Next, we start the cool-weather or cold-tolerant vegetables. These include arugula, lettuce, spinach, mizuna and other mustards, pac choi, cabbage, kohlrabi, leeks, shallots, scallions, and onions. These are started in trays of small cells, what we call 98’s or 210’s, reflecting the number of cells per tray. We put these on the tables with heat mats until they have sprouted and then move them to unheated tables. Once they have their second leaves, they are ready to be transplanted outside. Eventually, these will be started without heat mats, but so far it’s been too cold even for these hardy varieties! Arugula and lettuce have already been planted out to hoop houses in the field.

Herbs, calendula (an edible flower), basil, and the tomatoes for our greenhouse are then started. With these cold temperatures, I use plastic covers over the seed trays. Later in March, we’ll start tomatoes that we will sell as plants to home gardeners. If we start them too soon, they get too big for easy transport. Even then, most will have flowers for a jump start on the season. These varieties must remain on the heat mats until temperatures stay in the 50’s. I typically start about 1000 tomatoes and 1000 basil plants in 98’s, which they quickly outgrow and must be potted off to 4″ pots. Once that is done, I no longer have enough heated table space. With the cool, wet Spring in 2008, I lost over 25% of them.

Early this month, beets, peas, and fava beans were planted in the field. Beets were seeded under hoop houses and the others were covered with Remay, which is a soft, light material. This covering adds 10 degrees of cold protection and also prevents the roaming poultry, as well as the resident robins, from disturbing the seeds.

We have nearly 300 varieties of vegetables and herbs that will be grown on the farm this year. I have many favorites that I grow every year and there are many new varieties that I try. I spend my winter holiday pouring through catalogs and searching the Internet for heirlooms and European or Asian varieties. New this year is an Italian green call agretti. It’s a bit like saltwort, which I’ve also found a source for this year, but a little bitter. It’s important to grow heirloom and unique varieties so our seed providers continue to offer these. Our industrial food system offers a very limited selection of varieties, which are grown because they can be mechanically harvested and handle shipping well. Remember that if you are buying produce in the grocery store it has probably traveled an average of 1500 miles and was picked before its prime. As a result, this produce has less nutritional value and flavor. Please take the extra effort to buy fresh produce from farmers markets or subscribe to a farm’s community supported agriculture (CSA) program. And grow as much of your own food as you can. Even if it’s a few pots on your balcony! Another threat to our food system is the purchase of small seed companies by large companies such as Monsanto. Support the seed companies that have a statement ensuring that they have no genetically modified (GMO) seed and offer a diverity of varieties including heirlooms. Watch the film, “The Future of Food.”

Planting thousands of seeds by hand probably sounds daunting, but it’s something I look forward to every year. The thrill of seeing green appear in the dark, wet soil never wains. I marvel at the diversity of form and color in each variety. From seed that is barely visible, springs substantive food that feeds us all season.

Seedlings in the greenhouse

First let me say that you don’t need roosters to get eggs (a lot of people don’t know this). There are two camps on the desirability of having a rooster. One says they protect the hens and provide fertile eggs. The other says they are noisy and a waste of feed. I’ve always kept a few because I do think they add value and they are handsome. Now one of the new Black Australorp roosters is a mean SOB, who attacks anyone that gets near him, whether it’s an innocent volunteer helping out or the farmers he should know. We’ve tried behavior modification without much luck. Yesterday, as I was putting feed in the feeder, this rooster pecked me. He bit right through two layers of clothing! That did it for me. I have no need for that abuse and he’ll be the first bird to be slaughtered.

I’m reflecting on the difference between this guy and the other roosters as I’m standing at the sink washing eggs. Yes, we hand wash our eggs in pure well water–no icky chemical wash! This time of year, our poultry have the run of the farm. They cultivate and fertilize the fields and beds. I was clearing weeds in my perennial flower garden the other day and watching them follow behind me. This soil was top-dressed with horse manure last fall and as a result has developed a deep, rich soil full of bugs and worms. The bad thing about chickens is that they tend to get stuck in a spot and dig big holes or uproot my plants, which I have to go back and fill in. Anyway, I was watching a rooster–a gorgeous Barred Rock-Phoenix cross that was hatched from a hidden nest a couple years ago. He would spot a worm or bug and call the hens over for the prize rather than eat it himself.

Another example of rooster value is protection. One could argue my SOB rooster was protecting his girls, but clearly we are not a threat. As I said, the flock is ranging all over the farm. It was a beautiful afternoon yesterday as I was planting seeds in our hoop houses. I hear a warning call from a nearby rooster and suddenly the whole flock scrambles for the protection of the house and surrounding bushes. I look up to see what caused all the fuss. High up in the sky a hawk was cruising by. The rooster must have spotted it from quite a distance away.

So, I’ll continue to have few roosters around, but I know one of them that is destined for my stew pot!

Everest Crabapple provides beauty and food

It’s Christmas Eve morning and we’ve gotten another couple inches of snow. We may get several more before it stops. The horses were happy to see me, as always. I imagine smiles on their faces at the sight of my pockets bulging with apples. They were covered in snow with ice in their mane, but definitely not cold. They have an amazing coat that insulates them so well the snow doesn’t melt!

Lots of juncos and sparrows were flitting about, digging through the new manure piles for any sunflower seeds that passed through (this feed is a carryover from my pre-Dynamite days when I was converting from soybean oil. I add a cup of seed for a little extra fat/calories during these cold, snowy days to supplement the Dynamite HES).

As I returned to the barn to stow the wheelbarrow, I noticed a tohee was feasting on the crabapples that we never harvested. The Everest crabapple, which is probably almost 10 yrs old now, makes wonderful jelly and our chefs buy them for cooking marvelous dishes for their customers, too. It’s a prolific little tree, with a beautiful shape. We are so fond of this tree that this year we planted them all along our drive. In the Spring, the tree is covered in white blossoms. The red, round fruit left hanging on the tree will typically last through the winter and serves as a self-decorated xmas tree! If you’ve been to the farm, you know that we have “weeds” everywhere. The weed seeds provide food for the birds, too, as well as shelter for lots of critters. I spread some wild bird feed on the walkways for extra measure since many of the weeds are under the snow now. We heat the water tank for the horses to ensure they have plenty of fresh water. The heater cord is covered in wire and hangs over the edge. This keeps the horses from biting through the cord, but it also provides the birds a means for getting to the water for a drink. There was a Song Sparrow taking a bath yesterday!

A neighbor sold us a set of tire chains so we could make the trek into Redmond for a little more shopping and to Kirkland to retrieve my best friend, who traditionally spends Xmas Eve and Day with us. We’re expecting another couple from Seattle to join us for dinner before they head North tomorrow to be with family. Redmond and Kirkland are two of the wealthiest communities in the Puget Sound area. They should be ashamed for subjecting their citizens and their emergency and safety personnel to such treacherous roads! Apprently no attempt was made to plow even the main roads. I’m glad salt is no longer used, but a little sand on the ice would have helped considerably.

Well, I have much to do to prepare our feast (and a few packages to wrap yet!). We make every effort to cook seasonally with ingredients from our farm or other local growers, and our menu for tonight reflects this. The menu includes ‘Carrot and Sweet Potato Soup with Ginger’ from Farmer John’s Cookbook; ‘Three-Beet Caviar Salad,’ and ‘White Beans with Black Kale and Savoy Cabbage’ from the Local Flavors cookbook; and Braised Duck Legs. I haven’t decided on dessert yet, but it will be something decadent using our fabulous apples that we have in storage.

Today we ran out of poultry feed. Our delivery was delayed due to bad weather. We’ll have to try and get the truck down into town to pick up a few bags at the hardward store. David plowed our drive with the tractor. The 4WD on the truck works great until we get to the very steep hill before town when braking gets very tricky. It’s not only steep, but there is a 90-degree turn about half way down. The guard rail has saved quite a few people from plunging down the embankment.

We’re thankful we have lost power for only a couple hours. The winds weren’t as bad as expected. We did find a whole section of fence knocked down in the horse pasture and put up temporary electric fencing to deter them from wandering into the woods.

I did find time to bake cookies with the kids and get one of my seed orders done yesterday. Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds has a wonderful selection from all over the world and their prices are still reasonable. Most of my squash, melon, and peppers will be coming from them this year.

Snow on ornamental grape

David plowing the drive

December and January are “resting” months on the farm. We have our morning and evening chores–feeding and watering the horses and poultry, collecting eggs–but little “hard” work is done unless we are hit by big storms that require repairs to structures and fencing. Thankfully, we are above the valley and don’t have to deal with flooding!

My time is now focused on planning for the next season. I have a 5-year business plan with long-term and short-term goals, which I update. Most of my effort goes into the detailed objectives and budget for the coming year. And yes, this blog supports one of my objectives–Public Education. One of my favorite tasks is the growing plan and the hours spent pouring over seed catalogs!

We are deeply concerned about the state of the economy and the impact this will have on us personally, as a business, and our community. We will continue to diversify our business (wish I had done that with my personal financial investments!) and to find ways of helping others through the rough year ahead. For starters this year, we are not raising our CSA prices and are offering CSA shares in exchange for work on the farm. I have some other ideas I haven’t fleshed out yet and I’m interested in your suggestions.

The fields are currently under a couple inches of snow, holding a few root crops. The hard freeze of last week finished off the chard we enjoyed through a very mild November. I have a long-term goal of being self-sufficient and maybe we’ll never get there, but it’s a good goal. Finding the time to put crops in storage is challenging with so little time, and 2008 was such a bad year for growing that everything went to our CSA, restaurants, and farmers markets. We have a little winter squash and a lot of apples; some applesauce, apple butter, and apple jelly that I found time to put up after our season ended in October. And of course, those wonderful duck and chicken eggs! We buy our meat from another farmer, Bruce Singbeil. Our freezer is full of Certified Naturally Grown beef, chicken, and soon pork, thanks to him.

Our farm is too small to grow the feed we need for our animals. We buy organic feed for our poultry from In Season Farms in BC, Canada. I finally found a source for quality hay at Cedarwind Farms in Snoqualmie and organic feed for my horses from a company in Idaho called Dynamite. I am so impressed with the quality of the Dynamite products that I have become a distributor. To view the product catalog, enter Cynthia Krepky for the distributor name. The Dynamite nutrition program and products started with horses, but now they have product lines for many species, including humans, and soil!

These are just some of the topics I’ll be covering in more depth in future posts.

Regards,
Cindy Krepky
www.dogmtnfarm.com