Hoop House Progress

The hoop house construction at the farm is going well in spite of a bit of snowy weather.
It will be exciting to have this space dedicated to growing annuals.

Solar Farm

This week the farm started running on solar power!

4000 Bulbs in the Ground

Just in case you are wondering, here are pictures of the bulbs we planted.

We're having a lovely, prolonged autumn in Strawberry Park, with perfect blue skies and excellent fall colors.

We've outfitted the kitchen with supplies to start us on the way to making delicious value-added products out of our produce. Monica has already been experimenting with different recipes, as seen in the photo, with Henry supervising. Also, we've had Maya helping out with butterfly catching.

4,000 bulbs are in the ground, and we have new vestibules on both doors of the greenhouse to store supplies in and keep winter winds out. This should be a much more comfortable winter, with the pellet stove in the greenhouse, and of course Bohai to take shelter in if we have temperatures and snowfall like last year!

Beautiful bananas!

Flowers, figs, & bananas

With tons of perennial flowers, delicious figs, and our first bananas hanging on the tree, we've had a great summer. The Forest Garden is filled with apple, cherry, and pear trees; asparagus; raspberry, currant, and gooseberry bushes; lavender, sage, thyme, and other herbs; and of course flowers. We've used nitrogen fixing clover and vetch as cover crops between the plantings. The blueberries are in their own little bed, filled with acidic soil, and protected by grapes on a beautiful trellis. The pellet stove is installed in the greenhouse to keep us warmer this winter. New growth and flowers on the citrus is a good sign that next spring we'll be picking sweet juicy mandarins and Meyer lemons!

Summer Days

Things have been moving along at a pretty good clip here on the Farm. The weather has been co-operating with some hot sunny days and those great afternoon thunderstorms that settle the dust and cool the air.
Jack has been working out well as our summer help, pulling weeds, planting, doing some awesome work behind the weed eater and his organizing of some plant/shrub and tree information on excel that we were then able to add to our records for Elkstone Farm. A big hoorah for Jack!
Mountain West workers have been doing their share of the work on the Farm as well. Planting a bed of asparagus and more aspen around the pond and doing all of the outside irrigation and planting lots of herbs and flowers. Kudos to the boys and girls from Mountain West Environments!
After a lot of phone calls and a two year delay our Strawberries arrived last night from Washington State. After a 2 day trek in an enclosed van I was surprised at how well they looked. We got them unloaded and into the greenhouse and this morning I was able to attach them to the strawberry trellis and get them watered. Soon we will have some delicious strawberries to harvest.
The kitchen at Bohai is starting to look more like a kitchen. The range and Combi oven have been put in and we have the outside and inside vegetable washing sinks ready to go. The walk in cooler was put to use this week as we stored our greens in it after harvesting early on Thursday for a Friday delivery.
All in all I think everyone is working hard and I feel the end of construction is in sight!!

Elkstone Farm bridal bouquet!

Here is a photo of a bridal bouquet with flowers from Elkstone Farm that I made for my friend Leanne, who marries Seth today. I also included some herbs from the farm, too: basil for 'best wishes', sweet marjoram for 'joy and happiness', rosemary for 'remembrance', lavender for 'devotion', and of course, parsley for 'festivity'!

Best of luck to the happy couple.

Summer is here and things are happening at Elkstone. Pear trees and more cherry trees are being planted in the Pond Garden, while the new paths there delineate the different areas that will soon be filled with berries, herbs, and flowers. Last year's fruit trees overwintered well and are flowering beautifully; hopefully we'll see an apple or some cherries this year!

New plants settling in

Here are some photos of some of our new flowers, with fruit trees in the background. At top is a blooming Leucospermum with citrus behind it, the middle photo shows our beautiful Bird of Paradise, and at the bottom is an Agapanthus with buds just about to open, squash blossom, kangaroo paws in top left of the photo, statice in the middle, and one of our big lavender in the rear. The aroma in the greenhouse is amazing! All are making the transition fairly well, adjusting to our intense sun and cool nights.

I have squeezed a few annual vegetables and herbs into the few spaces between all these flowers and fruits and perennial herbs, and of course we continue to cycle through our salad greens.

Cinco de Mayo!

We had a successful import and planting of our new citrus, berry trees, vines, herbs, and flowers. It is very exciting! The greenhouse is packed with all kinds of delicious and beautiful edibles, and also plenty of exotic flowers for cutting. It will be a busy spring getting everything settled in and getting to know all these plants. Luckily, winter is hanging on here in Routt County, with record breaking snow pack for all of Colorado, ever. Should be an interesting spring... if we ever get to plant outside!

Busy days at the office...

We've been preparing for our big spring cleaning these past few weeks, removing soil and raising the bed level of the south bed, seen in this top photo (look closely- you can also see we have the front vents wide open, while the snow is still mounded up out there). We're hoping that bed will receive a bit more sun in the winter months. Also, the crew has been laying flagstone, which will help keep the dust down. And, we've been preparing for the arrival of our exciting new plants, which include lots of citrus and herbs, more pineapple guavas and pomegranates, dwarf figs, and exotic flowers. And, of course, we continue to harvest, enjoy, and sell the last of our cold season annuals.

The snow continues to melt, and Bohai draws nearer and nearer to completion. We're having a typically erratic spring, with 60 degree days followed by blizzards. Ahh, mud season! It's been summery inside though, and we're opening the greenhouse up and enjoying the warmth and fresh air.

Spring Cleaning

Coming out of our second winter, we're ready to take what we've learned about growing in Northwest Colorado and adjust our practices to make our farm more beautiful, efficient, and deliciously productive! We plan on making a few changes in the next couple of months inside the greenhouse, removing a few plants that have been disappointingly unproductive or less than tasty (mango, lychee, jujube, two of the four passion fruit, & olive) and focus on what what has been successful. This will result in a more Mediterranean planting focus, with lots of citrus and a strong emphasis on herbs. The fruit and herbs that we harvest from the greenhouse will be used mainly in value added products, but of course we will continue to sell our fresh produce as well, narrowing down our crops to what we've grown that we really like and that grows well in our unique climate, and continuing to try interesting new varieties. We will keep the farm in the permaculture style, with polyculture or intermixed plantings, as seen in the top photo, rather than row cropping, or monoculture. This helps maintain healthy plants, soil, beneficial insects, and micro-organisms.

We've started our hot season crops from seed, and the seedlings have been loving all of the sun we've had lately. We'll have numerous varieties of tomatoes, a few cucumbers, and some peppers inside, as well as plenty of basil, dill, cilantro, parsley, rosemary, thyme, oregano, and lavender- lots of lavender! For outside we've started squash, melons, beans, and herbs, too.

The perennials have already started leafing out, as seen in the photos of the Meyer Lemon and the Mars Grape. The Peter's Honey Fig even has tiny new fruit! I am really looking forward to getting growing this season.