Counting out seeds for germination tests.
Folks!
Here's a chronicle in pictures of some of the goings on here at the BZ Farm starting in March 2022 and updated when we can.
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Germination tests.
A cold December day despite a bit of sunshine.
Loading more firewood for the shop stove. Almost too heavy for one person to pick up.
More germination tests. The testing took up all of December and into January.
We sprout some of the bigger seeds in glass jars for germination testing. These are BZ Buttercup squash seeds.
This is one of BZ's niftier inventions: We swing out the copper coil that heats our hot water and slide in 10 gallons of our harvested peat that we use for potting soil. We "cook" it until it reaches about 160 degrees to kill weed seeds and some potential pathogens.
Germination testing Kentucky Wonder pole bean seed.
The garlic bed on January 30th.
Rosemary cuttings rooting. An earlier batch in the background and some aloe. We'll have these plants and more for sale at local plant sales and farm barters.
Tomatoes in the greenhouse still producing in mid-January.
Cooked and sifted potting soil from out native peat bog.
Early January sunrise.
Mid February cereal rye cover crop (the green grass) and some winter-killed oats with a few Austrian field peas mixed in.
Here's a picture of Chrys madly doing some last-minute seed packing at the first seed swap of the season. A Kelly Rainbow-Butterfly photo.
Finally, mulching the garlic.
Plugging the garlic cloves into the dibble holes (eight-inch spacing gives the plants plenty of room).
AJ came by to help with garlic planting (Thanks AJ! Saved a lot of time). Here he's using a dibble and a measuring device to poke the holes for the garlic cloves to go in.
Here is Stephanie Smith of the Northeast Washington Hunger Coalition taking delivery of over 100 lbs. of our Candystick Delicata Squash to be distributed to 18 regional food banks (on the eve of the day President Trump and his MAGGOTS decided to use hungry families as political pawns by refusing to negotiate to end their government shut down and keep the SNAP program funded).
We were gifted one Filderkraut cabbage plant in the spring. Here's Chrys with the end result, destined to become sauerkraut any day now.
Garlic bed ready for planting.
Collecting cucumber seed. It's done exactly the same as with tomato seeds. Put them in a jar to ferment for a few days, stirring daily. Rinse off the viable seeds that sink to the bottom of the jar and dry them out for planting next year.
We had a bumper crop of Candystick Delicata squash this year. We'll have seed for these beauties ready for sale in the spring.
Trenching the pathways and adding the soil to the bed increases the fertility available to the garlic plants and helps with drainage.
Trenching the pathways and adding the soil to the bed increases the fertility available to the garlic plants and helps with drainage.