June On The Land

July 2, 2023 Sarah

June was interesting this year. It was cold. And wet. Mosiac Virus was popping up on people’s gardens across the western half of the state. I had many people sending me messages asking me what was wrong with their plants.

The main crop of June was bush peas. From the first of the month to the last week, we harvested many. They did well in the cooler weather with no bug issues this year.

We visited a friend’s homestead and got to hold baby piglets.

I loved their method of growing potatoes. Simple! Boxes that will decompose into the ground. Pretty genius really.

Speaking of potatoes, our compost pile is home to a massive crop of potatoes this year. They are growing strong.

Variegated Elderberry in flower. The tree is now at least 12 feet high, if not taller. It has taken off the past 2 years.

Daisies growing wild.

Garlic growing in the second field. I am mostly ignoring it, to see how it grows here. The only thing we do is water it when I remember (it’s not on a timed system yet) and we cut the garlic scapes off this month.

The Marshmallow bush. I planted this one in 2019 I think. It grows to at least 12 feet high annually, flowers, then dies back. As long as I water it heavily, it is happy.

Sage in flower.

First of the white strawberries.

Early June strawberries.

Nootka Roses in bloom. The hedgerow I planted of them has taken off this year, into a dense wall.

Garlic growing. With lots of weeds. But I don’t care. I just pull the invasive ones.

Just a reminder of crazy prices. $7 for rhubarb?? Yeah. No.

Artichoke from a second year plant.

We ate Bok Choy all June. It tends to get bitter and bolts to seed after June. So eat early!

Celery growing, with random potatoes growing up.

First of the tomatoes starting.

Potato flowers in another area.

White Sage is all that is left in the greenhouse for the summer, where it thrives in the dry heat.

This year I have come to the realization I want to live with messy versus perfection. So my rhubarb and herbs outside the fence are choked slightly with grasses? That is OK. It isn’t harming anything. It keeps moisture in. I’d rather the land produces well, than have it look perfect. I don’t have a helper to weed all day, and I have more to do than that. This is the orchard from the back, fenced to keep out the deer. It was the chicken run for a couple of years, but I moved them. As we work on it, I am going to add more trees and permanent plants such as Currant and Bay Laurel this summer.

And as June ended, the heat of July showed up on time…bringing promises of growth.

~Sarah

The World Went Apathetic

June 26, 2023 Sarah

It sounds bitter to say what I have to say. But it is the truth. painful and clear to me.

The world went back to “normal” this year, and became apathetic.

For blue states like Washington, normal came a lot later than much of the United States. Our governor dug his heels in so deeply that the rule for face masks in health care settings didn’t go away till April this year. And some hospital settings still require it. But as the “freedoms” were given back, people just became apathetic. No longer did they care. Their inspiration was gone overnight. They could travel, plexiglass came down, and everything opened back up. No longer were there vaccine rules for work and travel. Even though inflation took over and prices surged. Where I live gas is $2 more per gallon than 2 states over in Idaho. They just pay it – $5.39 a gallon currently. Life hasn’t returned to normal in the grocery stores either, but no one seems upset. Stripped shelves? It’s still so common people just keep walking. It often feels so dystopian. Yet in other states their prices are so much lower for groceries, and the shelves are stocked.

But where it really hits hard was watching people not caring about growing food anymore. I noticed it during late winter this year. The enthusiasm I had seen for the last 3 growing seasons wasn’t there. Life was just normal enough they didn’t have the feeling they needed to grow food anymore. Or were they desensitized to $5 a pound strawberries and $5 a head of cauliflower? I don’t know.

My view is those who grew before the pandemic years, they are still growing food. Those who started during the pandemic run? They have walked away from it. They were only growing food because they felt panicked, trapped and had fear. With all that gone, they are back to relying on the global food supply, eating food that grown by Big Ag. It might bot be perfect, it might have massive issues…but as long as they can buy (most of) what they want, then it’s OK.

This shows just how few people grow their own food in the US. And how reliant they are on grocery stores to eat. We of course not unusual, many first world countries function similar.

So getting back to “normal” isn’t a good thing. It means nearly no one is growing their own food if we are back to 2020 numbers.

But of course this isn’t necessarily easy to do. It requires a commitment and less freedom of time. But it really isn’t that much time once you are done with infrastructure. In the photo above it can be overwhelming to think of doing all that work. But you don’t do it in a year. It takes at least a few years, fitting in projects when you have time and the money/resources to complete it. The overall day in and day out though is just checking on watering, plant health and harvesting/seeding. This can be 15 minutes to an hour daily in grow season. In the off season it is often weeks without doing anything unless you are building a project.

I recently offended a person on social media by talking about growing food. They told me I was unrealistic – because they had a job, kids and their kids needed to be driven around every day for sports and classes. That MY growing food somehow offended them because they had made life choices where they had no free time. Well, perceived free time. When I pointed out how little time it takes, they went the anger route (which is typical). How I didn’t understand. I have 3 children. So yeah, I get time constraints and all. Often I do the work needed after dinner and dishes. I work quickly in the cool evening. Would it be more fun to sit on the couch and watch TV with the family? Well of course it would be more fun! But….when we are eating fresh produce it is worth having gotten up.

We all get 24 hours a day. How we spend those hours is up to each of us. How and where we live can of course affect it – and no, not everyone has a quarter acre or 5 acres to grow food on. Yet, even in an apartment you can grow in pots. Every apartment I lived in when young I always had pots somewhere. In college I had them on my neighbor’s roof, which I could reach by leaning out my kitchen windows. It had a scenic view of Interstate 5 right in town, but I sure grew tomatoes aplenty! It wasn’t glorious, but I tried.

If we were to follow his advice above, the love of growing food would follow.

Grow your 5 favorite veggies. Learn how to grow them successfully. Harvest and enjoy them. Repeat and repeat. And you will find how much you love doing it.

But don’t be apathetic. Don’t give up.

~Sarah

Gardening · Homesteading

April On The Land

May 10, 2023June 26, 2023 Sarah

April – the month where it’s planting and seeding time, yet it’s still cold and chilly – and even snows

Yet it’s time to start dreaming and buying.

The tiniest tomato seedlings struggling. But soon they will be huge.

I have no aversion to also buying tomato and pepper starts, and the tiny starts are very affordable. A month or two in the greenhouse and they are huge.

Growing happily.

Pepper plants must be protected here. They need heat and a lot of light to grow in the PNW.

Onion starts, which went into the ground in April. They are growing happily now.

Weeding beds. I didn’t tarp them last fall and well….that just means weeding.

And yet more weeds.

Currant opening up into blooms.

And then it snowed in late April.

But the snow was gone within hours and the plant starts kept humming along.

First wild strawberry blooms.

Peach tree just opening up.

Currants in further bloom.

Forgotten potatoes? Just toss them in the ground to grow.

Kale starts. The chickens will be happy.

Celery starts.

The boys getting the bed ready.

First of the asparagus coming up for spring. This is the year we can start harvesting.

Pepper plants moved up.

Moving up small tomato starts to 1 gallon pots.

Rhubarb starts hanging out happily in the garden.

Getting a set of red raspberry starts ready for a friend to take home.

Clancy Potatoes, grown from seed.

Quintay potatoes, grown from true seed.

Cherry tree in bloom finally, and looking beautiful this year. Our irrigation last year has paid off for the trees in the orchard.

As the tomatoes were potted up from 4″ pots to 1 gallon pots the shelves start filling up in the greenhouse.

We were weeding beds we created a year ago, when I noticed all the fungi in the wood chips we had layed. And yes, they were morels.

I counted so many, at least 100, that had popped up.

Last fall my oldest child swore up and down “you planted all the garlic” that we held back from the harvest. Yeah….no. Found an entire tray of garlic ready to go. Hundreds and hundreds of cloves. He hadn’t even looked down there, and it was in plain sight in our cellar. But at least it won’t be wasted, you can spring plant garlic easily.

My youngest using the dibbler to plant it in the rows next to the (meager) fall garlic that is coming up strong.

April was wet, and cooler. But everything started growing on schedule, so it was a good month.

~Sarah

Gardening

Hula Berries Vs. Alpine White Strawberries

April 4, 2023 Sarah

It will happen soon.

You will be walking into the local corporate owned grocery store, or a big box store, and your eyes will wander to a brightly colored wrap touting exotic looking strawberries in a pack of plants by the front door, or in the garden area. It will say Hula Berry on them.

And you will wonder, what is a Hula Berry?

It’s a Pineberry. Which is a term most people have not heard of. That is due to the unique flavor profile of the berry. For they have a taste that makes one think of Pineapple. Far too often though, articles will call them alpine strawberries, which they are not.

It is a hybrid of North American red strawberries Fragaria virginiana, and white strawberries native to Chile, Fragaria chiloensis. The actual Hula Berry plants are not self fertile, they need a red strawberry plant for that to happen. So usually you will see the plants sold in packs of 4, with 3 being it, and 1 being the red (a Sonata Berry plant). This means you must have active pollinators that have easy access to the plants, and you must keep the plants close together (within 12″). It will also at time produce red strawberries as well. In theory of course.

For the past few years the push to sell these strawberries has grown – because they can ask a very premium price on a product that doesn’t always deserve it. Since you only see them at certain places, they come across as exotic and rare. Also, because they are a branded item, that raises the price.

Don’t get me wrong, they are fun to grow for sure.

But I have found over 6 years of growing them, the actual crop is about this….yearly:

That is if you are lucky. And being I have children, you can guess how many I get. 1 berry. Oh boy! Big time eating!

Maybe there are growers who can grow these babies like crazy and are hauling in basket after basket, but for those I know in the growing community, most of us get the same results give or take.

That they are a flop in general. For me at least.

I’ve grown them in ground, raised beds, in baskets hanging, in gutters. What they excel at is putting on runners for sure, and making a mat over the ground. Very few flowers occur yearly.

So it is disappointing because you spend money and time, but don’t get the promise.

And you have to ensure your single pollinator plant, the male red one, doesn’t die. I have to think overall that is what has happened to my sets. That the lone red didn’t make it over the winter (which in itself is sad because strawberry plants are very hard to kill off, they are some of the most resilient plants you can grow).

So, if you do get lured in, try them out, but realize they might flop. And that is OK. Just treat it as an annual plant.

There is though a better alternative out there.

Actual alpine strawberries. Calling Hula Berries “alpine” isn’t right. They are full sized berries, and further, do not grow like alpine types. Alpine strawberry plants are so different looking that many people don’t quite recognize them at first. Most of the varieties grow like small delicate bushes. Rather than having a small rooted plant, and a zillion runners that criss cross the ground. Only a few of them produce runners. Most alpine strawberry types are of European ancestry as well. You can grow white (White Soul, Ivory and White Solemacher are 3 to talk about), yellow and many shades of red. The berries are typically small compared to commercial strawberries. But have a lot of flavor. They also typically don’t produce berries that do well for selling. They are best picked and enjoyed quickly.

Growing them has a learning curve, when it comes to seeding them. They need a lot of time. It can take up to 14 weeks for them to germinate. But once that happens, you are on easy street. And even if you think you have killed a plant over winter, give it time…chances are it will come back to life. They grow well in raised beds, in the ground and in hanging pots. The only area I found they didn’t do well was in gutters. Just too big for that.

Many years ago, when we were first starting farming and homesteading, I grew my first alpine, Yellow Wonder, and was hooked on the plants. Some years I have grown as many as 18 types of alpine berries at once. I blundered into a small company called The Strawberry Seed Store, and became a loyal customer yearly.

A great example is the variety Fragaria vesca, also known as ‘Pineapple Crush’. The berries are ample, delicious, and once the seeds germinate you won’t look back.

Various color berries – and showing how they look physically.

Various types:

On a side note, for much of North America, wild strawberries look like this:

Tiny little berries, suited for Chipmunks and small birds to nosh on. On our island these grow everywhere, especially in rocky areas with little water (they don’t hate Madrona Trees I have found).

~Sarah

Gardening · Homesteading

State Of The Garden In March

April 1, 2023 Sarah

Kirk and I went to Antartica and took a chunk of March (and February) off from the homestead. I really needed that to appreciate what I have. It was a very long trip, we traveled around 18,000 miles round trip, to Argentina and beyond.

Once in a lifetime trip.

Yet….as I came home I realized I did miss my little spot of land. I actually felt very conflicted over our trip. It was so long, and I felt uneasy over it. At the same time, I felt that maybe this might be my only chance to go, and who knows what the future will bring for air travel, countries getting along and such.

But I was rewarded with spring trying its hardest to start. March was overall normal – rainy at some points, sunny weather often and even warm days. It was good growing weather, with the returning daylight.

The day we left I had potted up all these Elderberry starts, they were bare root ones. By end of the month life was showing.

Douglas Fir starts.

Rhubarb returning.

Hellebore in bloom.

First growth in the swimming pool section.

The Lupine my youngest grew me from seed is now returning I think 3rd year.

The girls are producing spring numbers. It went quickly from 1-3 eggs a day to 10 to 15 a day. In a matter of a few days once we hit March.

The sign that would get me kidnapped.

A neat idea I saw.

The potting area finally has a bird netting over the top to just make it that much better.

Plant starts.

Potted up into 4″ pots, they will grow many times bigger before I move them into the ground end of April.

I worked hard to get the swimming pool area finished, since these were my first to be planted beds. The fence I built out of scraps and zip ties. I figure…you use what you have. It was so cold those days while building. The wind was howling in off of the Salish Sea. I’d get 10 zip ties done, then run into our greenhouse to thaw, and repeat. As long as it deters the deer, then it works.

~Sarah