Soil and Silicon

The end of this road. for now.

2008-01-05T17:23:00.000-08:00

I've finished setting up the new website/blog at www.bluefoxorganics.com

I'll be blogging over there now. And as a pseudo new year's resolution, I'm going to attempt to blog more often.

(Well, we did have a baby last year so that was a pretty good excuse for a while)

I may revisit this blog again someday with some sort of tangential topic, but for now please visit me over at

www.bluefoxorganics.com

C-ya there!

still breathing

2007-12-28T19:56:00.000-08:00

not sure why i haven't posted for a while. been on twitter a lot. that's interesting.
working on building a new weblog for the farm. on wordpress. getting there.

been spending a lot of time with my boy, Demian, too!
He's awesome.

evil dies

2007-12-01T07:53:00.000-08:00

evel knievel died.

kinda wish he'd jumped the grand canyon again, or shot himself into space.

but he just died.

it's kind of like janis joplin dieing of old age. wouldn't seem quite right.

oh well.

a Couple of things

2007-12-01T06:58:00.000-08:00

Well it's been awhile since I've posted. Demian, our boy, is 3 months old now. He's the main reason I haven't posted. Been trying to figure out a life rhythm involving him. It's definitely starting to get easier. It's just hard to sit down and find the time for a thought through post.
So I added a side bar on the blog called, "What am I really doing???" It's put there through a service called Twitter. A micro-blogging format some call it. It's really quick and easy. 140 characters or less, I can even text a message from my phone. (Will work on that feature) Anyway, I'll probably post snippets there more often than posts right now, but when I have the chance to think through something or have something of importance to say I'll work up a full post.

I am working on a new website for the farm and looking to integrate my blog into it. That should be coming in the next month.

Thursday Night Dinner

2007-09-22T07:54:00.000-07:00

For some reason it struck me to take a picture of our dinner Thursday evening. I made pork steaks from our famous "Mort and Mort" pigs, twice baked delicata (just out of the field last week), wilted spinach (our fall spinach is on!), and grilled Anameim peppers. Mmmmm. It was tasty!

Video of my boy

2007-09-07T22:22:00.000-07:00

Here's the first video I've ever uploaded. Figure it's appropriate for my first one.

Captain Demian at the helm.

Demian Michael Jagger

2007-09-07T22:07:00.001-07:00

Here's a picture of our new baby boy, Demian Michael Jagger. (It's pronounced day-me-un, or if you say it in the proper German it's probably Deh-me-un, but it'll get phoenetically americanized regardless.) His first name was after the book Demian by Herman Hesse. If you haven't read it, Melanie and I both suggest the read.

He was born Monday morning Sept 3, 2007 at 2:32 AM. Leave it up to a farmer to have their child on labor day. Heh!

He's doing great. Actually all of us are doing great. The dogs are still "checking" him out, but I think they'll get used to him.

And thanks to all the folks bringing us meals for the first two weeks. What a great community we have out here in the Applegate Valley.

I'm going to try to put up a short video of him I took three hours after he was born, but we'll see how it uploads.

Life just got simpler: Love my boy.

Life and Martha

2007-08-12T13:00:00.001-07:00

So I was told last week at the farmers' market in Ashland that Martha Stewart ate dinner prepared from our CSA box. Turns out one of our CSA members is good friends with Martha and she was in town and had some dinner with these folks. So what do you use when you're making dinner and you're a member of a CSA? You use whatever is in the share for the week I would suspect. Sounds like we got a thumbs up from Martha. Thanks Martha.

In other news, we're only four weeks or so away from having our baby. Things are getting more and more exciting every day. Melanie is doing really well although she did mention that she was probably ready to have the baby on the outside. She's definitely enjoyed being pregnant though. We can't wait.

The days just keep flying by. I've been recording a fair amount of video footage of around the farm that I can put together after the season is finished as a "Year in Review" At least that's what I'm hoping to do.

Farmers' Market Tips

2007-08-01T19:47:00.000-07:00

Here are some good tips to orient yourself with shopping at Farmers' Markets.

Thanks to the folks at Plenty Magazine. Always enjoy their perspectives and support for farmers.

who where what

2007-07-29T19:10:00.001-07:00

Haven't been posting lately. That's July for you. All of the veggies are truly on: Tomatoes (Heirlooms, Cherries, Slicers), Eggplant, Peppers, Zukes, Cukes, Strawberries, Beans (Roma and Blue Lake), Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cabbage,Basil, Dill, Potatoes, Fingerlings, Onions, Shallots, Leeks, Carrots, Beets, and even Salad Mix still.....and Kale, Chard, Collards, and so on. So we're busy harvesting a lot right now. And planting out for fall. And getting ready for the baby to come into the world (Just over 6 weeks left). And opening up the new ground at the new property. And trying to get video of bits and pieces of all this so I can edit it together in some sort of cohesive statement at the end of the year.

Plus I've been keeping up on my blogosphere reading so I know what to expect for the next generation of humans. I try to keep up through Google Reader (thank goodness for RSS) but I tell ya, if you're not in an office atmosphere all the time it's really difficult to join in on the conversation. I basically just lurk and listen at odd hours of the morning/night when I have a chance to what all the top bloggers have to say, along with what I can find through using RSS feeds of Google Searches. My favorite feed right now is of the search "farmers market". So Google searches and when it finds a blog with "farmers market" in it, I get an update in my google reader. I've found a lot of great niche blogs that way. We farmers are definitely a niche crowd, and we techie farmers are a micro niche of a niche. I feel so elite. Ha!

But life on the farm is good overall.

Oh and I don't know what we did before broadband.

Amazing

2007-06-20T18:59:00.001-07:00

I experienced something today I've never experienced EVER in my life. And it blew me away.

We were at the midwife's office today for a routine visit and she was checking the baby out by feeling around on Melanie's belly... a little squeeze here, a light push there, and then she said ,"Yep, that's the head, that's the butt, and there's an arm." I said ,"No way" She replied with "Come here and feel for yourself."

The midwife guided me through it (and we made sure it wasn't uncomfortable at all for Melanie) and I was feeling around and found the head, and the butt, and then the moment of truth, I found the little arm as the baby swept it's arm from one side to the other. I was nearly knocked back by disbelief. That's my child in there, and the baby just gave me a high five. I really can't describe in words the amazement I felt at that exact moment. Things changed forever right there. I even stated that out loud to Melanie and our midwife.

I can only imagine how awesome the birth is going to be.

A Good Read

2007-06-20T18:35:00.001-07:00

Here's a nice link to an article in New York Times about farmers who write. As you will see once you check out the article, most of these farmers are about a generation older than me.

By this I mean I would love to write all of my thoughts around the farm, but I'm just too darn busy. If I could just beam my thoughts to the blog directly from the field you all would get some great content to read. I never remember my thoughts once I get home and am sitting in front of the computer screen. Maybe I'm just fermenting "good stories" now to be digested at a later date.

The Mangoes are coming

2007-06-15T12:21:00.001-07:00

The mangoes are on their way from India. The homeland of mangoes.

Hey Geoff and Barry, can you get any of these?

Yes Men Do it Again

2007-06-15T06:40:00.001-07:00

I couldn't pass up this link from BoingBoing about those great pranksters the Yes Men:

Yes Men crash oil expo, propose turning corpses into fuel

j,k,j,j,j,j

2007-06-07T22:29:00.001-07:00

I'm on an inspired blogging roll this evening. Must be all the hydrolized fish juice.....

If you use Google Reader at all, you may know about the keyboard shortcuts. I generally just use the j and k key to go forward and back through feeds. And the space bar to scroll through an individual post. But now I found myself being on other web pages and trying to hit j and k to go to the next item. Doesn't work so well. But it would be nice.

Better go to bed, I've got deliveries to restaurants and the Ashland COOP at 5 in the morning.

If you're ever in the Ashland, Oregon area I highly recommend these eateries/grocers that we provide some produce to:

Amuse Restaurant

Larks at the Ashland Springs Hotel

Ashland Food Co-Op and Deli

Podtech- doing good!

2007-06-07T22:18:00.001-07:00

So, I'm just an amateur internet user......I'm a professional farmer. Not sure I could be a pro at both. Just not enough time in the day.

But what I can do pretty well is read lots of feeds and get a pretty good idea of what's going on with the frontlines of the tech world. And I think that's important to keep up on. My kids will be surrounded by current technology, people around me will continue to use web based tools more and more, I just don't want to be left in the dust. So I read as much as I can.

Nowadays it's not only about reading on the web, it's also about viewing video. Much is better demonstrated with screencast videos or jsut footage of folks explaining what's going on with whatever it is they're up to. Now that we finally have high speed ( Thanks Norm!) I can watch video. Kind of. Our computers are both 6 years old (We're holding out for a redesigned iMac) and just can't keep up. I'm assuming this is due to slow RAM and not much in the way of a video card? Well, I still make attempts at watching video.

Now to my point. Out of all of the embedded video players I've viewed through, the Podtech Player does the best. I'm sure some techie person can come along and tell me a million reasons why and why all the other types of players could and can work better for me, blah blah blah. But the fact of the matter is this:

There's a lot more common folk out there just wanting to watch a video of a cat, or their grandkid, or Scoble (do common people watch Robert or am I just a geek in farmer's clothing- probably the latter), or me ranting about video on the web. And they don't want to have to sit around and figure out what extension they need to install, or widget, or whatever.... (I honestly don't even know if extensions or widgets really have anything to do with watching video, but I hope you get the point) I and others just want to click on the player, have it buffer, and play. And play legibly. Videos I watch through podtech's player do this well. Thanks to all the folks over there. Somehow they've found a wide ranged of subjects that keep my interest as a farmer living out in the boonies of southern Oregon. Nice work and thanks.

fertigation

2007-06-07T21:29:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty excited this evening. I finally got our Mazzei Injector going for the irrigation system. You see, we have a really low organic matter content at our leased property. What this means is that nutrient uptake is difficult. It has some to do with ionization and cation exchange capacity and things of that sort. Basically though, the plants have a hard time keeping the nutrients available- not to mention that the soil is very sandy so a lot of the nutrients just flush on by. So we needed to figure out a solution.

We've always had good luck with foliar feeding- which is feeding the plants nutrients through the stomata on the leaves- but the problem is time. I don't have the time to walk around with a backpack sprayer or even with the tractor spray rig and spray all the leaves. And you need to spray ideally in the evening when the stomata are the most open. (They close up in the heat of the day to conserve water- which also means they can't uptake the stuff you spray on the leaves in the heat of the day)

So, I remembered the Mazzei Injector and investigated it, bought it, had my friend Tom weld a piece onto the pump, and ran it for the first time tonight. It worked!

And another added bonus is I can inject all kinds of helpful things into the irrigation system and evenly distribute them over the garden- compost teas, Bt, Biodynamic preps, etc.

So I finished my evening around 9:15 watching my 35 rainbird sprinklers impacting methodically in a surreal rhythm as I could smell the slightest hint of hydrolyzed fish juice being distributed evenly over my fields. Ahhhhhhhhhhh, perfection in the evening for a farmer.

ohhhhhh the season is happening so fast

2007-05-23T21:19:00.001-07:00

Not that there's nothing going on here at the farm. Trust me on that one. We've been pretty darn busy the last two weeks. I've got a camera full of pix, I just need to have the time to get them uploaded.

I actually pulled a 5 am to 10:30 pm this past week. Adrenaline was my friend that day. I was out hooking up the drip lines for the tomatoes that we had planted that day. Tomotaters needed the water you know. And it was 10:15. I was just laughing to myself. I wasn't really all that tired. Adrenaline, remember?

So what do we have growing out there?

We just transplanted eggplant and tomatoes monday. Peppers and winter squash go out on Friday. We actually came close to a freeze on Monday night. Luckily we covered the tomatoes and eggplant. Onions are all in the ground and growing. Scallions are happening. Beets will be ready in a few weeks. We're starting to pick strawberries tomorrow! (Melanie is actually making some real whip cream in the mixer as I type this for strawberries and shortcake- we picked some early)

Salad mix is in full swing, as is spinach, braising mix, chard, kale, collards, head lettuces, turnips (3 types- red, purple top, and white), cilantro, parsley, ooooooooo Arugula just to name a few.

Broccoi Raab, Bok Choy, Tat Soi, Radishes are all pretty much done.

Broccoli, Cauliflower are coming. Not many snap peas this year. Bad seed. Bummer.

And I have a ton of mowing to do. The grass is getting tall and dry. Gotta mow it before it gets to outta hand. Friday hopefully.

They wonder why farmers don't blog too much. "Mmpft", he replied.

CSA beginning this week.

2007-05-13T21:05:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow we harvest for this year's first CSA distribution. The pace at the farm always changes when the CSA starts- mainly due to the fact that the logistical aspects of getting all the produce where it should be increases about a million fold. Tomorrow we'll be harvesting for Ashland's Tuesday market, the CSA boxes (26 of them tomorrow), restaurant orders, and wholesale store orders. So you go out to the field pick it all but then you have to know where it all goes. The key here is to pick it into the separate orders as much as possible. When you get back to wash it and repack it- it's basically in the right place already. But how do we keep it straight while we're out there in the field? Spreadsheets.... well we don't really use the power of spreadsheets. Basically it's just a bunch of rows and columns to keep things straight. But it works. 7 am tomorrow the full-season-fun begins.

A Video to Watch

2007-05-05T22:13:00.000-07:00

Ah, I love having video viewing capabilities. I'm just starting to search out what's out there. But check this video for starters. A primer to what we (the collective we not the personal we) farmers are up to these days.

row markers

2007-04-29T19:38:00.000-07:00

A couple of folks have asked me about how we mark our rows to plant. Well this is how we do it. I set up a tool bar on the back and then used some lawn mower wheels and set them at 16 inches apart. And our cultivating tractor (the electric G) has the basketweeder set at this 16 inch spacing as well. If you check out the bottom picture you'll see what I'm talking about. Just like with the internet- interoperability is crucial.
Multi-platform technology at it's finest- churning soil........

it's really fast

2007-04-25T21:52:00.001-07:00

i'm no longer slow.

we have broadband.

life is good.

and it's sunny.

so the veggies are growing fast.

It's all happening

2007-04-22T20:33:00.001-07:00

Yep, there's a lot going on here at Blue Fox Farm these days:

Valerie and Dave got their flock of sheep moved up to the upper pasture along with the Anatolian Shepherd guardian dogs- Pearl and Zellie. This was a process spread out over a year. A lot of work getting the 5 acre area fenced in with high tensile fence and setting it up for rotational grazing. But they're up there. Very exciting.

Finally found the rest of the 3" by 30' irrigation pipe we'd been looking for. This is for the field garden (the leased property). We now have enough pipe for that field that we don't need to move pipe anymore. Just irrigate what needs to be irrigated. A huge labor saver. We were spending between 1 and 2 hours 3 to 4 times a week (2 to 3 people) moving pipe around. Pretty sure it will pay for itself in no time.

My wife Melanie is pregnant!!!!! Woohoo! Due around September 10th. There's at least 8365 other people I've heard of having babies around then this year. We're soooo excited to begin this stage of our lives and can't wait to bring the little one into the world of our farming. ("Little weeder" everyone keeps telling me.....One friend said we should name the baby Furrow) I felt the baby kick the other night. Wild!

We're finally going to get broadband internet this Wednesday. I have plans. Been waiting to instill these plans for a couple of years now. Of course it all happens right as the busiest time of the season comes along. But I figure I've got forever. So whatever.......

We've been transplanting starts out into the field like crazy. But all of this cold weather we've been having (We had snow on the ground the other morning) really doesn't encourage much growth. So this week is supposed to warm up and what is going to happen will be all the starts from different successions are going to catch up with each other. Soooooooooo... we'll probably have 8000 lbs. of spinach and about 63,000,000 heads of lettuce all at once. (I really do love exaggerating. It just drives the point home so much more effectively)

Our CSA starts in just under a month- May 15th - excited to get into the groove of the season again. We haven't been selling as much wholesale or to restaurants yet due to the cold, but that will change soon.

Anybody out there feel like talking with me about Wordpress? Contact me here if you'd like to help me out. Or contact me if you have no idea what Wordpress is...... :)

A few more things......

I love our new tractor- "Rosa Lee"- Landini 6865- 65 hp, four wheel drive, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh big engines are really nice.

I love my old tractor-"Old Red"- Massey Ferguson 245- 45 hp, 2 wheel drive, ahhhhhhhhhh fits like a glove

I love my electric tractor-"Optimus Prime", Allis Chalmers G- 7 hp electric motor, 2 wheel drive, ahhhhhhhhhhhh silent

Naming your tractors really does cut down on maintenance issues. Just ask the metal/motor faeries.

Oh, and last thing..... our pigs Mort and Mort, they're getting suspiciously big. mmmmmmmmm tasty.......

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bluefoxorganics.com

a few links to add to the mix

2007-04-06T20:11:00.001-07:00

We bought my mom Marion Nestle's book for Christmas. Came across a nice interview with her at Culinate

And I found an interesting fact about what's happening with bags in San Francisco

And finally a truth that I deal with all the time at farmers markets. Where are we going with the farmer heroism anyway? It's kind of weird sometimes but I understand where it all comes from. And I'm thankful too. We've got to get the idea of food coming from farmers back into society's mind's eye. This is where it all starts.

It was 83 degrees here today. Weird. Things are growing like crazy though. We planted arugula last Sunday and it's up with it's first set of leaves already. Arugula grows fast but this is really fast. We've been cutting salad mix out of the hoophouses like there's no tomorrow too. Oh and baby bok choy and tat soi too. The baby bok's were averaging three quarters of a pound each. Big Baby Bok Choy. But sooooo tender. Yes! I love spring

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Transplanting again.

2007-04-04T07:38:00.001-07:00

Today is another big transplant day. Not huge but big. Transplanting out into the field garden (our leased property) Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cabbage, Head Lettuce, Parsley, and Bok Choy.

Then I'll be doing the first cultivation of all the veggies already out there with the electric tractor with the basket weeder. At the end of the day once the sun goes behind the mountains, I'll be spraying fish emulsion on all of the newly cultivated starts to give'em a boost!

Looks like it's going to be another sunny day.

Still waiting for our potato area at the main garden (at home) to dry out to work it up and get those taters in the ground.

We're doing a pretty cool experiment with the taters this year for OSU (Oregon State University). It's called a no nitrogen trial. Part of our potatoes will be grown without adding any extra nitrogen. The idea being that initial test results at other farms are that you get basically the same yield whether you add nitrogen or not. It's just a question of the longevity of that practice. It will be interesting to see the reults.