Another Warm Day

A bit of progress today: dug in the potato beds, turned over some new ground for beans. Planted 4 shallot bulbs: Holland Red and Dutch Yellow. Planted our four grape vines, tasty Muscat, then Gewurztraminer, (I'm sipping an oregon gewurz right now!)as well as Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir.


I also cheated. I put in five seedlings of Oregon Sugar Pod Pea that I bought at the nursery. But at least we've got some produce in production!

Doing what Dirt Does

We went up to the farm again today to check on progress, and the dirt still is doing what dirt does. It looks like dirt. It smells like dirt. Gretel tried it and it tastes like dirt too, very tasty dirt actually.

We have a few weeds popping up, but as of yet nothing we planted has turned up. So today instead of admiring our new crops as we planned, we dug in the potato beds and installed our first non-raised bed. We also planted red, yellow, and white onion sets, as well as an entire row of garlic.

So I hope that people like garlic, because we may have a lot of it. Fortunately, it tastes good in food. It looks nice hanging braided in the kitchen. It might even make for good Christmas gifts. We'll have to see about that, you can let us know. In addition to the garlic growing at the farm, we have garlic planted in our backyard that we borrowed from Mike's garden in Newport. This will be year two for that patch, so hopefully we'll have a big crop!

Patience (Patients)

Still, somehow, there is no green growth at the farm. This is Ok though--the warm sun is nice, the dirt smells fresh, birds are chirping, and after the usual rainy winter, Oregonians' hearts beat a little quicker knowing that spring is coming around the corner.

Our patience has paid off, and beautiful weather is ahead. Knowing this makes it easier to be able to continue waiting and anticipating our first sprouts. Wiser writers than me have said that patience is a virtue.

Others have declared that gardening teachs patience, and sometimes it is clear that parts of our population have missed this lesson. How can a mom bring their child in to the ER complaining of an earache for 20 minutes? How can the patient with a headache that started at 6pm whine at 8pm that they've been suffering in the waiting room for 3 hours? The math doesn't add up, and even if it did, where are the patient patients? Why not try some Tylenol... then wait...., then Motrin if at first you didn't succeed in getting relief?

That's what we'll have to do with the garden for now--keep trying patiently until we get the results we're looking for. If our mesculin mix doesn't sprout in two weeks, we'll try the "spring salads mix" next. And if after a few weeks that hasn't succeeded, well at least the weather will be better by then, and maybe the beet greens might have sprouted.

Sunshine

The sun has been shining for a few days now, giving us daytime temperatures in the upper 50s. With the sun still low on the horizon, we only get a few hours of direct sun over the trees, and today we were there too see it.

As you can see, our plot is making a lot of progress from only a few weeks ago. We're working hard to have the beds ready to go as soon as spring really gets here. Top left in the narrow bed isspinach and mixed lettuce, followed by beets/carrots/onions/shallots in #2. Gretel is working on the rock garden, which is very productive already, thank you very much. Bed #3 will be beans, brussel sprouts, and a few tomatoes and peppers. To the right of that are two strawberry mounds, Quinalt followed by Eversweet. 1 of 2 potato beds is represented by the small box.

In the lower left is an 18" wide asparagus bed, with crowns planted 2/21: 5 Jersey Knight, 3 Sweet Purple, and 3 Mary Washington.

Salem

The other day we took some time out to go visit the Koulibali family in Salem. It was a beautiful warm day, and Uncle Andy's love of farmwork inspired the kids to help plant a tree in the park near their house.

More crops in!

Despite the cold, we planted small rows of beets, carrots, onions, and shallots. We also planted two kinds of peas. According to local sources, the peas are supposed to be in by now already. The beets, carrots, and onions are supposed to go in "as soon as the ground is warm enough to dig. Probably we're still a little early (as the ground was frosted today) but that's why we just planted a few small rows.

Thank you Evil Empire

We found a source of free compost, at Starbucks of all places. The used beans go back in the bag, and then they're available for free with your coffee purchase. Fortunately Gretel purchases a lot of coffee.

Frost--Oh My!

The last few days have been warm and sunny, up in the 50s. Today will probably be at least as nice, but this time of year our garden is still in the shade. And its a few hundred feet higher than our house. So today it was frozen!

It' still a cold February, so not much is new in the garden. The tomato bowl from last year sits empty, produce free. Except for an occasional Mia Macaroni!

Signs of Spring

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Thanks again for the overwhelming show of support for Portland's smallest garden. Unfortunately, for every 100 positive emails we receive, there are always 2 or 3 who doubt our plans about the micro-cattle herd, or who think we're daftly defying the laws of nature by planting so early. So to settle those concerns, here are two pictures I took this afternoon of the first flowers blooming in our backyard. And for the record, anyone who has seen our dungeon of a backyard knows that if these flowers can blooming there, growing conditions up on the hill at the Miller City Farm must be nearly perfect!

Micro-cattle herd

Our blog has only been up for a few hours, and tons of support is already rolling in.

We do appreciate all the tips about small cows for our small farm. Regretfully, our farm is a "VERY small farm", and so far only "KINDA small cows" have been developed, such as the Dexter breed shown here.

We do look forward to raising a herd of beef cattle, but this will have to wait until the average bull size can be bred down to about 10 pounds an animal.

32 square feet now developed

Two raised beds are now in. #1 is 8' x 18", #2 is 8' x 30". We're getting hungry just thinking about all the fresh vegetables we'll be eating!

First crop is in the ground

Gretel gets the first raised bed ready for planting. Sure its only February 15th, but with weather forcast for 60s over the weekend, and global warming in full progress, we decided we'd roll the dice in get the first seeds in the ground now. Of 45 garden owners, we were only the second to turn our beds over, and we're the first to have seeds in the ground. Tune in 6 weeks from now for a mixed greens and winter spinach!

We bought the farm!

Welcome to the Miller's City Farm. We've pulled up our roots (from the planter on the back porch) and moved on to some wide open spaces.

It was quite an investment, but for $50 we now have a lease on our second piece of property in Portland, and its a whopping 20' x 20'!! It's true, 400 sqft of acreage is now ours for the whole year. With so much extra space we're not sure what we're going to do with it all!