Exit 104: A Quiet Sunday in February.

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(Formatted for a 17" monitor and includes YouTube content)

On Sunday, February 13th I happened to be the only one on the farm when we got a visit from a traveler from Belgium. Cyrille Claeys, a sustainable farmer and activist with Haricots, came by to take a look at our farm. It was great to meet and talk to Cyrille and an honor to get a visitor from Belgium. The sun was westering by then and there didn't seem to be enough light for good pictures. Also, the farm just doesn't look the same in sleepy Winter so I promised to send him some pictures of the farm in better light. I am posting them here rather than loading up several dozen e-mails.

The farm in Fall, 2010. In addition to food crops, we grow fresh flowers which we sell at the market stand. Fresh flower bouquets are a very popular item with market visitors. Pictured here are farm manager Stephen and PSA student Amelia preparing some fresh bouquets.

PSA member, Zeinab and Queen of
the farm Rose prepare

produce boxes for
the C.S.A.

customers

Fall, 2010. This is our mobile chicken coop. It's build on wheels and the yard is enclosed by battery operated electric netting. This allows us to move the chickens around the non-crop areas of the farm.

Compost Happens! But it takes some work. We take composting and soil fertility building seriously. Using strictly monitored organic practices we build compost piles continuously throughout the year. In the Pacific Northwest we get a large number of days of clouds and rain. This tends to leech off naturally occurring nitrogen and other nutrients so part of the non-chemical farming strategy includes soil building.

Pictured here are PSA members

and faculty member Steve checking

the temperature of one of the compost piles.

We check the temperatures daily
to make sure the reach the right
temperature. These piles average
150 degrees F (66 C).

The wheelbarrow

brigade! In this recipe

we used three parts

wood chips to one

part organic chicken

manure.


It's a grass roots movement.

What a colorful picture. What you might not be able to tell in this picture is that this is part of our perennial area that has been completely captured by buttercup. Later in the year this area will become a project for PSA students

Speaking of compost,

here is our composting

toilet out in the field

Former PSA member, Zowie hanging bundles of grain to dry. Several people are doing grain trials on the farm to see which varieties do best. Before the damning of the Columbia River and the irrigation of the Central Washington desert, Western Washington grew a lot of our own grain.

Pictured here is Prof. Steve Scheuerell Ph.D,
explaining the various forms and functions of roots.

Click picture

October 2010. After harvest we gather up the green matter and compost it. Following Masanobu Fukuoka's strategy but with the extra step of in-vessel composting so we can place it where it is most needed
depending on the crop rotation. PSA member,
Vanessa, compacting the green matter

One of our projects on the farm is to

increase our water catchment system

Pictured here are the rain barrels

off the tool shed. We use the water

to wash our tools and boots.

Pictured here are PSA members

Kayli and Scott with farm hand Evron.

Late Fall, 2010. Harvesting tomatoes. This year was very rainy (low sunlight) and the tomatoes suffered.
We lost hundreds of pounds of tomatoes.

Late Fall. Harvest is over. We took down the temporary hoop houses and planted a legumous cover crop on the site where they stood.

Pictured here, Steve and Stephen demonstrate tear-down
technique. (See also: Cooper Point Newspaper Article )

PSA members, Ryan and Shannon loading up the spent tomato plants for the compost pile

Last stage of the hoop house tear-down!

Scouting pests in the greenhouse.

We do a small but beautiful Farmers Market outside the library. Money raised from the market is used for the various farm projects.

We take turns running the market.

Pictured here are PSA members Bob and Jeannette with Farm Queen Rose.

In the center of the farm we have a medicinal herb garden. The picture on the left is a south-facing view. To the right is facing north.

In this greenhouse we had cucumbers, basil and a variety of peppers. Because of the low light levels for much of the year, season extension strategies are helpful.

Acres of squash!

Ah, the Project Board. There are always projects.

Late Fall. Planting tulips.

Tulips are early bloomers

and people go wild for them

because they are real evidence

of Spring.

Mid-December.

Not so Spring-like now.

In mid-November we all packed up and went to the Washington Tilth Conference held

at Fort Wordon State Park in Port Townsend.

Nothing better than early Winter camping

A typical misty, moisty morning on the farm in December.

Note to self (and others): Unless

you have a lot of love for ducks (which

we do) don't try to raise hatchlings in

December.

We had a hot water heater made out of biomatter...see the
white pipe...it generated 140+ water for quite a while but
as the wood chip pile played out it was time to dismantle it.
A nice Winter group project.

We live for the occasional sun breaks!

PSA member and orchardist,

Jeb, demonstrates pruning

techniques on the apple trees...

...then everyone got their own
tree to prune as they saw fit.

Click here for Ryan's newspaper article

Another good Winter pruning

project: The raspberries.

We took out all the suckers, runners, old canes

and weeds. Pictured

on the right, PSA member,
Ryan, stands in a cleaned up path.

Below, Vanessa and Matt are cleaning up the strawberry field.

The Classroom. PSA program holds class in greenhouses and out in the field but there is also a more formal classroom component where we hold seminar on the texts we are studying, go over the finer points of irrigation, tillage and non tillage, organic standards, soil building, and a variety of other topics.

February, 2011
Melissa and Rose working on
a seed order for our first
greenhouse planting
of the season

Starting some seeds

Typical mixed-weather day in February on the farm

This picture from last Fall looks better than the area does now.
Farmscaping group is trying to smother out the invasive buttercup which has captured our perennial herb area. We never use herbicide so we're trying a method detailed in Gaia's Garden.

Ugly, but effective. Layers of cardboard preventing the

buttercup from photosynthesizing.

Our farm cat Gabby (aka, "Butch) likes the new mulch project. As with any mulch, this provides shelter for field beasties which makes for good
hunting ground for Butch.

Tulips are growing fast!

Signs of Spring!

February 13, 2011 12:30 pm

Nick takes a swing

Everyone finds their own way to
unwind and relax when possible
during the days of hard work.

We also try to do end-of-day
check-ins.

Jeannette with the sledge.

Farm Goddess, Kiana in Farm Office

Pictured here is Logan, the Master of Mushrooms, the Pharaoh of Fungi. He is working on a project to grow edible mushrooms. After building this sectioned box he filled the cells with four different planting media to compare how each grows. After filling the box and inoculating it with the mushroom spore he temporarily covered it to trap the naturally occurring CO2 which encourages mycorrhizae growth.

Chickens thought they were getting a meal

Finished...for now.

Four different growing media.

Mara and Lucas mixing up a batch of compost

Shannon, Jeannette and an
anonymous volunteer scooping
out the rich compost from the
now defunct vermiculture bin.
We continue to do vermiculture
in the bin behind Mara (pictured
on right)

Rachel, Melissa and Kayli. "Come and visit again soon!"

February 24th, 2011. School closed due to snow. Eight inches and still falling into the evening. Unusual for this area.

Pictured below is PSA member, Daniel, cleaning the accumulated snow off the greenhouse. In a previous during heavy snowfall one of the greenhouses collapsed under the weight.