First Crops Planted

We got the first crops in this week: three varieties of potatoes, 3 types of onions, lettuce, carrots, arugula, radishes, Calendula (for some color) and Chinese cabbage. This weekend I'll also set out some broccoli. I used my rototiller to make furrows and Jennie used her hoe to create a long 'bowel' on the top of the furrow. She put cotton seed meal (an excellent source of nitrogen) in the bowel and then scattered the seeds and covered with a layer of sifted soil. We'll see how this works. The furrows are up about 6 inches above the mean soil level so they are dryer. At this time of the year, on Ebey Island that is important. Later, when the plants have developed a root system they will be able to reach the water which is only down about 4 inches below mean soil level. We may need to do some watering early, depending on rain, but not later.

Spring Tilling Complete

I was able to get into the garden yesterday and finish (at least for now) the spring tilling. It's funny. The water table is only down about 6 inches, but the surface was dry enough to till. Could have been drier, but it worked. All of the garden has been gone over twice and some as much as 6 times now. I think I've got the canary grass handled. The areas I had covered last fall with black plastic were by far the easiest to work. I wish I had covered the entire garden. Fundamentally, I don't like black plastic, but when a garden is new, I feel justified in using it to save a lot of labor and energy. My grandfather never used anything more than a shovel and a hoe to 'farm' his quarter acre garden. But that was after years of working it every year and good use of mulch over the winters. Ultimately, I'd like to get back to that if I ever stayed in one place long enough.

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After I completed the tilling, I wanted to prepare an area for the early spring planting -- potatoes, onion sets, carrots, etc. For those plants, I wanted to get the root area up away from the water table for sprouting. Later the water table will drop a foot or more so the later crops do not need to be raised. Last year, we laboriously hand dug raised beds, lifting clods of canary-grass-root-laden soil. Most of those beds did not do very well. This year the root clods aren't there, but it's still a lot of work to hand dig raised beds. I used the furrowing attachment on my tiller to make three long raised rows in about 8 minutes. Slick. The furrows are 6-8 inches above the rest of the soil and appear to be 8-10 inches above the water table. The soil settled a lot in the rains since I made the furrows. I'll need to re-make them -- a little higher when it dries out some more. I plan to plant potatoes and onions on top the furrows. I'd like to be able to get the tiller down between the furrows a couple of times during the summer to keep the weeds under control.

Spring Plowing

I went to the farm today to see if Bruce King (of Ebey Island Farm -- see link to the right) had delivered a load of wood chips that I had ordered. Not yet. Bruce needs to get his truck running. No hurry! But I did notice that the ground was probably dry enough to get some tilling done.

3 hours later, I had covered about 2/3 of my plot -- 2 to 4 passes in some cases. The areas that I had tilled a couple of times last fall were easy and are now ready to plant. The areas I didn't get to had more canary grass and will have to be tilled at least one more time before they are ready. So now it depends on the rains. The forecast is for rain tonight and tomorrow, so it might be next week before I can get int the garden again.

It is sure nice to be working with the soil again.

2010 -- a new gardening year

We signed up for another year at Starbird Farm. I went out yesterday and it appeared to me that I might be able to do some rototilling. I want to get at the canary grass before it gets too big. I had gotten about half the garden well tilled several times last year and that part is still really clean of weeds and grass.

I have learned that the City of Everett owns some 400 acres of farm land south of the Lowell River Road a few miles south of Ebey Island. This is good farm land, also within the 100-year flood plain so the city can't build houses there. I have made a propsal to establish community gardens on that land. It has been farmed recently and is in pretty good shape -- not covered with canary grass like Ebey Island. My long term vision is that those 400 acres should be made into 3-5 acre farms that could be leased long term (like 25-year leases) to small farmers who would produce fresh food for the city. With the looming fossil fuel shortages, we need all the food production we can create near the cities. The hill above that land -- adjacent to Interstate 5 -- could be developed into affordable housing for the farmers and their families.

For the past two weeks I was touring southern Mexico, Mayan country. I did get to visit a Mayan village and go inside a Mayan family compound. It consisted of several oval huts with thatched roofs. The Mexican government has brought water (via a garden hose), electricity (lights in the huts and a TV in the corner) and education to the villages. The people are farmers who farm very small acreages often several miles away from the village. Water is a problem. They grow corn, beans, squash and a few melons. Education is in their own language via satellite and DVD. All over the Yucatan, one sees special modified bicycles with a large cargo bay on the front end. A few of them are even motorized. The Yucatan is very flat, so this makes sense. In the Everett area, these things would need some help getting up the hills.

Short Sale

The purchase of the property described in my last post will definitely be a short sale. I discovered that the seller's bank (BoA) is now using a system called 'Equator' to facilitate short sales. I had my realtor initiate an Equator account on this sale. It is supposed to take 60 to 90 days to close the sale on Equator. I also lowered my offer by 10% -- just for the hassle. Since it's a short sale anyway, why not offer what the place is worth. So I now think my offer is high enough to pass the bank's appraisal, but low enough to be a better deal than I first had. We'll see. I may yet get this place in time for some 2010 planting.

Not so Fast There ...

... buster. It turns out that our offer on this farm, which we were assured by the listing agent was adequate to get the place, and which the seller accepted, was too low for the seller's bank. Due to a miss-communication between that bank and the seller, our offer was only enough to cover 95 percent of what the seller owes the bank. The difference is the back interest resulting from 6 months of non-payments. What we have heard is that after moving out of the place, the seller rented it for 5 months AND THE RENTERS NEVER PAID. Hence the bank didn't get paid and now they want their money. In effect, they want us to make good on those 5 months of freeloading renters. Sorry, not interested.

On the other hand, don't you think that in today's economy the bank would be happy to get 95 percent of what they are owed? But that would make too much sense. Instead, we loose the farm, the seller will be forced into bankruptcy, the bank will foreclose, the house will sit empty for months while the process happens and eventually the bank will have to sell the house at a loss of 40 to 50 percent. We live in strange times. Does this sound like bank-suicide? It does to me.

We did it!

We found a drier place to farm. It is just 3 miles up the hill from Ebey Island on the outskirts of Snohomish. Last week we made an offer and it was accepted on a .82 acre upland 'farm.' There's a house -- vintage 1940's -- that we will rent so someone who wants a share of an organic garden. We will keep half the property for our own use. That will include a small barn, chicken coop and a 1/3 acre open, gently sloping area which is now in horse pasture. We have already paid for the StarBird Farm for 2010 so we will continue through this summer there. It will take us a month or two to get the house into rent-able shape and we don't want to rush ourselves too much to get a garden in there.

Now we will have a place of our own (and an investment, we got a good deal) where we can plant fruit trees and other permanent food crops. If we decide to buy an RV after we sell our boat (38 ft long, 14 ft beam Californian trawler), we will also have a place to park that instead of using up all of our driveway.

The property also includes a large shop. For someone who could live in a three bedroom, one bath house and needs a large shop, this could be a good deal.