Mulino Valley Farm

The soil was warm and dry enough today to transplant some beets.  When we started farming I never thought I would be transplanting BEETS of all things.  Today I did just that and as I was transplanting them, a cucumber beetle sniffed one out already!  So after transplanting, I covered up the beet seedlings with agrofabric.  That should keep those pesky bugs out, except for those really stubborn ones.

Then went on to weed the garlic, weeding is never done around here.   Craig was telling me about an organic weed spray made out of lemon grass that may work on the weeds.  Weeeeell, ok, but will the spray affect the soil organisms, will the soil still smell like spring and mushrooms and be alive?  For now, I can deal with the hand weeding.  I enjoy it, as long as our wonderful babysitter is willing to watch our two energetic boys while I dig in the dirt and Craig hangs out with the bees at Joe’s. 

Joe is a local beekeeper with 25 hives and wonderful honey.  He is Craig’s mentor.  Craig says we have to have 3 hives this year, so we have a package of bees (3 lbs of bees with a queen) on order from Ruhl Bee Supply and will hopefully get a couple of nuc’s (4 frames of bees with larvae and a queen bee) from Joe.   Joe also has an apple orchard and is willing to share how he keeps the bugs away, organically.  Some of his bees will be on our property this summer, probably by the lavender.  Lavender/blackberry honey, if you ever see it, grab it.  The best tasting honey you will ever taste.

Raise a glass of Oregon wine to some Oregon sun and warm soil!

We are experimenting with growing our early early greens in the soil of the greenhouse and so far we are very happy with the outcome. The arugula is ready and so are the radishes. Will make a wheatberry salad with broccoli raab which is doing great out in this weather, arugula, snipped off onion tops from the onion starts, some fresh mozzarella cheese I made last night…hmmmm what else. Lori, throw me some more beautiful lemons from your neighbors lemon tree in Fountain Hills Arizona. I could use one in this salad.

Our grafted fruit trees are a success, 7 out of 11 have successfully grafted. Am still hoping the persimmon did but cannot tell yet.

Friday was a really nice day for weeding the garlic, I got about two hours in and the soil smelled absolutely of spring. It smelled like mushrooms.  We need the soil to warm up to transplant the seedlings.  Here is to wishing for some sun to warm up the soil!

Hooray for spring, it is finally here.  Craig is outside pruning the trees and i am inside letting the kids do whatever they want and they are having a ball.  They are making goop with dish soap.  soapy water on the floor but there are plenty of clean towels to sop it all up…eventually.

This week Craig finished planting more asparagus.  100 more of the delicious purple variety.  This will take 3 years until we can harvest it but no worries we should have more than we can handle coming up in May. 

I will go out for a couple of hours today and transplant some beets, kohlrabi and turnip starts into the composted soil.  Oh and peas too, am so looking forward to peas.  We have overwintering walla walla onions in the ground and of course garlic.  So if all goes well, grows well, then hopefully by mid May we will have a beautiful CSA basket containing:  green and sweet walla walla onions, asparagus, peas, beets, salad greens, stir fry greens, last year’s garlic that i have kept in the frig to keep from sprouting, and some newly dug up potatoes if they are ready.  perhaps some carrots and rhubarb.  Doesn’t that sound yummy!  i am already thinking of a yummy pasta dish with all these veggies topped with some parmesan cheese and a nice Oregon pinot grigio.

Happy first day of spring everyone.  Plant a fruit tree