On the farm in June

It’s June already!  This season has absolutely flown by!  We have one more month to go, but the majority of the work is behind us. The season is coming to a wrap and we are no longer planting seedlings in the greenhouse or direct seeding the field.  Also there is no need to rip out old beds and prepare them for planting a new crop, not until the beginning of next season anyways. To minimize weed pressure and to save water we’ve pulled the irrigation on the majority of the field. Now we only have to weed a third of the field or so.

I’m spending a lot of my waking hours thinking about what to plant next year and how much.  I’m analyzing which vegetables were favorites at the farm stand this year that I should have planted more often, and working it into next year’s garden plan.  I’m also adjusting the quantities of favorites that we simply planted too (way too) much of.  Onions anyone?

We pulled these onions out of the field before Hurricane Blanca came through.  If they had been rained on, they would have rotted in the ground.

We’re also planning to integrate a habitat for beneficial insects into our space next year.  We need a way to keep dust and wind out of the field, and by planting living hedgerows along the fence we’ll be able to provide a home for our insect helpers as well.  We also will plant more flowers, both in the field and in the hedgerows.  Flowers provide pollen for wasps and other predators which gives them energy while they’re hunting insect pests!

It´s always good to get feedback; let us know what you think we should plant for next year!  Some new items I have planned are Jerusalem artichokes, globe artichokes, brussel sprouts, strawberries, and radicchio. What would you add?

Harvests are rolling in! Look for our stand!

Hi everyone!  I’m really excited to get our vegetable stand up and get a chance to chat with all of you as you stop in to see what Rancho Buen Dia is all about.  We have lots of mixed salad, arugula, Swiss chard, Italian kale (actually it’s an heirloom broccoli bred for its leaves) zucchini, and cilantro ready to be harvested.  We also have chickens that need homes, or ovens really.

Our stand is going up Saturday December 13! Our hours to start out will be:

Saturday 9-2
Tuesday and Thursday 11-3

If you’re driving by our farm, it’s hard to see what’s really growing back there, so let me share some pictures with you.

¡Hola a todos!

Estamos emocionados por poner nuestro puesto de verduras en la huerta, poder platicar con ustedes cuando vengan a visitar y a conocer de qué se trata  Rancho Buen Día. Hay abundancia de lechugas mixta, rúcula, acelga, col rizado italiano (que “acá entre nos” en realidad es un brócoli de herencia cultivado por sus hojas), calabacita y cilantro… ¡Listo para cosechar!, pero eso no es todo, tenemos  también ricos pollos.

Esperamos tener el puesto de verduras listo pronto, va a estar ahí mismo en la huerta; por cierto buscamos un toldo blanco.

Cuando pasas manejando por la huerta, es difícil ver qué está creciendo en las camas, ver de cerca este proceso de la naturaleza es maravilloso, aquí les dejo unas fotos que  queremos compartirles para que puedan ver también las plantas:

Zucchini

Cilantro

Summer squash starting to form!

Future spaghetti squash!

Watermelons getting bigger.

Butterhead lettuce hiding out underneath its protective grow cloth.

Napa cabbage–forming a tight head.

Swiss chard.

A fat beet! I’d say it’s ready to pick.

Stop by when you see our stand, even if its just to say hi!

Ven a saludar y conocer de cerca la huerta cuando vean el puesto :D, ¡Será un placer tenerte aquí!

What a busy week!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  I hope you all ate mashed potatoes and gravy and had second helpings of pumpkin pie!

We are now leaving the planting stage and entering the harvesting-while-planting stage, which is obviously twice as much work (but also twice as exciting)!  Here’s the first set of plantings looking all green and lush now:

First stage plantings

And while that’s getting ready to harvest, the second batch is just getting started.  This is the idea behind succession planting, an idea I’m sure you’ve seen tossed around in gardening books.  Rather than harvesting the entire field all at once, we can spread out our plantings to extend the time we’ll be harvesting (and you’ll be eating)!

Second-stage plantings just starting to peek out of the ground

Now we are super busy getting the third-batch into the ground. Here’s Elidio placing tomato seedlings into the holes that Carlos is making.

And Leon and I tamping down the earth around our little tomato babies.

Little worker

 

Our greenhouse is full of plants that are ready to go in the ground and we have a list of things to direct seed as well! Busy busy from here on out but the fun part is starting 😀

Oh, and before I forget, today we had chickens! Just a limited amount to start out, but if you are in Todos Santos and want a chicken or two send us an email at ranchobuendia@outlook.com to reserve them.  We should have them just about every week from here on out! We will let you know when we begin offering them to La Paz and Cabo 🙂

Pop Quiz: Seeds! / Examen sorpresa: ¡Semillas!

Can you identify these seeds?   ¿Puedes identificar a estas semillas?

1.

2.

3.

 

4.

 

Ready for the answers? ¿List@? Enseguida te damos las respuestas:

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1.  Tete Noire Red cabbage  Repollo morado tete noire:

 

 

 

 

2. Amana Orange Tomato Tomate amana orange:

 

 

 

 

3. Red Russian Kale Col rizada red russian:

 

 

 

 

4. Orion Bulb Fennel Hinojo Orion:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How did you do? ¿Cuántas atinaste?

 

Look what we harvested as a quality check this week!  (Oh boy, was it good!)
Cosechamos un poco de le lechuga para probarla ¡Qué rica está!

After a long, hot, summer, it’s so nice to have our salad again!  Even Leon likes it!
Hicimos una ensalada con la lechuga recién cosechada – ¡hasta a Leon le gustó!

Soon we will be harvesting more lettuce available for purchace – stay tuned!
Pronto estarémos cosechando mucha más lechuga disponible a la venta 🙂

 

Fall Days Días de otoño

¡Por fin los días están más frescos! Esto significa que pudimos sembrar la lechuga  y ahora a esperar la cosecha en cinco semanas.  ¡Qué emoción!  La podrán conseguir en nuestro puesto justo enfrente de Baja Tiles en Todos Santos.

It is finally cooling down around here!  That means we can plant lettuce, and we hope to be harvesting our mixed bagged lettuce in about five weeks!  Get excited!  We’ll have it at our farm stand right across the street from Baja Tiles.

Lettuce sprouts / Germinados de lechuga

Esto también quiere decir que los cultivos de col –brócoli, coliflor y repollo—se sentirán muy cómodos en este rico ambiente

It also means all of these lovely coles–broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage–will feel right at home.

Red cabbage. Isn’t she beautiful? / Repollo morado. ¡Qué bonito está!

 

Broccoli/Brócoli

En casa, ya podemos salir de la sombra y dejar los abanicos para ir a caminar, ¡Estos lindos niños han estado muy encerrados este verano!

And at home, it means we can get out from under the shade tree and away from the fan to go for walks.  These sweet kids have been so cooped up this summer!

¡Feliz Otoño!

Happy Fall!

Lately on the farm / Estos días en la huerta…

Lately on the farm, we’ve been getting the water ready to irrigate at the farm.  We’ve installed a pump to take water from the canal to the field, rolled out drip tape, and begun planting.  We’ve been so anxious to get planting, and it feels great to get it started!

Estos días en la huerta, hemos estado preparando el agua para regar.  Instalamos una bomba que lleva el agua desde el canal hasta el campo desenrollado la cinta de goteo y comenzando a plantar.  Es un momento que ya esperábamos con ansias, ¡Y se siente increíble iniciar!

Laying drip tape / Cinta de goteo

Pop the champagne! The very first plants to be set into the field–onion starts. / ¡Abre la champán! Las primeras plantas en el campo–¡Cebolla!

While Carlos takes care of the field work, I make sure the greenhouse sowing gets done.  Here, I’ve filled the seeding tray with peat moss, and I’m dimpling the surface, creating a little pocket for the seed to go into.  All those years of piano lessons are paying off!  (Thanks, Mom!)

Mientras que Carlos cuida el campo, yo me encargo de la siembra en el invernadero.  Aquí, he llenado la charola con musgo de turba, y estoy haciendo un pequeño agujero en cada cuadro para la semilla.  ¡Me están sirviendo todos los años de clases de piano que tomé de niña! (Gracias, Mamá!)

 

Now it’s ready for one onion seed in each hole. Ya está listo para insertar una semilla en cada cuadro:

Sembrando las semillas de cebolla / Planting onion seeds

Next, we’ll move out the rest of our greenhouse seedlings (beets, swiss chard, cabbages, broccolis, cauliflowers) and start planting other things directly (beans, squash, and carrots). Yummm!

Enseguida, transplantaremos el resto de las plantas del invernadero al campo  (betebel, acelgas, repollo, brocoli, coliflor) y vamos a empezar a sembrar directamente en la tierra los ejotes, calabacitas, y zanahorias! ¡Qué ricas!

We´re so excited to finally get plants in the ground! I´ll take lots of photos to share the growth and changes!

Estamos muy emocionados por fin estar plantando en la tierra. ¡Tomaré muchas fotos para compartir el crecimiento de las plantas y los cambios en la huerta! 

3 Razones para Comer Pollos de Pastoreo / Top 3 Reasons to Eat Pastured Poultry

1. Saben mejor. / They taste better.

Los pollos que se alimentan de pasto y bichos saben a una carne natural de campo, por lo tanto, mucho más deliciosa.  El sabor es difícil de distinguir, pero te aseguro que: ¡Notarás una diferencia agradable cuando lo pruebes!

Chickens that eat grass and bugs taste more like, well, chicken.  Taste is rather subjective, but I can assure you that you will notice a pleasant difference!

 

2. Viven mejor. /  They live better.

Todos hemos vistos los videos de terribles operaciones concentradas de alimentación para animales con miles de criaturas metidas a fuerza en una granja obscura y sucia,  cada pollo está en solo 30 cm de espacio.  Al comer pollos de pastoreo, tú presentas una resistencia en contra de ese maltrato.

Los pollos de pastoreo viven un vida real, de calidad, llena de las actividades naturales de pollos: cazar bichos, tomar el sol, arañar la tierra, y pasear.

We all have seen terrible videos of CAFOs, with thousands of animals in a dark, grimy barn, each with about a foot of space.  By eating pastured chickens, you’re taking a personal stand against this mistreatment.

On pasture, they live a full life, full of chicken activities: hunting, dust-bathing, sun-bathing, pecking, scratching, and walking.

Qué a gusto descansando en el pasto fresco!

3.  Te nutren a ti mejor.  / They’re better for you.

Los pollos están hechos para comer pasto y bichos, por eso, cuando lo hacen  están mejor nutridos y pueden pasar esos nutrientes a ti.  Los pollos de pastoreo tienen más vitaminas (A, E, beta-caroteno, folato, y Omega-3) que los pollos criados en una manera convencional.

Chickens were made to eat grass and bugs, which means that by doing so, they are well-nourished and can pass this on to you.  Pastured poultry has more vitamin A, E, beta-carotene, folate, and Omega-3s than conventionally raised poultry!

Esta información es de Polyface Farm, uno de los mejores ejemplos de criar animales al pastoreo.

 

Éstas son solo algunas de las muchas razones para comer pollo de pastoreo. Estamos seguros que este método es el más sano y por supuesto ¡No daría de comer a mi familia otra cosa!… Prepárate porque pronto en la huerta estaremos ofreciendo pollo de pastoreo libre de antibióticos.

This is just the tip of the iceberg; there are many more reasons to eat pasture chicken.  I believe this method is the healthiest and wouldn’t feed my family anything else! Soon on the farm we will be offering antibiotic-free pasture raised poultry. I’ll keep you posted!

 

 

 

Work Wardrobe / Moda de Trabajo

Most fashion media is geared towards women who work in offices.  But what about the rest of us?  La mayoría de recomendaciones de moda son para mujeres que trabajan en oficina.  Y las demás?

Barefeet are ideal for garden work, but there are a lot of thorns around here.  This boot would be perfect for stomping around the uneven, squishy ground of our newly plowed field.  I love how the slender toe gives it a feminine look!  Trabajar en la tierra con pies descalzo parece romantico, pero hay muchas espinas aquí.  Esta bota sería perfecto para navegar el terreno del campo recien-arado.  Me encanta como el dedo delgado le da un look femenina!

(source)

Next up, an apron.  It will keep our clothes a bit cleaner for seeding trays, and will also be useful out in the field.  Sometimes I’m not intentionally harvesting, maybe I’m weeding, and I come across something I’d like to take with me.  An apron serves to carry produce out of the field when we don’t bring a harvest bucket with us.  Ahora, un mantil.  Eso nos protegerá la ropa mientras que estamos sembrando en charolas, y tambien nos sirve en el campo.  A veces no es mi intención cosechar, posible estoy deshierbando, y descubro algo que me gustaría llevar.  Un mantil sirve para llevar productos del campo cuando no traemos una cubeta de cosecha. 

(source)

The longer we’ve worked in the sun, the more we realize the importance of keeping it off of us.  This long-sleeve shirt does that, and it comes with flexible side panels so we can work with our arms without getting caught in our shirt.  And it’s tailored at the waist!  Entre más tiempo trabajando en el sol, más nos da cuenta la importancía de protegerse.  Por eso, nos ponemos una camisa de manga larga, y esta viene con paneles flexibles para que se puede trabajar con los brazos sin que se atranca en la camisa.  Y está delgada en la cintura!

(source)

I think females in farming are largely misunderstood; just because we get dirty doesn´t mean we don´t enjoy looking nice!  Creo que las mujeres involucradas en la agricultura son en gran medida incomprendidas, simplemente porque nos ensuciamos trabajando ¡no quiere decir que no nos gusta arreglarnos ! 😉

How Hurricane Odile affected our farm / La Huerta después del Huracán Odile

Hurricane Odile just passed through on September 15 (what a way to celebrate Independence Day, huh?) Acaba de pasar el Huracán Odile el 15 de septiembre (qué bonita manera de pasar el Día de Independencia, verdad?)

I don’t think devastated is too strong a word to describe the southern peninsula. Above is a picture of the concrete wall of Todos Santos’s baseball stadium blown over by the category 4-force winds! La península sureña fue devastado. En la foto de arriba ves la barda de concreto del estadio, que fue tumbada por los vientos de fuerza categoría 4.

And here you can see why our town was completely without electricity for 10 days. Y aquí ves porque fuimos sin luz por más que 10 días.

All of my farming friends in Pescadero that grow year-round had crops destroyed. We were lucky in that we were only just beginning with our greenhouse production in September.  Todos mis amigos con huertas en Pescadero que cultivan todo el año sufrieron daños a sus campos.  Estuvimos afortunados en que apenas habiamos empezado hace poco tiempo con la siembre en charolas en septiembre. 

When Odile hit, we had onions planted in our greenhouse, and only about 20% were affected. We were incredibly lucky!  Cuando nos pegó Odile, habiamos sembrado cebollas en charola, solamente fueron afectados el 20% – ¡somos afortunados!

Now it’s business as usual. We’ve plowed the field and are currently setting up fence posts. Odile hit BCS hard, but we are back on our feet and never has it been more clear that accepting the challenges in life makes it interesting and overcoming them makes it eloquent.Ya regresamos al trabajo, aramos el campo y estamos instalando el cerco.  Nuestras ganas de trabajar y salir adelante son más grandes que cualquier disastre natural. 

Roadrunner vs. snake

Carlos told me this story about roadrunners:

When a roadrunner comes across a sleeping snake, it begins to collect thorns from a particular cactus. These thorns actually have poison in them and little hooks making them terribly painful to pull out. {Leon stepped on three with one foot the other day. Horrible! That’s what inspired this memory}.

Now, the roadrunner will begin to assemble the thorns, quietly and carefully, in a circle around the sleeping serpent. It places one, then darts away to grab another, and places it, and darts, and on and on, until the vibora is completely surrounded.

Then the correcamino creeps up, and BAM pecks the snake on the head and sprints away to wait.

The snake, having been sound asleep, shoots up and looks around for his attacker, which causes him to hit the thorns. This pain only creates further confusion, and he continues to thrash about, getting more and more thorns.

This is exactly what the roadrunner wants, who is waiting, safely out of sight, for the poisonous thorns to finish the job. Eventually the snake exhausts himself and the roadrunner emerges from hiding to enjoy his carefully prepared feast.

~~~~~

What struck me about this story was the time it must have taken to have seen this all play out. I can just see young Carlos, hiding behind some desert shrub, watching all of this happen. How much more exciting than reading this in a book. He has total ownership of this piece of information about animal behavior–rather than taking the word of some guy in a nature documentary. This is a fact that he knows because he saw it himself.