Today at YellowTree Farm

Lately we've been plugging away at starting our seedlings.  Today we started some red celery and asparagus chicory seeds.

Today at YellowTree Farm from YellowTree_Farm on Vimeo.

Bragging Rights

It's only May 3rd, and not to gloat too much, but we've got ripe tomatoes in the garden! Mainly it's our sungold cherry tomatoes that are ripening the fastest, and they are so very sweet. Here's a peek at what's growing right now:

Pesticide Free Zone

We don't use pesticides at YellowTree Farm, we use bugs. These mantises were hatched recently in our greenhouse, and we keep dormant ladybugs on hand to assist when needed.

DIY Gardening Tip

Late last month, the folks at GOOD magazine provided a lovely tutorial on the basics of creating a verticle garden chock full of edible plants. Edible gardens are terrific space-savers. Check out the tips from GOOD, and also our friend Fiona's lovely indoor verticle garden, below:

For Sale: Vegetables and Herbs

This year we are teaming up with our friend Kelli Best-Oliver and are offering a variety of vegetables and herbs available for pre-order. Provided next to some of the names of items below is a link where you can search for descriptions of the particular varieties. To pre-order, please either e-mail (justin@yellowtreefarm.com) or twitter @YellowTreeFarm.

Vegetable plants
Celery
Eggplant
Leeks
Onion (Ishikura bunching) (Johnny's)
Onion (deep purple bunching) (Johnny's)
Pepper (zavory hot) (Burpee)
Potatoes (seed potatoes, variety TBD)
Tomatillos (green) (Seed Savers)
Tomatillos (purple) (Seed Savers)

Herb plants
Anise (pimpinella anisum)
Basil *Dark Purple Opal, Genovese, Italian Large Leaf, Lime, and Small Leaf
Borage (seed)
Caraway (seed)
Chervil
Cilantro
Dill
Fennel
Hyssop
Lavender
Lemongrass
Lovage
Marjoram
Moroccan Mint
Oregano
Parsley *Giant Italian and Flat Leaf
Rosemary
Sage
Shiso (purple)
Thyme
Tulsi

Seeds available
Arugula
Banana melon (Baker Creek)
Chinese yellow cucumber (Baker Creek)
Daikon radish
Dakota black popcorn (Baker Creek)
Detroit red beet
Dill (Baker Creek)
Fennell (Baker Creek)
Mongogo du guatemala squash (Baker Creek)
Parsley
Purple kohlrabi
Tatume squash (Baker Creek)
Thai golden round melon (Baker Creek)
Tulsi
Udmalbet eggplant (Baker Creek)
Yellow watermelon

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

We're nearing the end of the holiday season, which means our mailbox is receiving a slew of seed catalogs from all over the country. We've been browsing their pages since the middle of the month, slowly making a list of what we need to buy for 2010, and keeping in mind the seeds we saved from last year's growing season.

What we read this summer

With summer officially at a close, these were three books that kept our minds turning all season long...

For Sale

Available now:

carrots
celery
cucumber
herbs:

black opal basil
chamomile
genovese basil
lavender thyme
majoram
nasturtium
oregano
purple basil
sage
shisho
summer savory
szechuan buttons
tarragon
thyme
tulsi tea/holy bail
winter savory

lettuce greens
pears
peppers (mild)
peppers (stuffing)
plums
potatoes
squash
Upon request:
chanterelle mushrooms
honey
rabbit
Available soon:
melons
tomatoes

Our produce and herbs are organic, heirloom varieties and we don't use any Bt or chemical sprays.
e-mail justin@yellowtreefarm.com to place an order and arrange a pick-up.
(pictured: part of the herb garden)

Harvesting potatoes

Our heirloom Carola potatoes are ready to be eaten, and we've been digging some up throughout the week for dinner. They're absolutely delicious! ...delicate skin, buttery, mild, and soft. It's so nice to be our own source of fresh, chemical-free, local potatoes.

What's growing right now

Here's a look at what's growing right now. It's June and we've got tomatoes on the vine starting to turn; peas, dry beans, and green beans being picked each night; cucumbers and eggplants are flowering; and the corn's grown taller than the both of us.

May recap

We've lagged behind on the blog posts lately, as the wonderful springtime weather has allowed us to get plenty of work done around the homestead. May was eventful: We've had two litters of rabbits born, tasted honey from our bees and collected some bee pollen, and eaten salads nearly every day made from our own greens. The bok choy grew in quite nicely and we've enjoyed eating that a few times as well. Neighbors and family members have been dropping off various canning jars that they have collected for us - and we've managed to put a few to use by making strawberry jams, canning Swiss chard, and finding novel uses for lemon rinds. On Mother's Day we treated our family to a dinner consisting of a couple of our own chickens. Most exciting is that our garden's thriving and growing more with each passing day.

Progression

Homestead news: Compost

So THIS is what our driveway looks like these days! We had a truckload of compost delivered earlier in the week.

...moving all this compost up the hill and into our backyard is certainly going to be a challenge.

Homestead news: Sod

The grass is coming up! We're finishing the removal of the sod in our yard and our neighbor Mike's yard. Time to grow food instead of a lawn!

Worms!

Our composting worms arrived in the mail the other day. Their new home is the compost bin situated beneath the rabbit hutch - worms love rabbit poo, they break it down fast. We took this idea from some of our old farming books. If things go alright, we should have millions of worms by mid-summer that will be used in our other compost piles. This system of vermicomposting eliminates our dependence on fertilizers and adds micronutrients to the soil.

Our seeds have finally arrived!

It may seem like a ton of seeds for only 2300 square feet of garden, but with our new biodynamic farming practices, all of these seed varieties will be fully utilized:

asparagus
beans
yard long
green
Linda Sisco's bird egg
fava
Kentucky wonder snap
beets
Detroit red
Burpee's golden
blackberries
broccoli
cabbage
premium late flat Dutch
Napa
carrots
Amarillo yellow
Chaterney
Hercules
lunar white
oxheart
purple haze
St. Valery
cauliflower, giant of Naples
celery, tango
corn, country gentleman
cover crop, crimson clover
cucumber,
Japanese climbing
Thai golden round
egg plant
Thai yellow
udmalbet
herbs
anise
basil
black cumin
broad leaf sage
caraway
chamomile
chocolate mint
chrysanthemum
dill
dotted mint
Greek oregano
lavender
lavender thyme
mint
Oxaca cilantro
purple basil
rosemary
rue
Russian taragon
shiso
St. John's wort
sweet marjoram
thyme
titan parsley
wormwood
grape, Concord
greens
America Spinach
Amish deer tongue
arugula
Asian mix
bibb lettuce
Black seeded Simpson lettuce
de morges braun lettuce
escarole
extra dwarf pak choy
glory endive
Limestone lettuce
Mustard
old mix
Olympia spinach
pan-Pacific stirfry mix
red orach
ridicchio
Romaine lettuce
Shanghai green choy
spectrum mix
winter greens
fennel, Florence
kohlrabi, purple
melon
Banana
Green Machine
Evan's sweet
Misc. (non-edible)
dishcloth luffa
nipple fruit
Plum Granny or Queen Anne's Pocket
onion
bleu de solaise leek
cipollini-bianca di maggio
ishikura bunching
purple bunching
Tokyo long white bunching
tropeana lunga
yellow of parma
parsley root, hamburg rooted
pea
Oregon sugar
sugar ann
peppers
ancho
alma paprika
candlelight
cayenne
sweet yellow mini stuffing
shishito (mild)
yellow bell
potato, carola
pumkin, Galeux d'Eysines
shallots, Dutch red
squash
cucuzza
Kamo Kamo
lemon
Mongogo Du Guetemala
romanesco zucchini squash
Taturne
white scallop
strawberries
tomatoes
carbon (purple)
cream sausage
Illinois beauty
Jo Thienemann's Australian heart
orange fleshed purple smudge
roma
sausage roma
thessaloniki red
white tomesol
yellow
Misc. cherry
watermelon
black watermelon
Wilson's sweet

This list includes new seeds we purchased, and older seeds we saved ourselves from vegetables we grew in the past. Fortunately if we save our seeds properly, we won't have to buy seeds for subsequent years.