The Red Queen Theory Revised

One of my favorite evolutionary theories is the "Red Queen Theory". This was an evolutionary theory proposed in 1973 by Leigh Van Valen (great name), in which he realized that, "For an evolutionary system, continuing development is needed just in order to maintain its fitness relative to the systems it is co-evolving with". The title of the theory comes from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass when the Red Queen said, "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."

The last few days on the farm The Red Queen has been breathing down my neck. I try very hard to feel the farm vibe and tend to things as they come up, but lately I am feeling as though the competitors are co-evolving faster than me! I just got a handle on sap beetles attacking the Cascade Berries, when I discovered that the Buckley Giant apple in the orchard is suffering from "Bitter Pit".

Even just the name "bitter pit" eludes to how one feels after you see more than half the apples on a tree fail the grade for market. The thing that slayed me was that one of the causes for bitter pit is vigorous pruning the year before, which I had no control over and only learned about after I fantastically pruned the tree again this year. And oh yeah, I am only talking about one tree in the orchard, remember the mention a few posts ago about the 71 trees we have?

Here is where the running as fast as I can part comes in. I know that we have more apples than we all will know what to do with, it is just so hard to "lose" a tree, or miss a needed picking of berries to keep ahead of the pest, or to catch that zucchini and pick it before it becomes the size of a baseball bat. My struggle today is letting go of the expectation of perfection. Maybe tomorrow I will make applesauce, jam, and zucchini bread with my "rejects".

How to Get Rich Without Turning a Profit

So the peaches are definitely in, and picked, and peeled, and frozen, and canned, and eaten. What a complete surprise to get about a bushel of peaches from our few trees (five) and even after we balked at pruning them or doing any other kind of maintenance.

The last two days Gus and Freja have attended camp at Huckleberry Kids and I used the time to can, pickle, jam, or bake everything I could get my hands on. (the pickled purple cabbage from the garden was my favorite) This morning I picked more blackberries in the hopes that we will end up with enough to attempt a batch of wine along with grape wine this fall. Raspberries are just starting to ripen, and it is such a treat to have them after all the other berries we enjoyed so far.

This morning I walked the orchard to pick up ground falls and nearly blew a gasket when I found the second pear tree that has been completely ravaged by something not human. The first tree was bad enough, a strong open tree with about ten big pears, all half-eaten, still hanging from their stems. If you looked at the tree from just the right angle it looked like we had some good fruit going, until you walked around to the other side to see that each pear was a hollow shell! I quietly plucked off the skeletons and chalked it up to the necessary payment to the "garbage collectors" in this neck of the orchard. Now a second tree has been pillaged and the worst thing about it is that there was only one pear on the tree to begin with! When I found it this morning it looked like an Asian chef attempted fruit carving on the poor specimen, or that a cartoon firecracker blew out one side of the pear.
I instantly started to think of ways to thwart future attacks, because (for those of you who have not yet visited we have more than a few trees) I have put way to many hours into coddling this orchard to have some free-loaders blow it all to Valhalla. Is is wrong to want to camp out in the orchard with a bb gun, or wire a few of the most vulnerable trees with low voltage?

Then I caught myself and started adding up the cost of various ways to keep pests away, and was reminded of the $20 homegrown tomato. We are trying so hard to produce enough food to feed us and others, as if it is a money saver/money maker. Who am I kidding? We have spent about a hundred dollars in seeds and starts along this year, not to mention soil amendments, tools, pest traps, and plenty of sugar, vinegar, and pectin for all the things that come out of the garden. I guess I need to reframe my expectations away from "saving/making money" to "owning" a lifestyle change. I am no longer the city mouse curious about life outside of the neat borders of metropolis. I am the country mouse, like it some days, and maybe not so much others. We are so at peace out here (even if you do see me chasing down racoons with a shovel) and feel so much more connected to each other than we did in the city. Gus asked today if he could stay at camp after it was time to go home. I told him that I was sorry, but we had other chores to do. He smiled and said, "Then lets get going!" and that is just what we did.

A Petition for More Hours in the Day

There just never seems to be enough time to enjoy all the moments in the day. Today we begrudgingly left Cousins Camp 2008 up on Whidbey Island, rode home with kids napping on ferries. Arrived back at the farm to visit with the girls, pick a LOT of peaches, collect the daily offerings from the garden (raspberries, zucchinis, beans, herbs, and logan and cascade berries, and cabbages), and give everything and everyone a good drink of water. Then it was back home to the rental for dinner while watching a bit of olympics and then bed for the G and F. I am just tired typing it all! Here are a few pics of us out and about doing our thing:

Robert Frost Peach

Today I took a break from chores and enjoyed the first ripe peach from the orchard. I sat next to Darwin under the tree and tried to really taste each bite and enjoy the juice dripping down my chin. I then looked up that this very tree and started to count all the peaches that remained to be picked and noticed that some of them are very high up in the tree. I then looked around the whole orchard, all 71 trees, and started to realize that even though Summer's harvest is in full swing, this is the calm before the storm.
I used to read a lot of Robert Frost; Mending Wall is probably my favorite of his. He wrote a short poem about apples that I never paid much mind to, but now I am thinking about getting it tattooed across the back of my sunburned neck:

For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.

Here are all the different varieties of fruit trees in the orchard:

Frost Peach

Italian Plum
Santa Rosa Plum
Brooks Plum
Beauty Plum

Pear:
Bosc
Chojuro
Nitaka
Ubileen
Bennett
Bartlet
Sirrine
Orcas
Concorde
Wenatchee Gold
Highland

Apples:
Striped Gravenstein
Red Gravenstein
Williams Pride
Chehalis
Glowing Coal
Blushing Golden
Melrose
Akane
Spartan
Buckley Giant
Boskoop
Sunrise
Stayman Winesap
Baldwin
Keepsake
Bleniem Orange
Honeycrisp
Hudson's Gem
Bramley's Seedling
Jonagold
Aroma
Spitzenburg
Sweet Sixteen
EasyGro
Cox Orange Pippen

Planting by the planets

We are trying our best to be the busy ants this summer, and not the lazy grasshopper. Mary and Phil, the previous owners of the farm, left us in great shape, and much of what we do on a daily basis is maintaining their hard work. As some of you may not know I have farming in my blood, but not so much dirt under my nails. However, being the scientist that I am, I hit the books and honed in on a few "styles" of farming to guide us through at least this first year.

My first resource was our local Seattle Tilth, which provided us with a basic calendar of what to plant when living here in the Pacific Northwest. But I ended up feeling a bit overwhelmed at the start of each month staring down a list of all these plants that I could put in the ground, so I looked up the philosophy of Biodynamics. Okay, for those of you who know this philosophy I can see you nodding your heads, and for those of you who do not know what I am talking about, try to suspend your disbelief while I explain.

Biodynamics is a way of planting, growing, and reaping according to the allignment of the Moon, Sun, and all the planets. They classify all plants into four categories: Leaf, Flower, Fruit, and Root. And there is a calendar published that tells you when to plant each type of plant by the hour. (yes I just wrote hour) Being the curious scientist, I just had to try out a combo of both the Tilth's general suggestions on types of plants with the Biodynamic calendar of specifically when to put them in the ground. Here are some of the results: Peas sprouting after 7 days, and rutabaga after two weeks in the ground.

In, Out, and Around the Garden

We "completed" the worm bin today, and it is HUGE. Toby did a great job sticking to the task of building is 99% from scraps found on the farm. This morning Gus and Freja helped to rip up lots of newspaper and gather a good amount of old chicken straw to provide a soft bed for worms. We then hightailed it over to our friend Cheryl's house and absconded with a bowl full of wrigglers. We gave them lots of stinky compost to munch on and hope that they take to their new home. In the end, if we are lucky, we will close one more loop of consumerism in our lives and give back to the garden that which is gives to us: food.

Summer Vacation?

We took a short break for a day to remember our anniversary and celebrate Toby's birthday. (29 + a few)
It was hard to look away for a couple of days, and even though we gave ourselves permission to take a break for even longer the siren song of the farm called us back. (and no I did not choose the wrong metaphor, sometimes I feel like I am hurtling ever closer to the rocks)

Tonight we worked together as a family, and shared dinner on the farm as well. The kids are starting to get the hang of hanging; today they listened to a book on tape while picked berries. And after dinner much fun was had chasing chickens, watering the orchard, and generally goofing around.

The big news is that we ate our first fruit from the orchard today. I was desperate to show G & F that all our pruning, watering, and refusing to allow tree climbing had paid off, and finally I was validated. We ate three plums that were the most delicious things I think I ever could claim credit for. We did a dance and thanked everything and everyone for them. Yum!

Holding Our Feet to the Fire

We found the Lacanche!  We found the beautiful French Range!  We honed in on our next great kitchen monument!

For those of you who are new to the scene of our local, organic, seasonal food obsession, we will bring you up to date.

Amy started reconstructing our eating habits shortly after the arrival of August (Gus); realizing that it is one thing to feed yourself, but another to feed your child.  She started a mad pursuit of honing her cooking skills, tracking seasonal produce and dairy, and tracking down the best tools of the trade.  One day she stumbled upon a "French Range" posting on Craigslist and her curiosity was peaked.  Turns out the range is made by a small company in France called Lacanche, and the design has changed minimally over the many decades that they have been hand crafted.  

She did not successfully snag that first range she saw on Craigslist, but made sure to not miss the second, which then led to an entire kitchen remodel of their Seattle home.  Of course as these things always play out, the week after the range was in the perfect place with the dynamite hood over it, Amy and Toby decided to by the farm here on Vashon.  It was with a heavy heart that Amy said good bye to her "black beauty" and tried to be positive about finding a new range for the farm.

Shortly after moving into their temporary rental on the island, and cooking on an "average" range, Amy had a fit and contacted the only US importer of Lacanche. (which just happens to be here in Western Washington)  She explained to them her love of food and the vision for the Holmestead.  The fairy-godmother turned marketing director, Molly, heard Amy's cry and helped her find just the right range, even better than what they had in Seattle.  

So here are the first pictures that Amy snapped when she saw it for the first time in the warehouse.  It has the same five burner set up as their range in Seattle, but more safety features (great when you have two curious toddlers), a warming oven, and it is "British Racing Green".  All the gauges are metric, which is perfect for an ex-science teacher turned cook, and the top is a solid french top styling.

So now we are going to build a farm around a range, instead of just a kitchen as we did in Seattle.  Are we crazy?  If we are, at least we are happy crazy!

Who wants to attend the first dinner party?

Kids in the Field

Gus shows off a not-quite-ripe Cascade berry in the garden. We had just spent the morning biking at the park and the kids were taking a berry break before we did more work in the orchard. We planted two rows of peas today and will plant more in another two weeks. We like how the kids ask, before picking berries, "Is this for market or can we eat some now?"

Freja enjoying her round of berries. The raspberries are just starting to come in, which is really late for Vashon, but the crop looks like it will be sufficiently large.

The kids are not always happy to do chores around the Farm.

Summer Harvest

Today we participated in the local farmers market for the first time.  Up until now we just sold wholesale and went back to work on the farm, but today we got to meet the recipients of our hard work.  Amy attended the market and was graciously allowed to share table-space with another family farm.  She met many wonderful people and reconnected with lots of friends.  All told we sold 21 full pints of berries and a few pounds of zucchini and blossoms.

As soon as Amy got home she got back to work ordering seeds for the winter garden; endive, beetberry and verte mar romaine salad anyone?  

Thanks to all who are supporting us as we birth this farm and dream.  Happy eating!

Gus at the Ready

The kids have been adapting to daily visits to the garden, berry patch, and the prolific orchard. Gus seems most interested in the tractor. For the last couple of weeks we've been harvesting a panoply of Cascade berries and Logan berries. We finished the summer pruning of the orchard and have been meticulous about removing all prunings and fruit drops from the orchard to the burn pile. The mason bees are doing their work and the fruit is coming in nicely.