Bepa's Garden

 Farm update

It's been a little over two years since I posted last and a lot has been happening! We have settled in and started building our farm business. The first step was to uncover the gardens and amend the soil. We have heavy clay here and it needed a lot of compost to make it workable. I don't like tilling unless it's absolutely necessary, so the first year I planted a cover crop of buckwheat and clover. 

The next year we planted a few crops like tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, potatoes, garlic and herbs. Things were growing pretty well until we had a drought mid summer. Between frosts in June and not getting rain for a few months, it was a year of learning.

In the fall, after planting garlic and shallots, I put down another cover crop of clover, wheat and perennial flowers seeds in most of the beds and covered the rest with crushed leaves. We left the dried stalks from the seasons crops, to help keep the soil from eroding and to naturally add organic matter.

The next spring the soil was loose and crumbly, there was also an abundance of worms. I was able to lightly turn the beds using a broad fork to prepare for the spring planting. I tilled up more rows to expand the growing area. We have been adding perennial crops like strawberries, lavender, flowers, horseradish, and Egyptian walking onions.

This year we had a very good crop of garlic and shallots. I harvested 30 lbs of garlic and 8 lbs of shallots. Some of that will be culled out to be planted in October for next year's crop.

In one of the newly tilled gardens I planted wheat as a winter cover crop to try to grow for flour. I did a 4' x 50' row. We harvested the wheat in July and still need to thresh and winnow it before grinding into flour. I'm looking forward to making homemade pizza and bread! It was a fairly easy crop to grow. Like garlic, you plant in the fall, cover with leaves and wait to harvest in the summer. We need to come up with an efficient system to harvest and clean the berries, but if it works well I might plant a larger area for next year. It would be nice to offer fresh ground four in the farm stand!

After observing what grows best here and getting accustomed to a shorter growing season than we're used to, we decided that herbs and flowers will be the most logical main crops. We will still do a kitchen garden to feed ourselves and to donate to the local food shelter, but the main garden will mostly consist of perennial flowers, annuals for cut flowers, medicinal and culinary herbs and perennial vegetables and fruit. 

We plan on opening the farm stand as soon as we can get the space cleared and set up. This fall, if all goes as planned, I will be putting up a 10' x 30' greenhouse for seedlings and building the kitchen garden. I will also be building a couple chicken/duck tractors so we can use them to till the gardens in fall and spring. 

This journey has been difficult at times, but I am grateful for this opportunity to be able to do something I've dreamed about for such a long time. 

~Rob~

This is a Clivia that was given to me by my cousin several years ago. 

It is an offspring from my grandfathers plant.

I've had it for many years and it has never flowered.

This year it finally flowered!