FARM NEWS from Fred Owens
November 29, 2010
"Agriculture is the new golf."
I saw this story in today's Los Angeles Times. Don't mock this notion, it bodes well for the future of farming.
I have spent the weekend in Los Angeles, where new companies have spring up -- they will plant a vegetable garden in your yard, if you don't have the time to do it yourself, and -- going further, because this is Los Angeles -- they will plant and cultivate the vegetables for you.
Then all you have to do is go into the back yard before dinner and harvest some arugula for your salad.
This service is for persons of affluence, and it's a good thing -- they're taking the money they would have spent on golf and yachts and put that money into a more wholesome activity -- their own back yard for growing food.
Back to the Farm. I am leaving Los Angeles in thirty minutes and driving the 68 miles up the coast, back to the farm in Ventura. I had a great time in Los Angeles. I really love this great big city although I can't say why.
Winter. It's been cold here -- in the low 60s with wind chill making it even colder. Still I see some locals wearing shorts and sandals. I figure they simply don't own any pants or shoes, and they just endure the chill when it comes.
New Terms. We say "hobby farm" or "weekend farmer" or "gentleman farmer" -- using these terms to describe people who do not make a full living from their work in agriculture. The implication is that they are dabbling, or doing it for fun. But that is far from the case. These part-timers, as I have known them, do some impressive work of high quality and they deserve a more respectable name -- possibly "artisanal farmer" -- that term has been suggested, but it's too much of a mouthful.
A Short Newsletter is a Blessing. This newsletter is short because my ancient laptop is not working and I must borrow my sister's machine to compose this message. But short stories are good for their own sake -- I should not apologize.
--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214
send mail to:
Fred Owens
Box 1292
LaConner WA 98257
Monday, November 29, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
On a Farm in Ventura, California
FARM NEWS from Fred Owens
November 15, 2010
I drove 1,312 miles from LaConner to this small farm in Ventura, California. I spent $108 for gas and used two quarts of oil. My old Toyota has had a small oil leak for the past 50,000 miles, but it's not getting any worse. I listened to Books on Tape -- CDs, actually -- and that made the drive very easy.
I have a little cabin for myself on the farm. I am working part-time for my room and board. My hosts, Ann and Andy Dunstan, are really nice people and we get along well. And there is plenty of work to do.
The farm has a website, Love House Dahlias.
Here's how I found this farm. I joined Worldwide Opportunities in Organic Farming, or WOOF. All the kids know about this website. It lists hundreds of organic farms around the country and around the world -- places where you can work for your keep and where you can learn about farming, or just for people who want to travel on the cheap.
Back on the farm. First thing, I get up. I let the chickens out of their coop, collect the eggs, and then give them food and water.
Then I go back to my cabin to drink coffee and do some email -- this place isn't primitive - I get wi-fi from the main house, which is about 75 feet away.
Then I go clean up after the horses in the corral. They have four horses here, being boarded. I am getting to learn a lot of about horses, so this is very interesting.
After that, I go to the greenhouse and right now we are getting ready to plant 30,000 sweet peas.
The sweet peas will be a winter crop to fill in the space left by the dahlias. Dahlias are what they grow here on a commercial scale.
The dahlias are finished blooming for the season and slowly dying. But as long as they stay a little green, they will keep sending nourishment down to the tubers -- so we wait.
We wait until they're finished, and then let the plants sit for a couple of weeks, before we begin the big job of digging them all up -- all the tubers, dig 'em up, bring 'em into the greenhouse, wash and sort them and divide them -- some get sold, some get saved to re-plant in the spring.
That will be a lot of work.
Meanwhile, as we wait for the dahlias to finish, we plant the sweet peas in the trays in the greenhouse to get them started.
The dahlias will come out, the sweet peas will go in the ground -- being legumes, they will fix nitrogen to the soil and help the dahlias to grow. They will also provide spring blooms for sale.
That's the job. Plus feeding the chickens, looking after the horses, and I'm doing a bit of landscape gardening around the place as well.
And there's a vegetable garden to work on. Plenty of things to do on a small place like this.
And so much to learn too -- this is a very different climate and there are so many new plants to learn about.
After work, it's a six mile drive to the beach, where it's nice to go and watch the sun setting...... or six miles into town and various amusements.
Corn Harvest. The US Dept of Agriculture estimates a corn crop of 12.54 billion bushels this year -- the third largest crop on record. Average yield was 154 bushels per acre.
Most of the corn was harvested at less than 15 percent moisture. This is very good, because if the corn is harvested when it's wet, they have to run it through a grain drier and that costs time and money.
Dry corn is the best. What they do is order up a weather forecast and have it rain when the corn's growing, and have the sun shine when the corn is ready to harvest --- right!
Twelve billion bushels! That's a lot of corn -- mainly grown back there in the Midwest. All those farmers in Indiana growing corn year after year after year. Nothing but corn for miles and miles, billions of bushels.
U.S. Grains Council. Corn harvest news comes from this website.
Unsubscribe. Unsubscribe simply by saying so.
Subscriptions and Signed Copies of the Frog Hospital Book. It used to be that you sent in $25 and did not get much more than my appreciation, but now you get a signed copy of the Frog Hospital book.
This book is a treasure that will still be worth reading ten years from now.
Send a check for $25 to Fred Owens, Box 1292, LaConner, WA 98257. Or go to the Frog Hospital blog and pay with PayPal.
--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214
send mail to:
Fred Owens
Box 1292
LaConner WA 98257
November 15, 2010
I drove 1,312 miles from LaConner to this small farm in Ventura, California. I spent $108 for gas and used two quarts of oil. My old Toyota has had a small oil leak for the past 50,000 miles, but it's not getting any worse. I listened to Books on Tape -- CDs, actually -- and that made the drive very easy.
I have a little cabin for myself on the farm. I am working part-time for my room and board. My hosts, Ann and Andy Dunstan, are really nice people and we get along well. And there is plenty of work to do.
The farm has a website, Love House Dahlias.
Here's how I found this farm. I joined Worldwide Opportunities in Organic Farming, or WOOF. All the kids know about this website. It lists hundreds of organic farms around the country and around the world -- places where you can work for your keep and where you can learn about farming, or just for people who want to travel on the cheap.
Back on the farm. First thing, I get up. I let the chickens out of their coop, collect the eggs, and then give them food and water.
Then I go back to my cabin to drink coffee and do some email -- this place isn't primitive - I get wi-fi from the main house, which is about 75 feet away.
Then I go clean up after the horses in the corral. They have four horses here, being boarded. I am getting to learn a lot of about horses, so this is very interesting.
After that, I go to the greenhouse and right now we are getting ready to plant 30,000 sweet peas.
The sweet peas will be a winter crop to fill in the space left by the dahlias. Dahlias are what they grow here on a commercial scale.
The dahlias are finished blooming for the season and slowly dying. But as long as they stay a little green, they will keep sending nourishment down to the tubers -- so we wait.
We wait until they're finished, and then let the plants sit for a couple of weeks, before we begin the big job of digging them all up -- all the tubers, dig 'em up, bring 'em into the greenhouse, wash and sort them and divide them -- some get sold, some get saved to re-plant in the spring.
That will be a lot of work.
Meanwhile, as we wait for the dahlias to finish, we plant the sweet peas in the trays in the greenhouse to get them started.
The dahlias will come out, the sweet peas will go in the ground -- being legumes, they will fix nitrogen to the soil and help the dahlias to grow. They will also provide spring blooms for sale.
That's the job. Plus feeding the chickens, looking after the horses, and I'm doing a bit of landscape gardening around the place as well.
And there's a vegetable garden to work on. Plenty of things to do on a small place like this.
And so much to learn too -- this is a very different climate and there are so many new plants to learn about.
After work, it's a six mile drive to the beach, where it's nice to go and watch the sun setting...... or six miles into town and various amusements.
Corn Harvest. The US Dept of Agriculture estimates a corn crop of 12.54 billion bushels this year -- the third largest crop on record. Average yield was 154 bushels per acre.
Most of the corn was harvested at less than 15 percent moisture. This is very good, because if the corn is harvested when it's wet, they have to run it through a grain drier and that costs time and money.
Dry corn is the best. What they do is order up a weather forecast and have it rain when the corn's growing, and have the sun shine when the corn is ready to harvest --- right!
Twelve billion bushels! That's a lot of corn -- mainly grown back there in the Midwest. All those farmers in Indiana growing corn year after year after year. Nothing but corn for miles and miles, billions of bushels.
U.S. Grains Council. Corn harvest news comes from this website.
Unsubscribe. Unsubscribe simply by saying so.
Subscriptions and Signed Copies of the Frog Hospital Book. It used to be that you sent in $25 and did not get much more than my appreciation, but now you get a signed copy of the Frog Hospital book.
This book is a treasure that will still be worth reading ten years from now.
Send a check for $25 to Fred Owens, Box 1292, LaConner, WA 98257. Or go to the Frog Hospital blog and pay with PayPal.
--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214
send mail to:
Fred Owens
Box 1292
LaConner WA 98257
Saturday, November 06, 2010
Hazelnuts & Strawberries
FARM NEWS from Fred Owens
November 6, 2010
On my way to California I stopped in Eugene, Oregon, to visit some friends who just bought some acres on the outskirts of town. They have planted trees all over the property -- poplars, cedars, pears, and -- for an experiment -- they planted eleven olive trees.
Olive trees may or may not grow in Eugene's climate, and they may or may not produce fruit -- but you don't know until you try, and my friends won't know for a few years.
Isn't that exciting?
Olives are iffy in Oregon. Hazelnuts are what matter, and Oregon leads the nation with an expected crop of 38,000 tons this year.
Let us attempt to visualize a 38,000-ton pile of hazelnuts -- the mind boggles.
But that's peanuts -- I mean, that's nothing. Turkey is the world leader. The Turks will harvest 630,000 tons this year -- it's a Moslem threat. They will bury us in filberts! Oh No!
Italy is number two and will harvest an expected 100,000 tons, followed by Georgia & Azerbaijan at 85,000 tons.
Okay, the USA is number four at 38,000 tons, but Oregon hazelnuts taste better.
Thinking about all that, I visited a local farm stand and bought a sack of roasted unsalted hazelnuts -- got them for a road sack, because I left Eugene the next day and headed for San Francisco Bay.
Information from the Capital Press. You can find a wealth of information about agriculture in the Pacific Northwest by reading the Capital Press, either online or in print. This weekly journal is published in Salem, Oregon, hence the name -- but the content is all about farming.
Strawberries in California. I drove to Alameda, on the San Francisco Bay, to stay with relatives. We visited the Saturday Farmer's Market just a walk down the street from their house.
We saw such an abundance of late season vegetables. It was the end of summer squash and field-grown tomatoes, but they will have strawberries and raspberries through most of the winter, plus winter greens, broccoli, turnips, carrots, and lettuce. It never ends in this climate.
Don't forget persimmons! Actually, I don't quite understand persimmons, but I respect people who do.
Anyway, I spoke with a woman from Gilroy, the Garlic Capital, the home of the renowned Garlic Festival. She was selling strawberries and raspberries, and proud of her family farm in Gilroy.
"We don't grow garlic anymore. There's only one farm left that grows garlic now," she said.
t's because most of our garlic comes from China these days, more than 75 per cent. Especially if you buy processed garlic -- powder, flakes, minced garlic in oil, and so forth -- it will likely be the cheaper Chinese garlic.
California grown garlic costs more -- and tastes better, a lot of people will say -- but you have to look for it and ask for it.
It's Time to Plant Garlic. While we're on the subject -- now is the time to plant garlic for summer harvest next year. A good catalog supplier such as Filaree Farm will mail you some high quality bulbs to plant in your garden.
Or, at no cost whatsoever, take whatever garlic bulbs are in your kitchen, break them into cloves and plant them somewhere in your garden -- you might do very well.
Like I said in the beginning about the olive trees -- you never know until you try it.
Unsubscribe. Unsubscribe simply by saying so.
Subscriptions and Signed Copies of the Frog Hospital Book. It used to be that you sent in $25 and did not get much more than my appreciation, but now you get a signed copy of the Frog Hospital book.
This book is a treasure that will still be worth reading ten years from now.
Send a check for $25 to Fred Owens, Box 1292, LaConner, WA 98257. Or go to the Frog Hospital blog and pay with PayPal.
--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214
send mail to:
Fred Owens
Box 1292
LaConner WA 98257
November 6, 2010
On my way to California I stopped in Eugene, Oregon, to visit some friends who just bought some acres on the outskirts of town. They have planted trees all over the property -- poplars, cedars, pears, and -- for an experiment -- they planted eleven olive trees.
Olive trees may or may not grow in Eugene's climate, and they may or may not produce fruit -- but you don't know until you try, and my friends won't know for a few years.
Isn't that exciting?
Olives are iffy in Oregon. Hazelnuts are what matter, and Oregon leads the nation with an expected crop of 38,000 tons this year.
Let us attempt to visualize a 38,000-ton pile of hazelnuts -- the mind boggles.
But that's peanuts -- I mean, that's nothing. Turkey is the world leader. The Turks will harvest 630,000 tons this year -- it's a Moslem threat. They will bury us in filberts! Oh No!
Italy is number two and will harvest an expected 100,000 tons, followed by Georgia & Azerbaijan at 85,000 tons.
Okay, the USA is number four at 38,000 tons, but Oregon hazelnuts taste better.
Thinking about all that, I visited a local farm stand and bought a sack of roasted unsalted hazelnuts -- got them for a road sack, because I left Eugene the next day and headed for San Francisco Bay.
Information from the Capital Press. You can find a wealth of information about agriculture in the Pacific Northwest by reading the Capital Press, either online or in print. This weekly journal is published in Salem, Oregon, hence the name -- but the content is all about farming.
Strawberries in California. I drove to Alameda, on the San Francisco Bay, to stay with relatives. We visited the Saturday Farmer's Market just a walk down the street from their house.
We saw such an abundance of late season vegetables. It was the end of summer squash and field-grown tomatoes, but they will have strawberries and raspberries through most of the winter, plus winter greens, broccoli, turnips, carrots, and lettuce. It never ends in this climate.
Don't forget persimmons! Actually, I don't quite understand persimmons, but I respect people who do.
Anyway, I spoke with a woman from Gilroy, the Garlic Capital, the home of the renowned Garlic Festival. She was selling strawberries and raspberries, and proud of her family farm in Gilroy.
"We don't grow garlic anymore. There's only one farm left that grows garlic now," she said.
t's because most of our garlic comes from China these days, more than 75 per cent. Especially if you buy processed garlic -- powder, flakes, minced garlic in oil, and so forth -- it will likely be the cheaper Chinese garlic.
California grown garlic costs more -- and tastes better, a lot of people will say -- but you have to look for it and ask for it.
It's Time to Plant Garlic. While we're on the subject -- now is the time to plant garlic for summer harvest next year. A good catalog supplier such as Filaree Farm will mail you some high quality bulbs to plant in your garden.
Or, at no cost whatsoever, take whatever garlic bulbs are in your kitchen, break them into cloves and plant them somewhere in your garden -- you might do very well.
Like I said in the beginning about the olive trees -- you never know until you try it.
Unsubscribe. Unsubscribe simply by saying so.
Subscriptions and Signed Copies of the Frog Hospital Book. It used to be that you sent in $25 and did not get much more than my appreciation, but now you get a signed copy of the Frog Hospital book.
This book is a treasure that will still be worth reading ten years from now.
Send a check for $25 to Fred Owens, Box 1292, LaConner, WA 98257. Or go to the Frog Hospital blog and pay with PayPal.
--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214
send mail to:
Fred Owens
Box 1292
LaConner WA 98257
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