June 11th, 2023 Summer Weather

The end of May brought a string of 90+ degree days, then things went back to our normal near eighty for a few weeks. The heat didn't really change much in what we had to do, planting the assorted crops, but the results have been a bit better than we expected. The plants are doing very well and outgrowing the weeds by just a bit.

The plans we made in January are nearly all in place. Our row building plan is almost four fifths complete. Dozens of neatly made rows of varying lengths, each oriented exactly from North to South to grab maximum light no matter the season. These will all be permanent rows, after this year the tiller on our tractor won't have too much use and I might just dismount it. In our no-till scheme what happens is addition of organic matter (leaf compost) directly on top of each row as we take plants out and put new plants in. This, along with loosening the soil with our heavy Broadfork, should keep out plants healthy and growing more vigorously every year. But there were three bigger plans for the Gardens.

We specifically designed the rows to keep our pest problems down by putting the right plants in the right places. Some plants discourage pests from crossing between rows. It is hard to prove these are working because the effect is nothing, but we are guess things are going along just fine since there hasn't been much animal predation of our starts and seeds. We had always planned to put Nematodes into the Gardens to keep larvae down and we did this two days ago. So far no new is good news, but the Flea Beatle population doesn't seem to have been effected much. The main target for the Flea Beatles has been the tomatoes so far and a little bit on the potatoes. We walk along the row the rows  and squish the little black specks a few times a day figuring the dead ones can't breed. And we hope the nematodes do the job down in the soil. If the Beatles get out of hand we have a few more tricks we can use.  Our only other pests are the few mammals we have seen.

Radishes

There have been a few Moles working the rows. They are easy enough to track, but the previous years of gopher tunnels gives them a super highway to whatever part of the Gardens they think are nice. So we are flooding their holes, ruining their tunnels, and hoping they will either go away or attract an owl. Either will do the job. Moles eat Worms, of which we have a great many, so they don't do much damage to the crops except for messing up the rows a bit, an easy to fix.  The few field rats we had seem to have either been killed off or have fled. but not before eating quite a few watermelon and bean starts. We planned for this and over planted starts so that we might replace them as quickly as we can. This doesn't replace the growth, but we have a lot of growth and most of the plants are unhurt by rodents. Aside from these few things it seems out pest plans are doing okay. 

The third part of our plan is crop rotation and bed flipping. We haven't moved far enough into the season to start thinking about this seriously, but there is some movement. The used forty gallon plastic stock tanks we bought have all been carefully filled with the right soil components and planted in Radishes, Carrots, and Bunching Onions.  The seed have germinated and we're hopeful of getting these things to grow quickly. The plan is to plant two new rows of these three every few weeks so that there will be a steady supply for the Produce Stand.  Fingers crossed. The rest of our rotation thing can be discussed later. 

The month of May was so much more cooperative this year than last. And the presence of  Ann and I in the Gardens nearly every day means things are slightly cleaner and quite a bit better laid in.  We are watering a bit less this year due to the thick compost mulch cover put on every row. So too the weeds are greatly decreased and easy to remove, but it's an uphill fight. There are still quite a few trouble areas for weeds, but I am burning and cutting a few times a week trying to stay on top of the weed problem. And there's still much to do that is not  digging and planting.

Pickler Cucumbers

We have a new irrigation thing happening soon. I invested a bit in a drip tape plan to directly water the plants at the dirt level. This is a big job but the parts are all here and once I get a minute to start putting it all in things will go along swiftly.  

My Brother, visiting in his first few months of retirement and looking for a job and permanent housing here, has spent a few weeks siding the Utility Shed. This was something that needed done before next Fall and today it is nearly complete. We will caulk and paint it in the next few weeks. 

Very soon I will need build build the parking lot area that will allow us to begin opening the Produce Stand. This is more to give the four cars here every day a place to stay and allow people to use the driveway outside of the Farm as they access the Stand. We're shooting for mid-July opening and things are looking good. 

Other than this a great many smaller things still need doing. We need to set up a backup power generation plan to make this place habitable when PGE turns off power to avoid wild fires. We need to put in the infrastructure to make the tiny home move immediately ready to use. I'll be looking for the parts in the coming few weeks. 

Jalapeño

If it seems we are really busy, we are. At our age we have a good five or six hour work day available, and this about four days a week. But the lack of the forty hour week doesn't seem to be holding up our plans. We just have to keep moving.

May 4th, 2023 Spring Update

 Things are humming along at Creekside Farm. The weather turned warmer and a whole lot dryer this past few weeks, allowing us to move out into the gardens in earnest. Today it is raining quite a lot, but this isn't supposed to last for very long and we'll get back to work. 

Our farm grows weeds better than most. We never use chemicals unless something is very wrong so weeds can get ahead of us if we take a day off. I have spent the last week or two moving and tilling leaf compost into the gardens.  Tilling has the dual effect of killing weeds and allowing us to add compost to the soil, so the ground is looking pretty good in most places. We're heading into a no-till permanent gardening practice, so sooner or later I'll take the tiller off of our little tractor "Rosie". I won't go further into no-till than I have in previous articles. If you don't know what I mean there is an archive of articles to look through and you are welcome to look through it. We have a large garden plan based on our previous plans, the chief difference is that all of our rows will be completely new, all of them very heavily stocked with soil organic matter in the form of compost and mulch, and nearly every one of them will be aligned in a north-south direction to get maximum light.

One of three garden plans for this year.
This is the first one we have been planting.
It turned out that we had seven more rows than we had planned for.

We spent some time a cutting down, or limbing up, the sky depriving trees shading parts of our gardens. There was one seriously dangerous deciduous tree shading the east end of the Market Garden which we took down a few weeks ago.  Yesterday we went out to fall three large and healthy pines, but thought better of it once we took a good look. These are all along the front fence near power lines. We called a friend who cuts down trees for a living and will see what it might cost to take them all down next week. We did take all of the branches off up to about twenty four feet and there's plenty to do without the little new gardens removing these trees will produce. 

Ann has been spend a lot of time in the Greenhouse this year. We heated the place and added some fans to move air around and the plants really took off. Once I built some new rows and the weather turned nice she got out there and started putting plants in the ground. Strawberries, flowers, and the first flight of corn (there will be five this year) are all in. A multitude of crops are ready to go in or ready to plant. All is on schedule/ 

This garden sits to the south of the first one.
The areas for basil will have to move until we get the trees down.
This is a huge increase in garden spaces and we'll grow hot peppers here.

The Kitchen Garden area will hold our potato crops and cooled down peppers. Tis year we are adding a cool version of the Habanero Pepper. The hot version is one of the hottest peppers humans can use, but ours has not heat to it. The cooled Jalapeños and Habaneros have all of the great chili pepper flavors, none of the heat, so they will soon become a favorite on our produce stand. I tilled the Kitchen garden spaces in the last few days so we hope to begin planting there in a week or so. Peppers take a lot of heat to thrive and it just is not that warm out yet. Potatoes really don't care much when they are planted.  We will plants flowers and herbs wherever there is space and time.

The Kitchen Garden spaces are nearly ready for planting.

We are aiming to make the Farm profitable for produce this year and all is going pretty much according to plans. But there is certainly more work to do than we have time and energy. Things will happen in their own time. Our goal is to have the Produce Stand moved down to the end of Sell Road where the people are every day. So picking in the morning, selling in the afternoon. We shall see how it all works out. Farming is going along as we thought it might, but there's a lot going on here right now.

We had a litter of puppies about seven weeks ago. Most of them will leave us for new families in a bout a week's time. This is a big part of our lives and livelihood. We love to see them come into our little world. Love to see them grow and learn. The we love to see them go so that some semblance of cleanliness and order can be restored. Mostly we love it, but there are days . . .

We ran into a bit of trouble with our fresh water system in these past few months. I thought it might be overloading the water filters that was causing it so I went out to add more filtering capacity. As I was working through it I figured out that something was wrong in the pipe routing that brought water from the well to the filters, so we dug the problem out, swapped a few pipes, and this fixed the problem. Last Tuesday I replaced the filter media and things are cleaning up as we go along. Since I made the mistake a few years back, when we were building the water system, the rust and resin got thoroughly into everything so it might take a while to get it all out. This morning the water was clear and iron free. Hurray for us!

Jack and I have nearly finished remodeling half of the tiny home cabin, the part he will occupy once we have it moved behind the new Farmhouse. It looks great, but there's still a few things to do. As is always at Creekside Farm, so much to do.  The second half of the tiny home will also move to the back and become the new kennel and grooming area. We'll remodel it once it is moved. Hopefully we will get these things shifted around once all of the compost behind the Farmhouse is shifted into the gardens. 

As a last note, to those interested in our longer story, we talked to our lawyer yesterday. For those who don't know we ran into a problem with our ownership of the Farm last Summer while trying to finalize the sale of the property. Things got really tense and terse for a month or two and then we found a lawyer worth the money and stopped worrying so much. While things still are not entirely settled, it looks like they might we be in a few months. He has this thing well in hand. 

Time goes by quickly if you don't pay attention to it. We are lucky to have each day and none of them go by unnoticed. If anyone reading this would like the opportunity to get fingers into good dirt, come on ahead. Working in the sunshine is wonderful. Someone said you had to stop to smell roses. I say there's plenty of sweet thing to smell while moving around and working. 

April 1st, 2023 On the Cusp of Spring

 These past few years have had wet and cold Spring seasons. Growth doesn't really happen until soil temps come up to an average of sixty degrees. This is also the temperature soil microbes begin breathing and the smell of soil is in the air. I expect by the second weekend of April we will begin smelling Spring. It will certainly be very nice.

It is a bit too wet out on the fields to till or begin making ready for planting. There are some sizable projects that need done while we wait.  We finally had the time and courage needed to take down one of the larger danger trees. This tree also deprived a large portion of the Market Garden of morning light and had rotted out at least five times.  It was difficult to tell which way things might fall when cut off. But we got it down safely burned the carcass almost to ashes.  The project meant taking down the hand tool rack and East fence of the Market Garden.  In the end the fence project compacted the wet soils we never got planted last year; they will take a bit of fixing. These repaired rows will be the first planted. We have a few new strawberry plants to go in. Moving the fence allows us to move the greenhouse to its permanent placing  near the house in late Fall. In late Summer we will move the tiny home and kennel to its permanent placing behind the house. Next year will be a bit more open. 

Our gardening plan is large this year. Lots of beds to create and restore. Our Greenhouse is full of plants. Everything is being held in ten by twenty inch flats. Each flat hold between 20 and 92 plants, depending on the pot. We have a great many plants ready to go and as soon as they are planted the flats will be replanted with more. We will direct sow when the average daytime temps reach seventy degrees. This will be toward the end of May. Until then we have plenty to do. 

We had a litter of Basset Hound puppies in March. Nine beautiful little hounds. They are finding new families very well and Ann is doing much of the marketing. It is a happy business, not unlike the Christmas Lighting business I once did. The pups come, stay until they are the best sort of fun, but dirty. And then they go to happy families and we can get some sleep. And it helps support the Farm plan in a significant way. We need all the help we can get. 

I will complete the tiny home remodel this month. The plumbing and electrical are all in and working, the walls are all covered and the flooring is bought and ready to put down. What is needed is drywall finishing and paint, the rest isn't easy, but there's not a lot to do yet. Finish work. Then, once we move the halves to the back, I will begin remodeling the Kennel and fencing off the dog yard. 

There's so much happening here right now, but the days don't seem hectic or overly full. The weather keeps us indoors quite a bit. But stuff is getting done every day.

February 21, 2023 Quick Chess

Quick Chess

 I made a new game out of a very old one. In our first tries we found the game easy to learn, very quick to play and, relative to the Classic Chess Game, very fun to play. But this new game has not been explored sufficiently to know the problems or gauge response. So follow this link and let me know what you think.

February 11, 2023 Five Years Seems a Long Time.

Today we celebrate another anniversary. Five full years of our living on Creekside Farm. But it seems like we've been here much longer.

We built our home here.

Five years ago today I built the frame for the first Greenhouse. This first attempt worked well that Summer, collapsed the next Winter, and then rebuilt twice. Eventually the Greenhouse was crushed by a tree-fall which nearly killed us both, but didn't, and there have been six such greenhouse structures built here since. Two are standing today.

Five years ago today we built our heated dog house in the temporary enclosure attached to the side of our still unfinished Tiny Home Cabin. Our indoor-sy dogs were destined to become outdoor-sy dogs so I built them a dog house and put a little electric heater in it. Our hounds decided it was pretty nice in there and soon quit complaining about sleeping outside.

Our Tiny Home Cabin on Day One 

Everything we were doing five years ago was supposed to last only a year as the Farmhouse was built and new Kennel completed. It turned out those things were a bit more difficult than expected. Our Farmhouse took just under four years start to finish and there's still a concrete porch floor to pour.
The Greenhouse is now heated, water supplied, air ventilated, and grow lights lit. Our Farm Plan was finished on time and early seed went into pots last week. The bigger open questions are about organic pest controls and the first shots in our War on Pestilence were fired last week. We got control of the weeds last year. This year will be controlling insects and small animals. If weather permits we will have produce in our Produce Stand in June.

The Tiny Home Cabin we moved into five years ago is now two-thirds remodeled. Our little Cabin was worn out by living in it for so long and we had planned a remodel after we moved out to make it ready for Air BnB rentals. It seems like we are on track. Our tiny home Cabin is producing a small rental income today and hopefully more as time goes on.

We've Come a Long Way

Our initial 2013 "ten year dream" (made ten years ago) and "five year goal" (begun five years ago) was to have a Farmhouse built and a Farm producing a profit. We did this, if only just slightly over the line.
Our ten year anniversary goal will come in February of 2028. The Farm ought to be fully open to the public by then, tiny homes and camper spaces booked, a Farm Store selling produce and products every day, and Café serving food to people coming here to wander through a peaceful retreat from city life or be married in a purpose built Chapel space. . . We're still "swinging for the stands".

Our Produce Stand

Let's see what happens.