The Seed Catalog of My Dreams

If you haven't gotten on the mailing list for a seed catalog from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, let me tell you why you should.

Have you ever seen a Backpacker tomato?

Seed catalogs get gardeners through the cold months, the rain, the snow, the wind, and the lack of eggs from lazy chickens. Right about now, when the last few struggling plants have blackened and shriveled back into the mulch that covered their roots through the first freezing nights and blankets of snow, the mind of a city farmer turns to thoughts of spring.

Our trusty Subaru beneath a cozy blanket of snow. Heated seats and all-wheel drive make snow like this a pure joy.

Well, almost every city farmer thinks of spring. There are many weeks to get to that phase, and in the meantime..... I love winter. It's such a wonderful season of darkness and slowing down (when we can), of warm fires and hot chocolate, baking and simmering, twinkling lights and the smell of snow in the air. We took a day trip to Leavenworth last weekend. It snowed at least fifteen inches in five hours. We shopped and walked through the bustling streets of the small tourist town, aka Bavarian Vegas, which was the description offered by one group of people who slid past us on the icy path. The lights came on in the early evening, and we watched children sled down a small hill in the center of town. It sealed the deal that the holidays were really upon us. We might just make that trip a seasonal tradition.

What happens in Leavenworth, stays in Leavenworth.

And while I'm off the subject, let me also mention that I am especially grateful for the three week break from college. I apologize for my lack of presence lately, but essays and exams take over my life at times. Working full time and going to school full time leaves room for little else, so I'm trying to savor as much of the season as I can before the rush comes back to our day-to-day.

But back to the seeds. And spring. I do love spring, despite the fact that I must give up winter to get to it. Spring always starts with a stirring desire to plant seeds in little pots. I get to the point in winter where I genuinely need little green things around me. It's like a desire to nest. I get broody and need to feel dirt under my fingers.

See what I mean? Centerfold. I thought about taking this on my train ride to work, but I think I'd actually blush if I got busted staring at the winter squash.

I know this is coming, and I am armed with catalogs. This year I was especially on top of things, and the seeds are not only ordered, they have indeed arrived. They'll sit in the shortbread tin on the counter until the days begin to warm and the planting itch starts. If only I had known a new catalog was on its way.

Enter Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

In all honesty, I cannot say that I have ever seen a more beautiful seed catalog in my many years of gardening and farming. It was more like a magazine, a full spread of lingerie-like-lettuces and centerfold squashes ready to jump from the pages and plant themselves in the waiting raised beds of my imagination. Page after page of sweet and hot peppers made me salivate for the salsa I've never made but dreamt about. Clusters of bright red, striped green, flat, skinny, round, ripe tomatoes tempted me and made me forget, if only for a moment, that the more tropical plants barely survive in our cool, northern climate. Nine types of rutabaga, twice as many turnips, mysteries from Siberia and parts of Russia, stabilized and imported for you to welcome into your vegetable rows amazed me. I began to rethink that seed order, paid for and received, planned, simply waiting for an opportunity, sitting in a shortbread tin with stray packets of those little dessicants they put in shoe boxes. How could I not include these new (old) heirloom plants? Would I find satisfaction with my meager stock of plain cukes and ordinary beans? More importantly, how could I get away with making another seed order without my girlfriend catching me?

Maybe you don't need this kind of conflict in your life. If that's the case, forget I mentioned this HEART-STOPPINGLY-GORGEOUS seed catalog. Spare yourself the agony of choosing between the hundreds of varieties of names like Hero of Lockinge Melon, or Little Fingers Eggplant, or Crapaudine Beet.

But if you're at a friend's house, and you see this catalog lying around, tempting you with glimpses of full color photographs and delectible descriptions, resist the urge to pick it up before you're ruined like me. I don't think I can ever go back to the pale, two-dimensional life of other seed catalogs again.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Where has the time gone? Really, folks. I mean it. I wake up and it's dark, my train ride to work is dark, the ride home is dark... It's no wonder the hens refuse to lay eggs when the days get shorter. But the specific time I'm referring to today is the year of blogging we've just completed! The first blog post here was on November 7th, 2009, and we've come a long way since those early days. Ready for a trip down memory lane?

Six tiny chicks showed up at the local post office in the late part of summer 2009. It was August, we had just gotten home from a great road trip vacation to Yellowstone NP, Grand Teton NP, and Glacier NP. (This was the vacation where Aimee really got to get in some serious "wheel time" driving the Subaru. I napped in the passenger seat and woke up to find her cruising along at 83 mph in Montana. Yikes!) The coop was nearly finished, and the brooder box was warm and waiting. Portia, Ellen, Raquel, Ursula, Ingrid, and Norma Jean all thrived in those late summer weeks. By December we had our first eggs.

Sadly, we lost one of our chicks in early 2010. Norma Jean, tragically named after Marylin Monroe, died young of an overdose. If only we could have sensed the foreboding in her name. It was a terribly sobering event after such initial success, and it forced us to come to terms with how attached we had become to our little ladies in the backyard.

Bartering eggs around the neighborhood opened up new lines of communication, friendship, and sharing, and we credit the chickens and the garden in the front yard for much of this. One neighbor was so caught up with the beauty of our hens than he asked us to raise a few for him. He built a great little coop and run, and his three chickens are now happy and healthy, and I think they're probably a bit spoiled.

That same batch of chicks brought three new lives into our own flock, though we could never have guessed how much they would teach us or force us to grow over the course of a summer. Winona, the luckiest (or unluckiest) little Wyandotte I have ever known, started out a little slower than her brooder box mates. I dropped a board on her and nearly killed her, but she simply refused to give up. After a few days in isolation under a heat lamp, she rejoined her sisters and has grown up to be pretty close to normal. As it turns out, her inability to prevent getting whacked by me is probably related to her scissor beak condition. To this day, her beak must be clipped regularly, her eyesight leaves a lot to be desired, and she's extremely shy about portait shots with the camera. Though she consistently peck an inch to the left of snacks on the ground, she's a fighter. In other words, she's really darned plump.

Dark Meat is the embodiment of pure joy. I have yet to capture a video of her antics, but believe me that it will be worth the wait when that movie shows up. Perhaps a dedicated post to our funniest chick is in order soon. Neither of the two youngers chickens have started to lay eggs, and this Friday they will be 33 weeks old. They seem to have the support of the toughest chicken union I have ever negotiated with.

Rusty, formerly known as Milla, was the most robust, beautiful, and biggest chick we had ever seen. We remained firmly in denial about his gender until the infamous "borkle" sound I heard one afternoon. We struggled with our decision to slaughter him, and we learned so much about respect and personal limits, none of which were anticipated. Though we have received some criticism about butchering our own animal, it was an important step for the future farm we will someday own. On a personal level, slaughtering an animal I genuinely loved has changed my internal compass for eating, and it has opened my eyes to behaviors and practices I feel I can no longer ignore.

We cut down the massive, very old, and incredibly frail douglas fir in our front yard during the peak of the summer heat. That seemingly simple act has opened up a world of possibility for our small raised bed garden, and we are now looking forward to more work, more harvesting, and more sunlight in our future.

What's to come in the future? If we have learned anything in the last year of urban farming it is that planning is fun, but the farm will make its own decisions with or without our input. Below is a list of hopes, and some of them feel a bit like New Year's resolutions, which is to say that fulfilling or ignoring them are both viable options.

• Honey bees are the next big goal. We'll be starting out with a single hive in the front yard in the spring, and we hope to learn much about the lives and organization of bees, pollination, listening to the weather, and collecting honey.
• Meat birds are the next logical step after Rusty. Though this particular item is under some heavy scrutiny at the moment, it will eventually happen in the coming years, even if next year is not good timing.
• The garden shed will be getting a concrete floor, and we hope to have this completed before the end of 2010. Both it and the garage could use a lot of love and work, but we'll handle that one project at a time. In the meantime, we need a safe place for storage, and we're looking forward to growing more of our garden starts under cover.
• The reclaimed "acreage" in the front yard needs to be converted into beds and a mini orchard. Building raised beds can be a lot of work, but we've had such great success with those that we already have, and Aimee really wants a place to grow raspberries. I'm hoping to rig one or more of them to accomodate a mini hoop house for tomatoes, cukes, and possibly some other fun veggies.
• The line of stumps in the backyard is gone, thanks to the fine efforts of the chickens. A second mini orchard may find its home there.
• Our parking strip is the last vestige of grass (by which I mostly mean weeds and clover) in front of the house. One bed of herbs is already planted, and at least four more are planned. In my mind (as idyllic and ridiculous as it is known to be), I imagine our neighbors casually wandering over to clip oregano and parsley for their dinners in the summer evenings. In reality, I am prepared for more than a little cat poop.
• Many of the bedding plants around the house are going to be removed and re-homed to make way for rhubarb, berries, and who-knows-what-else. We both agree that the calla lilies are waning, the single mum doesn't get enough light, and the dhalia always gets infested with aphids. It's time for edible permaculture.

Are we too ambitious? Probably, but it's always funny to watch us try. Stay tuned over the next year to see what really gets done. What are your plans for gardens, farms, animals, and such?

I Am a Real Farmer

There are few moments in urban life that really make you feel like the rest of the world would acknowledge your aggie abilities. Growing parsnips proved to be one of those moments for me. Let me backtrack to the beginning.

I started out growing cacti and succulents in pots way back when all I had was an apartment window or a tiny balcony. Something special happened when I grew my first pot of tomatoes in one of those apartments, and I haven't stopped looking for places to plant veggies since. I've had a couple of p-patches and a couple of houses, and each time I start a new garden, I stick with safe, predictable plants. Somehow they rarely thrive. Do I not have a green thumb? To be honest, growing vegetables in pots can be difficult. They need frequent watering and fertilizing, and you can't leave them unattended for a long weekend if it's going to be hot. I've seen some people have success with potted veggie gardens, but those folks are smart enough to grow their plants in big tubs. Itty Bitty did a great post about this very subject not so long ago. But growing veggies in the soil, raised be or no, can be tough, too.

What was I doing wrong all those years? Why did some plants outperform others? How come my tomatoes always ended up with blossom end rot? And why don't carrot seeds sprout in real life like they do in magazines?

The answers to those questions fall into two categories. For the sake of readability, I'll split them up into theories.

Theory #1

Gardening is not a single year activity. Whether you grow things in pots, raised beds, hanging baskets, neat little rows, or by the acre, improvement in soil composition will have the biggest impact on your plants' performance. For the first time in my life as a farmer, I am beginning to understand how important caring for my soil really is. Tomatoes need calcium and magnesium. Without these essential minerals, blossom end rot will cover every tomato on every vine. Though the soil in those p-patch plots was wonderful, rich, organic soil, everyone had grown tomatoes in it, and no one had put those minerals back.

Hint: If you raise chickens like we do, you'll have an abundance of egg shells to deal with, and egg shells are a fantastic source of calcium and magnesium. When you throw them in the compost, they take forever to break down. Instead, collect a bunch of shells (I read one account of a guy who kept a big jar by his sink for just that purpose), crush them into smaller pieces, and throw them in the oven to dry out. There's no need to spend time baking egg shells by themselves, just keep them handy and put them in the oven while you're baking other things or while the oven is heating up and cooling down. Once they're totally dry (white egg shells will take on a slightly golden hue), crush them into a chunky powder with a mortar and pestle. Sprinkle this fairy dust around the base of your tomato plants. 

Our chickens have also taught us a lot about compost. I used to compost for fun, but I never had all the browns and greens to make a good, hot pile. Those days are over! Now we always have one batch resting while another is being turned. Sometimes two batches are getting turned at once! Each bin loads up the wheelbarrow about seven times, which is the equivalent of about 15 to 20 cubic feet of finished compost. We use all of that compost in our raised beds and as high-nutrient mulch for the bedding plants around the house. Read more about our composting here.

My point is that gardening doesn't take place in the spring or summer or fall, but it is a year-round entity in need of a lot of attention. Once I started spending a little time caring for our soil, everything began to grow as I had imagined it.


Theory #2

Pick easier plants to grow. How many years did I cry over some exotic plant that didn't survive? Why did I try so hard to grow tomatoes from seed when there are so many great places to buy starts? I make things hard on myself, but I'm learning to change that. By expanding the variety of things I grow into more reliable plants, I'm having more success. I'm also getting to try out veggies I've never eaten before, and it's a lot of fun!

I tried parsnips for the first time a few years ago when Aimee and I were visiting her family in Ireland. Her mother made carrot and parsnip mash. I fell in love. When we came home, I vowed to buy some parsnip seeds and give it my best shot. I was afraid they'd be slow to germinate or prone to split like all the carrots I'd ever grown, but that didn't stop me from planting them. Here's the result.

That's right, folks. I'm a farmer. Check out my parsnips. Each one weighs almost a pound.

As for germinating carrot seeds, I recently read that covering carrot seeds with a board after you water them will help keep the soil moist until those little suckers sprout. Getting carrot seeds to sprout is the real battle, so I'm looking forward to trying out that neat suggestion. After all, if I can grow rockin' parsnips...

What's Growing in Your Garden?

About mid-March in the Pacific Northwest, trees start budding, cherry blossoms snow in a light wind, bulbs emerge and bloom, and the first tender spring crops can be sown in the soil (especially if you garden in raised beds like we do). I like the concept of gardening year round, but my follow-through is usually a bit weak. I did, however, neglect to pull all the onions last year, so we'll have some nice, big onion bulbs at the end of the summer. We've also used our cold frame to nurse along some hardy herbs and grasses, and it is now planted with the first few seedlings for salads and stir-fry dinners. (I'd tell you what I planted in that bed, but I didn't mark anything. I'm hoping it'll all be a great surprise!) If we replace the window in the mud room this year, I can build a second cold frame. Here's to hoping!

If you were closer, you could see the first leaves of beets, mesclun, lettuce, and who-knows-what-else in that cold frame. It's probably one of the best and easiest projects we've undertaken so far. I'm really hoping to get a lot of use out of that thing.

It's also a good time to head out and pick up berry plants. This is the time to transplant all of them, since the likelihood of a hard frost is behind us. Aimee and I picked out some strawberries and blueberries this morning, and I transplanted them this afternoon (in the rain and wind, because I'm hard core).

There are five blueberry bushes in this bed, three varieties. Raised beds give you a number of benefits. They warm up quickly in the spring, they provide great drainage, no intense digging is required at the start of each planting year, and you can space plants closer together since the roots don't get stepped on. Blueberries need to be as much as five feet apart in standard planting rows or hedges. Here, each plant has about 18 to 24 inches between it and its neighbors.

Strawberries love the weather we get. They come in two main types; ever-bearing and June-bearing. We bought four of each. Ever-bearing strawberries produce a slower crop of berries from June until the first frosts. June-bearing.... well, you can guess. The advantage of getting your whole crop over a three week span is for freezing and making batches of jam. Or, if you're like us, you'll eat berries from sunrise to sunset through the whole summer and then pine for them for the rest of the year.

We're trying a new method for growing potatoes this year. I read somewhere that you can grow taters in a burlap sack. Start by filling the sack one quarter full with compost. Plant one or two tubers in each sack (we went with two), then roll the sack down (like the ones pictured here). As the plants grow, roll up the edges of the burlap and fill in more compost. At the end of the growing season, tip the bags over and have a harvest party. We're growing red, blue, and fingerling potatoes. I'll let you know how this method works out in a few months.

The garden shed is also currently home to a large group of seedlings. We've started brussels sprouts, cabbages, lettuce, mesclun, endive, bok choi, borage, and oregano, and the rest of the seeds are jumping at the pots as the days warm up. I can't wait to get more going.

Feel the Cold in Your Bones

The overnight temperatures in Everett have been slightly below freezing all week, and they will continue to be very cold through early next week. This kind of crisp winter weather is nice in a lot of ways, even if it means I had to dig out the gloves for dog walkies this morning. The garden is put to bed....




The cold frame we built during the summer is keeping the chill from our ornamental grasses and slightly-larger-than-seedling-sized herbs....




And nature leaves us beautiful patterns in the frost...




Due to this cold snap, we have been closing the door on the chickens' living space. Their body heat is tremendous, but their appetite has them pecking at the door early in the morning. Today they received some very special strawberry tops and the end of my bowl of cheerios and milk. I was astonished at how thoroughly they polished everything off. Our vacation begins on Monday, so I will happily clean out the refrigerator and give the girls what little we cannot eat in the next two days. I wondered yesterday afternoon what things you can and cannot feed chickens, and I was very pleased to find this resource on the Backyard Chickens website. It is a humorous and detailed list of what chickens like and what they should not eat. A good read all around.

As the sun has been shining more this last week, the girls have been out and about in the yard, pecking at my newly planted grass, scratching in the compost, and completely demolishing the hydrangea that I'm not terribly fond of. When Aimee saw the carnage, she shouted for joy, which endeared me to her just that much more. When Aimee decides a plant must go, there is no mercy in her ways. During their long hours of free roaming, Ellen was slow, got backed into a corner, and the following photos were the result. I particularly enjoyed her close-ups, as her feathers are quite beautiful.

An Afternoon of Sunshine

Yesterday was a rare treat for the Pacific Northwest in November. It was cold, but the sun was shining all day long. I skipped out early from work and went home to let the girls out for a little grass-pecking fun.




They get more bold with each outing. Originally they crowded under the lilac tree by the garden shed and flew back to the coop anytime someone got nervous. Norma Jean is the Magellan of the group, frequently wandering far from her feathered friends. Her explorations have convinced them all that foraging under the weeping maple tree is worth the exposure, especially now that most of its leaves have fallen and been raked into the compost bins.

The ground in front of the compost bins we built this summer originally held a brick patio. I'm guessing that the brick came from the original chimney in the house, most likely the part from the attic that would have protruded through the roof (which it obviously no longer does). Our house was remodeled in the 1980's, and that's probably when this little patio was put together. I removed it this summer, and it has been transformed into the path around the chicken coop. Yay for reusing! Where the patio had been, compost was spread and grass seed was planted. It recently sprouted, which brought great joy for a moment before I realized the girls were systematically consuming the whole patch of seedlings! Well, that's life with chickens, I suppose. I shoo them off, they wander back when I'm not looking. It's an agreement we can all live with. That grass had better be hardy stuff if it wants to live in this household.




This was also the first year of growing nearly everything from seed for the garden. While most of the annuals are in the compost pile after a productive summer, the front beds are loaded with onions for the winter and spring to come. In preparation for next year, I've begun a collection of herbs and ornamentals which will live in the garden shed once the cold weather really hits.




The Bunny Tails grass has been a favorite every time we've visited the nursery, so I bought some seeds, and look what we got! It's soft to the touch already, much like the downy fur behind a rabbit's ears. We also have a good collection of Elijah Blue Fescue, rosemary, sage, borage (which is an annual but seems to be defying our current weather!), and lavender. My goal is to have something green in the shed that I can visit when the days are grey and dreary. So far, so good.