beginning of summer update

Ah, the beginnings of summer... one day it's 75 and sunny, the next is 60 and raining.  No complaints here, the farm and I are loving it! So what's going on at Blue House Greenhouse Farm? A LOT. More planting, more weeding, more harvesting, more watering, more of everything! Here are a few snap shots of the past couple weeks.

The farm stand has been open for two weeks!  Pictured on the left is Kevin along with the first week's bounty. The farm stand is open Mondays from 3-6 pm, come and see what's available! This week we will have salad greens, turnips, Asian greens, chard, and more.

On the right, Kimi is double washing the salad greens- not only is the produce delicious, it's clean!

On the left is an extreme close up of the farm.  Pictured are lady bug eggs.  Normally they are found on the top or underside of leaves, but here the eggs were laid on a twig in the soil.  Also pictured is my finger for scale. pretty neat.











We've been harvesting a ton of radishes and  we don't sell the ones that are split or a little less than perfect.  What to do with all those radishes?  Radish Kimchi (pictured right)! We used a recipe from Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz.  We also made french radish pickles- using a recipe from a friend- and sweet radish pickles with rhubarb. yum.

More random updates to come! stay tuned.

farm stand opening! Monday June 6!

That's right!  Blue House Greenhouse Farm is opening a farm stand on Monday afternoons from 3-6pm.  Beginning this Monday, June 6th! Come by and check out what's for sale.  This week there will be a variety of fresh delicious veggies- salad greens, kale, cilantro and lots of asian greens! You can just come and  say hi!

In other news (there is a lot of other news), the farm has a logo!  Many many thanks to the lovely Clare Price, a fabulous artist and friend, for creating this logo.







The walking group from NARA came to the farm this past week before their "greens and beans" cooking demonstration and harvested some greens!










My mom was in town this past week and helped out a ton at the farm.  You can see her weeding (and hiding from the camera) by the peas.  Thanks mom!







While she was in town we also went to DOC, one of the restaurants to whom I sell my produce.  It was incredible!  ridiculously delicious.  Here are my salad greens with strawberries and goat cheese!

drip irrigation system

Adam, star volunteer, cutting sections of
the 3/4" polytubing to put together the
main lines.  The system has three separate
sections to maximize flow rate.

Here we go into the world of drip irrigation.  I have to say that I have a love/hate relationship with irrigation (and when I speak of irrigation- I only have worked with drip so I won't even get into my feelings about other types of irrigation).  I love drip irrigation because of its efficiency and water conservation capacity.  I hate it because I spend hours trying to figure out why certain components are leaking.  In the end, I have loads more love, for sure.


Check out the photos for detailed info and if you have questions please don't hesitate to contact me!

Here you can see the valve on the 3/4" polytube, which is
one of the three sections.  You can also see the attachment
with which the T-tape is connected. Each attachment has
a valve to be able to select which rows can be watered.

Becca is demonstrating how we roll out
the T-tape.  Brilliant.

The finished product! We actually aren't finished yet...
there are a few leaks that we have to deal with, but we are on
our way!  and those are tomatoes under remay on the left!

tomatoes! and more, of course.

a sea of tomatoes!

blue house greenhouse farm has tomato starts for sale! We have a number of different varieties: silver fir tree, jaune flamme, orange oxheart, persimmon, and isis candy cherry. You can follow the links to find out more about each variety.  They are a deal at only $2 each! Stop by or contact me if you are interested in getting some tomatoes for your garden!

A lot has been happening at the farm. We've planted out all the brassicas- kale, collards, and broccoli- for this season. Along with planting more rounds of lettuce, carrots, spinach, radishes, beets and chard.  In a week or so we'll be planting out our warmer season crops- tomatoes, peppers, and beans.

We're harvesting more and more. With the warmer sunnier weather the plants are growing quickly!  We've started selling an Asian greens mix, which in my (somewhat biased) opinion is delicious.

supplies from Ernst

This past weekend Jeff and I went to Ernst Irrigation in St. Paul, OR. We bought all the components to set up the T-Tape drip irrigation system, which we will be setting up sometime this week.  I will definitely write a post about the installation.


What else?  The farm has been super lucky to have wonderful volunteers- without whom I couldn't get everything done!  Thanks to them! We've had a lot of great visitors- friendly neighbors, folks from the Community Food Security Coalition Food Policy Conference that just happened by on their walking tour, and the walking club from NARA stop by weekly to check up on the progress of the farm.  For these reasons I appreciate the farm's visibility.  We've also had a super friendly neighborhood cat coming by... maybe she'll keep the crows away?

farm kitty (don't tell winkles)

twice the farming

weed eating the clover

 The vegetable growing space at Blue House Greenhouse Farm just doubled in size!  Last week, after a a dry spell, we tilled in the clover cover crop.

How did we know it was time?  The clover was just beginning to flower and we needed to take advantage of the weather because who knew when it would rain again!

On Wednesday I rented a weed eater from Interstate Rentals to cut the clover down a couple inches.  On Thursday, we rented a tiller. I owe a big thank you to Marc, at Amaranth Organic Gardening, who let us use his truck to haul this beast of a tiller. After a few tries of tilling in the cut clover without luck (the stems were getting caught in the tines), the lovely volunteers, Adam and Amanda, raked up the clover and moved it into a large pile to compost.  And then the tilling really began! Adam and I made two passes over the area to try to chop up the clover stubs. Although the tiller was a bit unwieldy, it did the job and we were able to finish that afternoon.

Adam wielding the tiller

 This spring I debated whether I would dig in the clover by hand or rent a tiller. I weighed time spent digging versus depth and quality of digging.  In the end I chose both!  Now that the tilling is done, we dug pathways and are using a digging fork to loosen the soil deeply in the newly made beds.

In other news, the farm now is also selling to Pizza a Go-Go.  I tried a slice of pizza with our red russian kale-delicious. I also applied for a cost share program through the Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District for a drip irrigation system and was accepted! In the next few weeks I'll be installing the system- this should be really fun.

seedlings and sun and spiders, oh my!

Red Russian Kale seedlings

Calabrese Broccoli seedlings

Rocky Top Lettuce Mix seedlings

Above are a few images of what seedlings are still for sale! In addition there are collard greens and several other varieties of kale and broccoli. Seedlings are $3 for a six-pack.  Come by the farm sometime if you are interested in purchasing any or contact me.  

In other news,  it is wonderful to see the sun!  It's been a cold, wet spring and plants have been growing slowly.  They are beginning pick up with some sunshine, as am I. We've also been transplanting Asian greens in the field, thinning beets, spinach, and radishes, and prepping beds, amongst other things.

Lastly I wanted to share the photos below that were taken in the greenhouse.  If you look at the center of the photo on the left, it looks like a bunch of yellow dots.  But on closer examination (photo on the right), we have baby spiders! I think it's a good omen, don't you?

 

seedlings for sale!

 That's right folks! If you are looking to get some seedlings for your garden, Blue House Greenhouse has some for sale TOMORROW!!  We will be at the farm between 10am-1pm if you can come by for a visit.  We have Cascadian snap peas, Rocky Top lettuce mix, and a variety of broccoli and kale.

We will continue to sell seedlings this spring if you can't come by tomorrow.

These photos are the lovely new additions to the farm that Jeff has made.  Above are three hardy kiwis along the north fence. The photo to the right is the NE corner of the lot- from left to right- artichoke, bay, sage, and persimmon!  I'll post more pictures when it fills out this summer.