February 24, 2012 Making Room for More Plants

We know it is spring when it becomes necessary to hook up the delivery trailer to deliver customer orders.  All winter long we use our mini van and the car to deliver orders that range in size from 4 or 5 flats to 12 to 15 flats.  This week we needed the trailer, which can hold up to 200 flats when totally full.  Yippee!  Not only is it helpful to have some orders going out again financially, but it helps our floor space challenges in the greeenhouses.  By the time Chris got this load to Denver in 2.5 hours the crew and I had already filled the space with newly transplanted flats of plants.

By the end of this next week we will have filled all 7 greenhouses to the brink with plants.  Our full greenhouse crew will be on board with the addition of Beki.  Doug and Lizz will have planted more than 350 new seed flats, and the hanging baskets and planters of annual flowers will be planted.  We will have transplanted endless supplies of plugs into 2.5″ pots, salad greens and root vegetables will be planted in flats of 32 count.  We have two Garden Shows over the next two weekends, Echter’s Expo the weekend of March 3-5th and Spencers Garden Show the weekend of March 9-11th, so this week Carol will be planting clay pot herb gardens for the Spencer show so that they will be rooted in and beautiful by the time the show arrives.  I guess, surfice it to say that we are a wee bit busy around here these days!

This is a bee shed in a public open space were we hiked in Germany with Georg and his family, Iris, Marcelina and Tilo.  This area is absolutely covered with heather and can you just imagine how wonderful that must be during the blooming season.  The bee shed is where bee keepers place their hives to protect them from excessive sun and wind exposure.  I think it is a very charming, yet practical, little building.

This is Georg and Iris’ home, which was built in 1818, and get this, it has a thatched roof.  I didn’t realize thatched roofs were still being used, but we saw a great number of them on our trip.  Georg and Iris have a lovely home and they welcomed us into it and prepared a fantastic lunch with mushrooms Georg and his children had wild-gathered.  It was a delicious meal in good company.

This is Professor at this moment, helping me in my office.  I guess it’s help, but really just good company!  Enjoy your weekend.

February 19, 2012 Return From Germany

We had an amazing business trip to Germany.  We went because I had been asked to speak at the ISU International Perennial Plant Conference, and to visit our seed customer Jelitto Perennial Seed Company.

We were treated like royalty by Georg, our host, and he took time out of his extremely busy schedule to help us do a bit of sightseeing in the countryside while we were there.  This is an old church tower that dates back to the 1100′s.  Isn’t that amazing!

This is one of the castles we visited while we were there.  They had incredible gardens all around and the grounds seemed to go on endlessly.  We barely scratched the surface in what we had time to see of the gardens.

How would you like to be one of the gardeners at this place.  These knot gardens were huge and complex.  That is a lot of gardening time, aye!

These women work at Jelitto seed company.  They have the task of fine cleaning the seeds.  Once the seeds have been put through the cleaning machines, these amazing women fine tune the cleaning by hand using all types of screens and winowing trays, even feathers to sweep away the tiniest bits of chafe etc.  Georg, who co-owns Jelitto with Uli, took us through the enitre facility and we were absolutely blown away!  It was also fun to see packages of our own seeds being cleaned and processed.  These were seeds that we had shipped to Jelitto last fall after the harvest season was finished and now they are being cleaned, tested for germination rates, etc.  We will get paid for our seed crops later this spring when all the cleaning and testing steps are completed.

Not the greatest photo, but this is my presentation on growing perennial herbs and how to use them to create a healthy lifestyle.  All of the presenters were excellent!

There were presentations on plant exploration trips in the Himilayas, the Middle East, and our own the Rocky Mountains, given by Ron McBeath, Panayoti Kelaidis and Ray Stephenson.  One presenter from Scotland, Susan Band, specializes in growing rare bulbs.  I wish she shipped to the U.S., because I would surely be one of her best customers.  Ray Stephenson is the world expert on Sedum…wow!  This man was incredible.  We traveled with Ed Snodgrass from Maryland.  He specializes in Green Roofs and we had a great deal of fun listening to his presentation and talking plants with him and Georg as we traveled about Germany.  Ron McBeath is also from Scotland and his presentation was on some of his trips to the Himilayas and China…simply facinating, plus he has a way of speaking latin names that is like listening to music!  Our friend, Panayoti, from Denver Botanic Gardens gave two presentations on his plant exploration trips to the Middle East and throughout our own Rocky Mountains.  Panayoti is always great fun to listen to and this time was no exception.

During the conference each presentation was followed by a 30 minute break in which we all retired to the dining room for coffee and tea and wonderful conversation with one another, talking plants and getting to know each other better.  Chris and I talked to people from Sweden, Norway, the UK, Holland,  the US, Germany, and several other countries.  Many had their own nurseries, some worked for botanic gardens, some had created their own private botanic gardens, some were garden center owners, all sorts of plant professions and all very interesting.  We ate together and spent the evening continuing our marathon visiting in the conference center pub.  It was delightful!

As time allows this week I’ll post up a few more things from the trip.

February 7, 2012 Fresh Wet Snow!

Last week most of Colorado got a lot of snow – like 12-24″ worth, but here in Canon City we got about 2-3″ is all.  Not very encouraging for February and wanting to see the moisture improve.  However, last evening it began to snow and it snowed a fair bit – maybe 5-6″ of really wet snow with decent moisture content.  We are thrilled, although my back isn’t too pleased about the snow shoveling it had to do this morning.  By afternoon the sun had peaked out and the snow is melted off the roads now.  A short, but really good, snow event!  The farm looks very beautiful all dressed in white.

This time of the year I wash zillions of pots and trays!  All the pots and trays we re-use for planting must be washed and rinsed before we can plant in them again.  Most of the washing tasks have my name on them.  It’s mindless work, so it’s not a bad chore, but in truth I never seem to ever get finished.

Last week, Chris and I put up fresh yellow sticky tapes in all the greenhouses that currently have plants growing in them.  Insects are attracted to the sunny yellow color, and the tape is coated with seriously sticky glue which traps the insects if they land on it.  In this way we catch a lot of adult insects, especially shore fly and fungas gnats.

Chris handles all our insect and pest management here on the farm.  He has designed a program that utilizes beneficial insects and nematodes in the greenhouses, along with traps like the yellow sticky tape.  The program he has put together means that we use organic sprays much less, relying more on the beneficial insects to keep pest insect populations in check, and helping to prevent  insect resistance to chemicals, even natural OMRI ones that are approved for use in organic growing.  Below, Chris is introducing a new batch of lacewing larvae to the greenhouses.  Lacewings are an excellent general predator insect that hunts and forages on pest insects like aphids and thrips.

Recently, we sent out a fair number of customer orders for the cold time of the year.  Here you can see that we are selling a lot of tomatoes, red robin tomatoes to be exact, which grow very nicely indoors and yield an on-going supply of large cherry tomatoes for salad lovers who hate to give up fresh homegrown tomatoes when the summer garden season ends.  Now there is no reason to be without fresh tasty tomatoes grown on your countertop during cold months of the year.

I will be out of touch for a while.  Chris and I will be attending the International Perennial Plant Conference and visiting our seed customer, Jelitto Perennial Seed Company.  When I get back to the blog I should have a few pictures to show you of both events.

Cheers!

January 26, 2012 Cobrahead Weeder, Cuttings & Farm Stand

Greetings,

I wanted to give you an update on the Organic View Radio Show I will be doing with June Stoyer later today.   You can find information about the show by going to www.blogtalkradio.com-theorganicview/2012/01/26/author-and-herbalist-tammi-hartung-homegrown-herbs .

There is a great deal happening at Desert Canyon Farm now.  It may only be January for most people, but for us spring has already arrived in terms of the greenhouse work load.  Above are literally thousands of rosemary plugs that we are transplanting up into larger sized pots in order that they will be ready when customers start ordering in earnest around the first of March.

This niffty tool is a CobraHead Weeder and Cultivator.  We recently added it to our arsenal of gardening tools and we are quite impressed with how well it works.  It is a small hand tool with a design that  is easy on arthritic hands like mine and it is very light weight.  However, that dosen’t mean that it is not strong!  I’ve been testing it in the garden digging up perennial mallows that need to be eradicated, along with some pink violets I’ve been wanting to re-locate to another area in the garden.  The cobrahead lifted them both out of the soil easily and then I used it to prepare the soil and re-plant the violets….easy, easy, easy!!  I think we will really like this tool and I expect that we will be purchasing several more so that the whole farm crew has them to use in the flower seed production field this summer.  So, if you want to learn more about the CobraHead Weeder go to www.cobrahead.com .  I know that they are available also by mailorder through Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, and I’m sure many other places as well.

Our new Farm Stand construction is moving right along.  Chris has been installing the end doors this week.  The frame looks like a giant whale rib cage to me!  We’ve been having very good weather for this work, although we would trade the warm weather for some good nourishing moisture in the form of rain or snow.  My goodness, it is so dry, and this is worrysome for the upcoming growing and irrigating season.  It is mighty fine construction weather though.

Yesterday, Lizz worked a great part of the day doing vegetative cuttings.  Here she is working on Vietnamese Coriander, which is a culinary herb in Asian cooking.  It does not produce seed, so it must be rooted from tip cuttings or done by root divisions.  We prefer the cuttings approach.  We’ve also been taking cuttings in mass of rosemary, variegated sages, all sorts of thymes and oreganos, mints galore, and other herbs.  In addition, we do cuttings of many different fariy garden plants and green roof plants that we offer.  It is time consuming work, but for those plants that are not canidates for seed production, cuttings are the thing we must do.

January 25, 2012 The Organic View Radio Show

Here is a little bit of spring to appease your garden fever, which is you are like me, you have a bad case of about now.  I am seeing some bulbs starting to break throught he soil surface of the garden and I know it’s way early, but just seeig their little pointy leaves poking through is making me long for spring to arrive!

Just an FYI…tomorrow, January 26, 2012, at 2pm Colorado time I will be the guest on The Organic View Radio Show.  You can find the Show at www.TheOrganicView.com  and I hope that you will tune in and listen as June Stoyer, the shows host, and I visit about growing and using herbs.  For those of you on Facebook, you can go to www.facebook.com/TheOrganicViewRadioShow as well.

Here is todays tip:  Make a rosemary baked potato lunch.  Gourmet baked potatoes are easy to make and absolutely delicious, plus the topping choices are virtually endless.  Experiement for what you like and, most importantly, have fun!!

Rosemary Baked Potato

1 large baking potato, already baked (I bake potatoes sitting directly on the rack of the oven at 325 degrees for about 30 minutes or so, until they are soft and slightly squishy)

1 generous dolup of butter or a generous drizzle of olive oil

1 clove of fresh garlic minced

1 Tablespoon of freshly chopped rosemary leaves or 1 teaspoon of dried crushed rosemary leaves

Optional: sprinkle of crumbled bacon or a spoonful of sour cream

Add all of the ingredients above to top your baked potato.  Adjust the ingredients to your personal tastes or diet.  Add other ingredients  of your own choice if you so desire.

January 22, 2012 Good to be back on the Homeplace

Yesterday, I drove to Santa Fe to give a presentation at Santa Fe Greenhouses.  We had a fantastic turnout of wonderful folks interested in cooking with and growing herbs.

Today, I made the drive back home in what should have been 6 hours max, but it ended up taking me 8 hours because of the icy roads outside of Santa Fe and the horrible outrageous winds the whole drive home!  I’m very happy to be back on my homeplace!!

Meet Gwenivere, our beautiful gray girl.  She is our youngest kitty and a very sassy, but sweet, gal.

This is Pouncita, the blue point siamese, is the eldest kitty.  Sometimes we call her Bossita, so you get the message about her personality.  She is the smallest of the three cats, but she definately rules the roost.

Finally, meet Professor Longhair.  He is Gwenivere’s big brother, but neither of them look anything like their mother, who was a black and white tiny little cat that remined you of a milk cow.  Professor is the “big guy” weighing in at 21 pounds plus 3″ of long hair on every part of him.  He thinks the bath tub is a great big bed just for him.

So, are you wondering why you are seeing just cat photos on this post?  Mostly because I’m frazzled from the drive with not a lot of energy for anything much this evening, but I did want to at least check in before the week gets started tomorrow.  Have a great week and I’ll be in touch soon.

January 16, 2012 Cuttings and Seedlings

Tonight, Pouncita is taking advantage of a warm woodstove snooze as the weather outside is getting colder and colder.  There is snow in parts of Colorado, but here we just seem  to be getting the cold and wind.  We need moisture, so I hope the situation changes in that directon, but it is not forecasted for us here.  I guess I should be a bit more like Pouncita and just take advantage of what comes my way, aye.

This is a double yellow datura plant that has been blooming for some time now in the greenhouse.  It grew in this 8″ pot all summer in the back yard, waiting to be planted in the garden, but that never got accomplished.  When I brought it into the greenhouse for the winter, thinking I’d plant it in the garden next spring, I had no idea it would bloom so beautifully for so long.  It has been quite an eye-catcher.

For the past two days we have begun the huge process of pricking seedlings out of propagation tubs and transplanting them into their own individual plug cell.  Once they get well-rooted we will transplant them into larger pots, but this is the first step.  Yesterday, Doug and I worked on some of them and later in the day my friend Sadie stopped by and offered to transplant seedlings a while too.  It’s wonderful to have the extra help, plus have a visit at the same time.  Today, Lizz continued the process while I worked on other tasks.  We will be doing this work on-going for weeks now as we steadily work towards building up spring plant inventory.

Oh, before I forget, I will be speaking in Santa Fe this weekend on Saturday at 2pm.  I will be speaking at Santa Fe Greenhouses on “Growing Culinary Herbs Indoors and In The Garden”.  You can find details on how to buy a ticket for the presentation on the Classes and Events page of this blog, along with location information.  I will have a book-signing following my talk.  Hope to see you there!

On a final note, please check out Lizz’ new webpage and blog called Postage Stamp Farm.  You can find it at postagestampfarm.weebly.com .  Lizz is the assitant grower here and my right hand person.  She works in the greenhouses, takes care of many of the gardens and occassionally helps me with office stuff and customer service.  She is nothing short of amazing and we love her dearly.  Anyway, she is an aspiring urban homesteader and doing an amazing job of it on a very small piece of property.  Just goes to prove that you can accomplish a huge amount in a small space if you are just mindful of the process.  She recently aquired a bunny for fiber so that she can spin her own yarn and use it to knit with.  The bunny’s name is Sage and he is really a charming buck.

She and my daughter, M’lissa, have been working hard also on getting the signage ready for the spring farm stand plant sale on our Open Farm Days coming up.  M’lissa was nearly cross-eyed by the end of today trying to create signs for all the heritage heirloom food plants and old-fashioned flowers we will have for sale.  My hope is that I won’t have worn her out before we get to make signs for some of the other great plants we will have for sale too, but there are a zillion plant varieties and that is a lot of signs!  Thank you M’lissa for all that you do here!!!  We love you more than we can say.

Guess that is all for tonight.  Stay warm as the cold winds blow.

January 9, 2012 Heritage Heirloom Food Plants

Black Forest Kabocha Squash

Yippee…I just finished putting in all the varieties of vegetables and fruits into the Heritage Heirloom Food Plant Information page of this blog.  I was beginning to think it might never get finished, but the information is there.  As we are able to take photos of the plants during the growing season, and as time allows we will begin to insert pictures to whatever varieties we have them for.  I hope you will enjoy the database and find it helpful and inspiring as you plan for your upcoming food gardening season.

Cheers,  Tammi

White Cherry Tomato

January 8, 2012 A very busy weekend!

This truck belonged to Chris’ grandad and Chris inherited it when he was in college.  About 18 years ago Chris restored it, but this winter he got a hankering to refresh the restoration a bit.  So, he’s been fine-tuning the paint, refinished the wood in the bed floor, added beauty rings to the wheels and a side rail for a final touch.  It looks great!  It seems like this truck has its own fan club around town.  Chris drives it to the hardware store, to get pizza…that sort of thing.  As we are driving along people smile and wave.  This old truck makes people feel happy, no two ways about it!

Part of my week has been to put together some baskets of natural fiber nesting materials for the birds that live here on the farm.  I put in roving of merino mohair, mandella wool, alpaca felt ribbons and alpaca wool.  The alpaca fiber came from my friend Robin’s alpaca herd nearby in Penrose.  She and her husband own Little Circle Alpaca Farm and I love buying fiber from her.  Anyway, here is the end result tied into the tree.  I built 4 baskets and scattered them about in trees around the farm.  If I were a baby bird this spring I would be very pleased with the softness and warmth of my nest home.

For our christmas present, Lizz, Jake and Biggi gave us these wonderful signs.  Lizz built and painted them for us to use at the Farm Stand to celebrate our heirloom heritage food plants and the old fashioned flowers that we sell, along with more than 500 different varieties of herb plants.

They are great signs and we are so thrilled to have them!

  And speaking of Farm Stand, today I planted more than 50 plug flats of seeds, many of the varieties will be for Farm Stand, along with our wholesale customers.

It has been a very busy weekend.  Yesterday Chris and I put up the bows for our new Farm Stand greenhouse sturcture.  It looks like a giant whale rib cage!  The building is starting to take it’s form now and before we know it we will have it filled with plants.

The coming week will be equally busy, but it feels good to be getting a lot done.  Hope your week is dandy too.

January 6, 2012 Great Mini Gardens in a Tray

This past year we introduced some new categories of our Mini Gardens in a Tray Collections.  In addition to the original group of culinary, medicinal, tea and fragrance gardens, we added a few more groupings.  Now we have…

Traditional Mini Gardens in a Tray are our standard grouping of herb choices and they include Culinary, Medicinal, Tea, Fragrance and Mixed Herbs Mini Gardens.

Heritage Heirloom Food Mini Gardens have a wide range of choices, some of which are cool season heritage veggies gardens, heirloom tomatoes gardens, hot season heritage veggie gardens, just to name a few.

Wildlife Mini Gardens which include honey bee gardens, native pollinator gardens, beneficial insects gardens, wild bird gardens, bumble bee gardens and hummingbird gardens.

Fairy, Gnome and Green Roof Mini Gardens are filled with sweet and wonderful small plants that are just perfect for your fairy or gnome gardens.  The green roof mini gardens are loaded with tough plants that grow beautifully on your green roof.

Cook’s Mini Gardens are our most popular Mini Gardens collection.  There are 18 different versions of Cook’s Mini Gardens and they are all fantastic and fun!  Unlike the other Mini Gardens  we build, these Cook’s Mini Gardens also come with a tag attached to each garden that gives recipe ideas for using them.  Some of the Cook’s Mini Gardens are Superb Soups and Stews, I Love My Grill, A Taste of Asia, Extraordinary Eggs, and loads of other cooking versions perfect for any chef or aspiring chefs.

You will love these Mini Gardens!!! 

In addition to making our Mini Gardens in a Tray collections available to our wholesale customers, we will also have them available at our Farm Stand this spring during our Open Farm Days.

Other news…well, I did not make my deadline of getting the heritage heirloom food info page of this blog updated completely by the end of 2011.  I’m sad to report that I am still working on it.  I still have pumpkins, squash, swiss chard, tomatoes and watermelons left to update.  Thank you for your patience and I hope to have it all complete very soon.