New Blog and New Farm

Come on over to skookumfarmstead.com to see our new farming venture. I am going to keep this blog around, but will only be posting at the new site.

Going to start posting more now that the growing season is kicking off. The night time temperatures are slowly normalizing--fingers crossed--so we will start our succession planting routine for the second year. We are slow learners, but we are learning. The snap peas are coming up and the garlic loved the March dose of blood meal. It should be an exciting growing season for us. We are going to cultivate around a half acre, most of which is sharecropped land. Hopefully the blogging will keep pace with the growing. Last year we were so busy with putting up potatoes and process for the larder, the blog took a back seat.

Spinach: two ounces of pure sovereignty

We have grown spinach for the last few year and really enjoy its goodness. I've let them go to seed a few times, but never really got serious about saving seeds. Well, this is my first attempt to be serious--two ounces is probably too serious--and share with those around me. It was difficult to let them dry in the ground. I found myself being a bit impatient? However all seemed to work well. I haven't tested the germination percentage yet, but I hope too in the next few weeks.

I cut and hung the spinach plants before de-seeding and I made a little time laps to show part of the process.

Urban Farmer: Book Smarts

I have a ton of things to post-potato harvest updates, seed saving photos, and fermentation adventures. I will work on putting the posts together, however when the sun is shining the kids and garden take priority.

Garlic: A Years Worth

I recently harvested and processed our first "years worth" crop. We planted 6 varieties with a really good friend with the hope that we would supply 60 heads for his family and 40 for mine. I pulled 20 of our best heads for replanting in a few months, so it will be fun to see the cycle come full circle. We will probably purchase a few more heads at our local garlic festival, however I am really happy with the harvest! I shot a short video of part of the processing--enjoy:)

Cartoon: Urban Farmer--Community Garden?

I've been playing around with this cartoon idea--thank you Commander Mark! The little guy is a character that I've been drawing since I was little. But just recently, I thought, "it would be cool to juxtapose the space guy with farming."

Garden Outlaws

The Green Stink Bug. My oldest daughter found a few in the raspberry rows a few weeks before the fruit came on. We had no clue what it was and decided to leave it be. I wish we would have picked it off right away and saved it while we searched. When we figured out it was probably not the best bug to leave in the berries, we couldn't find it. Needless to say, we have noticed lots of little holes in berries-classic Stink Bugs.

The Small White Cabbage Moth. Theses little fellas have been gonna like crazy on our parsnips, purple cabbage, and broccoli. The caterpillars are easy to spot once your eyes adjust, but the moths are surprisingly difficult to capture.

Help. I have no idea what this guy is. The chickens seemed to like it:)