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04/03/2007: "Sweet Onions and Blackberry Mayhem"

Our local feed store, Denson's, finally received their shipment of Walla Walla sweet onion starts. Nate carefully prepared a bed in anticipation, tilling, weeding weekly, and then finally adding a layer of fine, homemade compost and complete organic fertilizer. We soaked the starts in water to revive them a bit, then planted them in the bed. The rows run across the bed every 18 inches and the starts are spaced 4 inches apart in the rows. Fantastic. I can taste the onion rings now.

And the next day we found that Aura wanted to take a peek at what we had been working on. She sauntered on through the bed, leaving delicate little Aura hoofprints in the nice fluffy soil. Groan. She seems to have take care to miss most of the starts themselves, and we had plenty left over to replant any she seemed to have trampled. So we've finally implemented Rule #1 of gardening: Have a good fence. There is now temporary electric fencing up between the garden and the cow.


Aura's doing really well. The first few days of her "drying off" period were a little scary. We stopped milking and took her off rich food. Her udder swelled and sagged and looked about to burst. She would not allow Nate to touch her underside and seemed a little cranky. After about the fourth day, though, there was a noticeable reduction in the tension on her udder, a reduction in the teat size, and a return of the sweet natured cow we love. She's been dry for nearly two weeks now, and seems very content. We've returned her to the rich spring grass in hopes of getting her weight and conditioning up before she calves. She's starting to shed her winter coat and is a nice soft caramel brown under her red winter layer. She is also scampering about, prancing into her stall in the evenings. And she's started napping in her field. When she first arrived, and for the few months after, we never saw her laying down. We think that this lifestyle is suiting her, and perhaps her hip isn't as troublesome for her as it once was. We certainly adore her, and look forward to increasing our Dexter herd.

Near the bed of Walla Walla sweet onions is a bed of strawberries. These were a gift from our delightful friend Ellen. We've planted them out and babied them tenderly in hopes that they will produce an abundance of runners.

I'm a fiend for strawberries and Nate has had a hard time convincing me that it'll be worth it to wait one more year for farm strawberries. The plan is that this year we will use these little plants to produce more little plants, by suppressing berry growth. Then in the fall, we'll transplant all of the plants to a plot in the south yard, between the raspberries and the blueberries. And the next spring, we'll let them produce gallons and gallons of big, ripe, juicey, sweet strawberries. I can't wait!!!


Many, many things have been happening out at the farm lately. But one of our more enduring tasks has been blackberry removal. As you can see from some of the older posts, there are blackberries everywhere. They make great jam, and wine, and pies, but really,we don't need that many. And in order to put up the perimeter fence, the berries have to come down. In particular, this clump bothered me because of it's proximity to the road. Motorists driving by, cyclists on tour, and visitors to the farm deserve a prettier sight than a big clump of brambles. So Nate and I went to work. For reference, those posts are 8 feet high.


The posts tipped us off that something was under there, and we could see some metal. It turns out that this was an old pig pen. We also found a very nice hazel tree, always a bonus, and some garbage (not so much of a bonus.) Here's the finished product, and Nate for scale.

We're thinking this would make a nice place for the "mushroom yard", and we have some shitakes plugs that are ready to find a log to innoculate. Now we have a place for them!

We're slowly working our way down the fence line on the south side. This is where the blackberries are most dense. But there's a bit more of a complication. There is a nice hedgerow that has grown up around the old fence. We're planning on replanting the hedgerow a distance away from the new fence. We would love to see hazels and wild apples, Osso berry, dogwood, and many other native plants. Hedgerows provide excellent cover for an assortment of critters and increase the diversity of the farm. We don't want a sterile environment like the big farms down the road. But I do think we could do without one plant: poison oak. This is a pretty funny site with the general run down of poison oak and its nastiness: http://www.knoledge.org/oak/. Nate currently has a few patches spreading up his arm, but is very cheerful about the whole thing. I've so far escaped the wrath of the malevolent plant. But I do run into other things.

This is a bale or bundle of fencing. It is exactly the type of fencing we bought for the perimeter fence. It's in pretty good shape, other than the blackberry vines growing over it. The funny part is that it's still attached to the fence. It's as if someone was unrolling the fencing, tacking it up (and doing a horrible job), then dropped it, went inside for lunch and never came back. And over the years the blackberries swallowed it up, only to be rescued by a person intent on tearing it down. Oh boy.


Since blackberries are a common feature of western Oregon, I thought a brief discussion of the appropriate tools for blackberry battles might be in order. We've tried using shears and clippers, but that involves a lot of close ground work and there's a good chance of getting snagged on top of the head. The BCS sickle bar does a great job taking out low blackberry vines, but not such a good job for the ones that come over the top of the mower and attack your face and hands. If the BCS had a nice 6 foot tall shield in front of it and built in hand gaurds it would be the perfect tool. But it doesn't. So short of renting a brush mower, we use machetes. I use the shorter "Friskar" blade. It has a very sharp edge, and a curved inner edge. This allows you to hook and slice through vines. It's the tool of choice. Nate uses the longer Corona machete. It's longer, a little heavier, and loses its edge quite quickly. We're looking to replace it with a thicker and better made blade. Anyone have any suggestions? As far as gloves, Nate likes to use his heavy woven "chainsaw" gloves. He says they effectively keep out thorns, have a great grip, and still allow him to move. I'm experimenting with gloves. I often use a leather and synthetic hybrid glove that works passingly well, except for the "breathing holes" in the side that let the thorns in. The tracks of puncture wounds on the side of my hands show what a great idea that is. My solid leather gloves tend to work well, until I rip them or get them wet and lose my grip on the tool. They are also very inflexible until I nearly wear them out, then they're prone to breaking. Other gear is really a matter of taste. I usually wear my Carhart pants, which are much more effective at blocking thorns. It's my personal armor. I also wear a nice wool jacket given to me by the neighbors. It's light enough to wear while working and fairly effectively gaurds against scrapes from thorns. Sunglasses and a hat are musts for me. There's nothing worse than thorns near the eye, really. Nate, however, goes with the minimalist approach, generally wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and his glasses. But he has a much higher "irritation threshold" than I do, and seems to be fairly cheerful about bleeding arms and thorns in the hair.

But we're making progress on the fenceline. There are many other things to do as well. I hope to make a post for tomorrow about the seedlings we're starting and how the garden plan is shaping up.