Photo Gallery

Hairy vetch inter-planted with a late lettuce crop.

A box of tomatoes headed for market. A mix of Amish Paste, Orenburg Giant, Moscvich, Cosmonaut Volkov, Abe Lincoln, Valencia and Wonder Light.

These Marketmore cucumbers were grown more or less vertically in the greenhouse.

This is the seed crop of Stuttgarter Reisen yellow keeper onions to be grown out next year for onion sets. Then the sets will be planted for an onion crop in 2024.

Stuttgarter Reisen yellow onion. Excellent keeper. Big harvest this year.

August 26, 2022.

This is an Arledge hot pepper. It's similar to the Jalepeno but more productive in our northern climate. We are growing a bunch out for seed this year.

Multiple passes with the rotovator in order to prepare this ground to be a minimum-till market garden with permanent beds.

BZ noticed some damage from Western Tent Caterpillars in the Apple trees. Luckily, we had some Bacillus thuringiensis on hand for controlling the cabbage worm that also targets tent caterpillars and that seems to have stopped the infestation.

August 23, 2022 - Foreground to background: 1st bed - Blue Vates kale, Siberian kale, Brussels Sprouts, 2nd bed - Carrots and lettuce, 3rd bed - Broccoli and Celery, 4th bed - more Broccoli, 5th bed - pole beans. Hoophouse in the background with evaporative cooling cloths hanging after laundering.

We were able to score some building supplies.

Here's what a mixture of overwintering cover crop seed looks like. It's about 20% Winter Rye (Secale cereal) and 80% Hairy Vetch. However, this organic rye, purchased from a local health food store, failed to germinate, so we just ordered some organic Winter Rye seed from True Leaf Market, where we got the Vetch from. We will be growing much of our own cover crop seed from here on out.

Eight foot-tall Blue Lake pole beans.

Here's the new ground right after BZ took a deep shank through it.

Hand-feeding some young Ancona ducklings.

August 17, 2022 at the N. E. W. Farmers' Market in Colville, WA.

Cabbage on the right, Golden Swiss Chard and beets on the left.

Here's the Southport Red onion harvest. These were grown from seed started in February. We selected out some promising specimens to plant next year for growing a seed crop. We also grew some of these reds out as sets to be planted next year to see how they perform as set-planted onions.

Aug. 13: Pigweed cover crop in foreground. Was supposed to be buckwheat and fodder radish, but the amaranth grew way faster. We'll till it in and sow an overwintering cover crop of hairy vetch and winter rye.

Winter squash to the left, pole beans in the back. 

A few of the Ancona ducks.

This is the third of three batches of ducklings.

Celery and broccoli in front, winter squash behind and some calendula.

Onions and onion sets drying. The sets will be next year's onions.

This small patch of basil has been harvested (pruned) over several weeks and sells well at the farmers' market.

Generally the onion sets, for planting next spring, are harvested at 1/2" - 3/4" in diameter. Larger ones tend to go to flower when planted in the spring which we don't want.

These are the onion sets ready for harvesting. They are very small onions from being planted close together.

Main harvest of Stuttgarter Reisen yellow onions. These will dry indoors for a couple of weeks before we start selling them.

Harvesting the onions August 6.

Another planting of broccoli and lettuce, August 4.

First cucumber salad with fresh goat cream cheese.

Gardening on top of the world.

Three generations of lettuce. The tall, slow-bolting "New Red Fire" red leaf lettuce we'll be saving seed from.

Plant more flowers! Save the pollinators. Keep your pest bugs in check with biodiversity.

Watering in the early evening.

Cucumbers on wire trellises in the greenhouse.

These Scarlet Nantes carrots are a hit at the farmers' market. Next year we'll grow lots more. I envision having a couple of carrot thinning parties next year. Maybe live music and beer. You coming?

And the beets go on.

Fresh dug.