May things will be looking very different here! Yet, even in its raw state, the place is beautiful and tranquil.

Food Experiments - Spicy Peanut Mole

Continuing along with my food experiments, I decided to try out Rick Bayless's Spicy Peanut Mole recipe from his book "Mexican Kitchen." Of course, I cannot do something without modifying it, but this was definitely another keeper.

Basically this was a recipe for grilled chicken smothered in this smoky-spicy-sweet peanut sauce and topped with crushed peanuts and flat-leaf parsley.



You start off with two dried ancho chili peppers. Slice them in half, remove stems and seeds, and gently heat on a skillet (do not let them smoke). Once warm and soft, set in a bowl of hot water for 30 minutes.

Next you saute an onion, 3 cloves of garlic and 2 tbs. of cooking oil. Once the onions and garlic are done, stick it in a blender. Then roast two or three tomatoes (large is good), peel them once done and stick in the blender.

Now, add about 1 1/2 cups of chicken broth to the mixture, along with 1/2 tsp. of cumin (but I double this), 1 tsp of cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. cloves, two chipotle peppers (in adobo sauce) and 1 1/2 cups of dry roasted peanuts.

Puree the mixture, then in a large pot add another tbs. of oil. Heat until a drop of the peanut mixture sizzles when dropping it in the pot. Once it sizzles, add all of the mixture, stirring until it thickens up. Finally, add about 3 more cups of chicken broth, stir and simmer on low for about an hour.

This mixture can last about 5-7 days, and goes great with grilled chicken, eggs, even as a dipping sauce.

Yummmmmmm!!!

Here chicky, chicky - Urban Ag and Chickens

So we are pushing forward and expanding beyond the cultivation of fruits and vegetables. We recently added some feathered friends to the mix out here on our small farm, six Rhode Island Reds. We are starting off small and looking to eventually expand and perhaps add a rooster to the mix. But even a small addition of meat and eggs is a big aspect of the whole self-sufficiency initiative here.





In addition to these cute little chicks, I'm still interested in pushing things to the next level, to include milk and cheese. Cows or goats would be a nice, but as we have found out, even raising chickens requires a lot of attention, patience and persistence. So for now, our hands are full, but I suspect we'll get the hang of it, and do more.