Organic Gardening Info from Peaceful Valley

PVFS Brand Organic Compost

I’ve had the privilege of attending a free composting class sponsored by Nevada County Recycles which took place at Fulcrum Farm in Penn Valley. It was taught by one of the owners of Fulcrum Farm, Marney Blair (Fulcrum Farm produces the very same compost we use at our local store to brew our fabulous compost tea!). I came away from this class excited, inspired and just generally feeling good about how amazing composting can be!

I knew a bit going in but came out with that “I know nothing” sense on this subject… however very excited about learning so much more about the process. It can seem complicated but it’s not and it’s ALL natural, it’s the ultimate recycling program. I picked up a couple key points, like most residuals, i.e., pesticides, fertilizers, etc., will be neutralized through the process. I learned about how to touch and feel for moisture content and bulk density, what is carbon and what is nitrogen… then how to combine the various materials just by knowing what you are looking at and feeling. I learned what good compost should look like, smell like and feel like. If it’s black… NOT good, it’s been burned. I never knew that!

Anyway, there’s another class coming up next week and I CAN’T WAIT to go! Once you’ve gone to one of these classes, Marney will come out and do a free consultation to. She was a wonderful and inspirational teacher. You can always tell when someone has passion for what they do. Marney’s got compost passion. If you want to get in on this party:

Contact Lynne Cody Lacroix
Recycling Technician, Nevada County Recycles
950 Maidu Avenue
Nevada City, CA 95959
530.265.7119
NevadaCountyRecycles.com

You’ll be glad you did!

Pictured: Soup made with garden veggies. Garnished with sour cream, flat leaf parsley and edible borage flowers.

Organic Carrot Ginger Soup
from Lita & John Perkins

1 large sweet onion chopped
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 clove of garlic or two shallots minced
1 teaspoon ground ginger
10-12 organic carrots shredded (1-1/3 pound approximately) (easiest in a food processor)
1 medium Yukon gold potato peeled and sliced
5 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1/2 teaspoon Celtic sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground 5 pepper blend
2/3 to 1 cup milk or almond milk
1/4 cup of minced coriander (cilantro) for garnish on top
1/4 cup of creme fraiche or sour cream for garnish

In a stainless 8 quart or larger soup pot sauté the onions in the olive oil until soft add garlic or shallots then the minced fresh ginger stir and meld together add the ground ginger then the shredded carrots, sliced potato and veggie stock simmer until the potatoes are soft. Remove from heat stir in salt and pepper. Let cool for 20 or 30 minutes and puree the works in a blender or food processor put the soup back into the pot add cow, soy or almond milk to the desired consistence heat slowly and serve…this is also excellent cold. Garnish with fresh minced coriander or Italian parsley.

Hi,

Can you suggest a ground cover for the summer for my five raised beds? I want to enrich weak soil and give the beds a rest for the rest of the year.

In the past I’ve used green manure for the winter for the soil on the ground. Is there anything like that for raised beds?

Thank You!

Regular readers of this blog will remember the GGP I started back in November.  The cover crop came up beautifully, and the result was a rich, fertile soil, which was moist and pliable.  After renting a rototiller from Gold N Green rentals 2 weeks ago, I spent about 3 hours with a huge, self propelled machine, tearing up my front and back yards.  Word of advice: take frequent breaks; your arms will thank you.  The vibrations from that machine caused my forearms to ache for days — and the grass allergy I didn’t know I had helped too.

We are now in the middle of waiting for the cover crop to finish decomposing; about a 4 or 5 week process.  Once that is done, we can start installing the irrigation system and prepping the beds.  The goal is to have our seeds in the ground by mid-May.  Stay tuned for updates.

Tim and I started working with honeybees about two years ago and like gardening, what one learns from books is not the same as hands-on-experience.

Bees are such interesting insects and are quite captivating. I love observing them at the hive and on the flowers.

At this time of year the bees come out when the sun warms their hive and they search for pollen and nectar to bring back and feed the brood. One of the pictures shows the pollen packed onto her legs. The other shows her with her long tongue in the flower getting the nectar. We have planted a variety of bee-attracting plants that bloom at different times of the year so there always seems to be a plant on which they can forage.

Bees stay in the hive when it rains, so with this week of clear weather, they have come out to work again.

We have felt very lucky to have had our hive survive this winter and are looking forward to the summer when the bees will be working our veggies and sunflowers again.

There it is.  The first tilled row of the GGP.  At the crack of 8 am (huck it up, farmers…that’s early for us city-folk!) I was out there, tilling up my back yard.  The actual tilling itself took about 3 hours.  We had to go over each row multiple times, stopping to dig up rocks and sundry other oddities.  Among the strange things found that had to be removed: 3 cigarette lighters, a 2′ x 4′, a Happy Meal toy, broken glass, an old irrigation pipe that went nowhere, and concrete support posts for what apparently used to be a deck.  The final stage was going over everything one final time, my son in my lap (he LOVES tractors!) to make sure the yard was as level as possible. (more…)

After many years of apartment dwelling, I was finally able to move my family into a house with a cozy front yard, and a (relatively) nice sized back yard for the kids to play in, and for my wife to have a nice garden.

But the problem looks like this (please forgive the mess, still in the moving-in process):

When I was a kid, I used to HATE yard work.  My parents didn’t garden at all, so our maintenance involved raking leaves, watering plants and mowing the lawn — for a kid who likes to see the fruits of his efforts, this wasn’t exactly fulfilling.  Looking out over this relative desolation, I didn’t feel dejected; quite the opposite, in fact.  I saw opportunity, in many forms.

First of all, I have been working at Peaceful Valley for going on 6 years.  When I first started here, I knew zilch about growing.  Nothing.  I’d never so much as planted a flower seed in a pot for Mother’s Day. In my time here, I have gained a vast amount of theoretical knowledge: I knew the hows and the whys, but never had the opportunity to apply what I’d learned.  Seeing this yard sent visions of sugarplums (and other fruits and veggies) dancing in my head.

What I am going to be doing over the next 5 or so months is getting this area cleaned up, put together and ready for growing.  Come Spring, I’m planting a lawn, and my wife is setting up a small vegetable garden, probably with raised beds.  As I do each step, I will be taking pictures and thoroughly documenting each phase.  The goal is not only to do my own yard, but to give a bit of direction for anyone else who wishes to do the same.

Here’s the plan:

(more…)

Stock market downturn got you down? Wall Street bail out got you scratching your head about where to invest? Well I have a suggestion for you… Invest in a garden! Once established a garden can produce thousands of dollars worth of fresh vegetables, fruits and nuts, for less than $100 dollars of investment each year. Now if you ask me, that’s what a return on your investment should look like. Even google stocks can’t provide 1000% return… (can they?). What about the security of your investment, you ask? Well there are risks associated with all investments. Deer could come looking for a snack, aphids might too (we’ve got solutions for that)… you might have an unexpected freeze or you might forget to water it (we have solutions for that too). But for the most part home gardens rarely fail to produce some produce.

Just in case my math is not getting through to you, let’s talk taste;

Money (while some enjoy the smell), tastes awful! The texture is no good, the flavor is like a combination of greed and the inside of other peoples pockets. Aside from the obvious fiber benefit the nutritional value is nil.

Fruits and vegetables on the other hand are delicious! You can grow better, more tasty varieties of all types of fruit and vegetables in your garden than super market suppliers do (since you don’t have to ship them across the continent). Your garden investment returns will have a fiber content rivaling any denomination of money. They will also have all the other vitamins and minerals you need, this will give you the energy you need to do things like… umm, live. As long as we are on the subject of living, the idea that gardening is something that takes a lot of time… it’s not true. A modern home garden, with a timed drip irrigation system, healthy soil, using some kind of organic or sustainable principles needs little to no daily maintenance. This year I have been slacking off in my garden. I planted my seedlings and transplants in spring over a weekend. Adjusted and fixed my irrigation system a few weekends later.

A recent New York Times article reported that Americans spend 15% of their money on Food & Beverages… however only 1% on fresh fruits and vegetables. That means only one fifteenth of our average food budget is spent on fresh food. Now if you say the medium income in the U.S. is around $40,000 a year… say 1% of that is spent on fresh fruit and veggies now, that’s $400 a year you can save right off the top. But if you get half of what you would spend on food out of your garden (this is what most avid vegetable gardeners could do) you’d save yourself $3,000 a year.

Now this ideas is not mine alone, apparently lots of Americans are digging into gardening to fight the fiscal crisis. We’ve seen a rise in new customers in the last year or so. So next time you read or hear a report about our failing financial system, or how the stock market is going to crash… remember that’s the stock market, not the farmers’ market. Money is not on the list of “Things Needed To Live” (it feels like it sometimes, I know)… nobody ever fills their back yard bunker with money… they fill it with canned fruits and vegetables. I am positive that economists and wall street strategists across the nation will admittedly disagree with me when I tell you to take your money (at least $100 of it) out of stocks and invest it in a garden. But I’m okay with that, economists and those on wall street are the ones who got us here in the first place.

I’d rather take the advice of a local farmer, you’ll notice no one ever blames them for financial crisis, or wars, or irresponsible lending… there are a few out there that use too many pesticides… but we’re working on that too. So take some of your green backs and put them in produce backed stalks, you’re sure to see a greener yard, a greener planet and a little more green backs in you wallet. Here at Peaceful Valley we believe you can have your planet and eat it too .

Having just had our house warming party, it’s project time.

There is an old wisteria that was trained to climb up a black oak for 20 years plus. It’s starting to look like the tree is being pulled. I don’t want it to fall and damage the house  or shop, so I cut some of the main branches (to see what dies back). I also have used 2 small rooter pots (gp150) on some sucker branches, to see how easy it is to root.

If they root I would like to plant them on the property, if they root really easy I would love to do 20 -30 little starts. If anyone out there has any advice it would be greatly appreciated!

Time and Place: Mid-September/ PVFS retail store

A mother-daughter team present me with a hand basket half full of seed packets. (Even if you want to see it as half empty, that is one heck of a lot of seeds!) The mom explains that she allowed her daughter (5 years old, I’d guess) to pick and chose freely. “She likes to see things sprout”, she explains.

I find myself envious of this child. My inner child finds these little packets enticing every time I restock the shelves or locate something specific for a customer. Renee’s Gardens, Horizon Herbs, Turtle Tree, and of course, Peaceful Valley’s own…the graphic promises, the creatively chosen names, the crop I would love to grow but know I’d be the only one to consume in my picky family.

Dang! What a fortunate child! I hope someday she thanks her mother for her indulgence. Maybe when she is a mother herself, she will realize how abundantly “over the top” her youthful garden was.

Before my father passed over ten years ago, I made him cry by just such a personal realization and a Father’s Day card. My seeds came in little baby food jars and were the generic farmer’s fair – simple seeds that sprout without much care or fanfare. But I wrote a card to tell him that “gift” had outlived any bicycle, stereo, college tuition or dress he had every bought me. I’m glad I realized early enough that I too was a fortunate child.