Oh, golly!  

Our growing season has come to an end: 

Sunday

October 18, 2020

7:00 p.m. 

will be our last day for the stand to be open. 

With the cold, wet spring we had, we were off to a late start opening to the public.  Several cool crops didn't make it and our winter squashes didn't produce as well as we would have liked, including our pumpkins and butternut squash.  However, warm weather crops kept the stand full of a wide variety of awesome veggies, green beans, cucumbers, red/green cabbages, lettuce, four varieties of potatoes, corn, a variety of summer squash, green/bulb onions, cherry/beefsteak tomatoes, celery, green peppers, eggplant, beets, the world's ugliest and tastiest carrots, winter squashes, including acorn, spaghetti, delicata, some herbs, garlic, pumpkins, gourds.  

We discovered a new variety of potato, Solar Gold.  If you liked the creaminess of our Clavellas (2019),  Solar Gold is just as creamy.  Solar Gold sold out, so we didn't save any to try to store over the winter.    

Lots of big plans/goals for 2021. (Including blogging more than once!  Arrgghh  Believe it or not, these days weeding is more fun for me than sitting at the computer. Plus, the product in the stand changes so quickly it was tough to keep up with Mom Nature.)  This winter hoping to finish a hard cover greenhouse that will stand up to the wind and get to work on our Barn restoration. 

Cover crop is planted and the rest of the gardens will be put to bed shortly.  Have a wonderful holiday season.   If you visited our stand this year, thank you for your support!  Much appreciated.  Stay safe!  Looking forward to spring, 2021 (and hopefully an open house/garden tour/product samples.   Don't forget to VOTE!  Make it a great day!  Doug and Char

       

FRESHLY DOUG VEGETABLES

 STAND IS OPEN!

10 a.m. to dusk (generally 8 p.m.) 

7 days a week.

Yay!  Finally.  

Ordered most of our seeds in January, including potatoes.

Started planting starts in greenhouse in February.

March added four additional raised beds.

St. Patrick's Day weekend planted peas, beets, carrots, lettuce, etc.

Continued planting in raised beds for planned June opening.

With the wet cold spring, and a wire worm infestation in three/four raised beds, spring crops were  devastated. No need to 'pull' plants out, they mostly fell out of the ground due no to few roots.  There went our spring opening!  Grrrrrr  The organic solution from the WSU Extension website seems to be working.  We will be out in the raised beds this winter to resolve the pest issue.   

Ah, well - try again next year!  Make it a great day!

Currently available - celery, green onions, garlic, four varieties of potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, limited green beans, summer squash.  

 

Summer and Fall produce is on the way!

For more info on available produce, please text 425-220-3904. 

Opening Some Time in June

Mother Nature sent us a cold, wet spring!  WHICH impacts how slowly/quickly our garden grows.  We are on track to open sometime in June featuring cool weather crops, Swiss Chard, beets, arugula, spinach, etc.  And, as is typical with our growing season, we will start out slow, then as the weather warms up, we will be adding cucumbers, zucchini, corn, green beans, etc.

Oh, and let's not forget COVID 19!  (Who would have thought???!!)  Washington State considers our Produce Stand an essential business, and we are allowed to open.  Early in April, when it became apparent that we're in it for the long haul, we sought safe opening guidance from the Snohomish Health District.  

To keep you and your family safe, we are requesting that our customers follow these guidelines:

• One family unit at a time in the stand.  If the stand is occupied, please wait in your car for your turn to shop.
• Each person, prior to entering, is required to wear a cloth mask.
• Please limit touching the produce to what you buy.  (As much as possible, produce will be pre-packaged for your convenience.) 
• We will continue to operate on the Honor System.

We PLEDGE the following:

• All produce will be harvested/handled/packaged using disposable food grade gloves and a cloth face mask.
• Fresh produce will be UNWASHED, but pre-packaged.
• High touch areas will be sanitized regularly.

During these trying times, we hope that you and your family are staying safe.   Take good care and Make it a great day!    Char
 

Comfort Food

Spaghetti Squash Recipe: 

As we have grown older, our produce "repertoire" has also grown.  20 years ago we had never heard of spaghetti squash.  As a spaghetti lover, the first time that I cooked it, I was surprised that it did not actually taste like spaghetti.  (Duh!!!????)  It was Doug who really, really liked it.  As a result, this wonderful winter squash is a staple in our garden.  We are trying to figure out a way to keep the 'fruit' up off the wet ground.  If the squash's outer "skin" is kept blemish free and stored in a cool, dark, semi-humid space, they can last up to six months, with no processing.  We did roast a couple of squash, let them cool, scraped out the insides, zip lock bagged them for the freezer.  We will see how it works. 

The following recipe is from one of our customers who also loves spaghetti squash.  Great winter 'comfort' food. 

Vegan Moroccan-Spiced Spaghetti Squash

In the forefront on the left is a stock tank planted with asparagus, center is a mini dwarf cherry tree, and far right is a horse bunker containing strawberries.  The white pipe is pex pipe and the bird netting clipped to it keeps the starlings/robins out.  In the background, Doug (on the Ford Tractor) is tilling the small garden by the barn and laying cover crop.  And on the John Deere is a friend cutting the pasture one last time before winter sets in.  

AND 294 cloves of garlic planted in a raised bed!  Pictures to follow.  Have a wonderful day!  

Produce Stand Closing for Season - Dusk 10-18-19

A Season of Fun and Joy!

True to our name "Freshly Doug Vegetables," our produce was harvested from our gardens in the morning and in the stand for sale within an hour or two.   We did have some trouble figuring out if the corn was ripe or not - but, we eventually figured it out!  Duh????!!!!   

Looking west at the produce stand.  Both stock tanks were planted with free samples of edible flowers, (nasturtiums).  The right stock tank was planted with a variety of cherry tomatoes and the left tank was planted with basil.  Ripe, right off the vine!      

We have begun preparing for next season.  Cover crop has been planted.  As you may or may not know cover crop adds organic matter, nitrogen and protects the soil through the winter.  Raised beds have also been planted with cover crop, except for the one where we will be planting garlic this month.  We will be picking up all of the hoses and markers from the two main gardens.  During the winter months, we will be selecting and ordering a wide variety of favorite, heirloom seed, staging planting from greenhouse to garden, building four more raised beds, bringing the total to 12.   And, looking forward to spring!

As a beautiful season comes to an end, at dusk on October 18, 2019, Doug and I are grateful to the many people who stopped by to support our efforts to grow high quality, reasonably priced, organic produce.  You rock!  Thank you!  Hugs and make it a great day!

Howden pumpkins

 

Bean Doing Okay?

Yup.  Bean doing great!  

More than several years ago, I asked my mom why she never grew green beans in the small patch of garden out behind our house where she would throw a couple of seeds and grow the biggest, tastiest tomatoes.   Her response was, "You kids never liked them."  (As an adult, fresh green {string} beans have become one of my favorite vegetables.)  Her response caused me to reflect..  As a young girl, I remember sitting on the neighbors' front porch with my sister and their younger set of twin girls, with big bowls (similar to the picture below) of fresh green beans between us, talking and laughing, all while cleaning and snapping green beans. The older set of  twins and their mom had picked the beans earlier and "our job" was to get them ready for pressure canning for winter meals.  Our ulterior was obvious, my sister and I helped the twins with their chores so the four of us could 'goof off' together.  Win/Win

Maybe it's just me, but, I could NOT recall ever eating any cooked, fresh green beans.  Oh snap! Light bulb ON.  Of course, we ate green beans - but they were store bought, canned ones, that were then boiled for another obligatory 15 minutes. (Frozen beans were too expensive.)  So, what ended up on our plate was pretty much mush.  No wonder we (I for sure)  didn't like them.  It was the mushy, flavorless, texture!  Ugh!   Don't get me wrong, my parents did the best they could with what they had and at least we had food.  And I did try to eat a spoonful or two, each with a bite of potato.  My point is that today the vegetables I eat and love have more flavor than the ones I grew up eating … asparagus is another one that tastes different fresh rather than canned and boiled the required 15 minutes!  

Lesson:  Try a vegetable that you didn't like when you were a kid - you might be surprised.    
 

3.5 pounds of Blue Lake Pole Beans, straight out of the garden.  Half were cleaned, snapped and put in a crockpot on top of a layer of bacon.   Made a great meal after a hard day's work.  After cooking for three hours ... not mushy.  

The extra table set up to accommodate the winter squashes, tomatoes and eggplant.  

Fresh sweet corn coming soon.  

Make it a great day!  

Happy Birthday, USA!

2019 Season has officially BEGUN!

What a great day to be grateful! 

Outside of the produce stand are stock tanks brimming with u-pick edibles, nasturtium flowers, basil, peppers and cherry tomatoes.  Also new this year is an herb garden.  The summer heat is pushing the herbs to go to seed. (Plus, it didn't help that a little bird nested in the parsley and snacked on the herb container next to her nest. So, as soon as we noticed she was there, we stopped watering that particular container.  The three babes have left the nest and watering will resume, plus, we have new parsley sets.  Thank you, Mom Nature for sharing.)

In the cooler is lettuce, cauliflower, cabbage, green onions, couple dozen fresh eggs, snow pod peas and on the table is some zucchini and potatoes.  

Hope you can stop by.   We will be open as we have product and close when we run out.  Great crop of garlic and potatoes on deck.  

 Happy Fourth to you and yours and make it a great day.  

Raised Beds

Raised Bed Project - 2019

The soil in our main gardens stays pretty wet until around June.  So, as many of you gardeners know, there are plenty of crops, i.e. peas, carrots, beets, potatoes, etc. that can be planted in March/April when the soil is cool and fairly dry, i.e. no mud.  Not good to plant in mud, even with shoe covers, the plants don't like it. In order for us to begin planting earlier, we determined that raised beds would be our best option.

Empty pallets 

Side note:  In 2004 we started out with "temporary" concrete block raised beds. "Temporary" in that the blocks were set on smoothed out soil, filled with sand and some covered with plastic lumber.  All a big experiment.  Several problems arose - wasps built their nests under the plastic lumber, and because we didn't cover some of the blocks, we had to weed in the individual blocks, and the rain did wash much of the sand out of the corners of the blocks.  BUT, even with these issues, the beds were a resounding success!  We learned how to manage the soil in the beds.  The decision was made, that since we had all of the concrete blocks, that we mortar each bed and put a permanent cover over them.  So, ta da!

Hoping to open the stand in Mid-June give or take a week or two!  Adding an herb garden just outside of the stand.

 

Gravel walkways will allow for weed burning.

Yay, Spring ... Your arrival is soooooo Welcome!

Yawn!  Big Stretch!  Just like our lawn, the asparagus, rhubarb, daffodils, tulips, and our Mason Bees, we are waking up to Spring and the fun work ahead!  The lawn has been mowed a couple of times … always a good warm up.

Here is a short list of what we've (Doug mostly) been up to:    

March:

• grafted apple and prune (plum) trees;
• set out Mason Bees;
• dormant sprayed fruit orchard;  
• mortared together (with very good help) raised beds; 
• weed whacked the cover crop in our small garden;
• planted radish seeds (that the little birds pulled out of the ground);

April:

• planted cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower (in a raised bed);

April to do:

• replant herbs, I.e. marjoram, parsley;
• plant onions, lettuce, peas, carrots;
• flowers in containers;
• in the greenhouse start peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes;
• and a whole lot more!  

Good to be back!  Don't be afraid to make it a great day! Char

Season ending - dusk October 28, 2018

A beautiful, bountiful season coming to a close.  Our produce stand will close for the season at dusk on October 28, 2018.  

We're in wonder and awe at how Mother Nature blessed us with her abundance! Yeah, I would say 800 ears of corn is an abundance. Too quickly over.  We are planning for next year by putting together seed lists and planting calendars.  Cleaning out the greenhouse. 

Our gardens are almost put to bed.  Cover crops planted and sprouting, old hay is laid down, the T-tape is getting picked up.   

As soon our gardens can be worked in the spring, we will get to planting.   See you in the Spring - watch this space for exact date.  Hoping for May, but it could be June.  

Thank you for stopping by and purchasing veggies from our produce stand.  

To your health!  All the best, Doug and Char

We have a Winner!

Here are two of several Hubbard's that we grew this year.  The Hubbard on the left weighed in at 18 lbs.  

The Hubbard on the right was our contest prize.  It weighed in at 43.7 lbs.  We had two guesses that were the same and the closest.  Therefore, the person who guessed the closest weight first, is the winner.   But we will provide a second prize to the second place winner. 

And just how does one get to the innards?  If you google Hubbard Squash - one of the ways to get them open is to drop them!  Who knew?  Thanks AS for sharing. 

Thank you all for being a good sport and participating.  We will be in touch! 

Make it a great day!

Par for the Course ...

Oh, my gourd!

For those of you who have large garden spaces, Hubbard squashes are fun and easy to grow.  The green thumb swells with pride each time one of these giants is found partially hidden under their leaves.  

Due to their massive size, we don't typically grow regular Hubbard Squash to sell.  Instead, we look for the smaller varieties, one's that will feed a family of four, rather than fourteen.

So, earlier this year while shopping for seeds, we found a seed packet labeled "Baby Blue Hubbard".   Emphasis on "Baby".  (The clue, if paid attention to) should have been the five seeds and their size.  Ah, 'par for the course' we learn something new every year. 

"Baby Blue" was referring to the color of the Hubbard, not the size.  For comparative purposes, that's a golf ball resting against the vine.   

  

Lower left - muck boot. 
Make it a great day!  

Beautiful, bountiful, abundant, delicious

The best way for us to test for winter squash ripeness, is to roast a couple up and give them a good ol' taste test.  Yup, they're ready for market.  Below are the most recent 'tests'.     

Sweet meat cleaned and seeded winter squash with steam vents.  On the Right 'seeded' spaghetti squash with olive oil, salt and pepper.  Ready to go into a 350 oven for about 40 minutes or until done. 

Scarlet Nantes carrots, harvested this a.m. (9-13) and ready for sorting.  

Currently sorted and ready for sale.  Samples of carrot, cucumber and kohlrabi available in the cooler.

Got Corn? Yup, fresh and sweet!

As soon as this basket o'corn is empty, it's restocked. 

What a beautiful, busy time of year - the produce stand is in it's full glory!  In addition to what is currently "in stock", i.e. corn, potatoes, kohlrabi, beets, cucumbers, peppers, acorn and spaghetti squash; soon carrots, tomatoes, and a variety of apples will be ready.   (Seriously, is it really September?)
 

Just about ready!  Pretty to look at.  Fresh apples, off the tree and directly into the stand.

We're open by noon, if not earlier, until dusk, 7 days a week. Our produce is guaranteed.  If you buy something that is not up to your standards, it will be replaced.   Make it a great day!

Success! We are open!

We've spent since early spring getting ready for today.  And boy howdy are we ready!  We have the best garden we have had in years!  Just took us a while to get the stand ready to serve the public.

Our stand will be open from noon (for sure) to dusk every day, except Tuesday.  We will be restocking the stand regularly.  Currently we have summer squashes, Japanese eggplant, variety of sweet peppers, potatoes (Yukon Gold, Red Lasoda, Pioneer Russet), cabbage, beets, kohlrabi, cucumbers.  With lots more to come!  Sweet corn, carrots, onions, pumpkins, .... 'n' more.
   

These pictures represent what's in the stand for the week of August 20, 2018.  Since we only sell what we grow - we are very seasonal and subject to Mother Nature's grace. 

Love this time of year!  (If you don't like vegetables, then you haven't tasted ours!) 

                                               

Make it a great day!  Feel free to text 425-220-3904 

 

Dream Come True!

Dream Come True - that's the name of the top three roses in this picture.  Couldn't have said it any better.  

Yay bees!  Finally!  Was worried.  Welcome sight!  Our vegetable and fruit production go way up when we have bees living on our property.   Bought more Mason bee houses this year. 
  

Certified Organic potatoes - 50 lbs each Yukon Gold and Red La Soda; 25 lbs. of California White; 10 lbs each Pioneer Russet and Yellow Finn.  Recently purchased from www.risheyesgardenseeds.com   Cut and ready to be planted. 

We are about 4 weeks ahead of last year's plantings.  Amazing what a couple of weeks of dry weather can do.  Corn soaking and ready to be planted soon.  Pumpkin starts saved from volunteers, onion sets, tomato starts, etc, etc. More to follow.  Make it a great day.     

Special Delivery!

Oh, happy day ... and here comes the long awaited produce stand!

Love at first sight!  14x28

Front view.  The building was re-positioned so the front will be facing the road.     

Through the kitchen window.  More to follow.  

Back in the Blogging "Saddle"

One of several projects happening.  Upon realizing that we have the skills to organically maintain fertile raised bed soil, the ease with which an older adult is able to weed and plant a raised bed, and best of all, how early we can start planting, we're going for permanency (at least in our lifetimes).   Originally our first attempt at raised beds was not permanent - since we didn't know what we were doing, (duh?)  we allowed ourselves an out - just in case we didn't like the location or had a massive failure at maintaining the soil in the beds. (Or the morning glory sneaked in and took over when we weren't looking.)  We filled our older raised bed concrete blocks with sand.   Over the 10 years of their existence,  the sand has "leaked" out, causing the corners of some of the beds to collapse, and it was necessary to weed the uncovered blocks.  To prevent the weeding and loss of sand, we laid plastic decking down over the blocks - which drew in wasps and left a place for slugs to hide.  Not whining - just going over the learning experience.   

 Since we already had all of the blocks (yes, for 10 years - see stack) and we aren't getting any younger (hope someone figures that out) the decision was made to build new mortared raised beds.  This is the first course - not sure yet how high, but at least three high, up to four.  Expensive?  Yes. (So is boating.)  Investment?  Yup.

Getting ready for the new produce stand.  The deep tracks in the lower right corner are from where the dump truck got stuck unloading part of the gravel base.  And if it weren't for a kind neighbor driving by with his HUGE tractor, the dump truck might still be sitting here!  (Not really, we would have figured something out.)   I didn't get to see it, otherwise I would have posted an interesting picture of it.  We're bringing in a bit more rock for improved parking.  The stakes indicate where the new stand will be sitting.   All built and ready for delivery - just waiting for ground to dry out a bit more. 

Make it a beautiful day!   

Change Can Happen Mighty Quick!

Here we are in November, 2017.  A hard rain was coming down, the wind was howling, swirling through the valley.  We were warm and snug in our little stucco farmhouse.  Surfing the web, drinking coffee, planning and looking forward to our 2018 growing season.  In fact, our farmhouse does such a nice job protecting us from the weather, including August's hot sun, we didn't realize the direction or ferocity of this November storm. 

At the computer, I heard a "thunk" noise, but didn't get up to look outside.  Doug happened to be coming from the kitchen with a fresh cup of coffee and looked out the living room picture window that looks out to our produce stand. 

This picture is what that "thunk" sound was.  A southeast gust of wind had smacked up under the overhang.  It flipped our produce stand completely upside down on it's roof.  Must have been more than a gust of wind!  Our produce stand had been sitting in this location since 2010, it was built out of 2x6 construction, there was an attached deck with steps, flower pots sitting on each side of the deck, and a cooler sitting inside of it.  Deep breath, and a sigh.   Call the insurance company.

The stand was left upside down in the yard for a while, in order for the yard to dry out enough to drive on and for us to mourn, decide how/what would replace it.   We tried several things including checking with tow truck companies for ideas,  purchasing new straps to wrap around the stand, pulling on it with the tractor, and hearing loud cracking sounds while tugging on it, Doug was unable to roll it back to it's original position.  Did I say, we (me and Doug) loved that produce stand!  The only decision left was to take it apart.  It was tough, not only because it was so well built, but that it was such a fun part of our farm. 

So, we were left with no other choice but to replace the stand.  The new stand will have more storage/produce space.  Being surrounded by bright green pastures, and sitting in front of a big bright red (eventually) barn, our lemon twist yellow farm stand will definitely be noticed by passers-by.  See next picture:

Don't you just love a happy ending?   As soon as the ground dries out and the new gravel is brought in, we will be setting up our new yellow produce stand.  Make it a great day! 

So many projects, so little time!  One of the projects is to "fire" up this blog and post what's happening on the farm.  2017 gardening season got off to a slow start due to our main gardens staying so wet until well into June.  We didn't do so well with the cool crops, but the warm weather crops went gangbusters!  The Zucchini and patty pan squashes produced all summer long - it was awesome!  Finally opened the produce stand in late August.  It's a joy to be able to grow healthy, high quality reasonably priced food.  Stay tuned!