Seems like I’ve been so busy in the garden and on the farm lately that I’ve found no time to report. Let’s catch up.

We transplanted the starts out of the greenhouse and into the garden in March and April – first lettuces, peas and tomatoes under cold frames; then onion, leek & garlic starts, cauliflower and cabbages. Due to the cold, soggy spring, the winter & summer squash and cucumbers didn’t go out until late May. Bean seeds then went directly into the ground, along with red, white, and yellow potatoes.

We’ve been eating fresh lettuces since May, and are now steadily replanting every couple of weeks, growing them under a shade cloth (which seems to help retard bolting). The asparagus we let go around the first of July, to gain strength for next year. We’ve been digging potatoes and picking raspberries since early July. Mid-July, we harvested the garlic – the braids are now hanging in the wine/root cellar. We also pulled the spring crop of peas in Mid-July, at the same time planting seeds in the greenhouse for a fall crop. Luckily, green beans are now starting to come on, as are summer squash. We should have our first tomatoes by early August. If the jalapeños and cilantro cooperate, we’ll soon be swimming in pico de gallo. And the pansies, violas, and nasturtiums we started in the greenhouse from seed are now blooming like crazy, along with the sunflowers. This year we serendipitously planted the sunflowers in rows along one side of the garden – and they’ve proved to be an effective deer fence!

Last weekend we harvested the “Stonehead” cabbage and started a big batch of Sauerkraut. After watching us struggle last year trying to shred cabbage in a food processor, Cousin Doris sent us a Krauthobel from Germany – kind of a big, wooden mandolin. Here it is in operation.

Add about three tablespoons of sea salt for every five pounds of cabbage, and then from the bus tub into the crock.

40 pounds of cabbage was enough to pretty much fill a #8 crock.

The “Megaton” cabbages should be ready to harvest in a week or so. Since our one and only ceramic crock is full, we’ll have to fall back on a 20-gallon food grade plastic container that we’ve been using to store flour. Hopefully this year we’ll have enough Sauerkraut to last well into the new year, rather than running out before the holiday season.

Turn your back this time of the year, and the grape vines want to take over the universe. I’ve been getting up at six o’clock in the morning now for the last few weeks, spending a couple of hours before heading to the office trying to get things back under control. At least the vines are now growing faster than the deer can eat them. I’m dreaming of mid-August, when I’ll again be able to sleep in a bit.

The big culinary hit this year has been a variation on the Alsatian/German Flammkuchen, a kind of “pizza” traditionally made with crème fraîche, Speck, and onions, seasoned with a little fresh nutmeg. I first tasted Flammkuchen at a little jazz club called the Musikantenbuckel, literally underground in an ancient stone building in the tiny village of Oberotterbach, Germany. We’ve ever since attempted to replicate that, substituting well trimmed, uncured pork belly for the unobtainable Speck – not really the same, but American bacon is way too smoky. We tried first boiling bacon to remove some of the smokiness, but have since settled on using uncured pork belly, well-trimmed to remove most of the fat. When vegetarian friends were visiting we made a version using fresh, locally gathered or grown mushrooms (golden oyster, white elm, and morels) and fresh leeks. It was so fabulous it has now become a permanent part of our repertoire.

A few days of blue skies and warm sunshine is all it takes to turn one’s thoughts to spring.

Over the last week of clear weather, temperatures have been cool at night – like in the low twenties – but have been getting up to the low or even mid-sixties during the day. In the greenhouse, minimums are in the low forties, with maximums reaching the low seventies. Time to plant seeds!

Two weeks ago I planted seeds left over from last year: the first batch of lettuces, and herbs – parsley, chervil, cilantro. Those seeds have already sprouted. As soon as the plants are big enough, they’ll be set out in cold frames, where we’re still harvesting lettuces planted last fall.

This weekend, after a seed-buying expedition to Nichols in Albany, it was an orgy of planting. Six types of lettuces: Australian Yellow, Black-Seeded Simpson, Flashy Butter Oak, New Red Fire, Red Velvet, and our old favorite Merlot. Artichokes, to replace any that may not have survived the brutal cold of early December (at least some old plants show signs of new growth, too soon to know how many). Two new varieties of cabbages – Megaton and Stonehead – to expand on last year’s very successful experiment with sauerkraut. Cauliflower: Snow Crown and Cheddar. Lemon cucumbers. Tomatoes: Oregon Spring, Siletz (would have planted Legend, but I proved to have saved an empty seed packet). Peas, snap and sugar pod. Winter squash – Cornell’s Bush Delicata, our favorite (I know, it seems awfully early, but you catch the planting bug . . . ). And flowers! Sunflowers, pansies, violas, nasturtiums, all in several varieties and mixes. All to be set out at the appropriate time.

Even with all this planting, the greenhouse isn’t even near full. No more seed trays in the windowsills in the house!

We got a whole selection of commercial-grade seed trays in various plug sizes from Yarnell’s Red Barn nursery in Stayton – for a mere dollar each. The planting mix we made ourselves, from compost run through our Steinmax chipper-shredder.

Garlic, onions, and shallots have been in the ground since last fall. Oops, forgot the leeks! Put that on the list for the next visit to Nichols, along with Legend tomato seeds and doubtless a few others we’ve overlooked.

Over the weekend we raised the borders of the herb garden and added several inches of compost. Got the raspberries pruned, and dug up a couple of dozen plants to give away to friends.

Now comes the true test of the greenhouse, to see if we can sprout all these seeds with no heat other than from passive solar gain, and no protection from cold other than thermal mass and insulation.