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?

A Squash Adventure

A couple of months ago I decided to start all sorts of squash to give away. I watered and checked them daily and nothing happened. I abandoned them and Jason combined all the soil and reused it to start ice cream bean. Guess what came up?! Squash! And we don't know what is what! I can't give away plants that have no identity, so we planted them - all 15 of them. There are Wyatt's Giant Wonder, Cinderella Pumpkin, Baby Blue Hubbard, Omaha Pumpkin, and louffa gourds. There may be a couple of others as well. We'll see!
We also planted black beans, okra, zucchini, fennel, sunflowers, eggplant, orange bell peppers, tree tomato and giant white maize. Hopefully it is a bountiful harvest this year!

Tomato season is here again!

I had my Master Gardener sale on April 2nd, and the GreenSteaders sale was on the 10th. I have way too many tomato plants somehow and no place to put them all! I ended up with 5 tangerine, 2 Berkeley tie-die, 2 pineapple, 1 pork chop, 2 San Marzano, 2 Mama Leone, 1 Cherokee Purple, 1 black cherry, 2 Hezhou, 2 Paul Robeson, 1 black oxheart, and two from Apple something or other farm. Holy cow!
I've got beets in the ground and I'm getting fruit off of my snap peas. I've also joined the board of directors for GreenSteaders. :) Next up is to finish planting all those tomatoes and to start my next round of seed bombs!

Things are growing!!!

SNOW?!

I doubt we will get snow this evening, but it is in the forecast for large parts of the bay area! Jason patched up parts of the greenhouse that were destroyed in the last bad weather, and he just covered the tender plants. Hopefully most will be hardy for the cold!
We have two new additions to Sutoria Farm, a pair of ducklings named Zorro and El Kabong. Thus far they've made their home on the side of the house (they like to be near the heat vent at night), and during the day they bask in the sunshine in and around the lavender bushes in the bee garden out front. They will be quite at home this summer, and will look very cozy in the lush garden!

January heat wave

It is scion season again for the California Rare Fruit Growers (crfg.org) and our second daughter was born right in the middle of the exchanges. J went to a couple alone, and last weekend we went to the Sebastapol exchange. We tried to go to a couple of interesting places while we were there (the Yerba Mate factory and a Seed Bank), but they were closed. We did however try out the Petaluma Pie Shop and it was pretty tasty.
The warm spell we've been having has been beautiful for us, but confusing for our plants. Some of the trees are beginning to bud already. Our garden in front is sprouting California poppies and other wild flowers.
J is starting some seeds and rooting indoors. It is the cusp of spring and we are anxiously waiting for it!

Winter Garden

Garlic is sprouting up, some leeks are hanging on (forgetting about them and then having them trampled may not help them), and snap peas are green! The chickens have some babies, and the chilacayote is going crazy. As I write, I am making some squash gratin for a pot luck. Just last week we used the finger limes for some marmalade.
As the rains come some of the natives are beginning to pop up again. We went to Annie's Annuals a couple weekends ago and picked up some longer term plants to incorporate into both the front and the back yards. The most interesting of which is probably the Puya, a variety of which that will take 8 or so years to bloom. We have some others to attract pollinators into the back, like a couple of new lavenders (a white and a pink), and a matilija poppy.
The rain and storm today were beautiful. Seeing ice (hail) in the garden was strange for California, but I loved it just the same.

Update on the pasta sauce.

Amazing! It was so fresh and was even a bit spicy. For everyone else's tastes, I think I would tone the pepper down a little, but otherwise it was REALLY, REALLY GOOD!!!

First tomato sauce of the season!

Harvest of today's fresh heirlooms and cherries.


Onions, garlic, golden thyme, basil, sage and a bay leaf from our garden.



Cut up and ready for the heat.


Mashed and "water" freed ready to heat.

Condensing and bubbling!

Ready to blend!!!

One jar ready to eat!

Interesting article and an update.

First of all I just read an interesting article about disappearing bumble bees. Thought I would share it here.

Secondly, here we are in Summer! Beautiful as it is, my spring plants have died and the garden in front is looking rather empty. The chickens loved it when I pulled the dead plants out. Snails and pincher bugs galore!
The back is looking beautiful. All of the many tomato plants are growing nicely (20 - 30ish). I harvested my first zucchini the other night as well! Two of my hens want to be mommies, and several of the trees are fruiting beautifully. The borage I planted (companion plant for tomatoes) is looking beautiful, and my incorporation of flowers into the back is coming along nicely. Soon I will plant a cinderella pumpkin in the back and some potatoes out front. Lots of gardening to come!

A few photos.

These photos are from earlier in February.



Various things to plant and Marmalade.



J trimming the Lemon Tree.



Buddha's Hand Citron from our tree. We used it in Orange, Lemon & Citron Marmalade.

Sunshine on my face and dirt under my nails.

Ah, sunshine. The rain is just enough to make our soil soft but not muddy. The temperature is the perfect place of being cool enough that I am not sweating too much while I work but warm enough to not need a jacket. The beginning of "that other season" in our two seasoned climate.
The new year has brought the adventure of attending multiple California Rare Fruit Grower Scion Exchanges. We took the opportunity to visit friends and family from Santa Rosa to SLO and even to introduce them to the "room full of people fighting over sticks" as we jokingly call it.
J has been working hard grafting the scions onto our existing trees in the back yard. He has even been wearing his headlamp at night to do it!
Yesterday we did a work day at EPACS in the garden run by Collective Roots. Olivia and I tapped the dirt out of pots in the greenhouse and J worked on draining a pond.
Back in December we tossed some poppy seeds (red oriental poppies and pink hungarian breadseed poppies) all around the yard. They are coming up all over, and hopefully they will be beautiful!
Soon I will be starting some Zennias (including green), Bells of Ireland, and some sunflowers. We have already started Marigolds (which will be fed to the chickens for brighter yolks), petunias, and various heirloom tomatoes. The tomatoes will be sold at the Earth Day event coming up in Cupertino!
This afternoon we planted carrots (french round and plain french), red and white radishes, turnips, and kohlrabi. We clipped the chicken's wings, and J covered my hoop houses to protect the soon to be seedlings.
If feels like spring is upon us, and I am looking forward to a fruitful harvest!

Bee or Fly?

Honey Bees

Black Bumble Bee

A little over a year later...

Our garden projects have taken on a life of their own. J is a member of the California rare fruit growers and has planted many edible fruits, tubers, vines and veggies in our back yard. I stopped counting trees at 24. Our yard is not that big mind you, these are all dwarf trees planted closely together, or they are trees that do well in pots. We are always trying new fruits and hunting for cool things at markets. This year we may try to do some more grafting. Last year's grafts onto the peach tree didn't take. When you graft onto an existing tree, you can have multiple kinds of fruit on it. So we could have a few different types of lemons on one tree - variety in a small space! :)

I grew WAY too many tomatoes this year, and I wish I had made sauces with them sooner. Next year we will do more heirloom varieties.

The bee garden took off. We had a lot of native flowers come in as well as kinds that the bees just love. We grew some Cinderella pumpkins, and Jerusalem Artichokes (Sunchokes) which took over. We have guavas, a new lime tree, blackberries and raspberries out there now too. This coming growing season I plan to extend the bee friendliness to the back yard. Bees are attracted to pollinator plants, so I am thinking some things like borgia where the flowers are edible but the bees love them.

I am also planning a dinosaur garden for our daughter (with "ancient" plants), and we are working on a temporary greenhouse for the winter. This year has gone by SO fast!






The bee garden before it took off.


The finished back patio with various fruit plants/trees.

September is here...

Progress on the garden has been slow. Many of the plants died due to the heat and not being established. Many are coming back in a little fuller now, and the grass is finally dead. We put in an Elizabethan Magnolia, and a concord grape vine. Tonight I just planted some wildflowers and two kinds of poppy seeds. One is the native California Poppies and the others are crimson poppies which I purchased at Common Grounds in Palo Alto. You can by seeds by the teaspoon there! They also offer classes on gardening! I highly recommend them!
Last week we put out some garlic and ginger that were a little too ripe for cooking but perfect for growing. They're shooting up SO fast!
We are doing our part in recycling by getting some of the things we need from freecycle.org. I picked up a planting bench, and some cinder blocks. The cinder blocks have been turned into the base for a bench. J made a top for it out of some ply wood. It is perfect for storing garden supplies and for sitting on.
Though this is not part of the bee garden, the back yard is coming along nicely too. We put in a composting pile, and add our compost-able kitchen waste to it. We'll be putting in some more planter boxes made from recycled fence boards and plant a ton of veggies back there! I am collecting bricks that people no longer want for redoing our back patio. So far we have a fair amount.
I don't know how soon the wild flowers will pop up, but I can't wait - they'll be SO beautiful! In October I will be planting Chinese Houses! We will be digging out some of the rocks next to the porch soon too so we can grow flowers there too!

For the Bees

When we bought our home, the yard was in need of some tender loving care. We've been here for a few months now, and I decided, finally, on what to do with the front yard. Grass is hard to maintain without using weed killer constantly, and we currently cannot afford landscaping. When I was still pregnant, we went to a BBQ with some family, and I saw this metallic black bumble bee. I was amazed to learn later that California has over 1,500 species of bees, and around 81 in the bay area alone! The honey bee is an imported bee! Crazy eh? Anyway, I have decided to make a bee garden, this will be a place where bees are welcome and invited! It isn't too pretty yet, as there really is only lavender for them to buzz about, but there will be more soon.
Today I planted fever-few, forget-me-nots, Jupiter's beard, lambs ear and tossed a ton of wild flower seeds in the yard. Tomorrow I am going to put down lavender seeds and California Poppy seeds. When I was planting some seeds in starter pots this afternoon, I felt something tickling the back of my arm. I turn to look, and there was a honey bee. It sat there and cleaned itself while I examined it. They really are beautiful and fascinating little creatures! It was just the thing to make me feel that this is the right choice for our front yard!
I encourage you to check out http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens to read more on bee gardens. It is certainly a better choice than a plain plot of grass!