Plant, Harvest, Rain, Repeat

We have been busy planting everything from Red Russian Kale to carrots and beets, Broccoli, Lettuces, collards and all sorts of fall crops the last four days. Every day we plant a bunch of seeds it rains in the afternoon. Most everything is under shade cloth now (as far as the tender greens) with micro sprinkler irrigation with drip also set up. Infrastructure makes the farm what it is. Water cisterns are filling up and we are soon completing the irrigation system with 100% Off the Grid technology; solar panel, small pump, water from the sky and an old battery. Just waiting on some cables to connect everything and a transformer for backup.

Harvesting the first cutting of this Valentine Lettuce this morning for the Farmers Market this afternoon. That's fresh! 

Four days ago we planted all these seeds then got rain everyday since. 

Everything's Coming In Now..

We are getting ready to head up to Colorado for a week. Lots of projects have been getting done around the farm in preparation. We have built new pastures for the chickens, planted brussels sprouts, lettuce, chard and carrots in a newly built low tunnel, and made many small adjustments to the irrigation system. With a couple of good storms we got some cooler weather which made all of our work easier. 

The purple pole beans are covered in flowers

Tiny pole bean

Cucumbers growing up the opposite side of the pole bean trellis

Tiny pickling cucumber.

Cucumber flower

Lettuce just after harvesting for market. This salad greens mix is growing under
the pole bean/cucumber trellis.  The tunnel that the vines from the bean and cucumber
plants form make it easy to create a microclimate suitable for the lettuce this time of year.

Yellow Taxi tomatoes

Seeds

We went to Plants of the Southwest this afternoon and picked up some seeds. A great place for native trees, shrubs, veggies and herbs. The Santa Fe location is very nice, complete with an adobe building and a rammed earth/ log beam building. Also a really nice adobe retaining wall as you drive in. They also have an Albuquerque location we have yet to check out.

Seeds we picked up today include:

-Purple Podded Pole Bean (100 seeds)
-Carrots- Chantenay & Touchon (200 seeds ea.)
-Early Wonder Tall Crop Beets (200 seeds)
-Mizuna (100 seeds)
-Dwarf Blue Curl-leaf Kale (100 seeds)
-Lettuce Cutting Mix (500 seeds)

Perennial Herb garden:
-Echinacea Angustifolia (50 seeds)
-Oregano (100 seeds)
-Chives (100 seeds)
 -Perennial Arugula (100 seeds)

To be started in trays inside:
-Cherokee Purple Tomato (50 seeds)
-Genovese Basil (100 seeds)

Chiles are up!

our experimental buried pot irrigation seems to be working well...with warmer summer like weather the jalapenos and jemez chile are coming right up:

(Almost) Everything is in the ground!

Purple pole Beans planted on either side of our sweet new bean trellis/ lettuce shade:

Hopi Black Dye Sunflower.

Edible seed..black shell.

chiles planted.

jalapenos and jemez pueblo green chiles..

january was too warm.

the rest of our seeds arrived the other day..this is most of them. if you click on the photo you can see the names and pictures betterthree sisters test pot

seeds!

below is the seed order we just placed with Botanical Interests, it should be all we need, and we are already talking about putting more 1/2" line on the other side of the house for mainly "three sisters" (corn, beans and squash) and of all the seed i planted last week (tues. i think) the pinto beans are already up and we are expecting corn any day. this is a trial to see what germinates and how quickly. but only the stuff we saved, or bought from farmers. we also have ten or so pounds of extra planting garlic that was supposed to be for eating but sprouted and some was moldy, so i transferred it into a mesh-cloth bag in the shed.

post holiday weekend

firewood stacked and covered

pre-thanksgiving fire pit

busy preserving and whathaveyou

basket of ripe romas i think its the third full one

Garlic is in!

garlic was all planted yesterday and then today I watered it and mulched with straw bales

just a quick update from your two busiest farmers

chimney sweep before winter

misty mountain top

more drying and the internal debate over a dehydrator in the high desert.

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starting from seed

Below is the mother plant of the Chinook brewing hops. They were doing very well inside our mock-greenhouse. They were well settled until they went outside and got destroyed by strong winds coming over the mountain. But I remain optimistic, as there is a lot of new, good green growth that is wrapped itself around the twine up the house. Also the small clone had been outside a day or two and is looking really good. They really just need to get established the first year to survive their first winter, then I will harvest more hops every year after that.



Below is a photo of our tray of basil. (sweet basil i think it was) We have seen slow development with the basil and all the herbs in general. The sage is doing the best out of everything, although the basil has some really dark green new growth.