On the farm, the rhythms of life so far remain pretty much unaffected by global concerns such as global warming and peak oil.

Increasingly frequent extreme weather events aside, the day to day climate we are experiencing now doesn’t seem different than before. Any change has been so minute, so gradual, so overwhelmed by natural variability. Earth takes several decades to respond to increased CO2 because of the thermal inertia of the oceans. Consequently, the effects we’re seeing today result from what we thoughtlessly dumped into the air 25 to 50 years ago. Annual global greenhouse gas emissions really took off about fifty years ago . . .

. . . and are today greater than ever.

By the time the effects of today’s (or even yesterday’s) emissions are felt, we’ll be long dead. The consequences will be borne by our children’s children’s children.

We can’t pin unusual events like a mid-May frost event on climate change wrought by global warming. The loss of ~75% of this year’s grape crop is just one of the vagaries of farming.

We’re already seeing what peak oil looks like. Stubbornly high gas prices. Stubbornly high unemployment. An economy that refuses to return to “normal”. Asinine describes our new reality in a post at Daily Kos:

[T]he economic and geopolitical turmoil we’ve been observing is exactly what Peak Oil would look like.  Oil production has stagnated, ceasing its endless growth that we were used to in previous decades.  Economic growth rates have also stagnated, causing problems with debt financing that have brought the Euro zone to the brink of collapse.  Austerity plans cause even more economic pain and fail to alleviate the debt problem, while stimulus plans fail to result in sufficient growth to overcome debt burdens, although they do mitigate the impact on the lower classes who suffer most.  Any amount of world economic growth feeds directly into an increased global demand for oil, which quickly runs into our inability to increase global oil production, raising oil prices.  With great respect for Krugman’s opinion that Keynesian economics offers the way out of our current mess, he has not yet addressed the negative feedback loop between stimulus, growth, and oil prices.

Peak oil or no, spring means it’s time to muck out the sheep shed, clearing it of a winter’s worth of manure. I used to do this job with a tractor. I’ve found the work to be much more rewarding done as it was in the past and will be in the future, by hand. It doesn’t take any longer. It’s peaceful and quiet. There’s no inhaling of exhaust fumes. And the absence of machines means you can enjoy the camaraderie.

When the work was done, we all sat at a shaded table on the patio, sharing a lunch of burritos and beer, salsa and chips. The misthaufen will be next year’s compost. Our soil grows richer and richer each year.

Our children’s children’s children deserve a life equally bountiful and joyous. We owe it to them to do what we can now, every day, to increase the odds that they’ll at least have a chance.

For the last two nights, the low temperature hit 30° – a bit scary for the grapes, which are already in bloom. Tender young leaves were frostbit on about 50% of the shoots. It’s a little early yet to tell how much damage was done to the blossoms. Viewed through a loop, it looks like most may have escaped harm even though surrounding leaves were killed. Hopefully. It would be a bit discouraging to lose half the crop this early in the season.

Tomatoes, which are still covered at night, escaped damage. Elsewhere in the garden, spring is in full spring. The side panels have come off the solarium. With hot weather in the forecast, squashes and cucumbers are now in the ground and protected from foraging ducks.

Our first batch of ducklings has hatched – a communal effort among three hens, who laid and incubated the eggs as a team. Seventeen hatched – a single flock, with three mothers. Here they all are, on a walkabout.

With a couple of weeks of warm, dry weather promised, it’s time to get corn and beans seeds in the ground. And at the end of the month, peppers.

Flowers are blooming like crazy.

Nasturtiums

Dogwood

Iris tenax, growing around an erratic – a chunk of Montana granite, detritus from the Missoula floods

Even the oaks are beginning to leaf out. It’s spring in earnest on the farm. No reason to go anywhere else.

This last week the sun came out, and the soil dried out a bit. Our raised bed gopher-proofing project could finally get underway.

First, the beds had to be excavated, down to a depth of about 16 inches. Luckily, Zooey was there to help.

Then we lined the beds with hardware cloth.

Finally, fill the beds back in again. The one is now planted with peas (tomatoes are in the background).

The other, with carrots – prime gopher bait. That’s a sheep grazing in the background, on lush spring grass.

Gophers – hahahahahaha. You’ll not be munching our carrots, peas, and beans this year. Or so we hope.

Nasturtiums, overwintered in the solarium, are already in bloom . . .

. . . and the ivy geraniums are beginning to come on.

So much beauty – and it’s not yet May.

March was a really wet month in Oregon, a record-breaking month in Portland. Here on the farm, 11.76 inches of rain fell during the month – more than Eugene, more than Salem, more than Portland. April has continued to be wet. We’ve measured 4.81 inches so far through the 18th.

Still, there have been sunny days, and warm enough to eat lunch outside on the patio and enjoy a glass of wine on the deck in the evening before dinner. During the occasional respite from the rains, we’ve managed to begin getting the garden in.

Cabbages, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, and onions have been planted out and are now growing in the raised beds.

Potatoes are planted, garlic is growing, and the winter covers have come off the lettuce beds.

We repaired fencing this winter, replacing posts that had rotted and broken off at ground level. We used the old posts to make raised beds for artichokes and for vining plants – summer and winter squashes, and cucumbers.

Leaves have erupted on the trees and shrubs, turning the woods a fresh, bright green.

Grape buds are starting to swell. The apple trees are beginning to bloom.

And there’s sunshine and warm weather in the forecast for the weekend – and no threat of frost in sight. It’s enough to make the heart sing.

There is one thing and one thing alone I never tire of watching –
The spring river as it trickles over the stones and babbles past the rocks.

Po Chü-i

It’s been cold and wet – too cold and wet to work much outdoors. Indoors, the greenhouse is full of seedlings.

Everything is thriving – the heat mats really make a difference. Two heat mats now cover the entire top shelf. This week when my new cables and thermostat arrive, I’ll redo the bottom shelf so the the entire area can warm the seed trays from the bottom. Currently the lower heat mat is not quite as warm as we would like. The external thermostat should enable us to better adjust and control the temperature.

We’ve got more spinach and lettuces ready to plant out, as soon as we get a break in the weather. Herb seeds are planted – basil, parsley, chervil, and cilantro (which we renew repeatedly, throughout the summer). Various members of the onion family are up. Brassicas (cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts) are sprouted and growing. Having lots of space in the greenhouse presented the opportunity to start a wide variety of tomatoes and peppers, for friends’ gardens as well as our own. In a couple of months when the weather will at last be warm enough for them to be planted out, the plants should be big and strong.

In the solarium, geraniums and nasturtiums are already growing. By the time the danger of frost is past and they can be moved outside, they may be already blooming.

Our citrus and artichokes are thriving, as well.

A couple of days over the last couple of weeks the sun saw the sun triumph briefly over winter clouds. On those days, temperatures in the solarium got up to over 100°. Next time the sun is forecast, I’ll have to reinstall the automatic vent that I disconnected and plugged for the winter.

Those precious days of sunshine presented a window of opportunity to help a neighbor build a horse shelter, using salvaged sheet metal and timbers. And just in time. The short respite of sunshine was followed by a mid-March snow storm.

Our neighbor raises Puerto Rican Paso Finos. He claims to be the only breeder of this variety west of the Florida panhandle. Irina passes this spirited fellow every day on her morning walk. She insisted he gets a feeder for his alfalfa and a bedding of fresh straw.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that we were using a borrowed, home-made heat mat to start seeds. That worked out so well that we decided to add a permanent heat mat as a feature to the greenhouse.

First, a couple of problems surfaced that needed to be addressed. The borrowed heat mat was made by fastening heating  cables to the top of a used, stainless steel grass seed cleaning screen. The seedling trays are placed directly on top of the heating cables. Trouble is, the heat cables aren’t designed to be used this way – rather, they are designed to be placed in the bottom of a planter and then covered with soil. Also, the instructions warn against placing plastic trays (or anything flammable) directly on top of the cables. The bigger problem was that the thermostat that is build into the heating cables doesn’t work if it’s not immersed in soil, so the heating cables are “on” all the time. The soil in the seedling trays tended to get too hot and to dry out. In addition, the dimensions of the mat didn’t match the dimensions of the seedling trays, so  a lot of space was wasted. Only three trays could be placed on the mat at any one time, although room could be found for other six-pack containers and single 4″ pots.

For our permanent mat, we purchased a 48′ “Gro Quick” electric soil warming cable from our local Nichol’s Garden Nursery. We laid it out directly on the lower shelf of the greenhouse, in a pattern something like this (this example is from the included instructions).

Our layout had one more run, so the thermostat was on the other end from the power supply. Dimensions are 22″ by 8′; just the right size to fit nine 10.5″ x 21″ seeding trays. At 2112 square inches, this is just a bit larger in area than the recommended 12 square feet (1728 square inches) for the 48′ cable. We then buried the cable and thermostat in sand, and covered everything with six stainless steel screens we picked up from Burcham’s Metals for a mere $6.30.

With our friends’ permission, we also set about to reconstruct and reconfigure the borrowed heat map. Since we wanted this one to be portable, we laid the cable out on a 21″ x 74″ piece of ½” exterior plywood – exactly the right size to hold seven seedling trays (we were limited to 74″ in length because that’s the length of the plywood scrap we had). We glued plywood strips around the edges; six more strips across the width formed individual”compartments” within the overall length. We filled the compartments with sand, burying the cable and the thermostat; then stapled a sheet of scrap aluminum sheeting on top, running a bead of caulk along the edges and across the divider strips to prevent any sand leaking out.

The area of this mat, at 1554 square inches, is a little less than the 1728 square inches recommended for a 48′ cable; consequently, it’s proving to be a little warmer than our larger, permanent installation.

Here are both heat mats, with a couple of seedling trays removed to show how they were put together.

And here’s the whole set-up in action.

As you can see, the seedlings are thriving. And funny enough, we’re out of room on the heat mats already. Two weeks ago, we had none. Then again, a year ago we would wait until March to begin starting most seeds.

Hmm, Cory says she has yet another homemade heat mat that would benefit from being rebuilt . . .

Snows in December, a solid week of 23°- 24° lows just this last week. Yet we’ve been eating lettuce out of the garden all winter long. Row covers have proved to be the trick.

The wire framework is made from 5′ wide remesh, which comes in 150′ rolls. The wire frames are covered with 6 mil polyethylene sheeting; a weight at each end an another section of wire mesh thrown over the top keeps the plastic from blowing away when the wind blows. The row covers not only provide additional warmth during the days and protect from frost at night. They also keep the soil from becoming soggy and compacted from the rains, keeping the soil loose and fluffy.

We’re now harvesting lettuces we planted out as seedlings late last fall.

We planted spinach at the same time, but it mostly got eaten by voles. A few surviving plants are finally beginning to send out new leaves.

In early January, we planted out a new set of seedlings which should be ready about the time the bed we’re harvesting now is done.

We grow mostly loose leaf lettuces to be harvested leaf by leaf: Australian Yellow, Black-Seeded Simpson, Flashy Butter Oak, Royal Oak Leaf, New Red Fire, Merlot, Red Sails. We’ve also planted a couple of head lettuces: Anuenue, a batavian; and Winter Density, a romaine type.

After years of frustration, mâche is finally thriving beneath the Solexx row cover.

In the greenhouse, seedlings are growing for the next planting of mâche, lettuces, and spinach.

And we’ve started other seeds as well, so plants will be ready to transplant out when the weather warms up in spring: onions, scallions, shallots, and leeks; pak choy; a selection of tomatoes; and a few sweet peppers. Normally we wouldn’t start tomatoes and peppers this early, but rather wait until temperatures warmed up a bit in March. But a friend loaned us a home-made heat mat, and since we’ve now got an outlet in the greenhouse we just had to give it a try. We’ll see what kind of germination rate we get.

The worst of the cold weather is probably behind us, as spring approaches. The sun is out, and thoughts once again turn to the garden. It’s timely to review: how did our solarium perform over the short days and freezing nights of winter?

Adding thermal mass proved not to be enough to protect tender plants if outside temperatures dropped below ~25°. For the coldest nights, we needed to come up with a supplementary heat source. We use brooder lamps for ducklings. Why wouldn’t the same concept work for plants?

Electricity was the primary problem: a source wasn’t readily available, and providing a permanent hookup didn’t seem worth the cost or effort since power was needed only a few nights out of the year. So I wired an outlet at the solarium ceiling for two heat lamps to hang above our most sensitive citrus, an Improved Meyer Lemon and an Owari Satsuma Mandarin from One Green World that we planted right in the ground.

Power is provided when needed by plugging as extension cord into a male receptacle in a weatherproof exterior “inlet”.

This system works so well that we’ve moved into the solarium all of the cold-sensitive plants that we previously overwintered in the greenhouse. Space is at a premium in this 7′ x 7′ structure, so we’ve had to be inventive. Around the Yuzu Ichandrin, we installed shelving for pots . . .

. . . and above, a piece of ¾” pipe serves to hang containers.

Staggering the height of the plants allows more to be squeezed in along the pipe.

In the ground within the solarium, we’ve been growing herbs all winter long, herbs that otherwise wouldn’t grow in winter: cilantro, parsley, and an herb form of celery.

Fresh “cutting” or “soup” celery is great to have in the garden as celery, along with carrots and onions, are the three essential aromatic vegetables used in making stocks and sauces. Buying a whole head of celery in the store is wasteful. Although a good market will let you buy one stalk at a time, we’re a long way from a market. So keeping fresh celery on hand would otherwise be a challenge. Now all we have to do when celery is called for is wander outside -  with the solarium, any time of the year – pluck a few stalks, and tie them together with other herbs in a bouquet garni. Nichols has the seeds: VCE185, Afina. Plant seeds once, and from then on the celery will self-seed prolifically.

An added benefit: as long as I was wiring the solarium, I installed an outlet in the adjacent greenhouse to provide power for a heat mat. A heat mat will enable us to begin sprouting seeds in early February, a month earlier than would otherwise be possible. So it’s now time to begin perusing the seed catalogs and planning for spring plantings. Nichols and Territorial, here we come!

Last spring you planted cabbage seeds; then transplanted the seedlings out to the garden; watered and tended the cabbage plants all summer; harvested the cabbage heads in the fall; shredded and salted the cabbage and pressed it in a big crock.

It’s December, you’ve got a hundred pounds of sauerkraut sitting in the cellar. Now what? How often can you stomach sauerkraut with sausage?

We’ve found that we really like sauerkraut prepared with a variety of meats: pork belly, sausage, ribs of all kinds – pork, beef, lamb – and poultry, especially duck. Duck hindquarters work well, as they are best braised. The other day non-pork eating friends visitd. Sauerkraut with our own Muscovy duck seemed the perfect treat.

Since there were to be eight of us, we used the wings as well as the hindquarters, to ensure we had enough meat to go around.

Sauerkraut with Muscovy Duck

1.5 liters sauerkraut
2 Muscovy ducks
2  medium onions, diced (we substituted leeks)
1 apple, peeled and diced
12 juniper berries, crushed
2 whole cloves
1 small bit nutmeg, crushed
2 bay leaves
1 C duck stock (chicken stock, if you don’t have duck stock)
1 C white wine
Salt and pepper to taste

Rinse sauerkraut well (three times in fresh water) and drain.
Cut wings and hindquarters off carcass. Remove duck breasts and save for another meal. Reserve duck carcass for stock or soup. Trim duck fat and save.
Trim upper part of wing from lower 2/3, reserving middle part and wing tip for soup or stock. Separate leg from thigh; chop thigh into two pieces.
Render duck fat.
Brown duck pieces; when browned, remove.
Add diced onions and cook, stirring, until softened.
Add apple and cook a bit, then sauerkraut. Cook for  a few minutes, stirring.
Splash with white wine; add stock, then browned duck pieces, bay leaf, juniper berries, cloves and nutmeg.
Bring to simmer and cook, covered, for 1½ hours or until duck is tender. Season to taste.
Serve with mashed potatoes and a nice little pinot noir.

Here’s the finished product.

This recipe would work equally well with a stewing chicken, game hens, or a small turkey, and would be even tastier with the addition of some pork or sausage. The possible permutations are endless, offering myriad ways to enjoy your summer garden all winter long.

My sister complained that last week’s missive didn’t have any Thanksgiving photos. Hey, gimme a break – I was trying to get the newsletter out before the event. Anyhow, here you go, Peg!

Here’s the noble bird, before being sliced and served.

That’s a 20 pound, free range turkey from Joe and Karen’s Rain Shadow El Rancho, processed right on site at their own facility that does poultry other area producers as well (including our ducks). The turkey was Joe and Karen’s contribution to the dinner. Isn’t it wonderful to be part of a great community?

The photo shows the beer drinkers’ table. As you can see the beer is pretty local – Deschutes Brewery Black Butte Porter from just over the hill in Bend, smooth and creamy, perfect on a cold day while relaxing snug and toasty by the wood stove. Never fear, the La Ferme Noire Pinot Noir was flowing freely as well.

Each of the 20 guests brought something – in particular, I thought Kim’s chocolate chili was killer, even if it’s not what one might associate with Thanksgiving. It deserves to become a La Ferme Noire tradition – we’ll have to ask Kim for the recipe.

Irina made the beautiful orange soup in the photo.

AUTUMN SQUASH BISQUE WITH GINGER

Ingredients

2 tsp vegetable oil
2 cups sliced onion or leek
2 pounds winter squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 2 inch cubes (= 4 generous cups)
2 pears peeled, cored & diced
2 gloves garlic, peeled and crushed
2 tbsp fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped (or 1 tsp powdered ginger)
½ tsp thyme
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 cup water
1 tbsp lemon juice
½ cup plain non-fat yogurt (Greek yogurt is best)
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

1. Heat oil in large pot over medium heat
2. Add onions (leeks) and garlic and cook, stirring constantly until softened, 3-4 minutes
3. Add squash, pears, ginger and thyme, cook for 1 minute, stirring
4. Add broth and water; bring to a simmer
5. Reduce heat to low, cover pot and simmer until squash is tender, 35-45 minutes
6. Purée soup, if necessary in batches, in a food processor or blender
7. Return soup to pot and heat through. Season with salt, pepper and lemon juice; stir
8. Garnish each serving with a spoonful of yogurt

My contribution was to cook the turkey. Here’s how:

 Two or three days before cooking:

1. Trim off wing tips, the neck, and Pope’s nose.
2. Dry  turkey inside and out and rub skin and cavity with a mixture of about 2 T coarse sea salt and 1 T of freshly crushed black peppercorns.
3. Put turkey on a rack inside a pan and then uncovered into the refrigerator to dry (this helps the skin to turn crispy during roasting).
4. Right then make the sauce. Throw turkey trimmings and giblets into a roasting pan, along with coarsely chopped carrots, celery, and onion.
5. Roast in a hot (~400°) oven until well browned and caramelized.
6. When turkey bits and vegetables are all well browned, removes from oven and place roasting pan on a burner. Splash in about a quarter bottle of dry white wine (an open bottle of pinot gris was handy) and scrape brown bits off the bottom of the pan with wooden spoon until they are dissolved in liquid.
7. Add chicken or other poultry stock (we had a couple of containers of chicken and duck stock in the freezer – a good quality store-bought stock such as Kirkland is okay, too) until turkey parts and vegetables are immersed and you have enough liquid for your sauce.
8. Add herbs and spices:  parsley, thyme, and bay leaf from the garden, a couple of whole cloves, perhaps a piece of star anise.
9. Bring to a boil and simmer for three hours or so.
10. Strain through a colander into another container and let cool.
11. When settled, spoon off the fat layer on top.
12. Refrigerate stock until ready to use. Having the stock finished on Monday means a lot less fussing when company is around on Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Day:

1. Take turkey out of the refrigerator in the morning to warm to room temperature before going into the oven.
2. About two hours before serving place turkey, breast-down, on a rack in a roasting pan. Add ~two cups of prepared stock. Put into a pre-heated 450° oven, immediately reducing heat to 375°.
3. 45 minutes later, flip the turkey so it’s breast-side up.
4. About an hour and a half after going into the oven, the turkey will be done. An instant reading thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the flesh where the thigh connects with the body should register 150°. The result: a beautifully browned, tender, moist, and juicy bird.
5. Remove turkey to a warm platter and cover loosely.
6. While the bird rests a bit before slicing, bring the prepared stock and juices from roasting pan to a simmer.
7. Thicken sauce (I like to thicken with corn starch rather than flour – it’s easier to control and I think results in a more refined texture). Put a couple of heaping fork fulls of corn starch into a small container, add cold water, whisk with a fork until dissolved, then drizzle into the simmering stock while stirring. Let cook a couple of minutes until stock thickens.  Repeat until you get the texture you want.
8. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

For ease of carving and serving I first remove the hindquarters from the carcass, and then each breast in one piece.

Then the turkey is a snap to slice. You had to be quick: all the dark meat disappeared first.

And of course we had plenty of Irina’s famous bread, fresh, warm, and crusty from the oven.

Party animals that we all are these days, we had cleaned up and were in bed by nine.

The next day, the turkey carcass and all the leftover bones and trimmings went into the stock pot, along with aromatic vegetables (carrots, onions, and celery), fresh herbs (thyme, parsley, bay leaf), and a couple of whole cloves. A couple or three hours later, I strained the stock, set the bones aside to cool a bit, and put the stock back on the stove. I added a handful of barley (grown by our friends Paul and Nonie), sliced leeks, and diced carrots and turnips, all from the garden. When the turkey bones had cooled enough, I picked off the meat and added that to the pot, and then some diced potatoes. Simmer a bit more, until the potatoes are tender. Et voila! Turkey soup!

We’re now in to December, and we’re still harvesting broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower from the garden – in fact, we have a new crop coming on, from the seedlings we transplanted out in August.

It’s pretty nice not to be dependent on the supermarket for vegetables, even in December. And really nice not to have to drive, or to travel at all, to get them. They’re right outside the door, fresh as can be.