Cool ( as a ) cucumber thing.

In yet another effort to use everything that we can get our hands on Meg grabbed some plum branches that were being pruned. The idea is to strip them of their bark, sink them into one of our raised beds, lash them together at the top with the stripped bark and use them for our cucumbers to vine.

Here is how she did it.

You will need:

• branches of a sapling
• a knife
• bucket filled with water
• pruning shears

First trim back all of the leafy branches leaving the strong main branch.

Hold onto those smaller branches though. You will need them.

After scoring the length of the branch peel back the bark

Soak bark for 15 to 20 minutes

Choose your location for the tripod

Using the soaked bark lash the tops together

Using the smaller branches begin your trellis. Lashing 

sets of branches using bark. 

Plant your cukes...

...stand back and admire. 

All in all the the project took around an hour and was fairly simple to do.  Plus, it looks really cool in the garden. 

The Life of Cabbage

Among the produce we have growing is red cabbage. Neither of us have grown cabbage before and knew nothing going in. We have had a warm spell here in California that had us concerned that the cabbage ( among others ) was bolting and wasn't going to properly grow and produce.
This prompted a Google search and a lot of learning about cabbage.

Stage 2 ( our current stage )

We looked at our plants and didn't see cabbage, we saw a weed like sprout in our beds. It will continue on like this, adding leaves and stems and leaves until stage 5 when it starts to look like it wants you to make soup out of it. 

Stage 5 a.k.a "pre-cupping"

By the end of stage 5 the base and the stems are completely concealed when viewing from above. 

When we hit stage 6 all we will be thinking about is corned beef recipes.

Stage 6 a.k.a. "cupping"

At stage six we will have between 20 and 25 leaves and the innermost "heart" leaves will be concealed by the larger older leaves. Then we leap forward to stage 9 ... Mature Cabbage !

Huzzah ! Let's throw them at lousy vaudeville comedians !

I am rather disappointed that not a single paper I read, website I looked at or stranger on the street could explain to me how it is that creepy dolls come from cabbage. 

How ?! Why?!

Building a raised bed

It occurred to me today while helping a customer at the hardware store that not everyone knows how to build a raised bed... much less no how to plan what to put in it. So, starting today +The Littlest Farm  will be putting more effort into sharing the basics to help people get started growing.

This is a pretty solid tutorial. 

Never forget that the internet is a never ending source of plans. My personal favorite is Popular Mechanics. Their raised bed plans are unrivaled. 

Happy Growing! 

March Update

I've decided to do a monthly update in addition to our regular posts. It's almost impossible to tell you everything that we have going on here... but I'm going to try anyway.

First, some very exciting news. Our potato experiment appears to be working !

There is also a number of sprouts coming out of the side of the cage as we hoped. It's very exciting. It took 16 days from planting our potato cuts to seeing growth breaking through to bask in the sun. We are very proud of our tiny tubers. 

Generally all around the garden we are seeing a lot of progress. Little green folks popping up all over the place. 

Look at all our little green friends !

We also picked and ate our first radish. 

The peas are starting to grab their trellis. 

Strawberries are doing great in their gutter.

This poppy should be in full bloom any minute now. 

And just for fun here is a list of everything we are growing.

1. Radish
2. Red Stalked Celery
3. Purple Broccoli
4. Carrot
5. Parsnip
6. Rainbow Chard
7. Chioggia Beets
8. Golden Beets
9. Sugar Snaps
10. Shell Peas
11. Basil
12. Chive
13. Tulsy Basil
14. Chamomile
15. Oregano
16. Cat Nip
17. Mint
18. Butter Lettuce
19. Spinach
20. Oak Heart Lettuce
21. Arugula
22. Bok Choy
23. Daikon
24. Russet Potato
25. Butter Potato
26. Red Potato
27. Red Cabbage

It's been a fun,exciting and challenging month at The Littlest Farm with so much more to come in April.

The Great Potato Experiment

Over the winter as we planned our garden we often modified our ideas through several versions until we agreed on the best way to build or layout whatever was on the docket that day. Nothing was more debated or went through more evolution than our potato plan.

We love potatoes and eat them all the time so obviously we wanted them in the garden but there are so any different growing mediums out there that we couldn't decide which one was for us.

Since our first priority in all projects is to re-purpose and reuse otherwise useless materials our initial inclination was to use old car tires stacked to contain our spuds.

We read about this idea in a great book The Urban Homestead. This book is full of great tips and ideas but ultimately we didn't choose this method because of fears of what might leech from the tires into our soil. This fear might not be completely founded but regardless was a concern for us. 

The second idea that we considered was to just put them in their own raised bed and grow them one plant at a time. An idea that obviously as worked just fine for a few million years but that doesn't mean it is good enough for us. 

The trouble with this age old method of tater production is that it just didn't seem efficient enough to us. We love the idea of the tires and stacking up plant on top of plant and really wanted that increased yield without the side effects. 

And that is when my wife had a brilliant idea. 

The TUBER CAGE!!

The plan was to take a six foot long section of hardware cloth or welded wire that was three feet tall, pull it into a circle three feet in diameter ( had to use pi to figure that one out , Happy Pi day! ) and fill it with layer after layer of potatoes and that is what we did. 

Check out the pics of the process and we will keep posted as to their progress. 

The spudded potatoes

The hope is the plants will grow out the side toward the sun

Cross your fingers. 

Click HERE for an update on our experiment. 

In the gutter

It has been a busy couple of weeks here at The Littlest Farm... busy enough that we haven't had time to post but here are the latest updates and a quick instructional.

Let the updates begin!

Our starts have started.

It has only been a couple of weeks and we have all of our herb and ( bee attracting ) flowers poking their heads out.

Meg picked up a straw bale from a local horse farm for only eight dollars and built a planter box for it. 

Carrots were promptly planted.

There is also purple broccoli and red stemmed celery getting started in another set of beds.  

This posts instructional is a great space saver for folks with little room for growing. 

Gutters!

I purchased a ten foot section of vinyl gutter and cut in into two five foot pieces and using some masonry screws mounted it above our raised beds giving us a new space to plant our pick-able lettuces. 

First cap off the ends.

Drill some holes for drainage.

Mount brackets

I spaced them at 2 inches, 30 inches and 58 inches for a 60 inch section.

Insert gutter

I will be adding roughly 10% vermiculite to the soil for water retention.

So many things done

Sooo many things.

We woke yesterday morning with a new years vigor... as it turns out we don't drink enough.

By 9 a.m. we were breaking down pallets to build our raised beds.

By 10 a.m. we were squirrels 

( these things happen ) 

But, by Noon we were building raised beds, working on our GIGANTIC compost bin and generally falling in love with the littlest farm.

Here are some pictures :

building a new compost bin 

(from recycled pallets)

Cutting up pallets to make planter boxes

Raised bed made from 100% recycled materials.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Pallets are a urban farmers best friend. 

Such a long list...

Dear Santa,
     I know it's ridiculous to complain about the weather in California... but please bring spring. 

Sincerely, The Littlest Farm 


It is ridiculous to complain about the weather here but there is so much work to do and so little time in the day.
Planter Boxes to build.
A new compost bin.
Prepare for Chickens.
Seeds to order.
Set up a new water capture ( which includes installing gutters ).



It can seem really overwhelming at points but damn if it isn't also exciting as all hell.

Immediately after the holidays it's time to get down to serious work. Spring is soon. I'm going to build a workshop - and then start building things in there.