From Winter Into Spring

It’s been a curious and disconcerting winter here in the foothills of Northern California — little rain, barely a dusting of snow, and only maybe two proper capital-s Storms all season. We’re looking at a record drought year. Farmers are scaling back their crops, people are getting nervous about their ponds and wells, and even city-dwellers are getting ready for cutbacks in their household water. Last year, our orchard was an expanse of golden-blooming mustard; this year, the grass is still dry and brown.

But no matter how strangely skewed the seasons may be, there are still signs of Spring popping up all over, great and small… like the spectacular cotton-white clouds and delicate manzanita blossoms of a February afternoon:

Jars of beet-infused sauerkraut fermenting away, and garlic sprouts emerging through their warm blanket of straw mulch:

And it’s time for grafting. Here, Tom carefully splices a twig of an heirloom El Dorado pear onto a young tree. The scion wood came from Pat and Pete Enochs (of Lattitudes fame), from one of their favourite trees. If we’re lucky, the graft will take, and we’ll have a crop of our own in a few years. At right, some of our trusty grafting tools are at the ready on a makeshift table; the half-moon blade and tiny wooden mallet belonged to Papu, my grandfather, and have those worn edges and softly polished handles that only come from many decades of use and good care.

And speaking of nearly-forgotten skills… I’m thrilled to be taking a blacksmithing class! This is one of the things I’ve wished for years that I’d learned from Papu — he could make anything from wood, metal, or spare sundry parts, but I was always especially fascinated by the wrought-iron scrollwork that decorated my grandparents’ kitchen. I’ve just barely begun to scratch the surface of the skill, but already I can see why he was so good at it — for every bit of strength and speed, it takes an equal measure of careful thought, precision, intuition.

Our first project was a drive hook, which looks simple at a glance but combines a wealth of basic techniques — tapering square and rounded points, shaping angles and curves, even some decorative elements like a bar twist and scrolled finial. (The right-angled point acts like a nail, and is driven into a post or beam.) I haven’t decided yet whether to hang it in the barn, the wine cellar, or the chicken coop!

And, speaking of grandparents — yesterday was my Grandma Mary’s 91st birthday! My aunt and cousins came to visit from Boston, and we all had a lovely birthday dinner together, swapping bits of Harper family history and listening as Grandma told stories about growing up in the little town of Fort Morgan, Colorado. At 91, she’s still writing newspaper articles, chronicling the goings-on of family, relatives, and friends, and keeping very busy indeed — as she says, she has “all her buttons!” (She also encouraged me to start writing this blog in the first place, to tell the story of our little farm and share it with readers near and far… and of course it was Grandma Mary who taught me to knit, sew, and invest in stocks. She’s quite a lady!)

91! Happy birthday, Grandma!

And onward, Spring! Now if we could just have a little more rain, please… but in the mean time, I’m certainly enjoying the contrast of pink plum petals against blue-and-white sky. Yes, we’ll worry about the drought and make plans for the long dry summer ahead, but sometimes, for a few minutes, a tree full of blossoms and blissful buzzing bees is simply everything you need.

Summer In The Hedgerow

Hi there! Long time, no blog! It’s been a busy summer around here — school tours at the Farm, cooking demos at the State Fair, some exciting news coming soon for the Homestead Radio Hour, and now the getting-ready for farmer’s market season — not to mention all the sundry regular business of farming…. so, in celebration of all that is Summer, I thought a visit to our new hedgerow would be a nice way to ease back into the Blogworld!

Clockwise from top left: Pomegranate, Myosotis, Perennial Sunflower, Buddleia

So, what’s a “hedgerow,” anyway? The world conjures up bucolic English country lanes, lined with damsons and sloes, the kinds of thorny shrubbery whose obscure fruits inevitably end up in jellies, wines, or gin. All fine and well, but what’s it got to do with a sunny California fruit ranch?

Borage, an all-time favourite with the bees, of both the honey and bumble sort!

First, let’s start with a bit of background. Simply and broadly put, a hedgerow is a planting of shrubs, trees, and/or herbaceous plants, for a reason. They’re typically dense, hence the “hedge,” in a linear layout, the “row,” and serve a purpose other than decoration or simple food production. In fact, hedgerows of any description play multiple roles: sure, they’re attractive, and can include plantings of edible and useful shrubs and plants, but their utility goes beyond mere ornamentation.

The earliest known hedgerows date from the Neolithic Age, and were used to enclose fields for growing cereal crops. A hedge would have served as a living fence, marking field boundaries, keeping animals and livestock in or out, even providing defense against attack. On top of that, hedgerows would also provide wood, food, and shelter for for game and wildlife. Their utility kept them in regular use through the centuries, from the Middle Ages to the industrial era, and up to the present day; although barbed wire and modern livestock fencing offer easier and more convenient ways to fence fields, hedgerows are still in use in Great Britain and much of the world. Though many historic hedges in the UK were neglected or destroyed to make way for modern field systems and food production, the hedgerow is making a comeback worldwide as  an important element in sustainable agriculture — which brings us to the B H Ranch!

Foto Friday #2: All Things Autumn

For your Friday… a sampling of Fall photos from around the farm!

Ok, I’m definitely growing this gorgeous heirloom Indian corn every year now. It grew ten feet tall, produced beautifully, and the colours were stunning — turquoise, lavender, mauve, periwinkle, neon yellow, brick red… I can’t wait to grind it into cornmeal for “homegrown” corn bread!

The heirloom apples practically pose for pictures. As do these little pears…

Everything is picked by hand… we’d have it no other way!

Auntie Maryann takes the farmer’s market seriously! (Not too seriously.)

The ladies on the veranda:

Cosmic Cosmos!

The Black Arkansas apples are almost ripe… yep, must be Autumn at last.

Foto Friday: Rainbow

Sometimes it feels like our little farm here is at the middle of everything — as though all the different aspects of our lives, all the different things we do, meet somewhere in the heart of the orchard.

I teach Greek language classes for kids at the Annunciation Greek School in Sacramento. The other day, a girl in my class asked me how to say “rainbow” in Greek. I’d never run across the word “rainbow,” so we looked it up: ουράνιο τόξο, ouránio tóxo — “sky arrow.” Isn’t that the loveliest picture?

Then, as I was out in the orchard yesterday, that word popped into my head — ouránio tóxo. And, looking closer at the grass around me, I saw that it was as though one had fallen to earth.

Red in the peach blossoms, and in this sow-thistle stalk, where a tiny village of ants and aphids have made their home…

Orange in the calendula flowers that spring up around the little house and the garden…

Yellow in dandelion and mustard blossoms…

Green everywhere! — but especially in the grass that the chickens are so fond of…

…and in the cover crop of fava beans and vetch, scrambling across the dormant garden…

…and have I mentioned how blue the sky is!

Sky-blue here, too, reflected in the tiny blossoms of wild speedwell. My grandfather calls this flower by its Greek name, μάτια της Παναγίας: mátia tis Panagías, “eyes of the Virgin Mary.”

And purple, of course. This is another of my favourite tiny flowers, the kind you have to look closely to see: henbit, a relative of both nettle and mint. The long-necked purple flowers have fantastically speckled tongues, and if you pluck one very carefully and blow air gently through it from the the end that was attached to the plant, it will emit a teeny, high-pitched whistle!

Isn’t it marvelous how a question can lead to a word that can lead to a whole new way of looking at everything around you?

Foto Friday: Comice Pears

These Comice pears looked so lovely, lined up on an upturned lug box, catching the golden afternoon light, that I had to go fetch my camera before the sun sank an inch further. (Then they went promptly into a batch of pear bread pudding!)

The nice thing about pears is that there are so many varieties — we begin the season with Bartletts, bright and juicy, then wait for heirlooms like the breathtakingly beautiful Conseiller de la Cour, and finally harvest the late-season varieties like Comice and Winter Nellis. According to my grandfather, the winter pears used to be carefully packed for storage in wooden crates, nestled in straw. I just might try that this year with a few of the “Nellies” we picked yesterday…

Into the 21st century, bit by bit…

Ooooh, boy. Things have been crazy around here lately! Excavation, heavy machinery, trenches and huge piles of dirt everywhere…

But, after 90-plus years, we’ve finally moved into Modern Times. Well, at least in the irrigation department. Sort of.

That’s the pond, where all our irrigation water comes from. Nothing’s changed there… just the rest of it! We’ve always watered the orchard with a system of open ditches that run down the rows of trees, which is quite lovely and picturesque when it works but a major problem when it doesn’t. Rusty pipes, gopher holes, twigs and grass blocking things up — it’s an all-day project, tending the ditches, cleaning them out and making sure the water is running where it’s supposed to. And every generation of kids to grow up here at the ranch has gotten in trouble for making a barefoot muddy mess of the ditches at least once a summer!

So, this revision has been a long time coming. A couple years back we started the grant-application process with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), which funds projects like ours. The new irrigation system will be much more efficient and effective than the old one, but it’s something we probably wouldn’t have taken on without funding and resources.

Not to mention the help of our friends!

Trench-meister Dan!

Mr. D, concrete whiz!

And, finally, the trenches have been filled in, the dirt raked back into place, and it’s possible to walk across the orchard at night without risking life and limb. I did enjoy getting an under-the-ground look at the different types of soil we have here, though — thick red clay in one spot, brittle yellow rock in another, rich blue-gray soil down by the creek. There’s a blog post in the making from all the many, many dirt photos I snapped!

And the ducks just love the new micro-sprinklers in the orchard; apparently that pond water is quite delicious. I will miss the old ditches, though… I’m campaigning to run them at least once a summer, for tradition’s sake. It’s nice to have things back to normal around here, and to kick back and relax (a bit) after all that work — it won’t be long ’til it’s time to harvest honey, then fruit… ah, time for a nap!

Where We’ve Been Lately

…not blogging, obviously! I have to admit that the many and varied pursuits of glorious Springtime have been distracting me…

But, first news of all, our little farmer’s market stand is starring in a film!

Long story short: local filmmaker Raphael Hitzke needed a honey stand at a farmer’s market to film a scene for his new short film, BEE. And so, we found ourselves watching on a blustery April Saturday morning as camera and sound crews, makeup artists, and actors swarmed around our wee tent and table, filming scenes while fending off the market shoppers who desperately wanted to buy the honey we no longer have in stock. You’ll have to wait ’til July, folks; it’s up to the bees, not us!

(Funny little aside: the actor playing the beekeeper actually started making up astronomical prices for the jars of honey we had on display, and a few people apparently were ready to hand over $43 for a one-pound jar… don’t worry, we’re not getting any ideas.)

Then we raced home to get ready for company — our family and friends were making the pilgrimage from the Bay to the Ranch for Easter the next day!

Greek Easter, that is… a veritable Feast!

(Psst — it’s all about the German egg dye. Super brilliant colours, nothing like the wimpy pastel stuff we get in the grocery store here. For the traditional Greek red eggs, we usually go with the kind made in Greece — a harmless-looking little paper packet filled with harmless-looking powder that immediately stains EVERYTHING a very permanent crimson. No, really; if you let the steam out of the pot, you’re liable to end up with a pink spot on the ceiling. But for the multicoloured eggs, the German-made dyes are dynamite — and check out the wonderfully folk-psychedelic package on this one! Mushrooms! Toads! A rabbit in a bow tie! They claim to be non-toxic, though I’m not so sure… but it’s only once a year, right??)

Then it’s back to work. But even tilling and raking the garden is a happy task this time of year — especially when you have a flock of cheerful chickens that are only too eager to help…

…and everything is green green GREEN! Luminous!

The all-important task of sorting seed packets… I always end up with far too much of something. This year, we’re accumulated something like eight packets of zucchini seed. And don’t even get me started on the basil. Still, necessities of life, right?

The bees are foraging mightily, their wings dusted with this striking golden pollen — but that’s another post in itself. More springtime stories from the Farm forthcoming!

Organic Codling Moth Control Made Easy

Today’s post is written by Tom Harper, “orchard-meister” of the B H Ranch.

Do you have worms in your apples or pears from your orchard?  Then you have codling moths!  If you live in the Foothills and you want to get rid of them, now is the time to start doing something.

Codling Moth Life Cycle in 200 words or less (whew):
A codling moth begins its life as a very very tiny egg, laid on a leaf or the base of a fruit blossom.  It will hatch into a tiny caterpillar, and in very short order will chew its way into your fruit, tunneling towards the core.  Safely inside the fruit, it will feast until it’s time to pupate.  Then it will chew its way back out, pupate, and later emerge as a moth, to begin the next generation.  We usually expect three or four generations per season, from April through September.  The codling moth spends the winter in the pupa stage, hiding typically in the rough bark of pear trees.  When Winter turns to Spring, and sunset temperatures approach the low 60s, the over-wintered moths emerge and begin to fly and mate with other moths, and the cycle repeats.  The codling moth is most vulnerable in the very short time between when it hatches, and when it enters the fruit.  Once it’s in the fruit, it is safe from the outside world.

The hatching of the first generation is dependent on temperature in two ways:

1. Warmer sunset temperatures will cause last year’s overwintered moths to begin flying, mating, and laying eggs.  The date this begins is called the biofix.
2. How long the eggs then take to hatch depends on how warm the subsequent days are.  If temperatures are warmer, the moths will hatch sooner.  In a cool year, it will take longer.  We use degree-days to calculate when the eggs hatch.

the wormy ones…

Establish Biofix
We start our codling moth management program in early April, before the trees are blooming.  We begin by setting out pheromone traps, usually three spread throughout our two acres of pears.  We check the traps daily, and record the number of moths caught in them.  Tracking how many moths are caught every night and maintaining daily trap counts lets us know when the moths begin flying, and we can determine the dates of maximum moth activity.  The first date we begin to catch moths consistently is called the biofix.  That date is the starting point for our spray-timing calculation.

Accumulate Degree-days
We also need a measurement of how warm the weather has been to predict when the eggs will hatch.  This is provided by tracking degree-days.  Degree-days are accumulated based on the maximum and minimum temperatures for every day.  We used to track these with our own maximum-minimum thermometer, but have since discovered we are located near a state-run station that provides this information over the Internet: http://wwwcimis.water.ca.gov/cimis/welcome.jsp (that’s the California Irrigation Management Information System, hosted by the Department of Water Resources; they also provide temperature information to help us irrigate — your tax dollars helping farmers to feed you).  The University of California Davis (more tax dollars at work) provides a codling moth degree-day calculator that we use with these temperatures to predict when the eggs will hatch, and when we need to spray.  When 250 to 300 degree-days have accumulated, it’s time to spray.

Organic, microbial control of codling moth
The spray we use is a  microbial virus that targets only the codling moth.  The virus attacks the moth’s digestive system.  No other insects are impacted.  That’s good because beneficial insects like bees or ladybugs or lacewings are free to go about their business of eating the aphids and leafhoppers and caterpillars that can cause damage.  We spray this granuovirus six times throughout the three generations of codling moth.  Altogether, we use one quart of spray, about six ounces per 150 gallons.  Because it a biological — not synthetic — control, it’s organic.

Let us do the spray-timing calculations for you!  We’ll post on our Facebook page when we are spraying, in case you live near us (at the 1,200 foot level, in Auburn).  Usually we start in mid-May.

In a home orchard, you can use an organic spray, such as spinosad, to control the codling moth.  Follow label directions, and be careful not to spray on any blooming plants, because it can kill honey bees and other beneficials.

UC Davis provides additional recommendations for codling moth control in home orchards.  These include organic methods like trapping, using parasitic wasps, and fruit bagging, if you don’t want to or can’t spray. www.ipm.ucdavis.edu

lovely, worm-free apples!

Spying on Spring

I’ve been wandering with my camera lately … finding all kinds of Spring things:

bees and blue skies

miner’s lettuce and mushrooms

laundry on the line

apple blossoms shivering into eager bloom

hiking paths lined with buttercups and clover under toes…

…and I didn’t notice until I looked at the photos later that this gnarled old tree, on the way to Foresthill, had been looking back at me with equal fascination!

Around the Farm: a rainy day in the barn

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain….

– T.S Eliot, The Waste Land, 1922

* * *

In like a lion, out like a lamb, right? This March has been one of the strangest and soggiest, weather-wise, of recent memory — it has been raining for weeks on end, and everyone I know is getting a bit stir-crazy! We went by the farmer’s market this morning, and a good-sized crowd of tenacious farmers and customers were braving the weather for the sake of local food. I love how the rain is no obstacle for the Auburn Farmer’s Market — it has only closed once in its several decades of operation, and that was for a rare snowstorm earlier this year!

My favourite spot for a rainy day: our barn, with its rusty corrugated-tin roof that amplifies every sound of the storm. It was built on the foundations of the old homestead barn which stood here long before my great-grandfather bought the property; the hand-stacked rock wall at the back of the barn is more than a hundred years old. One side is open to the orchard’s gentle slope, making for the perfect spot to watch a storm blow through our little valley.

We’ve been taking turns lately reading David Mas Masumoto‘s wonderful book, Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm. He writes about his journey to resurrect his family’s Sun Crest peach orchard, incorporating sustainable techniques and resisting the growing pressures to grow the “modern” peach varieties that trade flavour for shipping and storage ability. The history of family and place, the risk of investment, the devotion and work; the struggle to sell old-fashioned varieties in a marketplace that prizes uniformity and durability, the satisfaction of biting into a perfect piece of fruit that you have grown — all these things are inextricably woven together, the beautiful with the frustrating. It’s a story that resonates with all of us: my grandfather told me, “That’s an important book.”

And it reminds me how lucky I am to have a lovely old barn to sit in, a barn built by my grandfather and great-grandfather, with a view of a ninety-year-old orchard in the rain.

A patchwork of wood and metal makes up the barn roof…

And sometimes, a few odds and ends will arrange themselves into a painterly tableau.

You’ve met Brenda, our barn cat — she tiptoes over piles of rusty junk without a sound, to perch on a rickety shelf. The girl knows how to pose!

The trusty field lugs are stacked behind the barn. These boxes date from our farm’s heyday in the 1960s, and we still use them to pick fruit every year.

A break in the rain, back out into the orchard — and a tiny reminder that, weather notwithstanding, it really is Spring after all.