Island Harvest Farm

Today, I woke up to blue sky and a perfect day for planting!! Fueled by the promise of fresh vegetables and over-caffeination, I raced around this morning gathering seeds that need planting, moving flats of seedlings outside to harden off and found the best ground ready for planting!

We started with potatoes! Dad and I took turns using the wheel hoe to dig a furrow for the potatoes…so much easier on your back than digging with a shovel!

Once the furrow was deep enough and all the big rocks removed, in went the potatoes! Here are the Rose Golds:

We also planted Huckleberry Gold, Yukon Gold and German Butterballs!

Next, we planted half a bed of carrots, an orange and a yellow variety. The very delicious Carrot is a diva that will grow into funny shapes without a nice fluffy, rock and clump free bed. The carrot is worth the extra effort, so we dug out the paths, adding a little extra depth to the bed and went through by hand to remove rocks and clumps and roots left behind by the cover crop. The second half of the bed will be planted in a week or two.

We finished the day transplanting three varieties of kale and one variety of cauliflower. This bed did not get the same attention to detail that the carrot bed enjoyed. It was measured, the path walked out and we raked it once to get out the really big rocks (There is quite the rock pile growing, I wonder if the Whidbey fighter jets that fly over can see it yet).

Tomorrow, if it stays dry, we will plant more outside (chard, spinach, radishes)! If it rains and storms as predicted, there is another bed that is waiting to be planted inside the hoop house and more flats to be seeded!

I was recently told that there are over 200 produce items available at the grocery store, but the average person only eats about 15 of them. Next time I am at the grocery store, I plan to count everything in the produce section or perhaps I will start with asking someone who works in the produce section.

Anyway, it got me thinking! I looked at my seed list and I have everything divided into 39 categories (these are not official categories, just my categories) with 155 different varieties!! The 2015 Vegetable Challenge is to pay attention to how many different things you eat from the produce section or buy from a local farmer and then see how many you can eat in 2015! I would love to hear about new favorites and good recipes!

Today, we planted two beds in the hoop house! The tiny white tags tell you that we planted 2 varieties of lettuce plus a lettuce mix, 2 varieties of radish, 3 varieties of mustard greens and 1 variety each of spinach and arugula!

If you are interested, here is my list of categories and the number of varieties per category…

• Basil: 1
• Bush Beans: 5
• Fava Beans: 1
• Garbanzo Beans: 1
• Beets: 5
• Broccoli: 5
• Brussels Sprouts: 4
• Cabbage: 8
• Carrots: 8
• Cauliflower: 3
• Celery: 1
• Chard: 1
• Chives: 1
• Cilantro: 2
• Dill: 1
• Popcorn: 1
• Cucumber: 7
• Eggplant: 1
• Fennel: 2
• Kale: 3
• Leeks: 3
• Lettuce: 11
• Melons: 5
• Mustard Greens: 7
• Onions: 3
• Peas: 1
• Peppers, Hot: 2
• Peppers, Sweet: 5
• Potato: 4
• Pumpkins: 1 baking; 3 jack-o-lantern
• Radicchio: 1
• Radish: 3
• Rutabaga: 1
• Shallot: 2
• Spinach: 3
• Summer Squash: 10
• Winter Squash: 9
• Tomato: 22
• Turnip: 1

Progress is happening on the deer fence! We are half way!! The North side is done! Half of the west side is done!

This morning started in the back corner with a view of what the deer now see from my neighbor’s property!

Last week, we got the north leg of the fence up. Thanks to our handy fence stretcher tool, the first 4 feet went up pretty smoothly! You can see in this picture that the first half of the fence is up and dad is rolling out the next roll of fence to be attached above to make a total of 8 feet tall.

I thought attaching the second roll of fence 4 feet off the ground would be the hardest part of this saga, but it turned out to be the task that produced the least amount of head-scratching and loud declarations that deer are difficult!

2 x 4’s held the fence in place, making the stretching and attaching almost easy!

Today, we got half (330ft) of the west side of the property fenced!

So far, the weather has been perfect for this project. We only got rained on the very first day of clearing the fence line! It has been quite foggy in the morning and sunny in the afternoon!

Yes, the construction of the deer fence has been upgraded from a project to a saga.

I have lots of t-posts from all the horse fencing that came with the property, but they are not tall enough for the 8ft deer fence that I need. The original plan was to drill two holes into each t-post and bolt them together.

After two trips to the hardware store and 6 dulled drill bits that no longer worked, we had 14 t-posts with two holes drilled into them. Only 240 more t-posts to drill holes into. Dad and I calculated how many more drill bits we needed, reminded ourselves that Pete Carroll says every challenge is an opportunity for success and then we stopped for lunch.

New plan! We will wire the posts together! Luckily, there is a ton of electric wire on the back fence line that we uncovered a couple days ago. This wire will be cut and used to tie 2 t-posts together to make one 9ft t-post. Originally, we were going to put up a 6 ft fence and run the wire above the fence to get to 8ft tall. But, I bought 4ft field fence and our plan is to run a lower and upper roll to get to 8ft (Do not worry, an installment of this saga will contain pictures and stories about how we are going to unroll and stretch 330ft of field fence 4ft off the ground. Perhaps, to offset the cost of all the fence, I will sell tickets to watch what promises to be an entertaining portion of the Deer Fence Saga!!).

After lunch, we got to work attaching the t-posts with wire and started to make progress!

So, it was one of the those days were much less was accomplished than originally planned, but we are ready to keep moving with our new plan and it was a gorgeous day to be outside!!!

After wandering around the farm and discussing deer fencing options, we are moving in a different direction than stated in my previous post! We figured extending the height of the existing fence line around the property would be easier, cheaper and more aesthetically pleasing!

Today, we started the first step of clearing the blackberries and other brush from the existing fence line! My dad cleared the way with a brush cutter and chainsaw…

The rest we cleared by hand and look…A very straight fence line appeared!!

The local deer are enjoying meals of my rye grass and vetch cover crop! They have also learned that I have terrible aim and the rocks I throw will not hit them.

We used the tractor to pull out a bunch of the horse fencing.

Our next step is to extend the existing fence the length of my property. It will be much higher than the horse fence!

I plan to only fence areas where I will grow crops. There is plenty for the deer to eat on the edges of my property that I am leaving wild to provide natural habitat to hopefully attract birds and beneficial insects!

The propagation greenhouse or prop house is a warm, sunny place for seeds to germinate and grow until they are ready to be transplanted into the field! I will start my seeds in plug trays:

The majority of the prop house was built from reused materials! We decided to build it off one side of the barn, so we only had to construct three walls!

The city greenhouse my dad made for me became the corners and middle of the prop house.

Removing walls in the barn left us with a pile of plywood and 2 x 6 boards that made up the rest of the prop house frame and walls!Horse stall pads are now the prop house floor. They are super heavy!

Both end walls have sliding glass doors and the triangle above the door pops out for ventilation

Now the tables have been added and I am ready to start seeds!!

A huge THANK YOU to my dad for all his planning, material scavenging and work!!

Thank you to our friend, Satch, for his help constructing the tables!