February 10th, 2024 Farm Planning

2024 Farm Planting Plan
(Click for a larger image)

 January is a time for planning; the weather is horrid. It is cold, and mud is the normal condition of our soils, the days are short, and it is hard to get out of bed before eight in the morning. By the time we're ready to work it is ten A.M. and daylight ends at three-thirty. Not much gets done once you sneek an afternoon nap in.  The world doesn't lend itself to doing things, so we don't. If we were Daoist, this would be a Wu Wei thing. To bring about action without acting; an effect without a cause, without any reaction. 

Wu Wei means a great deal more.  Most people simple say "Wu" to mean the natural way, or in accordance with nature's mandate. Our farm uses completely natural processes to bring produce into the world wherever it can. No-till gardening, despite having large inputs of labor in the beginning phases, uses the least amount of labor over time so as to minimalize the negative effects of labor on the land. If we were to try working the land in the depths of Winter, we'd only make things worse. Mud would get deeper and soils more compact.

Despite all of this philosophy stuff, when there's a break in the weather we wind up doing something to clean up the apparent mess on the Farm, even if it is going in the wrong direction. We move carefully and try not to over-do.  We leave most of the plants in the dirt in late Fall as part of our organic no-till plan. We also leave whatever weeds springing up to grow as much root material as we can in the dirt. Things get to looking pretty bad by the end of January. It's hard to sit back and wait for Spring to come. It has rained nearly every day since early December. So a lot of naps . . .

Last year's Farm planning was the fourth year of planning to make a dollar on farming, but the first year of our no-till plan in action. We spent the Spring building new rows and laying things out. Our greenhouse plan, buying seeds and making planting soil, was not going to change much from the previous year. Our Greenhouse was already in place and the stuff we needed to do early planting already bought.  This year we will add ten feet to the Greenhouse and move it to better ground once we shrink the chicken run and move it to better ground.  We knew how to make soil and plant seeds going into last Spring and we got great responce, so all we need to do is scale it up a bit.  

Last year we made a map of our planting plan using what we knew from experience. But as we went along in building rows we found that our building plan was quite a bit more in size and diversity than we could maintain. The plants did well, but the produce wasn't as successful than in the previous year. We expected the change in method might take a bit to settle in, but we didn't get the results we expected and the weeding was awful. In 2024 we will concentrate on fewer varieties of plants.  The new image (above) shows more melons, less corn. and a change from bush beans to pole beans.  We're adding Russet potatoes to the spud line-up. We eat more potatoes than we sell and, despite  our wonderfully flavorful potato crop, standard bakers are a good thing. 

2023 Strawberries

The pest control plan we used last year worked very well and will largely stay in place. I am adding onions to our barrier plant plan. Though we don't really want to get into frowing onions we can use them and we're told that onions might keep the rabbits and squirrels away. Our crop rotation schedule will change only in locations used. Crop rotation is part of the pest control plan since no-till replaces soil nutrient faster than it can be used.

Last year we added some trellising when it became necessary and the one effective style we found last year will be used everywhere we need trellising this year.  We are removing a few of the rows to allow better access to some of the plants that need more constant care, more sunlight, or that need picking more often. There will be many more flowers in our rows this year, fewer varieties. We sold a lot of flowers last year and this was suprizing.

Getting ready to inprove our Produce Stand operations is part of the planning this Winter. I have a good trailer to build a new Produce Stand on and a place where it can go. The new stand won't be mobile, will have refridgeration, and a roof. There will be a parking area off road and a gate that can close, but this will take some time to put together. There's no rush, but we will try to get this stuff done by next Fall.  

649 baby berries

We've had a few days of partial sunshine this past week so some of our rows have been cleaned up. Our two fifty-six foot strawberry rows are cleaned up and the six hundred baby plants we took out are planted in flats in the Greenhouse will allow us to increase out strawberry planting by five rows. Eventually we might have enough to operate a Upick patch for five months of the year.  The Farm will be much easier to plant and pick this year. Soil, pest, and planting, plans are mostly made. All that is left to do is the doing. 

In other news:
Our chickens are producing enough eggs now. We did not heat their coop this year, opting to let them rest their egg makers a bit. We only had to buy eggs once this Winter, they were organic, from Costco, and fairly dissappointing. We're getting a half dozen a day now. 

Our kennel plans are made and we have quite a bit of it done. The Dog House still has a ways to go. . .  We're planning two or three litters in 2024 and have females in season today. Lilly is first up to breed. Then it will be Abba Zabba's turn. We are letting Taffee do her own thing and hope for one more litter from her which is not as well planned except that it will be Clarke's last turn as well. Breeding is a big part of our income, but boarding is becoming a helpful part of our farm business too. Dog coats are done for the year, but our dog coat plan is in place and did fairly well last year so we're hoping for better next Fall. 

All in all things are going along as they should. There are still a few issues needing resolved, but all things happen in their own time here at Creekside Farm. 

September 6, 2022 The Dream Ammended

This is the 2022 plan.

This production layout is four times what we are growing today.

Click on any of these pictures and see them larger.

The second plan was done in April 2015
we had found the edges of the place by then.

We had intended to plant peach trees at first
but there isn't enough heat here.

In November 2015 we decided to add themed 
gardens and tiny home cabins.
The cabins might not work here.

It was in January 2020 that I did the last design of the Master Planning image. Prior to that I did one about every year, usually in the dead of Winter when time is easy to find. A whole lot has happened here since the last time I sat down to think things through. It seemed appropriate to do it now, following so close behind the final inspection on the new house. Last year I didn't even think about this. The two years  since the last one of these was pretty full of house building projects.

The most important thing I had to incorporate in this new plan was the idea of a no-till farm. The beds we will lay down in the coming year will be very permanent and never again worked by machines. The gardens will be set up once and then fenced without access for the tractor. From that point it will all be hand work.  We took some trees down last year. This year we will get the remaining few down and begin laying out the final farm. With no house to build, there will be time to grow.

In May 2016 we had a good idea of 
what the land might support.
So we added long walking paths.

In laying out the gardens we are using a very specific repeating chord pattern in all of the gardens. Each 24 inch row can easily be used as two twelve inch rows with just enough room for one shoe comfortably in the middle. Every 24 inch row is separated by a one foot open space for walking traffic that doesn't compact the soils. Every two row set is separated by a two foot space for carts to carry stuff. This pattern uses  the land very intensively while making the rows easy to work by hand. As we harvest each row we recharge the soil with fresh compost, organic fertilizers, and a new mulch cover. No till gardening makes for light work,  few weeds, and much less watering, all while increasing food quality.  But you have to keep moving. And you have to plan ahead. Our new plan is four times the sixe of this year's production.

Second to this, and perhaps still a few years away, is the first wedding venue. We started our planning with the idea that we would eventually create a farm themed venue but a few things had to happen before we could begin. The first was a house, which is now nearly complete. The second was a real working farm,. This is the image we will build toward making this place a real farm. The first wedding venue will look much the same as a croquet pitch. Just a big flat grassy space at the front of the Farmhouse, level with the deck of the front porch, with shade cloth sails for a light cover. We will put in permanent electrical stuff and anchors for large tent rentals. We have a good design worked up for this whole thing, but first we need to get a few more things done. 

In September of 2017 we refined the image
a bit. But siting the house became an issue.

We have learned quite a bit since beginning the Farm Project in 2015. Today we have a house, water, septic, electric, water treatment and distribution. We have learned how to build a greenhouse so that it doesn't need yearly rebuilding. And we finally found a way to grow things in the soil we have. Almost all of our first level questions have answers and our farm produces much more than we need. Our dreams have changed, the goals did not.

We are well on the way. 

Once we had a home site identified in 2018, but before we figure out that trees wouldn't work here.
The Barn and Greenhouse would need more permit than we could get at the time. 

In 2019 we found the first layout that we could do.
We began building a Market Garden and a separated Kitchen Garden.

Our farm is economically self-sufficient today. Our Basset Hound breeding and boarding kennel is producing a healthy income on an ongoing basis too. We still need to put the final Kennels in, so we have some work to do still.

The 2020 layout was bit rough, but most of what we planned is working today.
We have changed little in this plan since 2020, we just had to fix the soil and
build a house. 

April 7th, 2022 The Last Nail

Our first homesite plan.
It mostly failed.

There's a saying I like to use. Happiness comes of pride, pride comes of achievement.  Today I feel like we achieved something great and, filled with pride, I am a very happy man. 

Our newly built home.

We put the last nail into the structure of our Farmhouse today, completing its intended shape and function.  The details I will write about today are the broad strokes of out home's design and construction, what we were trying to build when we had nothing but empty dirt. 

This building project started in 2015 when I  Photoshop-ped a Google map image while playing around with possible farm layout. (The picture is at the top.)  The site planning went through ten, or so, reconsiderations before we ran into reality and had to site the house in a different place. 

This is the actual home
site plan we used.

In the early site plans, our intention was to make the Farmhouse look as small as we could. We wanted to hide the house by siting it in a back corner. In the end we were not allowed to build where we desired, so the home site was move to where it would be agreeable. This brought a complete change in how we saw the house project because once we had a home site we hired a nice architect named Eric to give us signed drawings.  Eric was worth most of the money we paid. He put fresh eyes on our  design ideas and made our plans work better within the space we had. Some of my early ideas were used, but the idea to re-orient the house along it's long axis presented the house as large and the central object central of the Farm.  

We loved the design Eric came up with and secured an engineer to provide structural details. Neither of these sets of drawings gave any guidance as to building the house, so we made some minor changes to the plans as we built it. Most of  our changes, or interpretations, were about being efficient with money. We used many used parts in furnishing the house. The bath tub, bath sink, cabinets, and doors  were all re-used from other houses. Where we couldn't re-use parts, we made decisions on a cost/benefit basis. All of our plumbing and electrical installations were done to minimize energy and water use and  also be well lit and heated.  Shopping for things we would find useful became a habit. 

This is my original design.
Eric made it work.

The house plan was fairly simple. Since our intention was to open our Farm up to the public, later on, we designed the house to look like a farmhouse might. The main design element in making this appearance was a wrap-around porch where we placed the last nail today. The porch we finished added 750 square feet to the footprint of the house, but also cuts cooling costs and decreases road noise. As we made the many thousands of decisions we added a seven foot ceiling and solid floor in the attic space adding a full 425 of highly usable storage space.  The entire useable floor space of our 1000 square foot house, is 1925 feet. 

This is what we built.
We adjusted it a bit.

Having never built an entire house, but having a great deal of experience in the building trades, we spent a time avoiding, and making up for, mistakes. The County's building inspectors chipped in quite a bit and gave us enough guidance to piece the whole thing together successfully. We had to come up with some idea of how the structure would go together, designed and built an entire water and waste system, then learned how to make a safe and effective electrical system.  Buying materials, learning how to pour a concrete foundation, and piecing a million things together only brought us to a point where we could decide how to finish the house inside and out. A million decisions, all well considered, mostly correct, brought us to today. 

Though we still have a long list of things we need to do before the County signs off on our permit, the broad strokes are done.  

Our last nail is figurative and not literal. But the shape of our home, and the pride of place feeling it gives us seems complete.

August 22, 2021 New Satellite Picture

 

We simply love it when Google buys new images for Google Maps. These images really let us know what has happened since we came to this place and give us ideas about what to do next. I usually have Adobe's Photoshop on my computer so that I can enhance the image but the laptop I was using died and I can't find the install disk to put it on my new laptop, so we're posting the raw picture.

If you click on the picture it will set up something of a slide show.

 

The new image shows what we have done in the past year. So far we've cleared most of the ground but have yet to take down the big trees which are shading valuable sun from the Farm  We think this image was taken around February since there is  a layer of straw covering the slick mud of the tractor paths, the new Farmhouse is clearly visible, the ground has been tilled clean for Spring planting, and the new Greenhouse can be seen near the left side of the picture.  If you contrast these images with previous versions it gives you a good idea of how far we have come.

This is where we started in 2015

By the middle of 2015 we had cleared a lot of the brambles, structures, and some of the trash which was strewn everywhere under the brush.

This was how the place appeared in 2020.

There is a bit of difference between  2013 and 2021. Click on the pictures to  see them larger. 

This is the West end of the front fence in 2013

In 2021 things looked a bit differently.

This is the East end of the front fence in 2013

By 2021 we had the jungle cut back a bit.

This is the front gate area we found the very first time we saw the property that would become our Farm. I saw the real estate sign out of the corner of my eye from the Highway and circled back to see whatever it was that had caught my eye. It was raining, the sign had fallen down into the ditch by the time we found it, but somehow I saw the sign laying in the ditch (from 100 yards, while traveling sixty-five miles per hour, in the rain). Bing maps still has the pictures online from at least 2013.

In April of 2015, day one of the Farm project, we cut a hole in the jungle and got down to clearing the land.

The Front Gate in Winter 2021. This is not the best picture taken of the Farm, but it does make the point pretty well.

There is so much more we will do to this place before it takes its final form. We bought it for a reason, something you can find by reading the earlier articles in the Archive to the right of this article. Today we are nearing completion of the Farmhouse build and can't wait for Google to show everyone what comes next. With any luck, and a bit of hustle, the next picture will show the world something spectacular.

July 4, 2020 A New Picture

Click on this for a bigger picture of our Creekside Farm.

• The light green blob of land is the high point of the Farm at 231 feet.
• The purple blobs in the creek are the creek bottom at 216 feet.
• The lowest point of the Farm is in blue.
• Each line shows a two foot change in elevation.

I created this picture using a combination of Google Maps, Google Earth, and Photoshop. At the top of the image there is a section in red which we call the Kitchen Garden. At the bottom is the Chicken Run. The brown area above this is MacGreggor's Market Garden.  Just above that is the House, tiny house, Kennels, and all of the shop space and storage. At the Right side is Sell Road. The left side is the West Fork of Dairy Creek. The yellow portion of the creek I marked to show a landslide we noticed which was a source of my concern. As it turned out the slide area doesn't appear to be severe or widening at this point. It took quite a lot of work to prepare an image which has enough information on it to know if the Creek is beginning to be a problem or not.

The base image (bottom, if you think of a stack of transparencies laid one on top of the other) is from Google Earth. I have been spending quite a bit of my limited free time learning the limits of the free version of Google Earth. In this base image I carefully laid out the topography of the Farm using colored lines and noting elevations, mostly to get a good idea of the slope of the West Fork of Dairy Creek. The Creek is hard to see from anywhere on the Farm and I really wanted to get to know it better since it was a source of concern for us. The Farm is generally located above a 228 foot elevation and rises to just above 231 feet (the light green blob). But at the Creek's edge it drops off quickly down to the water at about 218 feet.  In Winter the Creek rises to about 224 feet routinely and can get up to 225 feet at times. Knowing how the Creek works allows us to forego finding flooding solutions and planting bank stabilizing stuff.

The first over-layered image is from Google Maps. I took a satellite image from it and have used the same image to practice laying out the features of the Farm, including finding where to put the Gardens and siting the Farmhouse.

This is the Farm plan for 2020
used in the image above it.

I have made many such images over the five years we have been involved in the project, but none of these could be very accurate because we lacked a way to show the place in more than one dimension. The underlying Google Earth image allowed me to put the two dimensional image into a more proper context.

I hope to further improve these image to reflect the reality of the Farm and give us a better understanding of how the land looks. It is difficult to get a handle on the project when standing on the ground this image allows us to make better decisions regarding land uses.