A Hard Days Work in the Garden

Who says its winter in the BF Garden?!  Check out our big red beets, green onions, sugar snap peas, carrots, herbs and eggs - the chickens are back in business!  I think it's the extra protein in their diet.  ;). Saffron is in the hen house crowing right now so I think we've got another one!  

The bounty

Saffron hard at work

Check out those carrots

The work center

New Year, New You, New Harvest!

    I just ate two insanely good navel oranges from our own property. To the uninitiated that may not sound like a big deal. First of all, finding a truly great orange anywhere is really hard to do. Secondly, these same trees last year gave us bitter crap that we couldn’t eat. Third, we have had several freezing nights up the hill this year and the oranges did not suffer. I have re-hab’d these trees with Dr Earth Big O fertilizer and John and Bob’s Soil Optimizer and damned if it didn’t work. I am so happy with myself as you can surely see. Did you know my grandfather, Merwin Brown, was an Executive VP with Sunkist? Growing up I knew every happening packing house in Southern California. Can you say “wallpaper the house with packing house labels”? I talk more about that soon. Now I talk like recently immigrated Asian gardener. I sure you can’t wait to hear about my family’s Sunday drives from packing house to packing house.  I love Asians by the way and teand to be at one with the soil and plant life.

    Tonight I am getting ready to speak at the Ladera Ranch Horticultural Association’s monthly meeting. Turns out some don’t believe anything grows in winter and they want proof. Proof I will give them. One thing I know is that gophers grow very well in winter. More on that later as well. We made a small spread of carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, sugar snap peas, green onions and deviled eggs all fresh from the garden (and the chickens). Everyone loved the beet and blue salad from the garden as well.

    Okay, now it is two days later and the Association meeting went great. A big turnout of 60 or more gardeners. Good foe Ladera! There is always something I love about the people you meet in groups like gardeners, artists, book readings, music buffs, theater folks and the like. We are all a little different and opinionated yet really accepting of differing opinions at the same time. Creative loons maybe? I am definitely one of them. You see things from a unique perspective when you actually take the time to watch something grow. Most people don’t take the time or have the opportunity to focus on the details of life and it teaches you in a big way. How many of us commonly dig up soil and look closely at what is going on inside it’s secret life?

Frost on the romaine but it survived
just fine!

Frosty Strawberries

I have attached some photos from the most recent frost. A few days back we had three consecutive nights of frost and tonight it is 75 degrees and blowing offshore which must be confusing to the plant life. The seedlings were damaged by the frost but those that made it are loving this warmth. I managed to scare the gopher out of the garden with good old fashioned water and smashing its tunnels. Round one I am victorious but I know he’ll be back.  

Sage thrives in frost

    I am really looking forward to spending some time in the garden this weekend. I am starting to gain some strength after the surgery but these heart meds are sapping my energy. This recovery has been much tougher than expected thanks to heavy doses of stress with the businesses. 2012 will see some simplifying in my life. For now the garden is my escape and I am so happy for it. Get out and enjoy this beautiful weather. It supposed to be 80 degrees this last weekend of January!

New Year, New Vision

Holy Horse Manure where does the time go? I say it every time but I mean it.

Anyway, I thought I had written about all that I seeded before I had heart surgery on December 12^th. Man, I worked my ass off in the garden to get ready for the surgery knowing that my ability to get physical in the garden was not going to happen for some time. So I, with my wonderful family’s help, managed to get a ton of seed in the ground. I really didn’t expect much because the winter had started so cold and wet that I thought maybe winter wasn’t going to happen at all for the garden growing through permafrost. Since November First we had already experienced 20 nights or more of frost and six early inches of rain by the second weekend in December. We seeded like crazy anyway. (Sidenote: I just realized I am getting pissed off at Word for not autocorrecting quite like texting on my iPhone but at least it doesn’t have me sending out texts that replace “shot” with “shit”, I digress, or is this simply wandering off into the ethernet?…)

Where am I? In the garage typing on the computer. No, I mean the garden story. We planted carrots, onions of many types, kale, kohlrabi, broccoli, cauliflower, beets, peas, romaine, iceberg, arugula, all your boutique greens…..on and on.  The herbs keep kicking butt.

The week after my surgery it was cold and depressing. No growing and not even sure if there was any healing happening. But it was dry and has been dry ever since. Where did the rain go? Only La Nina knows as she has now shown her true colors. My earlier hopes and uncommitted suggestions of a really winter have been dashed for now. I am now having to water the yard and the garden. Even the deep rooted fruit trees. What the hell? I see every day how climate and weather are two different things. The planet is warming without a doubt and the weather is doing really freaky unpredictable stuff because of it. I laugh and curse when I hear rednecks deny global warming because their ranch was just buried under 20 feet of snow after a summer of drought. Fox News enlightens not. Oh shit, did I just edge into political punditry? I will stop. The climate is changing just as it has always changed however this is currently outpacing even the believer’s predictions. NOAA knows stuff that is freaking them out and they are talking about it in their communities in a big way. It is not making sense to them.

Ahhh, the surgery. Second heart surgery this year. I am trying to have heart shaped strawberry seeds implanted inside my atria walls so I can cough out valentines by February. My last surgery was in early February but it didn’t work so I started earlier in December so they can take root by the big day. Allison will be so impressed if it works. She will truly love me then.

Okay I need to seriously talk about the surgery. I have been dealing with an irregular heart beat for 15 years now. I had kept it in relative control with heavy and toxic medications that I can no longer take. A couple years ago I had a couple cardioversions done where they put you under and hit you with the paddles of the defibrillator basically stopping and resetting your heart to start back in normal rhythm but they didn’t work. So 2011 was the year of the atrial fibrillation ablation for me. It is super high tech surgery done by the MAN. Dr. Wee made this stuff up that is now done worldwide. He is originally from Thailand and the brilliant personal physician of the Emperor and Empress of Thailand. Quoting from his website, “ At Pacific Rim Electrophysiology we have refined the standard approach to atrial fibrillation ablation. Pioneered by Dr. Koonlawee Nademanee, our approach targets specific sites in the heart using a 3-dimensional mapping of complex fractionated atrial electrograms (CFAEs).” He and his team are amazing people. The procedure can take a few tries and my second effort this year appears to be working but the recovery has been rough. Too much business stress after. If you know anyone suffering from arrhythmias that affecting their lives please let me know and I’ll get them to this magic man. He basically maps out the electrical signals inside your heart walls and then lasers out the hot spots. Great stuff.

All this gets me to thinking I want to farm and paint more. It is time to downsize the biz and get back to a balanced life with my family and the land. Real life. City life, real housewives, rat races in fast cars with plastic everything is not where life is at. Let’s get back to the land, slow food, get dirty and get real.

The weather has been unusually warm and damned if the seeds aren’t sprouting like crazy. We have a healthy start to great winter crops. We bought a new Ford F350 for hauling horses and compost. Check out the photo of the truck with a great load of compost from Sir Dave McAllistar Soils in San Juan. Look forward to some healthy, fresh and tasty food this winter. Chef John is on fire with great nightly features. The restaurants have been jamming and the teams are on fire. See you there.

The truck ready to do some fertilizing!

Seed of Change for BeachFire

The wind is blowin hard and I’m inside by the fire. Still recovering from a great winemakers dinner at Ladera last night. Chef made quite a menu of fresh, real food of the highest quality and originality. Great company with some great new and old friends. Frisby wines and Josh Frisby himself were there with a really fresh Chardonnay and a couple deep Cabs that worked.

Today I received the coolest package I have seen in awhile. A big box of seeds arrived at San Clemente BeachFire but I hadn’t ordered any from Seeds of Change that I hadn’t already received. But there was a box with 25 great seed packs that most all will work stupendously for the current winter planting I am now doing. Looking further I found an envelope I assumed was a receipt and I started to think I may be annoyed that they sent me seeds I hadn’t ordered or they repeated an old order. Damn them evil capitalist seed merchants! I tore into that envelope to see what the hell they charged me this time. Holy moly. There was a brilliant letter from the Will Righeimer President of Seeds of Change:”America’s largest Organic Seed Supplier”. I am now their pro bono spokesperson. He sent out enough complimentary seed for half the garden this winter with the perfect letter scanned below. This guy and his team are good. I am impressed. He didn’t know that I had already been ordering from SeedsofChange.com but he still stepped up. I am also impressed by how his team catches this. I imagine he has a Google Alert set up to catch people like me blogging and mentioning their name or maybe he is friends with the garden nymphs that visit my dreams most every night these days. They follow through and send out a thank you.

Letter from Will Righeimer, President of Seed of Change to BeachFire owner Dave Donaldson!

I have to remember that style of ease as it is so easy to tighten up and not want to spend the time or money to get out and give it away. We are back doing more community events like the Assistance League’s South OC home tour this Sunday – giving it away to the ladies – if you know what I mean…Actually some men will be dragged along with their spouses. In fact I wouldn’t doubt there might be some men dressed in drag. Anyway, what the hell does this have to do with gardening? I don’t know. Actually I do know – we’ll be serving fresh tomato bisque made with tomatoes from the garden.

I’ve been replanting more plots the last couple days. Spent eight straight hours on Sunday. Planted lots of seed. Many lettuces, lots of herbs, lots o onions, peas, more carrots and other stuff I can’t remember because of the red wine from last night. Maybe I should just plant a bunch of wine and beer grapes. We could water it with rainwater and fertilize with compost and produce fully off the grid Corona Light and La Crema Chardonnay and no one would know. Now we are talking!

Here’s a fun one. Earlier tonight I arrived home and found a couple chickens, the cochins exactly, in the garage hiding from the wind. I chased those suckers right out. A bit later I invited Ruby into the house from the garage and as she ran in her front paw landed squarely on a toxic yet fresh, black chicken shit that both tattooed its denseness into the kitchen tile and living room carpet as it also flew from the foot to the walls and beyond.

Last night Isabel brought the dog bowls in from outside and as she was filling them she noticed a stray nugget of escaped food. She quickly picked it up and put it into one of the bowls where it quickly expanded into a large black widow spider! She is a true spider tamer.

The wind is still howling. Probably blew 60 mph last night. Not the worst ever. I found a few dozen avocados and some more grapefruit on the ground but they might work out just great in the end. See you later…

Late November Harvest

Farmer Dave and his family took this holiday weekend to do a little planting and harvesting in the BeachFire Backyard Garden! Check out what's popping up and what you can expect to see gracing our menu this winter!

       

A Winter Harvest

Today was a great family gardening day. We got up this very grey morning and had to beat the rain. I spelled grey that way so it feels like a British cold, dark morning. Nonetheless the family rallied and we kicked some serious butt today.

We weeded the entire garden, pulled out tons of old vegetation, spaded, tilled in compost and fertilizer, and planted two whole parcels with seed. Paige was quite the seed planter with four varieties of carrots, two varieties of beets, two types of broccoli, kale, strawberries, and snow peas. Some may work and some may not. We are planting mostly heirloom varieties.

We also picked a ton of vegetable today with surprising results. Even after three nights of frost, a few early rains and Santa Ana winds we are finding zucchini, corn, squash, bell peppers, watermelon, eggplant, tomatoes, pole beans, and beets. The herbs seem like they may grow well year round.

I dig the soil. It is just amazing to me how well the soil has transformed from dirt – clay basically – to dark, rich, and alive soil. The earthworms have exploded underground. I am only spading lightly to no more than six inches to mix in the rotting straw mulch, some additional compost and Dr. Earth organic fertilizer, There are sow bugs, grubs, mushrooms, decaying matter and other crazy stuff living in the soil with its own secret world. As the garden matures I plan to till less and less so as to not disturb such a fascinating and hidden society.

The compost is store bought for now until our compost pile regenerates after last spring’s planting used all of our supply. Fortunately the animals have not stopped giving us new material. The pile right now is about twelve feet square, four feet high and growing.. The center is warm and should stay hot even in the dead of winter making it ready for springtime use. We are putting household green waste in there along all the animal supplies. It is quite a rich mix and the chickens do a great assist in stirring it up on a daily basis.

It has now been heavily raining for the last four hours. We are well over an inch today which puts our rainfall total since October first over five inches. We seem to be off to a start of a very wet winter. I just went outside before dark to check on the property to make certain that the rain was flowing right in all the ways which it is. The creek is flowing with much needed water. The duck seems happy, the pea hen is sleeping out in the rain on her favorite perch and the horses are standing out in the rain. All is good at the ranch.

LATE NIGHT UPDATE: This evening my upper right arm was hurting increasingly. I finally pulled up my shirt to take a look and found a tick burrowing into my skin! Lime disease and yellow fever here we come. Allison had a great time digging it out.

Evolving as we go!

     It is Sunday and it has stopped raining. We had about a half inch today and about an inch on Friday – that puts us to three and a half inches already. I have noticed that fewer than usual predictions are coming out about our weather this winter. I think we are heading into another wet season. I said the same last year but mid season the rain stopped and I thought I was going to be very wrong but then the skies opened in the spring. Imagine another good rain season – all of our water storage would be full and for a bit we could relax about water. I really need to get going on the water tank.

   Just Wednesday the Santa Ana’s were blowing up to 45 mph gusts. It was a huge test for the garden and it did well but it still was tough on things. Fortunately I had built a few lattice fences on the north side of the garden to block these very winds and it helped.

   So we have – I mean had – two goats until yesterday. Friends of ours have 21 acres in the Tenaja area and are collecting goats to help keep their brush down. I was quite willing to release the devil goats to someone in need. The goats will be happy and I can plant flowers in my own yard without them being eaten. When I say “them” being eaten I not sure if I intend the flowers or the goats. Izzy might have been right when he wanted to eat them. I will miss them.

   We have come to be friends with this family from barrel racing. Their daughter and son ride with the girls and are amazing talents on horses and with other animals apparently. Mom, “Laura”, expertly straddled each goat and pulled a baby diaper out with some duct tape and wrapped the diapers onto the goats’ butts, picked them up with ease and stuffed them in the back seat of her F250. Impressive, educational and really entertaining.

   We participated in the Taste of San Clemente Friday night at Talega Golf Club. I had a great time with Allison and team. Chef John stepped up with the fresh Shrimp and Pork Egg Rolls and Marinated Jerk Skewers on the grill. Liv and Kelly helped out. We had a nice display with about three cases of veggies and herbs fresh from the garden. I picked them in the pouring rain Friday afternoon to get it fresh. The event was fun. San Clemente is doing great with the same characters all looking for a good time and lifestyle. We are happy to be a part of it.

   The garden is still producing great fall fruit but the temps are getting down to the 30’s the last couple nights. When the soil dries a bit we’ll be planting like crazy for winter. I was talking with some regulars at SC BeachFire last night and we all decided it was best to cover much of the garden this winter. Amazing what can be worked out over a couple beers. There were several calls for me to grow wine grape. I wonder why. We’ll likely be planting big time on Wednesday or Thursday. For now, time to go feed animals.