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!