July 18th, 2020 Summer Might Have Arrived (at last)

Remembering last year (nearly being killed is hard to forget) I remember looking around the Internet to try and figure out why the Summer weather was so cool. A few sites looked at something by a "solar minimum", which is a phenomenon where the Sun has few sunspots so less solar energy makes it out. As good an explanation as any I suppose. At any rate -the cool Summer of 2019 led into a lack of crop performance. Adding to this the fact that our Farm is subject to the cooler temperatures of the Oregon Coast, and down in a narrow valley, the heat people are seeing elsewhere simply hadn't come to the Farm much. Since most of our sprouts were destroyed when the Greenhouse (and me) was hit by the tree and we had a very cool Summer, we had a fairly poor crop last year. We did have some growth though. Enough to show a profit for the year and qualify for a Farm property tax reduction.

Ann and her team of volunteers did somehow manage to get a few plants into the ground last Summer. Those few produced some food which we either ate or donated to the local food bank. There wasn't enough to sell, so we removed the Produce Stand' pop up canopy and contented ourselves with not being put out of business entirely. We did get enough potatoes and onions to eat through the Winter but wound up having to buy these in mid-Spring. Not entirely a loss, just not a good year.

Our plan since last Summer was to build our new Farmhouse.

Nothing else matters. We put the foundation in in the early Winter. Put up the walls in the late Winter and early Spring. Then put the roof trusses up in June, covering them with sheathing up until this past week (early Summer). Our son Jack has been here since helping with the building since the beginning of the year so we have progressed slowly. Now the Farmhouse has its basic shape. But since most of the building is a two man job Ann has been tending the Farm and getting things growing. And up until last week things have been growing very slowly. But in the past week or so this all changed.

I walked out to get chicken and duck eggs last evening a noticed quite a bit of new growth happening in the Market Garden side of the Farm. Our guest farmers, those who are tending gardens of their own on for free, are really starting to see some results. And out own food crops, the tomatoes, peppers, and beans, are really starting to take off. Even the peppers are starting to grow, though they haven't in the six weeks since they sprouted. With any luck we will eventually see some production, but this isn't our main focus, the house building, just some good news.

For those who wish to open a garden of their own at Creekside Farm, there is still space and time to get things done. Get in touch and we'll help put things together for you. Eat what you grow, sell it, or give it away. All for free. You bring the seeds and plants, and spend an hour a week here, we provide the rest.

In other farming news:

Egg production has been relatively depressed this year. Our flock of chickens is aging and older hens don't produce as well. We are still getting about a dozen a day, just enough to to sell so the chickens are still paying from their up-keep. Our Runner Ducks have continued to produce consistently, but the market for duck eggs isn't as strong. This year we bought twenty new chicks and we will re-home fifteen of our older hens in a few weeks when the chicks move into the Chicken Run. We also build the new Duck Garden and moved the four youngest hens into it a few weeks ago. But the four older ducks are still in with the chickens because out Crested Runners have built a large nest and are sitting on eggs. With any luck we will have some nicely mixed Runner Duck chicks to sell in a few weeks, we have no space to keep any of them. Once the chicks show up we will move all of the ducks into the Kitchen Garden and the new Duck Garden inside of it. Then we can move the new Chickens into the Chicken Run and wait for egg production to rise.

The Farm is looking good. Weeds are always a problem and we spend quite a bit of time chasing weeds down and killing them. We are expanding the Farm by removing the berries, bamboo, and tall grasses found outside the fence-line, but this is a long termed goal. One day I want to move the fence out to the edge of the Creek. This will add about ten percent more usable land to the Farm and allow up to keep better control on the Berries behind the place. We have the weeds under control for the most part, but it would take a few weeks of not tending the problem to let things grow out of control. As we remove the weeds we try to replace them with new plants. This is worked pretty well and we have a lot of new color out in the Gardens to show for it. Yesterday I was walking past a corner plot where Ann and through our some California Poppy seeds to find a burgeoning poppy patch filled with happy Mason Bees. We love this sort of thing.

Ann noticed another Strawberry harvest coming soon from our ever-bearing Strawberry patch. The Patch had produced heavily in late May and early June, but had stopped producing, so we figured things might just be over. But the heat and the bees have got thing going again and we had two quarts of beautiful large berries to eat this week.  Hopefully we will sell some more pretty soon. We have started to take potatoes out of the Kitchen Garden too. Hopefully we won't have to buy spuds any more. The main potato crop will be harvested in September, most of this will go to the food banks because there will be much more need this year due to all the troubles we are all experiencing.  Until then we will grow what we can, sell what we can, eat what we get, and be happy that our lives are not as effected as others without a farm of their own.

We will be trying to finish the roof structure on the new Farmhouse next week, then we will get the house inspected before beginning to put the roof coverings on. The project is taking more time than expected (we expected it would) so we are pushing our move in day to April of next year. Ann will continue tending the gardens and keeping a lid on the weed problem in the increasing heat of Summer while we build. So things are looking good here (if only here). Barring floods, disease, and civil unrest, we are hopeful for the remainder of this year and a return prosperity in the next. Hoping the same for all reading this.