Planting Time!

I usually wait till Mother’s Day here to plant my summer veggies, but unusually warm temps both day and night have warmed the soil up to 70 degrees and it is looking like it might be here to stay for a while.  I hope we get some rain and no frost and gardeners in northern California will finally have a good year for tomatoes.  The last few years the weather has not cooperated.  The blossoms on my roses are bigger than usual, I am told it is because of warm weather followed by just enough cold after the buds came out to stop them for a while then it got warm again and they exploded.  It is a beautiful site!

  

I wanted to bring in more soil so that I could eventually (not this year) make my raised beds a little higher so I bought some rice bails and had some garden soil delivered and put together these giant beds.  I layered the soil with compost and the plan is that next year I will have giant piles of good garden soil to add to my raised beds after I build up the sides to 12”.  I am planting squash and potatoes in one and pumpkins in the other.  I also added nasturtiums at the edges to make them a little prettier.  I read that they attract beneficial insects that help keep squash and cucumber beetles away so it seemed like the perfect combo.

I planted my first tomatoes about a month ago and used wall o’ waters on them to protect them which was a wise choice because we did have a few cold nights.  This week I took them off because the plants were about to grow over the top.  I have planted squash, tomatoes, peppers and even cucumbers and my fingers are crossed that this weather carries us through May as the weather men have predicted.  I grew extra plants as usual and have been giving them to co-workers, but I think I will sell this last batch.  

I am growing the following varieties of tomatoes this year: 

Dr. Wychee’s Yellow, Indigo Rose, Moon Glow, Black Giant, Csikos Boterno, Cherokee Purple, Black Brandywine, Zebra Heart, Chocolate Stripes, Black Cherry, all of these I have grown before and really enjoyed them.  There are 3 new varieties I am trying this year 2 from a local seed supplier in Manton, California, Redwood Seeds…Zapotec and Peacevine Cherry and the 3rd is recommended by a friend for making good sauces, Nonna’s Pride.  The Peacevine Cherry has really taken off and is trying to climb high!  Working at a nursery and talking plants to people all day always tempts me to try new things so there may be more added to this list and that is just the tomatoes.  I now have to decide just where I am going to put all the melons I want to grow this year and I know that I want to keep them away from my squash,

I am also trying several new beans that I am growing both for fresh eating and for drying.  Going through the Seed Savers catalog was just way to tempting so I have planted seeds in all kinds of weird places between things and will hope for the best!

We have been seeing a return of butterflies so set up this little butterfly watering station near the butterfly bushes.  I put small gravel in the bottom the a few larger rocks on the edges for them to sit and drink from.  I haven’t seen any butterflies at it yet, but I hope they will find it to be a real treat on a hot day.

I am hoping that with all the newbie vegetable gardeners and those of us that keep growing hoping for a bumper crop year that this will be that year and we will be sharing all sorts of ideas on what to do with the plethora of fruits and veggies we will be harvesting in the next few months!

Keep Growing!

~Ferne

Fruit Tree Update ~ Spring 2013

The fruit trees at Hummingbird Farmz are bursting forth in bloom and the bees have been busy pollinating them.  Some fruit has set and some things are still in progress.  It is such an exciting time since many of trees will have fruit for their first time this year and with more than 70 varieties of heirloom fruit this will be our first time to taste many of them.  We go out and inspect their progress almost daily.  Here is what we found most exciting on our last walk…

Buds on an apple tree called Stump, originated in 1875 in Chili, New York and was very popular as a high-quality autumn apple. The skin will be pale yellow with a pink wash overlaid with splashes and stripes of dark red.

 

This little blossom is on a Strawberry Parfait apple tree,  The fruit will be striped red over ivory skin and red splashes like strawberries in vanilla ice cream in the flesh.  It is said to have the flavor of strawberries in the flesh also.  They are not long keepers so they will have to been eaten soon after picking…don’t think that will be a problem though..

The flowers on this Firecracker Crabapple really look like fireworks going off in the orchard.  These little 2” red apples will actually have a surprising red flesh.  Can’t wait to pickle some of those for the holidays.  They are said to make an excellent jelly as well. 

 

Another crabapple that I have in my Belgian Fence because it is a great pollinator for other apples is Wickson Crabapple.  This is a very sweet crab apple with a very strong flavor that makes it wonderful for cider.  The biggest surprise to me was the fragrance of the blossoms and how they varied.  Some were strong and smelled like roses and some smelled just like a tasty apple.

 The peaches and nectarines are bursting forth in bloom too.  This is Maria Gold and she did produce one of the only nectarines we got last year which was very delicious.  It is looking like she will grace us with her presence once again this year.

 

This picture of the Cotton Candy Aprium in bloom shows it being pollinated by one busy bee and he did a great job because we are seeing lots of fruit coming on.  Last year we got a small armload from it and it was wonderful.  Looking forward to eating more of this fruit this year! 

We are seeing lots of fruit in our future and will have to inviting this little guy back to help with the picking and eating of it.  We have lots of other family members who would love to join him I’m sure!  He does enjoy walking through the orchard though and studies all the signs I made for our trees so that we don’t forget what they are.. 

In the vegetable garden things are happening too.  I hope to be posting more on this experiment I am under taking this year using bales of rice straw stacked to make a large raised bed.  I will be growing my watermelon squash and pumpkins in it and have already been adding lots of compost to get it ready for growing.

Looking forward to some tasty sweet times!

Ferne & Michael

 

Seeding Time

    
It is time to gather all your seed starting supplies and inventory your seeds, maybe even order more.    I am teaching a seed starting class in a few weeks and was going through my process in preparation for that and because I am chomping at the bit to get started.  I
have been starting things from seeds for many years both in a green house and also in a one bedroom apartment so I know it is something anyone can do if they want to.  It doesn’t take much space and can you give you the opportunity to grow some really interesting vegetables, herbs and flowers.  Supplies you will need are containers of your choice, seeds of your choice, markers of your choice also, heat mat (not necessary, but very helpful), and grow lights with some way to adjust the height as the plants grow.  The planting station above has been very helpful in containing my soil and keeping my mess easy to clean up, my antique minnow buckets are great for holding soil, tools and bulk fertilizer.
















Here is my list of my favorite seed companies for the more interesting and heirloom varieties of vegetables:  Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, High Mowing Seeds, Seed Savers,
and Everwilde Farms.  I also like Cook’s Garden and Territorial Seeds and order from Gurney’s and Parks Seeds on occasion.   We have a very local seed company that grows some really fun varieties of veggies that I know will do well here because they came from only about 10 miles away..Redwood Seeds is in Manton, CA just a hop, skip and a jump from where I live so I always include a few things 
from them.


I have been experimenting with seed starting methods and soils for years and haven’t found a perfect go to method yet.  I did use Whitney Farms Seed Starting soil for years and loved it, but since I moved I haven’t found a source for it here.  Black Gold has an OMRI rated seed starting mix that is nice though.  I have used peat pellets with pretty good success if I remove the mesh netting from the plant at planting time.  I loved the little indentation for the seed  right in the middle of the plug.  This year I am trying Gurneys seed starting tray, I have seen a similar set up in other catalogs, too.  The tray is Styrofoam and it floats on the water that is in the bottom tray, this should cause the roots to develop and grow into the water.  I am experimenting with it now using some lettuce seeds.  The soil that fills the holes comes in preformed spongy plugs that fit right in the hole and they have the dibbled hole in the top to hold the seed.  The part that seemed strange to me is that you just drop a seed in and don’t cover it with anything.  After 2 days I do have seeds emerging and can see some root growth too.   The picture to the right is exactly one week later.  I am already seeing the roots coming out the bottom of the seed sponge, so far I am quiet happy with vigor and health of these seedlings.  They were all lettuce and kale starts.  The best part is that I don’t have to water very often at all, just keep an eye on the reservoir.
I found a recipe on About.com for a seed starting soil and found all of the ingredients at my garden center.  I have mixed up a batch and like the way it looks and feels.  I planted in it just yesterday so I will have to repost when I have the results.  The recipe is really quite simple so I will post it here if you would like to give it a try yourself.  The reason for not using a regular potting soil for starting seeds is that it can contain pathogens that are harmful to small seedlings and some may contain a pre-emergent which keeps seeds from sprouting.  A good seed starting mix should be light and airy, stay moist not soggy and allow good root growth.  This recipe seems like it should be a good one to me, I especially like that it contains coir and greensand.  I used a coir block that I soaked for quite a while first and I used Worm Gold for the vermicompost.  This takes me back to the gnat invasion of last year when I used straight coir for soil, it will be interesting to see if the addition of the Worm Gold and Green sand and Perlite help in avoiding that fiasco.
Basic Seed Starting Mix

• 3 parts** peat or coir (coir is preferable if you can get it)
• 3 parts vermicompost (your own or purchased from a garden center or other supplier ~ Worm Gold)
• 1 part perlite
• 1/2 part greensand

Once you get those seeds planted in whatever container you have chosen to use the next thing is to be sure to label them.  I made my own tags a few years ago from mini blinds cut down to about 6” long they are perfect for fitting all the pertinent information on you can also use purchased tags.   I like to write with pencil because it doesn’t fade and I can reuse the tags with just a little erasing.  Always put the date you planted the seeds on the tag as it will help you keep track of progress later.  I also like to make notes in a notebook of any kind.  A simple spiral notebook can contain years of information and will be so helpful to look back on year after year to see what worked for you what really didn’t.

Let’s get growing!

Ferne

@ Hummingbird Farmz

Winter at Hummingbird Farmz

I find that I don't write on this blog much in the winter because there doesn't seem to be much to say about my garden when so much is dormant and covered in leaves, but a reader of my blog recently challenged me to talk about what is going on in my garden now.  Today I was raking leaves and really looking at what was happening and I saw so much more than I expected to find.  I don’t like to be called an “expert” at gardening, but I do have some knowledge and lots to learn.  With what knowledge I do have I’ve created a garden that I feel very much at home in.  In this comfort zone I can watch things grow, grow myself and learn about what my garden needs and what I need.  I get food for my body and my mind from my garden.  I grow fruits and vegetables, flowers  and herbs and attract visitors like birds, bees, bugs and other critters that I really enjoy observing. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One section of my yard is dedicated to lilacs, quince, forsythia, weigelia and red buds.  Right now it appears dormant, but on closer inspection I can see the buds swelling on the quince reminding me that soon there will quite a show going on in that section.  First, the quince will bloom in a beautiful dark apricot color that is close to red followed by the lilacs in lavenders, pinks, and white with a fragrance that is not like any other.  After the lilacs come the showy white explosion of spirea and the bright yellow forsythia.  The above picture on the left looks like nothing much going on, but the picture on the right is from last March when it all came to life and was so beautiful. It is reminding me of what is too come and having so much to look forward to helps me to see the beauty in this time of year when things seem to be so dismal, but in reality an energy is being stored up so that when the time and environmental conditions are just right there will be quite a show for all the senses.
 

 

 

 

 

 

In my vegetable garden things are growing slowly which is normal for this time of year.  I have small seedlings of carrots, beets, garlic and onions that have been hanging in there through frost, wind and even snow.  My next task will be to thin and replant the strawberry beds.  I grew a tasty little French one last year named Mara des Bois, the flavor was the sweetest and juiciest I have ever tasted so I wasted no
time in rounding up those trailing babies and rooting them in to tray so that i can start a whole other bed full of them to enjoy through the summer.  They are ever bearing and just kept coming through the summer and into the fall.  We all enjoyed them and shared with all of our visitors young and old.

 

 

 

This garden bed is currently being used to heel in some fruit trees and vines to plant as soon as the soil warms up a bit.

 

The Italian Parsley is loving this cold weather and I need to keep harvesting the leaves for drying and using fresh because we use a lot of it all year long.  I love opening the jar of dried parsley and just taking a deep breath, it smells so tasty.  We have been keeping the dehydrator busy with persimmons and we did the same method we used last year called Hoshigaki.  This year we are doing even more than last year because we enjoyed them so much.  This year I sliced them about 1/2” thick in one batch and was amazed at how much they shrink so the next batch we just cut them in half.  I love how chewy they are and very sweet.  They loose that astringency  when they go through a frost.  We are using them before they are all soft and gooey and they are delicious though I have been using the really ripe ones for

 

baking some goodies.  The persimmons in this picture are the ones we are leaving for the birds because we have plenty on hand for us to eat this year and share with special friends.

 

 

This picture is of the persimmons covered in snow just a few weeks ago.

 

 

I planted some saffron crocus bulbs and they are all popping up in the bed with the parsley.   The camelias are starting to bloom and the chamaecyparis are looking great as always.  The yellow twig dogwood are showing off their yellow twigs and the daphne are getting ready to bloom.  So there really is more going on in my garden than I imagined sitting inside reading seed catalogs and garden books and looking out at the cold. 

I have been doing a lot of reading and researching on how to make my soil better and have a wonderful book to recommend on permaculture for the home garden it is called Gaia’s Garden by TobyHemenway.  I am especially enjoying Chapter 4 on soil.  There is a great description of just how a leaf goes through the process of turning into humus that went on for pages and I was never bored, just amazed.

I will be taking more time to really look at what is happening in the garden and not just at the pretty flowers…it is all happening first in the soil, all the stuff you don’t see at first glance.

Ferne

@ Hummingbird Farmz

Summer in the Garden Recap

As summer comes to a close and I get the garden ready for a winter crop I was thinking back to all the high hopes for a bumper crop of tomatoes, peppers, melons and squash.  I didn’t get much of a bumper crop in fact not really much at all and I am not sure why.  The peppers got more sunburn, the tomatoes looked like they were cooking on the vine except the ones that were planted in the flowerbeds by the shed that actually got some afternoon shade they are still producing.  We did get a lot of grapes and figs though and now we are harvesting pears.  Today I planted radishes, kohlrabi, onions, peas, carrots and beets in hopes of a bumper crop winter garden.  Real gardeners never give up hope,  right?  At least I don’t, I keep adding compost, organic fertilizer and water in the hopes that the weather will do what I need it too do and my plants will flourish and produce a  bountiful harvest just when I need it most.

The tomatoes that I got the most of were my brown cherry tomatoes.  They are really more of a small plum tomato than a cherry and loaded with delicious flavor in their little package.  I made a few sauces with them that I actually enjoyed as a cold sauce over angel hair pasta.  I am also still getting cherry tomatoes that I grew on the other side of the shed from a tomato called Red Velvet.  They are quite tasty and it is still loaded with little green beauties that I hope will turn red before it freezes.  The best part of the Red Velvet is its grey foliage.  I put it in a flowerbed where I plant lots of blue and hot pink flowers and it complimented them quite nicely. 

There were lots of fires this year in Northern California and one was very close to home.  Because of the fire a new herd of deer moved in and they were much better at hoping our fence then our regular herd so the garden got attacked quite a few times.  I learned from this experience that they love parsley, but they didn’t touch any of the basil.  Luckily they left enough of the parsley for it to keep growing though.  They also ate all the strawberry leaves, but left the berries behind…I would have thought they would do it the other way around,  but I don’t think like a deer.  We tried to think like deer and place barriers of multiple sorts where we thought they were coming in, but we weren’t very successful.  The Scarecrow sprayed us more often than any deer.  We have figured out their pattern more now though and know about what time of day to expect their visits so the pellet gun is ready to scare them off when they get too close to the fence.

The persimmons are waiting for a little cold spell to get them ready for harvest and it looks like we will be having a pretty good harvest of them again.  We are planning to dry them the same ways we did last year with the hydrator and the air drying technique.  We enjoyed eating them this way for a really long time.  I can almost taste the homemade persimmon breads and cookies now…yum!

Some flowers seem to look their best at the end of the summer and my French lavender and Autumn Sages are really showing some vivid colors right now.  It’s a little strange thinking it is fall when a few days ago it was in the 100’s and now it is chilly and got me looking for my slippers and sweats.  It was a nice summer here with a good mix of hot spells and a little cooling off in between, but there is something so welcoming about fall that just makes me want to get cozy in the house and bake something.  Thinking of the holidays that will be coming just around the corner and hopefully more rainy days than snowy ones makes me think of sewing projects to work on and maybe I’ll even get some painting done in the house.  For now though I am dreaming of a bountiful harvest down the road from my little garden…one of these days!

Ferne

Smokey Days at Hummingbird Farms

What looked like a thunderhead at first turned out to be smoke and not to far away.  It has been smoky here for more than a week with all the fires around Mt. Lassen and now in Manton and Shingletown.  Last we heard it was headed to Mineral.  Luckily the winds didn’t pick up and what wind there was blew it away from us, but it was a little too close for comfort.  I watched a little video on how smoke affects the flavor of grapes and therefore wines.  The original lightening strikes that started this fire was right near the wineries in Manton and we haven’t heard yet how they faired. 

The funny thing is that the day this fire started I had just picked all of our grapes that we were going to dry to make raisins.  After 2 days in the dehydrator we have some really tasty raisins, I know because I just had some in my morning oatmeal.  The grapes we grew were called Venus.  They make a small grape with a little seed that just gives the raisin a little crunch, but no bad flavor.  It seems the seed is not in every grape so it is not a problem.  After we dehydrated them we put them in the freezer to kill off any bugs that might be in them.

My Grandson came for a short visit a few weeks ago and we dug potatoes and picked strawberries.  He is showing signs of being a true gardener.  He climbed right into my raised be and dug in and actually found a few potatoes for me.  He was more interested in picking strawberries though and carefully looked for the totally red ones before he picked them then had me stem them and into his mouth they went.  Not many berries made it up to the house that day.  I had such a fun time with him that day and look forward to many more of the same!

This week my thoughts are turning to fall as I get ready to teach a fall veggie planting class at the nursery that I have been recently transferred to in Redding.  It is a lot larger than the nursery I was working at, but the customers and employees have welcomed us all with open arms and we are settling in just fine.  So if you are in vicinity of Redding, CA stop in at Wyntour Gardens and say “hi!”.

Keep growing and sowing!

Ferne

Orange Purple Smudge…What a beauty!

  This is my first tomato of the season.  Actually I had one more, but it wasn’t one that I started from my very own seed.  There is great satisfaction in bringing up a little seedling all the way to adulthood where is is producing beautiful fruits like this for my pleasure.  Now that is pay back for all my precious loving care.  This is also the largest Orange Purple Smudge tomato I have ever grown, guess I fed him right!  I have been using a lot of compost and products with humic acid in them and it seems to be working well.  One such product is John & Bob’s Soil Enhancer.  I also experimented with Dr. Earth Metabolizer.  Working in a nursery vendors sometimes send us free samples to try and this was one I really liked.  I think some of what I tried this year is big on the market for those growing their own ‘medicine’, but it really does work well on your edible crops too.  There is a lot of focus on the other type of crop these days, but I am finding that we both can teach each other a lot about growing plants when we share information. 

Working in a nursery has brought me in contact with lots of people growing lots of different things and the wealth of information we can bring each other has been very rewarding.  Unfortunately the nursery I am currently working at is about to close, the owner does own another wonderful nursery and that might be my future job location, but for now I am focusing on closing this one and enjoying the company of the many customers I have gotten to know along with the companionship of my fellow employees that have become good friends and confidants. It will be hard to say good-bye to both, but I will hope to see them all in the future and share some more tips and just ‘life’ with them all.

Life is good!

Ferne