POTE Farm Press

Howdy farmy folks. This article came out a while ago but I never posted a link. It originally came out in Gig Harbor Life Weekly.
Click here to view the article, in case you missed it.

My PIcks for Seed Companies

A lot of people ask me where they can get heirloom seeds. I've decided to post a short list of who I buy from and why. Before I do, here's a little quote from Suzannne Ashworth's book, Seed to Seed...this book is a must have for any farmer or home gardener:

"The seed that gardeners hold in their hands at planting time are living links in an unbroken chain reaching back into antiquity. Today's gardeners cannot possibly comprehend the amount of history contained in their seeds, both what has come before and what may potentially come after their brief involvement".

One last word, before you go thinking that heirloom seeds are not important, or before you decide that seed is seed, before you make up your mind not to care where you get your seed from, and before you decide that $3 is way too much to pay for 25 seeds, please remember that hundreds of generations and thousands of years of heritage are contained in a single seed. People have literally starved to death protecting seeds, people have been imprisoned for their work to save seed, and many many varieties and genetic diversity are lost in this age of cheap seed from giant distributors. Today, most of the world's seed in now distributed by only a small handful of giant corporations. Most of the time these big seed company's biggest concern is storage life and a plant's shipability (not to mention making giant profits). Nutrition, flavor, local growing ability, or genetic diversity are typically of little or no concern to large seed companies. Please consider supporting your local smaller seed companies. Here are a few that I look to for my seed needs. I encourage you to save your own seed according to the methods described in Suzanne Ashworth's book as well as purchase from your own local seed companies.

In order of my personal priority:

**Uprising Seeds, located in Bellingham Washington: uprisingorganics.com
Uprising is a small family owned and operated seed company that grows 100% certified organic seeds almost entirely at their own small farm in Bellingham, Washington. What they don't personally grow is grown nearby on small farms in Washington, Oregon, California, and Idaho. They have an emphasis on heirloom varieties and try to keep varieties alive that grow well in the Pacific North West.

**Wild Garden Seeds, Located in Philomath, Oregon: Wildgardenseeds.com
Wild Garden Seeds is another family owned and opperated seed company that grows most of their own 100% orgnaic seeds at their own home farm. They have exceptional lettuce and pepper seeds, as well some hard find heirlooms varieties of other vegetables.

**High Mowing Seed, Locaed in Wolcott, Vermont: highmowingseedseeds.com
High mowing is a larger seed company but I've included it here because it's a wonderful go to source for 100% organic seed with an heirloom influence. With 450 varieties of heirloom seed, I find that they have almost anything I need. Also, a lot of their seed is still grown on their own 40 acre farm, which is quite remarkable in this day of giant seed companies. The company is still family owned and is operated in ways that matche up with our own farming philosophy of building an ecosystem on the farm.

**Heirloom Seeds: heirloomseeds.com
This is a company composed of many farmers and gardeners who simply want to sell and preserve heirloom seeds. They have a lot of seed varieties that I've never seen anywhere else.

**The Sustainable seed company: sustainableseedco.com
I'm fairly new to this company but so far I've really enjoyed the seeds I've gotten form them. They grow all their seeds and don't import seeds form any where. They are also all heirloom.

Garlic Harvest!

Last fall we planted about 25 pounds of hard and soft neck garlic and this last week we were able to harvest hundreds of garlic bulbs. Here's a hearty thank you to all our volunteers, Breezy, Daniel and Natasha (as well as Jessica and Erin), who helped make this fabulous harvest possible. Please enjoy the photos. Peace!!

Some of the garlic hanging to dry (thanks Natasha for this photo)


The garlic goodness from below


The Crew doing some of the harvest


Farm Hand Breezy with garlic goodness


Farm Hand Daniel tying up Garlic to be dried.

2010 Summer Vegetable CSA Begins!

Hello All,

Last week we begun our 12 week Summer Vegetable CSA program. Thanks to the help of our Volunteers, Breezy, Daniel, Natasha, Jessica, and Erin, our program began deliciously and beautifully. Just see for your self:

A portion of the delectable harvest:


One of our customer's CSA boxes:


Three of our Volunteers with Farmy-Flare: From left to right, Jessica, Natasha and Daniel.

May 2010 Photos

Here are a few recent picture of the happenings on the farm, enjoy.

Sage:


Kale goodness:


Fararo Cabbage


Prize Choy, an Asian Green


Echinacea and a Bumbly friend


In the Hoop House


Garlic and some Sweet Flowering kale


In the Green House




Lettuce and other green goodness


Spinach


Sunrise on the Farm, 5am


Nettles Farm, site of our farm expansion

Wish List April 2010

Hi Folks! A few people have asked me if they could donate items to the farm and I thought it might be a good idea to post an official "wish list" every now and then to help those people out. Of course any contribution is greatly appreciated, but we thought you at home might appreciate a little direction when you gather up items after your spring cleaning.

We are currently looking for:
* Scrap wood such as untreated 2x4's or 4x4's
* wooden pallets
* Nails and screws
* 4" garden pots (or other sizes)
* Hand tools such as shovels, hoes, rakes, pliers, screw drivers etc.
* T-posts
* Buckets
* Hinges and hooks

If you find yourself with a surplus of any of these items, or if you have something else you think we might be able to use, feel free to send me an email and let me know (peaceoftheearthfarm@gmail.com).

Some Recent Photos

Brian has been working hard on the barn and he's made some amazing progress. We were able to acquire some affordable seconds of cedar tongue and groove and Brian has lined all the walls and ceilings with this wonderful wood.




I've been working to get the farm ready for spring by building a simple green house for starts. I built this small 10' by 10' green house out of scrap wood and a double layer of scrap 6 mil green house plastic. This green house design is so simple and very affordable and it can be made any length from as small as 10 feet to 100. When I put my next one up in the spring, I'll be posting a step by step instruction of how to build a similar structure.


All the tables in the greenhouse are made from scrap wood from pallets and construction sites. I'll be building some more tables over the next couple weeks and I'll post a step by step instruction of how to make a sturdy work space out of pallets and scrap wood. With a keen eye, pallets and scrap plywood can easily be found for free and many store fronts, construction sites and neighbors would gladly have you take them away. You can also make fences, sheds, and other useful structures with these sturdy gifts.


If you had any doubt of the power of compost, check out the before and after of this compost pile (and the Sweet Kellie standing by). This compost pile is only few months old and the process is even faster in the spring, summer and fall...go compost!!

Before:

After:


Lastly, here are a few things that are growing on the farm at the moment:

some kale and prize choy that survived the winter:


Here's one of the varieties of Garlic we seeded last fall

The fruit trees are all budding!


Thanks for checking in!

Peace,
Hillary

Mini-barn Progress

The mini-barn is coming along. So far, I have all the utilities in and have achieved much headway on the cedar planking that will be used to cover the walls. The rain has been putting a damper (no pun intended) on the progress, but I set up a large tent to keep the power tools out of the seasonal downpour. However, while I was working yesterday, a huge gust came during one of the storms and launched my tent about 50 feet into the adjacent pasture and mud. All I could do was duck and cover and hope for the best. The best did not occur. The tent is now a muddy wreck of twisted metal and canvas. Oh well, at least I didn't get my head split open. All issues aside, the walls look great. Electric seems to be working like a champ-I was concerned that the breaker wouldn't handle the load, but I have been running 5 lights, 2 fans, an air compressor and a power saw all at the same time. Seems ok. The lights flicker a bit when the compressor kicks in, but that is to be expected. Once I finish the paneling, I will do the floors, make the countertops and move on to the deck. Wish me luck (I need lots of it because I am a very unskilled carpenter!)

Brian

From Barn to Home

There might not be much growing in January here on the farm but that doesn't mean we are found without project to work on. During these winter months it's all about planning, planning and more planning. We have been using this time of year to finalize our growing schedule, get out seed in order, make sure all our equipment is adequate and fixing up our newest addition to the farm; a barn/living space. We bought this mini barn from a some folks in Lake Stevens and are currently in the process of converting it into a living space. This barn will have a loft, a small kitchen, a small bathroom and a sitting area. Check back soon for more pictures and information.