Sweet Patuties!

Christine and I dug the sweet potatoes yesterday. I figured a bit of background was in order...


Little known fact: my grandparents grew sweet potatoes in their backyard every year while I was growing up. Each October, we'd drive down to Louisville, KY to help dig 'em up. As you may expect, much fun was had by all.

If you've ever grown sweet potatoes before, you'll know that you often find yourself sharing the bounty, however begrudgingly, with rodents. In an attempt to trick fate, my mother found these strange rat face masks for the 'boys' to wear while digging...

Our bounty this year pales in comparison, but Christine and I were just as excited as I remember being as a kid as we unearthed those jewels of the earth... how big is it gonna be? Photos of our haul to follow...

Bouquet recipe

Ingredients:

Ageratum, a nice filler for the 'purple and orange, purple and orange' bouquets we sell so many of...

Hanging amaranth, for the dramatic...

Antique pink Zinnia, my favorite...

Fennel flower, adds a little complexity...

Blockbuster Dahlia...

Young Sedem, so succulent you hate to clean the leaves off the stem. The color is already changing to a dark wine red speckled with green... photo to follow.

My other favorite, the mint green Zinnia...

Persian carpet Zinnia, not to be confused with the Mexico mix, which look like mini Black-eyed Susans... included here for their 'brightening up the bouquet' talent...

Foxglove, works as a filler and as a delicately complex centerpiece...

Where is the finished result, you ask? As soon as I find my camera cord, I'll post it up. Whoops!

Who wants to visit?

I'll begin this post with a sunset bribe. Sure you'll have to sleep in a slightly musty Sportscoach unless you want to brave the roads at night, but I think the view is worth it. AND I'll cook you dinner...

Continuing my devotion to baby plants, our fall crop of spinach (above) and lettuce (below). The lettuce, pictured with basil and bulb fennel, have been so patient as we scramble to figure out where to put them.

Every week I scrub the potatoes 'till they shine like newborn babes. From left, Yellow Finn (mashers), All-blue (bakers), and red Fingerlings (tater salad).

With death, new life. We've begun the seed saving process with the Shelling Peas that bit the dust during the last heat wave. Christine put the fall pea crop in the ground this morning.

I've been collecting seed as I find it, preparing for a fall crop of carrots, kale, peas, and mustard greens at the urban farm homestead so devotedly cared for by the BF. When not naming all the houseplants, he's on a mission to grow a girl and boy avocado, for all our future guacamole needs. "Avery," pictured here, is crackin' right along!

Our dirty secret...

This lovely place that looks like a farm is actually an event and catering space called Farm Kitchen. Once a working farm, it now employs local farmers, like Christine, to 'keep up appearances,' while owners Hollice and Anne bring in unsuspecting wedding parties and B&B guests. They all do a lovely job!

While planning our harvest around events can sometimes be hairy, the extra growing space it affords makes Leapfrog work. Here's where all those lovely flowers live. Above, the zinnias.

And here are the asters, azuratum, statis, cone flowers, straw flowers, and the other wacky things that make Christine's bouquets so unique. Stay tuned for a more in depth look at the flowers we grow...

And also the corn field... and the pumpkin patch. Shout out to the sweet potatoes that are trying not to drown!

Not sure if there's wine making in my future, but Hollice has a lovely grape crop coming along.

And the brassicas, red cabbage, green cabbage, broccoli, cauli, raabe and arugula. The fall crop went in today.

If you can believe it, these seemingly large spaces only add up to 2/3 acre when combined with the two tiny gardens at Leapfrog home base. Still an incredible amount of food!

How do you make your garden grow?

Succession Planting 101:

At Leapfrog, the garden is constantly evolving. Planting crops in succession is a efficient way to maximize production in a small space. Right now, we're preparing for late summer's harvest. Each crop has a different growing cycle, affected by changes in temperature and rainfall, of course. Our crazy heat wave last week (it's been in the 60s and cloudy all this week, go figure) made everything go gangbusters. I think the corn grew 3 feet in one afternoon...

Salad greens have a pretty short life-span anyway, and in the 4 weeks (!) that I've been here, we've planted them several times. A photo-montage of the planting stages:

A bed for the next crop, post-Walla Walla onions. We'll add some poop, lime, blood meal and bone meal to the soil before tilling and planting tomorrow am.

Babies! That's drip irrigation tape (T-tape), by the way. Save that water!

3-week old Swiss Chard. We'll harvest in early September unless we get another heat blast. Then, all bets are off.

Salad greens (mustards and asian greens) gone to bolt. We're picking a bit still, but they're getting pretty bitter. Notice the Camper w/ its new sun shade in the distance...

Raspberries are almost finished, too, but there's a few left for my breakfast... or for pies!

The pile of Walla Walla's drying in the greenhouse. They'll keep all winter if we dry them now.

Tomatoes are in, as are the Romano beans (delicious!)... a pretty late harvest for both these guys this year.

Sara participated in an "Open Mic" night at a local community center last Saturday, singing and playing piano in a style she calls smoky folk. She's got a lovely voice and is very talented... She'll strike out on her solo career when she gets back to Portland, or else!

Volunteers

Flickr has been updated! Check out the new Leapfrog Farm set here.



Things really like to grow here at Leapfrog. Christine is especially fond of her volunteers, often going to great lengths to preserve them. Its worth it, though. We fill out much of our salad mix every week with "free" greens. In this image, you can see the fight for space between broccoli rabe, chard, and bronze fennel. It makes for a beautiful, varied landscape.

Here's another volunteer who tried to help Sara and I make dinner the other night... after Sara took him outside, he hung out for quite a while before hopping off into the twilight. Ole' blue eyes!

We broke records last week in the heat department... an unheard of 110 degrees last Wednesday, and high 90s for much of the week. It was a frantic scramble the last two weeks to pull weeds and set irrigation up beforehand, but, happy to say, most of everything pulled through (a lot of the greens bolted, but that's to be expected). In the midst of it, though, we couldn't do much but wring our hands and sweat, so on Wednesday, we took off for the Quilcene River in the Olympic Mountains.

Nothing like icy mountain stream water to bring down your body temperature!

Fruit salad with the boyz. That's Alexander in blue.

Thursday Sara and I visited a brand new farm on Bainbridge Island called Terra Bella Farm. We'd befriended the girls who run the joint at the farmer's market. Sara really wanted to see a new farm in action, and Rachel, farm manager, appreciated the support. We were especially taken with their tee-pee trellis technique for squash and beans. A good lesson in maximizing space.

And now, for my personal favorite, a monocromatic image of (one of ) our kale beds. Maybe I was homesick, but the color scheme out here is unbeatable!

Andrzej, Sara, and the boys and I did a watercolor art therapy session last night. It's one of the many aspects of Bodywork and energy healing that Andrzej teaching and performs. After re-learning how to use watercolor (I'm rusty!), I really enjoyed myself. Found a lot of my art history training (I made a lot of Gerhard Richters) coming out, but also found myself painting a lot of kale, too. Sara painted a bunch of watermelons, and the boys, Danya in particular, regaled us with "advice" on our technique. Fun times, and I look forward to painting more. Watch out, Sculpture!

There's no place like the PNW...

Yes, I was a little homesick.

Welcome to Leapfrog Farm!



With only 2/3 acre under production, you'd think there wouldn't be much to do ;) But between selling a wide array of organic and heirloom fruit, flowers, and veggies at the Bainbridge Island Farmer's Market (Saturdays 9-1, come visit!), the farm stand at the Kingston Ferry several times a month, and through a small CSA (farm subscription) program, there's plenty.



Somewhere in all that we do a lot of weeding and cultivating and sweating. (Or shivering- the early mornings are chilly!) It's a sun-up to sun-down intensive farming experience, and when I'm not trying to figure out how to get enough rest and food (good thing I like veggies!), we're getting to know each other.



Christine, mom and head farmer, really knows what she's doing, and her husband Andrzej (An-jay) has the market down to a science. In the mix are their two little boys, Alex (8) and Danya (5), pictured above w/ Andrzej; and Sara, from Portland: an accomplished musician, home gardener and landscaper, and, most importantly, my fellow intern.



Working with experts has definitely begun to refine my skills... and not just how to power-weed. 18 years of 'growing,' as they call it, has led them to develop systems for everything, from a complex but effective drip irrigation system to a particular method for loading the truck for market. Leapfrog produces nearly year-round, so I'm learning a lot about succession crops and how to encourage things to grow in not-exactly-ideal weather. Right now, though, we're just battling the dry heat like every other farmer at this time of year. Thank goodness for tomatoes and basil, mmm. Who needs meat, anyway?