Because it is SO exciting....

Go check out this site:

http://www.kitchengardeners.org/

First Eating

We had our first salad with some of our home grown lettuce, the romaine. It only augmented the lettuce we had purchased at the Berkeley Bowl, but still...very exciting!! We swore it tasted different from the other leaves..:) And truthfully, we have used herbs from the deck garden in some meals (thyme, rosemary and parsley). But this first salad was a thrill!

The cherry tree is leaving very well, so I watered it last night for the first time since planting (not including mother nature's rain last week). I am so excited to watch it over the years; it still has blossoms, but they are getting sparce.

Finally for today, the fava beans are sprouting strongly (see pic next to salad) and should be bolting well in the next two weeks. I planted those a little late (no choice with the bed building schedule) so if we don't get a good harvest this year, I will for sure sow them outdoors much earlier next cool season.

outside the farm

The farm includes areas that are just outside the boundaries (read fence) of all the raised beds. Here is a photo of the bed I built around the Buddha that sits in the front of our house, at the top of the lane. I have planted mostly seeds here (double-headed cosmos, poppies, lemon sunflowers) which should come to full bloom mid-summer.

I met a homeless fellow named James walking Lottie in the neighborhood on Thursday and he was asking for work to make some money. He had taken note of the remaining dirt mountain and asked if he could help move it. I told him to check back over the weekend, that I was not sure what I was doing with it. So check back he did on Sunday! And by that point I had conceived and built the bed around the Buddha. For two bottles of water and some cash, James moved all the dirt you see in the picture into the bed, including all the holes of the cider blocks I used to set up the retaining wall. Now he and I can both enjoy watching the progress of the decorative bed we basically set up together!

time to be patient

I want everything to grow fast. And it is. But not fast enough. I think I can harvest some lettuce leaves by the weekend to eat, but the basil seeds have not sprouted yet. Chard is getting big and strong (see pic), but wee fava is just poking their heads out. And really besides digging the next big-ass hole for the wisteria we are going to plant by the gate, the most important thing is designing and building the pergola....and that chicken coop.

We cannot tell a lie...

We planted a cherry tree!

Yes, this weekend's garden project was digging a big-ass hole with a pick-axe and planting a beautiful flowering cherry tree! We won't be baking any cherry trifle, cause there won't be fruit, but it will be lovely.

In other news, the rain came back a wee bit today, but California still needs it, so we are grateful. However the custom BBQ will be arriving shortly, so the rain can stop anytime as far as the grill-master in this family is concerned.

Lastly, little Lottie had her first taste of garden goodness; consuming all our newly planted primroses in one fell swoop on Friday afternoon. You can see her here sniffing broccoli, so while we appreciate her appreciation for locally grown food, we will be working on training her that the garden beds are not for our four-legged children.

Food Grows!

After the epic rainfall we have sprouts!!! The food is on the way! OK, so the blurry shot is of seeds that have finally germinated, and the focused shot is broccoli started from seedlings. I will talk to the photographer about shot quality.

Rain done learn me

One of the main motives of this blog, besides chronicling the epic journey of our meals from raised bed to table, is to share mistakes; how we learn from them along the way.

So this morning I went out to walk the beds, squishing my way on the fully saturated ground in my Crocs, to discover that it has been raining so hard that all the dirt has been compacted into the beds such that I could get quite a bit more soil in there (and out of my driveway)! I thought I had tamped down plenty on Sunday, but my hoeing skills are no match for Mother Nature, apparently.

Plus I have minor fears that the seeds I planted may have drowned. We'll know their outcome in 7-10 days. Infanticide in the plant world is unfortunately an easy accident to commit.

The Violence of Rain

Man, we got some rain here at the Farm. We certainly need it, but the dog and the seedlings could use some sunshine, to say nothing of DM (dirt mountain).

First planting!

Alrighty, we planted our first crop of food (and a few flowers) today. Here is the breakdown:

from seed
fava beans
merlot lettuce
spinach
little gem lettuce

from starters
galactic lettuce (dark red, highly nutritious)
romaine lettuce
swiss chard
kale
broccoli
white bunching onion
long red florence onion
peas

flowers
foxgloves
royal sweet pea flower

on the deck
thyme
oregano
flat-leaf parsley
tarragon
basil
cilantro
mint
dill

Very exciting! As I pop open a brewski I feel full of hope for the season and excitement for all the meals to come! I will post photos tomorrow when the light of day is back.

Dirt Day

We had 4 cubic yards of fancy pants organic compost laden dirt delivered yesterday. Filling the newly built beds in the rain was the chore for today. Blank dirt is mildly stressful for me; there are so many choices for what to plant.