Our first farmers market

White Russian kale, green Curley kale, peas, mixed lettuce and
Cilantro. We had to go back to the farm on the boat to get more kale.

Weeding the Eliot Coleman Way

We use tools designed by Eliot Coleman for weeding. The tool is a
sharp hoe with a long handle that is designed to cut just below the
soil level using a motion that keeps the operator standing upright,
rather than bent over like the traditional hoe.

The beauty of order...

Eliot Coleman's layout is really a beautiful thing. While we won't say weeding is our favorite past time, but we can say that it is certainly manageable with this system... and the results produce a beautiful order to the garden.

One week more means less...

We left some of the pickling cucumbers in the greenhouse until June because the instructions said to transplant after June 1.

Guess what? They were wrong.

The small plant is the one with the extra week in the greenhouse... the big healthy one we transplanted at the end of May and it is doing much better. My hand is there to give some perspective.

Kale, lettuce, peas and corn

Jonathan and Cristina have nurtured every one of these plants from
seed. We are so thankful for their loving effort.

Kale for Sale

The Co-op in Florence, Oregon is the first store to sell our produce. Wow, From seed to store in 58 days.

What a difference 10 days make...

Compare this picture with the one we posted on May 1. 

We're farming now!

Our First Customers

Hayden and Dawn Sears take a bite of some fresh picked White Russian
Kale grown at Whiskey Creek Organics. Hayden was the previous owner
of the land and it seemed only fair that he and Dawn be the first to sample

our first produce.

The fruits of our labor...

This is the first salad made ever made from Whiskey Creek Organic
produce. The greens are organic White Russian Kale grown from seed on
the farm.

Look mom... here's your salad. (At least it's a start.)

Grama Pip wanted to know when she could have a salad... so here's the
answer. Right now. As long as it's a White Russian Kale or Baby
Spinach salad.

Kale, Peas, Spinach, Lettuce and Corn

This may look like a greenhouse, but it's actually a cold house. Without endwalls or a heating system, it's main purpose is to keep the spring rains off the crops and allow the sun to warm the ground. Once these crops are harvested we will wait a bit, then replace them with fall crops and use the coldhouse to extend the season.

Irrigation lines

Jonathan rented a trencher to get a new irrigation line to the
greenhouses. Hand watering was taking over 2 hours of valuable
daylight. Since our water pressure occurs naturally (Whiskey Creek

is above the farm and the water is delivered at 80 psi) we have a
zero carbon footprint when we irrigate our crops.

A warm spring day...

It's hard to believe that it snowed earlier this week, but for now we will bask in the warm sunlight of spring. Jonathan and Christina have finished laying out the beds in both greenhouses and have been busy getting plants in the ground. The beautiful order of Eliot Coleman's farm layout is starting to be seen.

Propagation Station

Jonathan improved our seedling's world with these rails close to the
ground (the ground stays warmer at night than tables do) that have
complete drainage for the trays and a 5% tilt toward the sun (which
actually makes the sun's rays equal to 300 miles south.

Emerging Peas...

Each one of these blocks has 4 pea seeds in it. We will not thin them like most gardeners do, but will let all four grow. These were planted on March 31st.

Compost

We are fortunate to have an OMRI certified compost supplier in the
state. This is about 3 tons of the black gold that we will spread on
our seed beds right before planting or transplanting. We are in the

process of making our own compost from grasses on the farm, but it
will take two years before it is ready to use.

In the ground...

With some help from Amy (a friend who took time away from her Master's thesis in Organic Agriculture) we set out our first transplants of Kale in the coldhouse. Since we didn't have the tool mentioned in the previous post, we used the old fashioned string method.

Don't look for what you want...

There is no picture with this post, because we don't have what we need at this time. We are laying out the planting patterns in order to transplant the soil blocks into the beds, but even at this early stage we have five different transplant patterns... and almost 6,000 square feet of greenhouses to plant. Since there is no pre-made pattern makers, we will have to make our own. We'll look around the farm and figure something out. That's why I always say... "Don't look for what you want. Look for what will do what you want." - David

Organic Additives

The second greenhouse (or the first cold house depending on how you want to look at it) got it's initial dosage of lime, fish bone meal and feather meal. These are approved organic additives that we are adding to get the soil up to the proper pH level, as well as nitrogen and phosphorus. We determined the soil needs by having soil analysis done by a lab.

Soil blocks inside soil blocks

We transplanted the small soil blocks into bigger ones so their roots can keep expanding. This bunch of happy plants are kale plants that we started on Friday the 13th of March.

Second Greenhouse Covered!

With some help from some friends from Seattle... the second greenhouse is now covered! Technically this would be called a cold frame since we are not going to put endcaps on it. We are going to use it not necessarily for the captured heat, but instead as a place to get some early crops going during the rainy season.

Tomato seeds

When I was a kid, I always wanted to dig up the seeds in the garden to see if they were doing anything. Well, with our soil blocks, the seeds are (usually) not covered. They just sit on the soil block soaking up the sun and fresh Whiskey Creek water until... wow... just one week after they were dropped onto our mini blocks, the seeds have germinated on their toasty warm propogation pads.

Ventilation Test

Greenhouses are an artificial environment that can get their own special problems like pests or mold. In order to minimize that, we built our greenhouses with lots of ventilation options. This is our first test to see how well our design worked. Temperature control is also a concern because even in rainy Oregon, when the sun comes out, it is a powerful force. Yes, the temp inside the greenhouse was 92 degrees... before we opened the doors and side vents.

Kale Emergence

Our first mini blocks of Kale are emerging. The beauty of using soil
blocks is that unlike direct seeding, where you have to plant multiple
seeds in order to guarantee emergence - then thin out the extra if all
seeds emerge, we will only transplant the strongest emerged seeds...
and will not have to thin. These seeds were planted less than a week
before this picture was taken, and have been sitting on a propagation
pad that keeps the blocks warm to encourage emergence.

Our first soil blocks.

We couldn't use the organic compost we bought because even though it
was organic, the seller couldn't prove that they had kept it at the
right temperature for the necessary time. We used dirt from our greenhouse and sifted it down through a 1/4" screen. Eliot Coleman recommends using Greensand for soil blocks, but our dirt is already high in iron, potassium, and trace minerals so we didn't use it.