Oakhill Organics

(CSA Newsletter: Early Season Week 13)

Meet this week’s vegetables:

It’s finally warm out! Monday was the first day of the year that I felt hot even when I wasn’t working. Hoorah! We celebrated other fun signs of spring’s real arrival this week too:

For example, a sure sign of spring in Oregon: when it’s time to mow! One of the daunting aspects of owning 17+ acres of ground is taking care of all that space, whether it’s planted to a crop or not. We’ve been working towards establishing permanent buffers and roadways around our fields to help with that task, but they still need to be regularly maintained in order to be useful and to prevent weeds from overtaking the grass/trees/etc. This last week, I (Katie) spent the better part of two days just mowing. I mowed the grass on the edges of our property, the future orchard site, the remainder of unworked ground in our east field, and parts of our over-wintered field that we’re done harvesting now. Things sure look tidier now, which gives us some mental clarity and sanity in looking towards summer.

Our hens are also signaling spring these days as five of the 21 got ‘broody’ this last week — i.e. ready and inclined to sit on eggs. We found them sitting in their nest boxes one evening last week, and when we tried to collect their eggs them puffed up their feathers and almost growled at us. Motherly instinct in action.

Since we have a rooster and we’ve seen him ‘do his work,’ we decided to let them take a try at hatching some eggs. We’re inexperienced with this whole animal thing, so we’ll see how it goes. We haven’t set up special brooding boxes as we’ve been advised to do (going against experienced advice is a bad move, we know), but we don’t particularly have the time or energy for that task right now. We figure if they hatch successfully on their own, then that will be wonderful — if not, we’ve just lost a few days/weeks of eggs production from a few hens. It will be an interesting spring experiment anyhow.

And, in true Oregon spring style, we irrigated for the first time this weekend! Irrigation (or as we’ve sometimes called it: ‘irritation’) is not usually sometime to rejoice over — for the last two years, setting up and maintaining our irrigation systems has been frustrating.

Why? In 2006 and 2007, we were very water limited. Our sources were limited and unpredictable, creating constant anxiety about both whether we’d have enough water and whether our system would even work from day-to-day. Both years, we also set up a limited system that we had to move every time we wanted to irrigate a new section of field (which should have been every day, but was often less frequently than needed).

As we’ve mentioned before, we’re hoping this year will be different. After eighteen months of work, we finally have a functional, legal irrigation well. We’re also hoping it will be reliable, but this is something you cannot know until after months of use. As we mentioned weeks ago, we also upgraded our irrigation system so that we have enough pipe to have a ‘solid set’ of lines in our field, which means that we’ll only have to move pipe when we first plant a field or when we need to cultivate/work up ground/mow — but not when we need to irrigate. The difference should be significant.

Anyhow, we’ve said all this before, but we’ve been using the phrase ‘if our irrigation system works as planned’ a lot this spring. Two seasons of farming has taught us not to be certain about anything until it’s been tried (there’s good farming reason behind the phrase ‘don’t count your chicks before they hatch’).

Given the seeming uncertainty of a new pipe system and a new well all working together perfectly, we decided to try irrigating before we really needed it. We wanted a low pressure situation for a first set-up. And, hoorah! It worked!

The new set up actually exceeded our expectations, as we were able to easily run five 200’ lines at a time rather than the three we had hoped for. With five lines running at once, we’re irrigating just under an acre of planted ground — exactly what we have planted right now. So, on Saturday, we irrigated all of our beds, which should help them grow faster during this mild dry spell we’re having.

To celebrate/further observe the arrival of spring, we finally sowed our first ‘cucurbit’ seeds Saturday evening: summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers, and melons. We had been holding off sowing these veggies because they grow incredibly fast in the greenhouse, and we like to get them out to the fields as soon as we can after they put on their first true leaves (sometimes less than two weeks after sowing). The cool weather has slowed down our bed prep process and created a less than ideal environment for these warmth-loving plants. Now that we’ve entered a dry (still not very warm) period, we feel ok about getting them started.

Casey is outside doing more ground prep as I type, so hopefully this week we’ll be able to plant the next large round of transplants, including our onions, more succession veggies (lettuces, broccoli, etc.), and maybe our potatoes.

Even though we feel better today than we have all spring, it’s been a strange season. We’re still so new to farming that it’s been difficult to tell the difference between things we can control (sowing timing, harvest planning) and things we can’t control (temperature, rainfall, freak snowfall in April). The old serenity prayer certainly has had its place as we’ve worked hard to discern these differences.

We’re not out of the woods yet, either. Plants are finally growing, but slowly. The peas are several weeks behind last year (sorry!), and we expect similar results from other long-season crops. To try to accommodate the slower season, we’ve sown more short-season, cool weather crops (bok choy, mustards, radishes, lettuce) to hopefully fill in early summer. As always, we’ll see.

In the meantime, you’ll notice a distinct shift to spring in your CSA share this week: we’ve begun harvesting from our spring planted fields finally! Enjoy a Big Green Salad this week along with your continued delicious over-wintered greens and alliums (onions, etc.). Enjoy the vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

P.S. What’s your payment/sign-up status? Not sure right now where you’re at with your 2008 CSA payments? We always have our computer with us at the pick-up and will gladly check your account. We can also remind you of what seasons you’re signed up to participate in at this time.

Dates for your calendar!

Trim any tough ends from the stem of one bunch rapini. Liberally coat (but don’t drench) with olive oil. Salt well. Spread an even layer in a roasting pan and roast on high heat (400+°) until the stalks are turning brown and cooked through. Some of the leaves will caramelize and turn brown earlier, that’s fine. Serve immediately.

A similar treatment works on the grill as well — just put the stalks straight on the grill (make sure they run counter to the grill bars so they don’t fall through) and turn a few times until they’re done!

(CSA Newsletter: Early Season Week 12)

Meet this week’s vegetables:

Spring has continued to be rough out here lately. We have nothing terrible or dramatic to report, just continued gray, cold, wet weather. Even if everything else is going well, it’s difficult to keep our spirits up when we feel powerless to impact the most important factor in our plant’s growth right now (temperature).

But many good things did happen this week, despite our off-and-on low mood, so we thought we’d share those in this newsletter rather than wallowing in self-pity. And, when I add up the highlights, it’s hard to really see why we’ve been feeling so low after all. So, here they are, the highlights of our week:

Casey & me waiting for Clinton’s arrival … it was hot & sweaty in that gym, but good fun too.

President Bill Clinton himself, just a few feet away from us! In case anyone forgets where this photo was taken, you can clearly read ‘McMinnville’ on the banner behind his head. And, yes, Bill was wearing an orange tie. How cool is that? (Sorry, this is very non-farm commentary — I can’t help myself though!)

And, a highlight for some of you out there might be the upcoming change in veggies. With our first small radish harvest, we’re hopefully beginning the important shift from over-wintered to spring-planted veggies. It’s later than we had hoped, but what can you do? This week’s share will probably be the last that consists solely of over-wintered vegetables. Think happy green growth thoughts as you enjoy this week’s end-of-winter vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

Moving for summer!

Our ‘early’ season is almost over and the ‘main’ CSA season is starting soon! Can you believe it? We can’t. Market starts on May 29, and our ‘main’ season begins the same week, on May 27. Some of you will be temporarily leaving us in favor of market at that point, and new folks will be joining us.

The switch to a different season should also mark a shift to reliably nice, dry weather. To celebrate, we’ll be taking the CSA pick-up back outside! While the YCAP Food Bank is warm and cozy on these rainy spring days, we’re looking forward to setting up our canopies again at our summer location: the First Baptist Church parking lot at the corner of 1st and Cowls Street.

To get to the FBC parking lot, just follow 1st Street west (towards (99W) from our current location. The parking lot will be on your left, between Davis and Cowls streets.

Our pick-up time (3:30 - 6:30) and routine will remain the same, but we’ll be outside! Glorious!

Of course, we still have three more weeks at our current location, but I wanted to give everyone a heads up so that we all remember to make this switch. Put it on your calendar!

On-farm CSA event: May 17

Another date for your calendar — we’re hosting our first CSA event on Saturday, May 17. From 2 -5 pm, we’ll have a (voluntary!) work party for interested CSA members. And at 5-ish, we’ll end the day with a farm potluck! Feel free to join us for either part of the day’s events. I’ll include more details (directions, potluck ideas, etc.) in an upcoming newsletter, but I wanted to remind everyone of the date. We hope you can make it!

A new newsletter & blog feature: an occasional guest contribution from CSA member & Master Preserver, Lesley Woodruff …

Greens, greens, so many leafy greens right now! They’re wonderful to eat and easy to preserve. Take advantage of our springtime bounty of greens and freeze some for use in the hot summer months. Freezing leafy greens requires very little preparation or special equipment. Frozen greens can be used in soups, chopped and stirred into creamy dips, mixed into casseroles, and many other ways. Remember to label and date each package you put in the freezer! You can pack the greens in one big container, or in smaller packages for smaller servings. Happy freezing!

The following instructions for freezing are excerpts from “Freezing Fruits and Vegetables,” PNW 214, a free OSU Cooperative Extension publication.

Blanching is a short heat treatment that stops enzymes that otherwise cause undesirable changes in flavor, texture, color, and nutritive value during storage. Remove tough stems, wash thoroughly in cold water, cut or chop leaves according to preference.

To blanch in boiling water, put 2 gallons of water for each pound of greens in a large kettle with a tight-fitting lid and bring to a rolling boil (water continues to boil even when stirred). Immerse vegetables in a wire basket, strainer, or cheesecloth bag. Cover kettle and boil at top heat for 1 ½ minutes (for spinach and tender greens) and up to 3 to 4 minutes for collards and Swiss chard stems. Begin counting as soon as vegetables are placed in the water. Cool immediately in cold running water or a large bowl of ice water for about the same time used for blanching. When thoroughly cool, drain and pack in freezer bags or freezer containers.

To blanch in steam, put 1 inch of water in a kettle and bring to a rolling boil. Put vegetables in a steamer basket or a colander with legs and suspend over boiling water. Cover kettle and steam for required length of time (steaming may take a little extra time). Cool immediately in cold running water or a bowl of ice water for about the same amount of time used for blanching. When thoroughly cool, drain and pack in freezer bags or freezer containers.

(CSA Newsletter: Early Season Week 11)

Meet this week’s vegetables:

‘April is the cruelest month.’ When I first read those words of T.S. Eliot’s, I adamantly disagreed. My experience had always been April in the Northwest, which is typically just shy of paradise. Flowers bloom in profusion; the sun shines more days than not; warmth returns. By April my Winter Blahs have usually been replaced by Spring Fever.

This April, however, has been cruel indeed. Snow in mid-April can only be described as a cruel joke of nature. Or something like that, anyway.

Drama aside, this week we’re doing ok here at the farm. Ok, anyway. Last week we took advantage of another ‘extended’ dry spell to plant some more (we’re at about one acre planted now) and work up more ground for later planting. Thanks to those few days of very successful work, we’re at least moving towards our spring goals.

But this weekend’s weather was a shocker. Fortunately, we were prepared: everything in the field is row-covered (thank goodness for such a simple, useful technology!) and the sensitive starts are all still in the greenhouse. We moved the especially sensitive starts (tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants) all back onto our hot bench and row-covered them as well, so they’re doubly protected from the cool weather. So far, everything seems to be ‘holding’ fine, but nothing is growing at the rate we expect of April’s long days. It’s slow out here.

Admittedly, we expect late frosts here on the island. We’ve been told by ‘old timers’ to expect frosts as late as mid-May. But we usually associate April and May frosts with clear sunny days — not overcast, snowy, cold days. So, even though late frosts are typical, the average daily temperature right now is far below average — and that’s what we’re more concerned with these days, since the average daily temperature directly affects plant growth rates.

But, as I said, we’re making progress, in spite of the slow downs. While Casey worked on ground prep, I started serious planning for this year’s farmers market, which opens on May 29. Each year we’re at market, we’ve tried to refine our display. The first year, our goal was simply to have vegetables to display. Last year, we tried to increase the volume of vegetables on display. This year, we’re trying to make our display more attractive and appealing to the eye. We’re still not entirely sure what that will look like — we may need to make another field trip to the Saturday PSU market in Portland to get tips from the pros. But for starters, this last week I ordered a new canopy (we broke two last year) and worked on new typed price signs that are easier to read than our own hand-written ones.

And, this weekend, between snow, rain, and hailstorms, Casey planted out the last of our new perennial field with Jerusalem artichokes, cardoons, and artichokes.

We’ve also had the opportunity to participate in some fun off-farm events this last week. Last Thursday, we were the guest speakers at an OSU course called ‘Topics in Organic Farming.’ Normally we avoid speaking engagements this far into spring, but we couldn’t resist the opportunity to interact with a room full of students who are passionate about organic farming. We shared our experience as young farmers with a short slide show of pictures from the farm, and afterward the students asked some fabulous questions. We drove home feeling excited about the future of farming!

On Saturday, Katie took the afternoon off for a jaunt to used bookstores in Salem with a friend — a pleasant outing that culminated in finding a print copy of the Soil Survey of Yamhill Area. I suppose it makes us official farm nerds, but finding this was super exciting — since all the same information is available on the web, the USDA no longer publishes print copies of the soil survey, and we love looking at it. I also picked up some other fun titles, including some books about small house design, more Wendell Berry volumes, and — very important — a book about cats. Incidentally, our cats we discovered are Turkish Vans. Truly important farm knowledge to have.

We’ve also spent a lot of time at my parents house lately. My mom, Kris Bledsoe, is currently running for Yamhill County Commissioner, which is a huge task. She’s impressed us with her dedication to the campaign, and we’ve been doing what we can to help her. Since I almost majored in graphic design in college (I like to say that I learned just enough to run a small business without ever having to hire someone else for graphics), I’ve been helping my mom with some of her campaign materials: brochures, postcards, and ads. This last week I helped her set up a simple website — www.krisbledsoecommissioner.com. We used a blog layout for her new website, somewhat similar to our farm’s, so she can use it to communicate frequently with voters in the county. Helping with a campaign has been a new experience for us, but it’s a great source of perspective on our own farm work. With such an intimate experience with a campaign and with a media frenzied presidential run-off, it’s definitely been a more-interesting-than-average election spring for Casey and me.

We ended the weekend by sharing dinner with our friends Sheila and Andre of Growing Wild Farm. We walked their place again for the first time since last May and were struck by the many changes in just one year. Their fruit trees are larger; their lambs have been replaced by adorable hogs (they’re still in the cute stage — soon to be in the ‘yummy’ stage); the chicken flock has unfortunately been dwindled by predators; and the garden soil appears to be improved from their efforts. As we’ve noted all spring, it’s been a tough year, but Sheila and Andre are actually feeling ahead of this time last year because of their expanded knowledge of their land and their infrastructure improvements (they added a small greenhouse this year which has improved their starts program — the starts in the house looked great!).

Even with all the differences in our operations, it’s always wonderful to visit with other farmers throughout the year — to check in on the season and get ideas, feedback, and inspiration. When we were speaking to the OSU class, that was one of the important aspects of our experience we emphasized: how much we value the strong community of farmers here in Oregon. Especially in tough times like this spring, our farmer friends are a huge part of keeping us positive. Hot coffee helps too. Seriously.

We hope that you and your family have found your own sources of warmth and optimism during this ‘winter-that-never-ends.’ We also hope that you’re still enjoying the continued winter vegetables. We know that the selection has been somewhat stagnant for awhile (fitting with the weather), but change is hopefully on the horizon … we’ll just have to be patient while we wait for spring to truly arrive.

In the meantime, enjoy this week’s warming winter vegetables!

Your farmers,

Katie & Casey Kulla
Oakhill Organics

The cold weather this weekend inspired me to cook a big pot of curry. Besides being warming and delicious, it used up a lot of vegetables.

Start with a big pot and ‘alliums’ (the onion family) … cook over medium-high heat: three or so chopped leeks, one or two chopped onions, and diced garlic cloves in a blend of olive oil and butter until the leeks are soft and transparent (about 15-20 minutes).

Next add half a sliced cabbage, chopped bunch of Brussels rapini, and a chopped bunch of Collard greens (or any other combination of greens — add as many as will fit in your pan!). In order to make room for each of these large greens, add one type, let it cook down for a few minutes (covering the pot and periodically stirring helps), then adding the next type of green.

After the greens are sufficiently wilted, add one can of coconut milk and curry powder and cayenne pepper to taste (be careful with the cayenne!). Reduce heat and allow to simmer for half an hour or so — to let flavors blend. The addition of something sweet or sour at this point can help boost the complexity of the flavors — I added some chopped dried tomatoes (the last of our winter stash!), but a splash of vinegar or a few tablespoons of tomato paste could serve the same purpose.

Meanwhile, cook a pot of lentils and/or a grain (I have been enjoying the grain quinoa lately in place of rice — it has a great nutty flavor). Serve the veggie/curry with lentils and rice/quinoa, or stir them all up together for a tasty one-dish meal. The addition of some meat is also delicious. We added leftover lamb to our curry —yum!!!!!

Either way, this is an easy way to clear out a lot of vegetables, and this dish reheats beautifully for leftovers the entire week.

We planted again on Wednesday with much more success than so far this season. The ground prep went better — still somewhat cloddy but a big improvement over the first two rounds of planting. Here are some photos of the process, post-tilling (including photos of transplanting with the Drängen!!!!!):

Casey marking the beds with the G — we have a set of vertical bars we put in place of cultivators to use to mark. That way we know our bed spacing matches the cultivator perfectly (important when using mechanical cultivation!).

The resulting marked beds. To lay out starts at appropriate in row spacing, we lay out a 200′ tape in a path to guide us for the first row. Then, we can eyeball spacing from the first row for the remainder in the planting session. Unlike the spacing between the rows, the in-row spacing doesn’t need to be perfect, just approximate.

Me, unloading lettuce flats from the Gator. Have we mentioned lately how much we love the Gator? Yes, we love the Gator.

Even with the Drängen around, we prefer to still lay our starts out walking in the path. Separating the two tasks is more efficient, and standing is an easier position for pulling plugs than lying on the Drängen. Here Casey is pulling some lettuce starts.

Ta da! The long-awaited Drängen transplanting photo! Casey cruising through the lettuce planting.

Another view of the planting routine.

Exciting stuff. We feel a lot better about Wednesday’s planting than any of the others this spring. In addition to planting lettuce, we also direct sowed some carrots, beets, and arugula. Also, by the end of Wednesday, we finished row-covering every single bed that’s been planted this spring (34 beds total). It’s just been so cold. They’re predicting snow in the foothills this weekend, apparently (that’s what I heard at the hardware store anyway). So, we’ve tucked our starts into their cozy bed. Now we wait.

The much awaited photos of our new-to-us Drängen … to begin with, here is the Drängen just after Casey finished adjusting it for our purposes:

The much larger farm we purchased this from had it set up for four riders — many more than we need on our small farm! (And their strawberry-picking crews would run six such vehicles at a time.) Fortunately, the Drängen is flexible enough that we can set it up for our purposes too, as you can see here. The side arms are still twelve feet wide, wide enough to accommodate the additional three platforms, but we plan to cut them down soon to save on space. We’ll probably keep enough width that we can slide on two additional platforms in the future or a bin holding platform such as you see here (convenient for harvesting).

The Drängen in action! The first task we used it for: hand weeding an overgrown chard bed that survived the winter. In another year, we might have let this bed go, but this spring we’re eager to harvest everything we can while we wait for the weather to warm up. So, we engaged in what we call ‘guerrilla’ weeding as we ‘liberated’ the chard. This is never our favorite task, but at least Casey was more comfortable as he wrangled overgrown grasses and other early spring weeds like Groundsel and Persian Loose Leaf.

Another shot of the same task.

And, the resulting chard bed … not perfect, but at least these hardy chard plants now have more access to sun and water. I imagine we’ll get at least one or two harvests off of these before they bolt later this year. We hope so anyway!

We’d planned to post photos of the Drängen in transplanting action — the primary task we purchased it for. But Sunday’s planting session was too harried for photos. We simply kept forgetting the camera, which was almost a quarter of a mile to the north in our house. Next time.

For the farmers out there who might be interested in a Drängen type vehicle of their own, email Mats Andersson (the maker of the Drängen) at maproprojekt(at)telia.com, or check out the website of the Finnish maker, Elomestari, of a similar product called a ‘Crawler.’ Although we ended up buying a used Drängen, the Crawler also looks great. Each machine offers different features and are slightly different prices (which appear to reflect how sturdy they are). The Crawler looks better suited to low-impact market garden settings rather than big production oriented farms. Our use is probably actually closer to what the Crawler targets, but finding a used Drängen an hour’s drive from our house was a compelling selling point. After less than a week of Drängen-ownership, we’re very pleased with the back-saving potentials and recommend the concept of a prostrate self-propelled farming platform to any market gardener. (I wish I could think of a better short phrase to describe the concept, but there you have it: ‘prostrate self-propelled farming platform.’)

Happy farming!

(CSA Newsletter: Early Season Week 10)

Meet this week’s vegetables:

The brief warm dry weather late last weekend allowed us to get back out on the fields again. We were itching to plant but had to wait until Sunday to let the ground dry out as much as possible.

Saturday’s hot weather, however, allowed us the perfect opportunity to finish spreading our organic fertilizer for the year. We spread small amounts of rock phosphate (a mined product) and feathermeal (ground feathers) — the combination provides a small boost of phosphate and nitrogen for our crops. Since both are non-chemical sources of fertility, they are only made ‘plant available’ through the processing of soil microorganisms.

Since it uses a natural process, the release of fertility is slow and over time. The feathermeal’s nitrogen (13-0-0) will be available over our entire season in small amounts at a time. The rock phosphate (0-3-0) will be available to our plants over the next three years. In order to gain the benefit of our fertilizers, we have to maintain our soil’s healthy ecosystem, one of the basic concepts of organic growing.

In contrast, chemical fertilizers, such as ammonium nitrate, are immediately plant available and require no active soil life to process. Because they are immediately available, they also must be used quickly by plants or risk leaching out of the soil into ground or surface waters by rain and irrigation. From our perspective, the appropriate application of chemical fertilizer sounds tricky. We prefer the long-term solution — it’s slower but much safer and acknowledges the natural processes at work in the soil

Anyhow, spreading our fertilizer took up one dry day. At the end of Saturday, after only two real dry warm days, we were still looking at fairly wet ground. This spring has been tough. It certainly hasn’t been the wettest spring on record, or even much wetter than average. But precipitation has fallen on almost every day, which hasn’t been enough to cause huge puddles or other dramatic flooding but manages to keep our fields at holding capacity.

It has, however, been a cold spring thanks to the La Niña weather phenomenon. A farmer friend in Bellingham related that March was the coldest there in 50 years. The Oregonian reported last week that this spring has been the coldest since 1950 and Portland’s high temperatures have been normal or above normal only 11 of 42 days at that point. The cool temperatures have made the wetness feel wetter as the ground doesn’t dry out as readily.

Plus, those soil microbes I mentioned earlier than make our organic system possible? Many are dormant at soil temperatures below 50° … which is where the average air temperature has been this spring … which means that the soil life we rely on has been mostly just hanging out napping rather than breaking down our cover crop, soil amendments and producing the fertility our plants need. Yes, it’s been an interesting spring for a couple of still mostly inexperienced farmers.

Our lack of experience has been making decisions especially difficult. At this point, our experience with each season has been distinctly different. We’ve farmed in three different locations over the last four years, and each year has brought varied patterns, benefits and challenges to us as growers. Because each year has looked and acted different, we don’t have anything exactly like this spring to reflect back upon and remember how that year went.

What’s been unique about this season is our ground prep situation. We feel confident about most of our programs on the farm at this point: we’re able to produce healthy transplants in a timely manner; we know how to take care of early spring plants in the field; etc. But this year brought us a triple change in our ground prep: 1. We over-wintered a dense oat cover crop that resulted from a series of unavoidable incidents last year — it may not have been ideal for spring integration, but we have to deal with it either way. 2. We’re trying out new tillage equipment, namely the chisel plow and roterra. Since they’re both new to us this year, we don’t know what to expect from them and how much of our ground prep situation is related to other factors or these new tools. 3. The cold spring has slowed everything in general, but we still never know how much to blame on the weather or on our pushing the conditions.

Earlier this month we planted our first twelve beds in ground that in retrospect wasn’t ready to work. Because we worked it when it was too wet, we formed clods that we then weren’t able to smooth out this last week. There’s no question that the ground prep is less than ideal, but where our inexperience leaves us wondering is: are we right to go ahead and get on the ground? or, should we wait, even though waiting might lead to planting weeks from now? or, are we rushing the season and maybe waiting would result in better plantings despite being later?

Also, this is only our second year growing on this ground. We don’t know how vegetables will perform on this good soil when prepped less than ideally. We’re doing our best to meet the rest of their needs for fertility, space, protection, etc. — so how will they respond? Also, even the clods we see are different than clods we’ve seen elsewhere — they still have soil texture and drain well. Just how bad is our soil prep this spring and how will the plants do in it? We just don’t know.

(And, how much do I sound like a character in a Woody Allen film right now?)

I suppose we’ll learn some of these answers soon, since this Sunday we went ahead and planted another 17 beds with everything from cabbages to peas to radishes. We’re pulling out our full arsenal of tricks to help them thrive, including row covering everything to help get the plants through this cool spring.

Either way, we feel really good about at least one decision we made this spring: we decided to keep the CSA the same size this year rather than continuing to expand. Now that we’re looking at an uncertain late spring and early summer season, we’re grateful that we’re staying the same size.

Even though we’re not technically expanding our markets this year, we have slightly expanded our actual production. We’ve been trying to streamline our production and keep our field organization simpler, so most of our beds now contain just one item (rather than blocks of different items or varieties), and we’re planting out more beds of each vegetable at a time. We’ve also reduced our beds from three to two rows, and increased row spacing, so each bed contains fewer plants than last year — but the new planting style still represents an increase in production so far.

At this point, we already have 29 beds planted, many more than this time last year (although last year, we started planting in mid-March rather than early April). We’ll see how the adjustments go — we’re just trying to have more quality product ready to harvest at one time so that our harvests go quicker and feel less like gleaning. This spring, however, our new approach might just save us from an otherwise dismal harvest prospect.

Before I sound too negative (is it too late?), I should report on Sunday’s big successes. As I alluded to in my headline, Sunday felt like two steps forward and one step back — the step back refers primarily to our soil conditions, but everything else on Sunday’s planting round was a huge improvement over previous years.

For one thing, last Wednesday we purchased a used Drängen, the tracked vehicle we mentioned in a previous newsletter. The purchase was quicker than we had anticipated and meant that we were able to put our Drängen to work immediately in this round of early planting. The difference on our bodies was glorious. Previously, we did all our planting by hand, literally tucking every single plant into the soil with our hands. On Sunday, we planted about 2,800 starts — that’s a lot of potential bending (and back pain!).

Instead of bending or kneeling to reach the starts on Sunday we were able to ride the Drängen over the beds and reach the soil from a comfortable, relaxed position. Amazing. As Casey remarked after planting ten beds, ‘It’s a revolution!’ In addition to keeping our bodies feeling better than ever, we still had energy after planting seventeen beds in our far south field, so we turned to another project late on Sunday: our small new perennial planting.

Late on Sunday, we planted six beds of asparagus and one bed of rhubarb — the beginning of our first ever perennial planting. And, unlike the ground we prepped earlier in the day, the perennial field (at the far north of our property), prepped beautifully, especially considering the conditions. So we felt good about tucking the asparagus into their happy little furrow homes. Of course we’ll have to wait now for two years before we can start harvesting the asparagus for the CSA, but doesn’t that just sound amazing? Right at the season when we’re all sick of cabbage and onions, asparagus pops its head out of the ground. A spring miracle.

So, we have things to look forward to. And, even amidst the cool sometimes dreary spring, our farm environment reminds us of the bigger picture: the ospreys returned to the island recently, bringing with them their haunting wild call; our neighbor’s cherry orchard is in full bloom, white blossoms lining our horizon; and the Cottonwoods along the river are leafing out, the first trees here to put on green. It does all feel a little late though: we still have daffodils putting on new blooms when we’re expecting to see tulips. But I know summer will arrive before we know it, and then we’ll all be panting and nostalgic for the cool spring.

One thing is certain: after reading a book recently about life on a South Pacific atoll, I wouldn’t trade the seasons for anything. Life is interesting. Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers,

Katie & Casey Kulla
Oakhill Organics

… to be able to plant once again, we’re continuing to work on other projects. The big project of the past two weeks was completed much earlier than we anticipated. We bought a Drängen!

How were we able to accomplish this so quickly? Providentially — at just the same time we were visiting Persephone and blogging about our desire to buy a Drängen, another (much larger) farm nearby posted a classified ad for six used Drängens! Two farm friends saw the ad and called to notify us (apparently our Drängen lust was well publicized). We drove down to Corvallis to check it out on Wednesday and ended up bringing it home with us that same day!

Buying a Drängen is not a small purchase to make so quickly, but after the last few days of deliberation we felt like we were ready to act — and ready to use it. Last week’s long day of planting left us both sore and longing for something to save our backs from bending over. With the cooler than average spring, we’re anticipating fitting much of March and April’s scheduled plantings into a few weeks. That will be a lot of planting all at once, something a Drängen will help with immensely.

Also, although we just started throwing the actual word ‘Drängen’ on our blog recently, we’ve been thinking about this kind of solution since last year. We messed around with a transplanting platform on the back of the Allis last fall and were trying to think of a better solution this spring. The Drängen just fit an existing need seemingly perfectly. Not only will we be able to use it for transplanting (our primary desire right now), we can also use it for detailed hand weeding/thinning (especially carrot and beet beds) and slow heavy harvesting (bush beans, cucumbers, etc.). The Drängen’s multi-purpose flexibility is what really sold us on it.

The version we purchased was built for a much larger farm (much larger) and was originally part of an eight-person strawberry picking set-up. It was cut down by the other farm, so the vehicle we purchased was set up for ‘only’ four people to ride at once. The neat thing about Drängens, however, is that they’re very flexible in their set-up. In just under an hour, Casey and I were able to take apart most of the Drängen and load the entire thing into our van (the ‘beast,’ a diesel F350 Econoline van). The tracks were the widest part, and they just barely fit into the back of the van.

Once we were back home, with just a few hours of tinkering, Casey had it set up for our purposes. The track widths now match the Allis perfectly: 60″ on the outside (we use the Allis to mark our beds and of course to cultivate). There is only one person platform in the middle, and Casey jury-rigged some of the old strawberry flat platforms into a better position so that we can now easily haul 4+ agricultural totes into the field on the Drängen to pick into.

The frame itself still sticks out pretty far on either side, since it originally held four person platforms. It’s 12′ wide right now, and we plan to cut it down two feet on either side so it’s 8′ wide — just big enough to still fit one more person platform on either side of the tracks. We’re unlikely to use it with three people any time soon, but we want the flexibility for future use. You just never know what will happen out here, especially with fun new tools around.

The current 8 hp Honda motor is now definitely outsized for our reduced set-up. We’ll probably replace it eventually with an electric motor appropriately sized for our use that we’ll run on re-chargeable batteries. That’s one of the power options the maker currently offers, so we know it’s possible. It will greatly reduce the noise element of riding the Drängen (we need to wear ear protection right now) and increase the Drängen’s efficiency. We still need to research motors, batteries and all, so we’ll probably use it as is for awhile. Either way, the current Honda motor is in pristine shape, so we’ll keep it around for use in another application.

In other machine-related news, we’re taking advantage of the continued lull to maintenance our vehicles for the new season. We realized recently that we haven’t changed in of the fuel filters in our many diesel vehicles — and we’ve been running biodiesel in all of them for over a year. Yikes. So we’re attending to other details at the same time: oil changes, etc. Regular readers of our blog will know that maintenance is not a strong point of ours yet. We’re still getting in the groove of long-term commitment to one place and one set of tools. Our hearts are in the right place; we just need to get better about follow through.

Finally having more dry space helps a lot though. It’s amazing how much better we feel about all our vehicles now that they’re stored inside. It’s easier to think about them without cringing during the winter. And, of course, it’s easier to actually work on them, regardless of the weather.

And, in the ‘coming-of-age’ theme: another recent victory in our farm business is that we started using Quickbooks finally this year, and it’s been fantastic. I’ve kept up with the bookkeeping consistently since the New Year, and our records have transformed from being ‘ok’ to ‘super duper organized.’ I’m almost ashamed to admit this, but running Quickbooks has helped me balance our accounts for the first time … ever. Isn’t that terrible? For years, our personal finances were so limited that we never felt the need to balance anything — we pretty much knew what was coming in and going out, and it wasn’t very much either way. Last year we realized that we need to have a much clearer record of the flow of money in our accounts, especially after we accidentally overdrew our checking account three times in one weekend. Thus we switched to Quickbooks and I cracked down on receipts and balance statements. And, it worked! We’re balanced, penny for penny every month, and I always know how much money we have in our account, even when checks haven’t been cashed yet. Hoorah!

Yes, we’re still growing up, as farmers and individuals. But I will say this: it’s amazing how staying put finally helps with our focus, patience and ability to think about things like replacing fuel filters and balancing our accounts. It will be a year since we moved into our house at the end of the month — we’ve only ever lived in two other places for more than one year. I think the longest we ever lived in one apartment was about eighteen months … that’s a lot of moving in the last eight years that we’ve been married. Needless to say, we’re grateful to be still finally. Life keeps moving all around us, but we at least have a point of reference now — an anchor. More mundanely, we have a place to put our files and know they’ll be there in three months (and our tools, etc.).

Anyhow, back to the present. The forecasters are calling for some nice weather later this week. Hopefully we’ll be putting the Drängen to use soon! We’ll post photos soon too!