Good Soil

Good soil gets me more excited than loads of produce.  We've currently got very little planted in the garden, but the soil is the best it's ever been!  I'm trying a less-is-more approach right now to planting.  Usually, I start a ton of seeds, transplant them too late or too shoddily and then enough of them survive to still feed us.  This time, I'm trying to plant less quantity- closer to what we actually need and take care of each plant a little better. 

Last fall, I sowed a lot of winter rye sort of as a cover crop, and to see how growing winter grains would work since I've had zero success with spring wheat.  It turns out that the rye is doing so well that I couldn't bear to cut it down as a green manure and I'm letting it go.  I'll cut it for grain in a few more weeks.  The result of that is having a lot less space to plant, and having large areas not going to the weeds.  It's really calming and beautiful to watch the seed heads bob and sway in the wind, much like watching the ocean. 

We've been eating tons of nettles and ramps.  The ramps are almost done now, but I did make an awesome ramp kimchi, thanks to my friend Dom, who provided me with the idea, recipe, and Korean chili powder.  next time, I think I will cut the leaves up a little more, because the long strands don't work out really well in the kimchi.  Also, we found a pretty good reliable flush of Dryad's Saddle mushrooms.  These guys don't get much culinary respect, but I'm happy to get what I can. 

don't eat mushrooms without a 100% positive identification.

I planted 3 different beds of corn, which wasn't the original intention, but that's what happened.  Sort of by accident, I ended up doing 3 different things with each planting. One has tons of clover, jewelweed, and other stuff growing like a living mulch because I didn't weed it beforehand.  Another bed got mulched with old leaves, and one I did nothing to.  I'm curious to see how that works out. 

Naomi did a nice job mulching these guys

Sunchokes going crazy

strawberries and horseradish

raspberries going crazy and crossing over the path

The source of some really great compost!

The last picture is a bummer pic.  That is some serious erosion, and it is painful to look at.  It's about 10 yards past the end of our garden.  Avoiding this type of erosion should be more of a priority. 

Corn Planting

I planted corn today.  a lot of it!  I planted 3 separate beds of Riverspirit corn, which is a flour corn.  This is the description from Siskiyou Seeds, which is where I got it from:


Corn, Riverspirit Rainbow, Flour (90-110 days)   A stable & diverse gene pool of native flour corns including Anasazi, Hopi Blue, Hopi White and others that has been successfully grown on homesteads in OR & CA for decades.  Tall (7-10’) plants produce 1-2 large (10-20”) ears in every color and pattern imaginable.  Excellent for corn bread, masa, tamales and adding to any recipe that calls for wheat.  Incredibly beautiful – shucking it is like opening a present from the Earth!  SSF

Tomorrow I hope to plant potatoes, and the rest of the onion seedlings.  I really dislike growing/transplanting onions I've come to realize.  I'm really hoping to start having some success with some of the perennial onion types that I've planted so I can stop fussing with those tiny hair-like transplants!  

Colorado

Last month, Two months ago, (whoops!) Naomi and I took a trip to Colorado to visit her sister + family.  Despite the elevation, we took some great day hikes and saw some really gorgeous scenery and animals.  It was also really fun to get to spend time with them, especially with our niece.

One of our first forays was to a place called Horsetooth, because it looks like a horse's tooth.  Local tribes recount a legend about the slaying of a giant, and the rock looking like the cleaved heart of said foe.  The trail guide said it takes 5 hours on average, and our brother-in-law said it would take 3 hours.  So we got dropped off with a 3-hour window.  The air was really thin and we definitely weren't in top hiking shape.  We ended up taking just under an hour and a half to get up, hung out for about 45 minutes, and came down with time to spare. 

Horsetooth

gorgeous view

Horsetooth selfie. 

We also took a short trip to Rocky Mountain National Park, which was really really amazing.  No photos or words will ever really do it justice.  I'd never seen anything like it in my entire life. On the way in, we stopped at the ranger station to ask about conditions.  They said that the night before, the park had received 73" of snow- IN ONE NIGHT.  The roads were surprisingly clear, but the amount of snow at some of the higher elevations that we saw was unbelievable.  As well, the number of deer and elk we saw was astonishing.