Award Winning Veggies

July 19, 2012

Dirty Dave’s Farm is now award winning! Our hard work and perseverance paid big with two first place awards at the internationally recognized and world famous Orange County Fair Vegetable Competition. With dirt under our nails and smelling like manure we fearlessly trekked to the fair the day before it opened with our freshly picked goods. This was our first time entering a competition for vegetables so we wanted to make a good impression. But upon arrival at the fairgrounds parking lot, we had to muscle a few old ladies out of the way as they tried to take us on with their zucchini and lemons. I had Isabel distract one while I tripped the other and caused them drop their produce. We even knocked one elderly gal into the water at the pond display as we made our way into Centennial Farms. She never knew what hit her. The paramedics were nice to her.

Anyway, Allison, Isabel and I cluelessly delivered perfect specimens of our veggies, but we didn't understand the rules and were only able to enter a few of our items.  It turns out that we needed to have three of each vegetable to be judged on type, size, uniformity, condition and market quality.  Of course, we know the rules now.  But damned if we didn't win top prizes!  We won for the largest carrot (it took some patience to dig that one out of the dirt) and top specimen for our Yukon Gold potatoes because we fortunately brought three of those.

Paige with "Gigante".

Allison’s father, John Blaydes, also entered a couple of his watercolor paintings and a photo in the fine arts category.




And....
The lady with the lemon did pretty well after all. 

On August 5^th we will be at the fair showing our chickens. Please come by and say hi. It is really fun and we are somewhat clueless about the whole chicken thing as well, but what we thought was our least impressive pullet last year won Show Champion and we still have no idea why. The judge knew something though as that chicken grew up to be our prettiest and most consistent egg layer.

We know a little bit more this year but still are a long way from the expertise of the chicken show circuit people. Yes, we have discovered a subculture of chicken people who travel all over showing their flocks. We will still be arriving with our chickens in a dog crate. The pros have custom made and hand painted show boxes. That separates the men from the boys in chickenland.

Mini Farmers Market in the neighborhood

Last night we made our first effort at a mini farmers market we put up in our community. It was a ton of flipping work to get together just a couple tables worth of our goods. I have so much respect for farmers and the incredible work it takes to get their goods to market. We were going to have the girls do the farm stand, but as it turned out it took all four of us three hours just to pick and clean the produce. The neighbors were great and showed up to support. We made $75 the hard way but it is a great lesson for the girls and was a great first run for us. Plus the neighbors loved it and can’t wait until the next one.  When we have our sauces bottled we are going to use some real farmers markets as test markets for the sauces which we will amend with some of our fresh produce. Stay tuned, have a great day and go get dirty.

DIRTY DAVE'S FARM IT IS......

June 5, 2012

Check out them carrots!

Huh?

The big, beautiful, fat carrots are Danvers.  The one on top to the right with the giant bamboo sprouting out of its head is an Asian variety that I will not plant again - giant top, tiny carrot bad. The other one is very well hung.  Anyways, we are learning more and more about our site and soil. We have planted so many different items over the last two seasons that now we have narrowed down our favorites and those that produce best here at Dirty Dave’s Farm.

  

Dirty Dave’s Farm it is. Kelly Abney, BeachFire Marketing Director, came up with this after noticing I was always dirty in all the photos at the house. I’m sure she has her own reasons as well. I am always in some stage of dirt management. Dirty cars, dirty shoes, dirty dog, dirt under the nails, and sometimes clean. We are changing the name of the blog and starting the new businesses under Dirty Dave’s Farm. We are working as hard on the new business structure as we are on the growing. I have the farm planted to capacity and am anxious to expand into the pasture, but I’ll pause on the expansion while we get the new biz structure completed. We have the County of Riverside Agricultural inspector on his/her way up to license us as Certified Producers next week – Yeehaw! Now we are growing.

I am so excited about our future and scared shitless at the same time. BeachFire San Clemente is back open under new ownership with the same team – yahoo! I’m looking forward to celebrating BeachFire’s 10 year anniversary with them on June 21^st.  My health is returning both physically and mentally. I am sleeping through the night for the first time in years even though we are broke with no income right now. We owe everyone in the world money and will live with financial consequences for many years, but we are alive, together and healthy as a family. I can finally see a new future with possibility. It is scary, similar to the way it was twelve years ago when I was between Chart House and opening BeachFire. There I was all alone creating BeachFire out of thin air – exhilarating and terrifying but it worked. Here I am again creating something from nothing and it will work. We are developing several different business models from specialty food products to consulting to wild recycled furniture to art sales and a few other plans in between. We will start with those efforts that actually can pay the bills first. Generally I feel stronger than I have in years. Have you been to the new pools in San Clemente? I am loving the facility and back in the water a few days a week working my heart hard and it feels frigging awesome. I reread this paragraph and understand why my kids say I have ADD but it’s really just excitement about possibility. Boy do I miss owning downtown though. I have my sad moments too.

Back to the farm! We are still pulling out awesome winter veggies with great artichokes, broccoli, carrots, lettuces, and onions. The potatoes are just starting to finish and they are flipping amazing. We pulled out a bunch of Yukon gold new potatoes last night, broiled them with olive oil and fresh rosemary, and they are so good. New Summer crops getting ready to explode are our tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, green beans and sweet potatoes - plus a ton of different herbs. We will be ready for our first farmers market in three to four weeks. We are really waiting until we have our first line of bottled sauces and dressings which is well into the primary production stage. We have our production kitchen ready to go. We’re finishing up logos, labeling and some licensing details. I can’t wait to sell! Will you please buy? Please?

I forgot to report on the Valley Center Rodeo the weekend before last.  Paige and Clyde won 3rd place in the Junior Barrel Racing division.  She won $52.  It was one of our favorite weekends with friends and family camping, bbqing, rodeoing, partying, laughing, etc.

Anyway, that’s it for now – time to go water and weed. Eat healthy and love one another tonight!

The Next Chapter....

May 3^rd 2012

                   

Paige’s sweet 16 in two days. She’ll be driving. I don’t like it. Will she take off? No…

Mountain lions, centipedes, giant beets, and a new duck who goes by Blanco. Restaurants coming and going. Winter-like weather today. Confused garden and beautiful flowers. Let’s talk about life that grows.

I am starting to relax a bit more. I can feel the stress oozing from deep within my bones and releasing through my skin, breath, and thoughts.  My health is good and the family is healthy. Life is good considering all that we have gone through.

We hosted an open house and yard sale Sunday and that forced me to get back into the yard and to catch up the garden. Things look really nice around the property but the garage and driveway are still filled with personal items from the restaurants that need to find a home.

Ladera is done forever. It is sad but also a great relief. I had wondered how I would feel if I ever had to close a restaurant. My fear was a feeling of great failure or sadness that would settle over me. So far that hasn’t happened. It is a pure good riddance type of experience. We never really fit in Ladera. I miss the staff and our regulars, though. I will write more about the Ladera experience after a bit more distance.

Irons returns to the possession of the City in a week or two. Irons feels like the lover who could have been so much more. I never really came to know and understand her as deeply as I had hoped.

Now San Clemente BeachFire is on its way to reopening in a couple of weeks. That is good news. Turner and Nick are back to steer the ship. I like the new owner whom you will meet soon. The past staff is welcome back just in time for the 10^th anniversary on June 21^st.

May 8th 2012   Never did complete that last entry so here I go.

The garden is shaping up beautifully. I am beginning my study of farmer’s markets and applying for official organic certification. The plan is to have a booth at either or both the San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano Farmers Markets this summer to sell our produce and beginning market testing of our other food products which we want to keep under wraps until we are ready to introduce them.

This summer we are heavily focusing on the best growers and sellers for our plantings. Expect great tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, green beans, red beets and carrots. We’ll also continue with a large variety of herbs. That should make for a great little booth. We have a bunch of cool season crops ripening right now as well with onions, lettuces, potatoes, artichokes and herbs that I am going to deliver to some other local restaurants to get them believing in my ability to supply them. I am expanding our planting areas around the property and have been invited to grow in another acre pasture here in Rancho Carrillo so I think we’ll end up with plenty of product. It is time and help that I am going to need.

Mountain Lion

Deer

The wildlife has been quite interesting. Check out the photo of the mountain lion that my next door neighbor, Ron Wood, caught with his motion activated camera he set up behind our houses. This is a large cat moving fast on the trail that runs behind our house. It must be in great shape – I think it gets out and runs every day! I need to thank Ron for the photo (more are coming) and give a shout out for the motorcycle shop he owns. Tokyo Mods is the place the best motocross riders take their bikes to be made into super fantastic flying machines that soar across the entire width of the Grand Canyon. The cats are all around this area. We have also been seeing many foxes, bobcats, deer and even a badger.

This centipede photo is from the centipede Allison found running under our bed the other night. She randomly went into the bedroom and turned on the light just in time to find this huge and venomous beastie boy (RIP Adam Yauch – you will be missed) headed for the bed. Yikes! I found another in the garden yesterday.  The photo of the tarantula is one that I found nesting in compost pile yesterday as well. I wonder what a fight of the centipede and the tarantula would be like.

  

Allison and I drove out to Norco to get another duck to keep Taco happy in the pond. We found Blanco and the two are in deep homosexual love. Maybe Taco just hasn’t yet figured out Blanco isn’t a female. Whatever the case we have legalized same sex marriage on the ranch which actually isn’t uncommon on ranches despite all the macho cowboy act.

The weather is hot now and the garden is still confused. I’m going to dig some great soil and watch the quail play. I love the earth and pray I can make a living for my family from these activities. Look for more frank information regarding the restaurants as the blog rolls. We are getting our lives back and want to share our adventure with you all and thank you for your great support of BeachFire and us personally. Have a great day and buy some local food!

WARNING: Reading This Post May Damage My Reputation... Read On

March 9, 2012

Oh man, has it been a long time since we’ve talked!???  You look great, no really!  It is summertime warm tonight so I can write in the garage on the now-ancient PC – a Dell no less? Remember when Dell was theee site to buy your DESKTOP PC – all made-in-America stuff, touchy feely technology. Wow, things have changed.  Made in China now. I think that is where the cold comes from in winter.

We are now “Post PC” according to Apple and I agree except that Allison’s IPad doesn’t have a USB port for my thumb drive and doesn’t have compatible Word software so I can’t use the damn thing for blogging so instead I have to go out to the garage to the Dino Dell PC. The garage is cold imported from China and Apple is hot like a cheap piece of imported Chinese metal. I love their products but is it too much to ask for a USPS port so I can wirelessly email my data to your porthole from my warm couch next to the organic wood burning fireplace with real-time heat control for maximum efficiency? This farming thing is getting harder and harder.

Allison bought me a plastic owl for Valentines Day. Thank you Al! I have become tired of sleeping with it so I decided to put it in the garden. Hot Damn! It scares away birds and critters. Must be because it is so shiny after me sleeping with it for three weeks. This owl fake could be a brilliant device to keep away birds and vermin.

She also got me a handful of rubber snakes from Walmart.  I like the snakes in the garden. It is freaking scary! You come around the corner of the cauliflower bush and BAM!!!! There is a flipping plastic snake you bought to scare away the other critters that the buffed owl didn’t get. I could swear I feel it bite me every time. Worst and best three bucks we ever spent on plastic snakes.  Reminds of the first time I cut off a head….

The hose attachment has a leak right where you hold it and the water is f……g frigid. Burrrrrrrr!!

Okay, I am talking kinda crazy tonight but I need to blow off some steam. That would be a bad place to write seamen instead of steam. The funny thing is that I seewomen. Why doesn’t word software autocorrect like my IPhone so that I can blame my awful writing on the machine?

Anyway, I hope I can make people laugh with what I write.

Now on to the garden…..  frustrating right now. Last week we had a fairly deep freeze that is totally showing up with burnt lettuce, pickled potatoes, and deviled eggs. The winter garden is not very happening so here's a picture of our peahen Lucy. She thinks she's a chicken except when she sees them taking their dirt baths and thinks, uh no.



Herbs a growin



This winter has enjoyed alternating weeks of deep frost and summer respite. The herbs don’t seem to mind but the veggies are slow at best. I guess we really do have seasons here at 2500 foot elevation in the coastal zone 23. I personally think everything is just confused. Your mate may turn to vegetables for comfort. Our stream hasn’t really run all winter. I haven’t hooked up the water storage just because there has been no reason to do so. The funny thing about weather is that it changes all the time…

March 13, 2012



Bodacious broccoli



The time changed! It is now four days later than my previous entry. And it stayed light until 7:15 tonight. So cool. And the garden has changed from the previous writing. The garden was so bursting tonight! Let me think – going around the garden there are major beets, broccoli, kale, potatoes – the freakin potatoes are finally emerging – I thought I was a total failure because I couldn’t grow potatoes but there is hope yet. Check out our bodacious broccoli buds -

The onions from seed are starting to happen but they are taking forever to get going – some seeds just don’t know how to get a good start. The lettuces are doing well but not the iceberg which did not live up to its name as the freeze wiped out their plump heads which looked fine the day after the freeze bit then soon looked like an old Russian gypsy with bad skin and warts. Sounds rummy.



We grew celery!!!



The new carrot patch is bitchen’. I thinned out a ton of the coolest little fingerling carrots that we ate after a 20 second sauté in olive oil and celery salt.  Picked gorgeous green onions that were starting to bud, grilled them with ribs Al made with her killer vinegar treatment, great ribs hunnie. The onions were sweet and succulent like jumbo asparagus which we should have this year as my asp patch has taken root. (Someday we’ll grill our own baby backs grown on the back of our soil if I can convince the girls.) Celery is freaking beautiful and healthy, but slow growing. Then the herb patch is doing great – I named the patch after Herb Albert. Sing to me you little vegetables!





Cados



Isabel (10 yrs) took this photo - nice!

Our trees are happy trees.  The avocados are bursting and make the best guacamole!  Only bummer is they take almost 2 weeks to ripen - it's sooo hard to wait!!!  And the peach tree blossoms are quite purty.  Hoping to see some action late spring.

 Oh what to plant for summer and when?  Dreaming of tomatoes hugely. We will have tomato everything on the menu this summer. What her melons? Yes, watermelons too. Thinking huge corn patches. Gadzooks and squash! Heirloom everything! Basically everything pestoically presented on pasta primavera. Okay my food puns are stretched line a Kentucky Pole Bean on a high pressure Santa Ana day. I’m not funny but I’m having fun  - so is Saffron taking her dirt bath.

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!