Picking Up the Pace

It's February already and the weather is going to be fairly warm for the next couple of weeks so I'm starting to get the garden boxes ready for planting. When the sun is out, it makes me excited to stick my hands in the soil and start planting seeds.  So....

I cleaned out the remaining storage onions and Purple Haze and White Satin carrots in this box.

Will need to rebuild this one... This is the first box we built when we moved here. It has served us well for seven years and needs some new boards.  When we originally put this raised box together, we paid top dollar for the lumber, sighted the edges of each board to make sure they were perfectly straight and constructed a beautifully square box.  This time around, I'm using culled lumber I found at the local hardware store and paid $2.00 per 2" x 10" x 12' piece. Yes there are a few bends and chips in the boards, but hey, when you add soil, water, potential trees falling on it, and then the husband hitting it with the tractor....cheap lumber is a "good thing".

My feral swarm of honey bees didn't survive the winter and I'm sad about that.  I'll start fresh this spring and with a little help from the local beekeeping groups, I hope to have a thriving bee colony that will pollinate my garden and produce some delicious honey this year.

Urban Farm Handbook and Challenge

I just finished scouring my new copy of Urban Farm Handbook by Annette Cottrell over at Sustainable Eats and Joshua McNicoles a seasoned gardener and journalist. They have a written a book that is extremely engaging and makes me want to organize myself to be the best I can be at raising my own foods and supporting agriculture where everyone wins. The information in their book is easy to read and in no way intimidating. After finishing each chapter, I say to myself  "I get it!" and you will too. They have also included many seasonal recipes, producer profiles, and some awesome reference lists.

The best part is that Annette has set up the Urban Farm Handbook Challenge that starts now and runs for 12 months. Each month there is a different challenge activity that is suited to the season (yes! pun intended). Get the book or join the challenge or do both!

Montiellet Fromagerie

In November I was lucky enough to help cook a fantastic dinner for the Dunham Cellars fall wine release dinner. If you are looking for fine tasting Washington wines for any occasion Dunham Cellars is an excellent choice.

If the excitement of the dinner wasn't enough, the next day we spent time with Joan and Pierre-Louis Monteillet of Monteillet Fromagerie.  The Monteillet Fromagerie produces wonderful artisan cheeses made from the milk of the goats and sheep they raise on their 32 acres. We got a tour of the cheese making kitchen and the farm and then Joan treated us to some of their delicious cheeses which were complimented with fall fruit and wine of course!

The icing on the weekend cake was spending the whole afternoon cooking, eating, sipping wine and getting to know each other. That afternoons activities are what great company and local food is all about.

Fresh lamb chops!

Mussels from the Washington coast

Thank you Joan and Pierre-Louis for a most excellent day!

A Little Orange With That Green?

My tomato plants produced a massive amount of green fruit this season.  I have gotten a couple pounds of ripe tomatoes but the cold summer and fall have really put a damper on how quickly the fruit is maturing.  As leaves on the trees start to color, the morning air is becoming  crisp,  and the rains have returned,  I've decided to pick all the large tomatoes and see if I can ripen them in batches through the fall.

Fried green tomatoes anyone?

This post is part of Simple Lives Thursday.

Surprise Guests

This summer, my brother gave me some of his old bee boxes and books on beekeeping. I gladly hauled the boxes home from Oregon and was excited to do bee research over the fall and winter, then buy bees in the spring for pollinating my berry plants, vegetable plants and fruit trees.  Of course the bonus of sweet golden honey to harvest later in the summer would be a welcome addition to our kitchen.

bee boxes 

One of the boxes had frames loaded with about 60 pounds of honey which I thought I would replace with new frames in the spring.

Last week while I was at work, my husband called and said one group of bee boxes was covered with bees and they were moving in!

The new tenants

Now I'm on a crash course trying to keep my new hive of bees alive through the winter and have gone from this....

to this.....

I'm feeling excited and a little nervous about my new tenants. If anyone has suggestions on winter beekeeping, please leave a comment.

This post is part of Simple Lives Thursdays.

Food Did Happen...

The sunshine hours in the Seattle area were less than stellar this summer, but some fruits and veggies did make an appreciated appearance in the garden. 

Red Gold potatoes

Touchstone Gold

Kristin cherries

The blueberry bushes were well pollinated and produced a wonderful crop of deliciousness and I froze four gallons for making the best blueberry muffins ever all winter long!

Blueberries

My Ladies gardened with me and enjoyed a few raspberries along the way.

chicken acrobatics

My tomatoes are showing signs of bearing fruit and I have harvested about 2 pounds of tomatoes so far. 

I love the color gradation of the grape tomatoes!

And some apples, not many, but some.

Akane apples

New critters did make themselves  known in the garden this season....the voles. I am using snap traps to help our cat with the population control. Voles tunnel under everything making it impossible for plants to establish a root system.  They also take bites out of root vegetables and mow down anything that suits their fancy.

vole hole

The Puget Sound area the farmers markets are a terrific resource of everything fresh and I've been able to buy all the fruits and vegetables that were missing from my garden.

Owl Love

A few mornings ago I heard my hens squawking in a squawk they don't usually make. Then minute later I heard the crows having a loud and boisterous conversation as well. This cacophony of sound pulled me out the house to see what the ruckus was about...Sitting in a tree above the chicken pen was a pair of Great Horned Owls,  so awesome. This is the first time I've seen an owl in our yard and I'm a little uncomfortable that they were watching over our chickens, but all seems well with the Ladies...

The Dirty Life: On Farming Food and Love

CSA farmer and author Kristin Kimball has written a wonderful and inspiring memoir about her evolution from complete city girl to gritty committed farmer.  Inspired by an idealistic man and the romantic idea of feeding a community, Kristin embarks on a journey where she learns everything from plowing fields with a team of horses to planting seeds to slaughtering. Her descriptions of how she transforms during her fist year of hardcore farming are completely engaging.

I connected with The Dirty Life: On Farming Food and Love because I related to finding joy and satisfaction in feeding myself, family and friends. Eating foods that I've nurtured and grown always seem to taste better and leave me with a feeling of being more solidly connected to life. Enjoying my urban farming successes along with the struggles keeps me continually planning on improving my gardens and the ability to put delicious food on the table.  The Dirty Life makes me want to run outside, grab the shovel and start digging!

This post is part of Simple Lives Thursday.