Category: The Urban Farm

Newbies

Posted on by Meryl in Poetry, The Urban Farm

Actually , new bees!  Those of you who have been following this blog may remember the great adventure of the Haengekorb, in which my friend Laurie and I went to Sebastapol and bought a unique hanging basket hive, because I wanted bees and she had a swarm. we set up the hive, Laurie donned her bee suit and dumped the swarm in, and they seemed to settle happily. But several months later, after building a small amount of comb and storing some honey, they disappeared.

I moved the Haengekorb to a new, sunnier spot, with a new roof. It’s not nearly as elegant as it was hanging from the tree, but much more practical. Even romantic farmers need to take reality int account from time to time. For one thing, I don’t need a ladder to get into the hive now, and it’s much more protected from rain. I finished this project last Saturday, and on Monday night, got a call about a bee swarm. I grabbed my veil and gloves and drove out to El Sobrante. Continue reading “Newbies” →

Sunday breakfast from the backyard

Posted on by Meryl in The Urban Farm

Today is a perfect Bay Area gem: warm, no fog looming, and the garden flourishing.

I wandered out to feed the chickens and was seduced by the first English peas fat enough to pick. I pulled up a few scallions, cut some spinach, and added a few springs of basil and tarragon from the labyrinth. The hens contributed their miraculous eggs. A tortilla from the store, an Early Girl tomato from the farmers’ market, and voila:

Along with the NY Times, it made a perfect start to match the day.  Larry added a quote from Kant (from a Jim Grant book review in yesterday’s WSJ):

“Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made, nothing entirely straight can ever be carved.”

I wonder if that was partly the inspiration for Auden’s: “You shall love your crooked neighbor/With your crooked heart”?

My own crooked heart is, for the moment, replete and ready to tackle the Book Review, which is waiting for me at the edge of the photo.

The mysterious Yacón, footsteps on the roof

Posted on by Meryl in Garden

My neighbor and I have gotten to be friends, bonding over our love of chickens. George is an avid gardener and I have been trading him eggs for various plants. The most recent is this Peruvian tuber, called a Yacón (or Yacun). 

As you can see (using the spoon for scale), the tubers grow very large. When you peel and slice a piece, it’s like a sweeter, juicier jicama.  It’s great in fruit salads, taking on the flavor of the fruit, in regular salads, or in stews. I like it so much I got some rhizomes from George to plant my own.

George said gophers were extraordinarily fond of the tubers, so I dug a bed and lined it with chicken wire before I planted them. Continue reading “The mysterious Yacón, footsteps on the roof” →

Cluck and Glück

Posted on by Meryl in Chickens, Poetry

I didn’t know that Louise Gluck pronounced her name to rhyme with “click,” but that’s how it is. She read on Thursday night at Moe’s (yes, we still have a few bookstores in Berkeley!). It was a pleasure to listen to her read though she announced at the start that she doesn’t like to read. I had to strain to hear, but it was worth it. She read from her new book, A Village Life.

The NY Times review mentions “her signature desolation,” and there is certainly a generous measure of pain in her work. I don’t find this off-putting.

My favorite of the poems she read was “The Crossroads.” You can hear her read it–the poem starts about one minute in if you want to skip the pretentious intro. She’ll be reading again as part of the Lunch Poems series at UC on March 1.

Earlier that day (here is the cluck part) my wonderful friend and expert builder, Jeannie, finished creating a set of plant protection boxes for my garden. Now that it’s planting season, I’d like to let the chickens out to weed and fertilize, but you may remember what they do to anything that grows.

So we created a set of 2′ x 4′ boxes with bird cloth stapled around the sides to put around various areas where things are growing. They are lightweight and transportable. We painted them with camouflage paint so that they blend into the landscape (Jeannie’s idea).

Now the plants can thrive, and the chickens can do their work:

Slug fest

Posted on by Meryl in Chickens

It was a misty, moisty morning, a perfect day for slugs (if not for banana fish).  I walked the labyrinth several times, to pick them off the greens. Each time I gathered a handful, which the chickens got to enjoy right away:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like the way the rooster stands aside and lets his hens have first bite. He always does this–such a gentleman.

And happily, my computer is repaired!

 

 

 

 

 

The peculiar behavior of chickens

Posted on by Meryl in Chickens

I’ve been letting the chickens out into the winter garden to weed and fertilize. I cover or fence off the few crops I don’t want them to eat. But the chickens are curious and persistent. Yesterday, they managed to peel back the ground cover over the last cauliflower and strip it:

This seemed odd to me, because earlier that day, I’d given them some collard leaves, and the chickens just left them on the ground uneaten. Continue reading “The peculiar behavior of chickens” →

Winter garden

Posted on by Meryl in The Urban Farm

The weather here in Northern California has been wonderfully sunny and warm for the last week or so, giving me time to get the labyrinth ready for winter, take down old tomato vines, and get the beds ready for planting.  For the labyrinth, I trimmed and added garlic and greens, along with new pebbles for the path.

 

The tomato vines were a bigger challenge.  There were a lot of them! And I had put off taking them down because there were still so many green tomatoes.  But now the green ones are ripening on the window sill. It took me three afternoons to pile up all the vines, and then all day to put them through my wonderful Eco Shredder. The shredder is a great tool, and from three huge piles of dead vines, I have about a small garbage can full of wonderful fine green-brown mulch.  I let the chickens out and they were very willing to help with the cleanup. They love to forage, and ate quite a bit of the shredded vines, even though they don’t like tomato plants normally.

In any case, they were happy, I was happy, and the garden is almost ready for winter planting. My neighbor gave me some black fava beans and these should make a good cover crop.

Dr. Seuss plant

Posted on by Meryl in Garden

Every gardener has favorite plants. Mine is a little vine called Ceropegia Distincta.  It looks like nothing but a lot of green sticks a lot of the time, and then suddenly sprouts tendrils and leaves. Little flower buds form that turn into white and purple polka dotted upside down umbrellas that look like an illustration from a Dr Seuss book, this one from McElligot’s Pool.  After months looking lifeless, the ceropegia is doing it again this week:

It’s not a metaphor for anything, but is just itself.

 

First egg

Posted on by Meryl in Chickens

At last, when I looked in the nest box yesterday, I found a small, green egg:

Americana chickens lay eggs that range in color from pale blue to olive green.

I carried it up triumphantly and Larry dubbed it “the $500 egg.” I will enjoy it with that in mind. As we are loading all the costs onto the first egg, the rest will be less expensive.

Garden, chickens, bees

Posted on by Meryl in Chickens

It’s a very foggy August here in the East Bay, and I think the red mulch is really helping the garden to flourish. I have a tomato jungle with many green and some ripe tomatoes, corn almost ready to eat, baby eggplants and artichokes, squash (always a plethora of those) and cucumbers.

Plus, the chickens should be just about ready to lay. I was given an Americana rooster, named Malawi, by a family who couldn’t keep him, and so far the neighbors are okay with him. I added herbs and fake eggs (chickens like to lay their eggs next to existing ones) to the nesting box, and hung a continuous feed feeder up so that they can eat to their hearts’ content, all in preparation for eggs.

The chickens were a little spooked by the new feeder at first, but soon got used to it.

 

On a sad note, though, the bees have failed to thrive. I’ve been noticing their numbers diminishing, and yesterday looked in the hive. There were only a few dozen bees, and not much comb. The bee guru says this just happens sometimes. It’s disheartening. After the last bees live out their hospice days in the hive, I will clean it out and prepare it for a new swarm in the spring. And I’ll move it to a spot where they get more sun.  Then perhaps they will do better.  For now, just waiting for the wonderful sound a hen makes when she announces that she’s laid an egg! laid an egg! laid an egg!

 

Baby Vegetables

Posted on by Meryl in Garden

While I know that showing pictures of individual plants in your garden is like showing family photos, some of you may love photos of baby vegetables as I do. For you, here’s a short slide show of the growing corn, artichokes, tomatillos, tomatoes, squash, edamame and cucumbers mid-July. Some of them show the red mulch in the background.


The rest of you can just skip this post.