Author Archives: Quail Run

Elderberry

September has come and so has the elderberry harvest. Here on the farm I only have a few elderberry bushes that were planted from small bare root starts a couple years ago, so they are still young and not very productive.  I was only able to get enough elderberry to make some tincture and infused honey, which I am so excited about, however that isn’t quite enough to meet the needs of my ten person household through the winter.

Many people around here and in many parts of the country forage for elderberries, they grow prolifically along ditches, creeks and up canyons. I have never wild foraged for elderberries, the farm is in a dry area and to find elderberries we must make a trip up to the mountains and find an area to forage that isn’t part of the National Park system (it is illegal to forage anything without a permit) and hasn’t already been found and harvested.  That is  a big time commitment with no guarantee of a harvest.  Instead I order dried, organic berries to make syrup with. Someday soon I will have enough of my own berries as we plan to add more bushes to the farm.

I have had great success in the past with my elderberry syrup in building my family’s immune system and shortening the duration of colds and  the flu. This year I decided to make extra and sell at my farm stand, the first week I completely sold out. I am excited to add this to our offerings this fall and throughout the winter.

Cover Crops


Using cover crops is an important part of regenerative agriculture, permaculture and organic gardening. Winter rye is an excellent cover crop this time of year, it loves the cold and will contunie to grow, even when temperatures reach below freezing. Its growth slows down considerably when the days get shorter, and goes into a hibernation mode, then picks right back up as the spring days get longer and warmer, completing its life cycle in time for market crops to be planted.

Rye has several advantages beyond its ability to grow in the cool fall and spring weather.  It creates considerable biomass, I always love the biomass, and mowed in the spring acts as a mulch, keeping in moisture and making it harder for weed seeds to germinate. Once the rye is mowed down the roots will start to decompose adding organic matter and nutrients right into the soil, where it is needed.  Rye can bind nitrogen, making it harder for market crops to access, but adding a legume with the rye helps that.  This year we aren’t set up to add clover or vetch, instead we will add blood meal or fish emulsion come spring to help with nitrogen deficiency, we will also sow clover this spring.

Rye can easily take over other, small seeded plants when planted at the same time.  This is one advantage to starting seeds separately. The kale shown at the top was planted before the carrots were harvested, able to grown nice and big and then given a week in the ground before the rye was planted.  That gave the kale three weeks head start before the rye needed to be sown and we didn’t have to rush the carrots. The kale will have no problem growing among the rye, where as if they had started as seeds at the same time the rye would have quickly over taken the smaller and slower rye.

Gathering Seeds

A few years ago I bought carrots seeds and the strangest thing happened.  Instead of producing an edible root (well it may have been edible, but they certainly weren’t palatable) they went right to flower.  This is strange, in that clearly I didn’t get the correct seed and typically plants in the carrot family are biannual and flower on their second year.  It was a lovely mistake and I had a whole 50×4 foot row of beautiful Queen Ann’s Lace type flowers.  I soon discovered that they were even better than beautiful, the bugs LOVED them.  I had so many different types of pollinators that year that I decided they would always have a place in my garden. This has been quite easy in that they readily reseed themselves. In a permaculture garden it is very important to have plants that attract  pollinators, the term is usually coined “pollinator strips”.  We are preparing some new markets gardens from virgin land and will be adding perennial rows with bushes a few trees and flowers galore to attract pollinators. It is very easy to gather seeds from these flowers.  As the flowers mature and the seeds ripen the heads curl inward, almost making a cup, I just clip off the head and drop it into a paper sack for safe keeping over the winter.  This spring when its time to get our strips, or beds, of perennial plants ready those seeds will find a new home.

Late Kale

The kale bed after being gone over with a fork to carefully loosen the soil without turning it over

This bed had rainbow carrots growing in it this summer. Root vegetables take a lot out of the soil. They are great for aeration  and breaking up hard soils, allowing compost and nutrients to get down deep once the roots are harvested. It is always important to follow root crops with other crops that help build the soil. According to my gardening guru, Eliot Coleman, any plant in the brassica family is a very good follower of any root crop. Some of the plants in the brassica family include cabbage, broccoli, and kale, to name a few. I like to use Kale this time of the year, the season is a little too short for broccoli, cabbage or kohlrabi, but kale is a shorter season plant that loves the cold.

A handful of soil with a lot of organic matter and biodiversity, this is how to build healthy soil.

Another thing I love about kale as a succession plant is that is produces a lot of bio mass. Kale gets big and leafy and when it dies down or we choose to chop and drop it there is a lot of matter that will compost in place further enriching the bed it was planted in.
The little kale I had written about earlier are now big enough to go out into the garden. I prepared the bed, not with tilling, but using a fork I gently aerated, just lifting the fork a little, but not turning over the soil.  The less disturbed it is the better for the soil health.  I also added a nice layer or compost and gently raked it in.
The seedlings were spaced evenly and planted with great care.  I’m hoping to have some winter vegetables to add to the soup pot and perhaps have some to  sell at market.

Kale

No matter your feelings about kale, you have to admit this stuff is cute when it is little.  This baby kale is about a week away from planting in the garden.  It is a little late for a fall harvest, we might get some, as kale is very cold hardy, but I’m not expecting much. Mostly I am using it as a cover crop in my rotation.  The bed this is going into had beets, and beets can be rather hard on the soil, they take a lot out of it.  Kale on the other hand is a bit more gentle and adds a lot of biomass at the end of its life.  I can also easily sow micro clover around the kale once it is established to fix nitrogen, keeps weeds down and add biomass as well. Cover crops are not something I have utilized much, but I plan on learning more and making them an integral  part of our farming system.

Spring Peas

Today as I was out checking the garden I noticed that there were peas on the vines! The end of June our spring peas decided it was too hot and in a pout stopped flowering.  They ended up in the compost pile and a new set of pea seeds were planted. I had been noticing a flower or two the last week, what I hadn’t noticed that under the leaves there were many more flowers than I had known.  Today I saw them, beautiful snow peas, they should be productive well into October and I am so excited!

Chickens

Chickens have a very important roll here on the farm. One of the first purchases we made when we moved here was a bunch of baby chicks shipped in when they were a day old, soon we had a big chicken coop up and our relationship with chickens on the farm began. We had kept chickens at our old house, but this was going to be different.  Before we only kept 10 or 12 chicken and they were housed in a small coop with a tiny yard and fed kitchen scraps and basic chicken feed. Here we had 30+ chickens, they had free access to the entire five acres, we did still feel them kitchen scraps and chicken feed, but they were also eating bugs, weeds and grass.

This year has been what I like to call a “building year”. Chickens are at the peak of their production when they are one and two years old and then fade off a different rates depending on the breed, feed and how the winters are managed. To keep up egg production, without a period of lag, new chickens need to be added to the flock yearly or at least every other year and the old hens culled out. After the first few years we had gotten off track and this past fall our girls were tired and old, some hens had just finished their fourth summer, it was time for retirement, to the stew pot. We kept about five hens and a rooster, the rooster had been hatched and raised here on the farm and so had a couple of the hens and then there were a few favorites that got to stay. It was nice to only care for six chickens over the winter, but I did miss fresh eggs, especially as I bought boxes of eggs from Costco.

This spring we started the flock over fresh with a new bunch of little pullets and recently they began to lay eggs.  New pullet eggs are small and cute and I just love them.  The plan is that next summer we will have enough to start selling them again.

Not only do chicken provide eggs and a little bit of income from eggs, they are little workers. They can clear a plot of land from weeds in an afternoon and turn a pile of manure, straw and pine shavings into usable compost in a couple weeks. Tomorrow I will manually turn the compost pile they have been currently working on and I anticipate it will be ready to be moved and covered with a tarp while it waits to be used and a new pile started. Our little flock is valuable part of our quest to build fertility and practice regenerative agriculture.

Meadow

The “Orchard Meadow” thick and green, full of a variety of grasses and perennial weeds.

When we moved to the farm almost seven years ago the area that we now call the “Orchard Meadow” was barren, except for tumble weeds, some cheat grass and burrs. It was pretty sad.  Our efforts to reclaim the land, to restore and add fertility and productivity were really quite simple.  All land will eventually restore itself and naturally move towards supporting life and fertility within its sphere, we were looking to accelerate that process and add a bit more.

Common Mallow and White Clover, both have a very important roll in the health and vigor of the meadow.

To begin with we mowed down all the weeds and planted trees, mulching them deeply with horse manure, straw and wood chips. The second winter we over seeded the whole thing with drought tolerant pasture grasses and in the spring white clover and sweet clover.  We irrigated the entire meadow and let the grass, clover and weeds grow.

Comfrey, the deep tap root bring important minerals to the surface and when mowed deposit them where the trees and grasses can most benefit .

Yes, even the weeds. Weeds in the context of reclaiming pasture are not a bad thing.  The earth naturally reclaims herself, and what we would call common weeds are some of the first plants that come into an area to help restore, rebuild and nourish. And we had a lot of weeds, big tall lambs quarter and hog weed, and we mowed them a few times and in doing that created a layer of natural mulch. Every year the grass, clovers and good perennial weeds got thicker and the starter weeds became less and less. We added animals in movable pens to eat down the grass and fertilize.

Alfalfa, creates a lot of biomass and fixes nitrogen from the air and makes it bioavailable in the soil around it.

This year our trees are bigger and the grass thicker and greener than it’s ever been.  I still have to water at least once a week because the trees are still young (some only a year old, we lost a few to gophers) but soon the plan is to only water every few weeks as needed.

Plantain, not only great for the pasture, but very medicinal.

 

BBQ Chicken Salad

***From my archives***
I was very excited to try
BBQ Chicken Salad,

seriously, a dressing made with BBQ sauce and Ranch Dressing! How can that NOT be GOOD!

Here is our cast of characters:

Ranch Dressing
BBQ Sauce
Grilled Chicken
Romain Lettuce
Tomatoes, diced
Cilantro, chopped
1 can Black Beans, drained
1 can Corn, drained
(oops, forgot that for the picture)
Green Onions
Shredded Cheese
Tortilla Strips


Here is what Becky said:

“Now, there are different ways you can have this. In the past, we would mix all the fresh ingredients and then pour the ranch on top, then drizzled with BBQ sauce. My husband prefers to marinate the cooked chicken in the BBQ sauce all day and serve it that way. I also like to mix the ranch dressing and the BBQ sauce together for a Ranch/BBQ dressing. Whatever the way, it is SOOOO good! “




I chose to mix the Ranch dressing and BBQ sauce, then marinate the cooked chicken in the sauce. That alone was wonderful. If you were to shred the chicken and mix it with the sauce, you would have a wonderful filling for a chicken sandwich.

 

I also crushed the tortilla chips and mixed it with the salad just before I served it.


This recipe did not disappoint.

It was SO good!

Everyone loved this, it will defiantly become a regular at our dinner table.

(Check out Becky’s cute blog here.)

For other great dinner ideas, head over to Our Bluebell Country

Unintended Fall Garden

I usually don’t bother with a fall garden.  It’s mostly because of laziness. Not that I’m afraid of work, but that over the years I haven’t been very successful and I’ve been too lazy to figure it out.  I feel like I’m either planting too late, or if I’m planting on time the garden is too hot and my germination rates are poor.

Lettuce seeds just starting to sprout in soil blocks.

When I started selling at the farmers market I decided I needed to start planting more lettuce as a cash crop and if done correctly I could get several harvests.  However, two plantings later and a horrible germination rate, I was ready to give up.  Maybe I’m not destined to have lettuce past June.

Then I read a book.

My opinion on starting seeds changed, like, completely.  I’ve usually avoided starting seeds indoors.  It was so much work, making sure they were warm enough and had enough light and water..for what? A week or two extra growing time? Well, when you are planting for sales a week or two or three is pretty huge.  There is also the advantage of better germination rates than out in the field.  I couldn’t get lettuce seeds to germinate well in the heat and dry of July, but I have an almost 100% germination rate in my 70 degree house where I can keep an eye on them easily.  There is also the cost and bother of plastic or peat pots and flats, plastic wears out and peat can only be used once. I started reading about the soil blocking method, I ordered a soil block tool and made my first pan of soil blocks and sowed my lettuce seeds.

Newly prepared bed with fresh compost worked into the top couple inches of the soil.

As I said before I got an almost 100% germination rate.  In the mean time I spent some time preparing my lettuce beds.  For the past few years I had been using a no-till deep mulch method, and generally I like the philosophy and the lower manual labor (tilling, spading, weeding). However I was finding I still had problems with compact, clay soil and seed germination. After much research I’m transitioning to a low-till method, working only the top couple inches of soil, leaving the deep tilling to the worms. I worked this bed over with a spade, aerating the entire thing, then covered it all with my homemade compost and worked it in the top couple inches. All beautiful and ready for my lettuce starts to be transplanted this weekend. 

Two and a half week old lettuce seedlings being hardened off for transplanting in a few days.

I will be experimenting with starting more of my seeds indoors.  Our biggest obstacles will be heat and light, so we will be working with artificial lighting and greenhouse methods this winter.  It’s always a big experiment around here.