Farm Projects Spring 2014...Zone ONE

Summer squashes, just poking their heads up.

Spring is all about planting! This year we are further defining our permaculture zones, and improving them, starting with zone one.

Zone one is the zone a person visits most, where we will be planting crops which must be picked often, in fact this area will have something needing to be harvested everyday.


Those crops will be salads, leafy greens, summer squashes, beans, peas, broccoli, herbs, tomatoes, peppers, okra, egg plant, flowers, and more. The area we have chosen is directly behind our house.

We have already started refining the area. A few years ago we brought in a "bob

green house frame awaiting it's covering.

cat" skip loader, leveled and flattened an area for a green house. Last fall we got the basic structure for the green house up and standing, bought the green house plastic and acquired a big shade cloth to cover it all. We hope to get it covered this spring to house our tomato crop and create a space for starting seedlings and rooting cuttings.

Late last summer, we moved a lot of compost, with the help of a good WWOOf crew and created some large beds, where we grew a late tomato crop and wintered over collards for the table. This spring we have been upgrading those beds to be raised ones with some redwood boards reclaimed from an old

One bed we started last year is now 1.5 feet deep.

deck, a carpenter friend was hired to rebuild. In addition we made some new raised beds, but still have the space and materials to put in some more, which we are eager to do, so we can plant out all the rest of our seedlings. After we finish that we will install a drip tape irrigation system to utilize our water efficiently. A thick mulch of rice straw will cap it all off.

The big apple a few years ago, now it is twice the size.

In this same zone one area we have several fruit trees, mostly apples, which, having past their April bloom, need to have their fruit thinned, so we don't have broken branches, and our apples will be nice and plump. Our largest apple, grown from a seed, has given us around 400#'s of beautiful fruit for the past 4 years, the apples on this tree are delicious, and keep really well. Thinning the fruit is quite a job, apples flower in clusters along the branches, many of the flowers will turn into fruit this year, the trees were so vigorously pollinated by our, oh so, active bees. We thin out the baby apples to one per cluster, and feed them to our goats, who think green apples are a super treat. We get as much as two five gallon buckets of tiny apples the fruit set is so great. Later in the summer, when the apples are getting plump but are still green, we usually have to thin again, up to three more five gallon buckets,

Green apple thinnings, are good for pies!

we use those apples for all sorts of things, pies, making farm pectin to mix with other fruits to make them jell, we dry them which concentrates the sugars in them, Nature's sweet tarts! We have eight apples, and two pears trees, and have already been busy, all, but the big one, have been thinned.

To thin the apples we use a tall orchard ladder, it is fun to climb up into the tree, one feels like a bird up there surveying the surroundings from an airy perch. The little apples pinch off easily, but it is tricky too, not to damage the fruit buds while doing the job. It feels good when the job is done, I'm always relieved, knowing the tree branches won't break under the weight of too many apples.

We are looking to get help on these projects. As mentioned before, to thin the apples we will climb ladders up into the trees, and bit by bit pinch off the extra fruit. 

To build the beds, we will have to do a little light construction, measure and lay out, cut the boards with a saw, assemble the sides, pre-dig the beds and then fill them up with wheel barrels of soil and compost. Then we will lay out the irrigation lines and hook them up to the water, after all that, we will tuck our seedlings in and mulch them. Latter we will be thankful, for tomatoes, and peppers, egg plant and onions. Do I see lasagna & egg plant Parmesan in the future? I hope so...yum! Come and help us eat it!

Tomatoes from last year's garden.

Home made lasagna, its great! 

Tomato sauce made from our own Roma tomatoes!

Egg plant Parmesan, nice and cheesy, like we like it!

We have many projects other happening this spring, but these are the main zone one, activities. There are many seedlings already started for this area, that require daily attention,until they are planted, along with some rooted cuttings of currants we want to also plant out  in our zone one area, and there are lots of potted herb plants too, for one bed we plan to turn into an herb garden nice and close to the kitchen. Every morning and evening they need water, especially now, since the weather has become so warm.

lettuce and other seedlings

veggies and flowers

There are always so many interesting things to do and experiment with on a farm. It is never dull. At the end of the day you feel good, it is nice to take a quiet evening moment, sit on the blue bench and contemplate on how lucky we are to live on this big benevolent Earth, our only home in the vast universe. We feel privileged to be able to live on our little plot and to have the skills and the will to care for it in as responsible a way as we are able. Join us there sometime...

The blue bench