Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Sutoria Farm

A lot has beein going on here in Sutoria. "we" just completed out greenhouse. Our fantastic neighbor, Sharif, built it out of reclaimed windows that we both collected. I found mine from a home that was being remodeled and the owner had posted them on Craig's List. Sharif had picked a whole bunch up last year when Whole House Building Supply moved locations. We had known for a while what we wanted to do, but it wasn't until Sharif built one at his place and one at his mom's that our collection really began coming together. It is beautiful and with a few finishing touches it will be complete! We just need to figure out our watering system will be like and our ventilation system is coming in the mail! 











Sharif is really the star of this show though. He knocked this thing out in three days! So, not only is he our way cool neighbor, but he is super driven AND has a way adorable baby that I love squishing! ;) (hint hint Kyli!)
So on top of this super fast and nearly unbelievably impressive job, I had a horrible accident where dogs got into my chicken coop, so he took my last remaining hen and then dismantled the chicken coop so we can build a way super awesome hen house that will be way safer for our fine feathered ladies in the future. He also is making some pretty nifty arches for our passion vine to grow on on the front porch since the one in the back had about 300 lbs of plant (vines, leaves and fruit) last year, we wanted to make sure to have something nice for these ones to climb. Yes, passion fruit grows here, and it does well. We had about 50 fruit from one vine.
Sometime in the near future we will be redoing our front fence as well, so look for that story soon! As far as edibles in the land of Sutoria, we have put eight more planter boxes in the back filled with soil from Lyngso. Then we went straight into planting a ton of seeds I bought at the heirloom expo and from Baker Creek Seed Company/Petaluma Seed Bank. I tried out gluing seeds to napkins and planting those. It worked well since it was raining when we were doing it and Olivia was able to help me plan and space. All I had to do when the sun came out was lay them out, toss some soil on and mark them. I also put hog wire over the tops of the beds since there are about a million cats in the neighborhood. We've got radishes, beets, carrots, kohlrabi and rutabagas coming up in the beds from seed. Jason cut back our dinosaur kale, chopped up the stock and rooted the pieces. We have red swiss chard going to town as well as some other kales, sunflower volunteers and enormous amounts of potatoes out of the compost pile.
Jason thinks he grafted about 15 scions this year, which is down from years past, but we have nearly everything we want and can get our hands on at this point. Many of our trees are already setting fruit, which has me super excited. (Which reminds me, have you seen the photo of a nursery sign that says, "Spring is here! We are so excited we wet our plants!"?)
My dear friend Hannah has taken a bunch of seeds up to Mendocino to a major greenhouse to start for me. The best part is we are trading her labor for a bunch of the plants!! Between her and I we will have a bounty this year!
This Saturday is my third seedling sale this month. This one though I will have some plants I started, hugh's tomato, orange fleshed purple smudge tomato, san marzano tomato and ragged jack kale. I'm planning to use the proceeds for the fundraiser I am planning for Collective Roots coming up at the end of July. Look for information on that event soon as well! Live music, hopefully by Curious Quail, local produce from back yard gardeners in East Palo Alto and surrounding areas, and food from local cooks/bloggers and bakers. Anyone who would like to volunteer anything for this event, it would be more than welcome. All of the proceeds will be going to Collective Roots!
Spring has sprung and we are moving and shaking! What have you got growing on?