Greenjeans Farm

Late summer…

Hazy skies.Pumpkins!The peaches are done!Tomatoes just coming on they are late this year, oh well, green tomato relish! Cleaning out the pantry. Friday night high school football, Potter Valley Bearcats! (Last night was WAY too late) and now tomorrow is the traditional opening day of the NFL!Yep, we’re a football family.Along with that, and probably why I am a fan, come “Football Snacks” Bruschetta, artichoke dip, salsa, hot wings, won ton, and Chilie Rellenos.I listen from the kitchen while I cook and am usually canning or freezing something or another from the garden at the same time.Thinking ahead to that winter day when this food is going to taste soooooo good!

The geese have begun to fly over the valley, our geese never leave they just like to fly around, they act like they are doing something, but they never leave! The Mourning Doves are settling in the big red plum tree, you can hear the grape bins rumbling in the vineyard yard.Putting the garden away little by little as things die off, building up the soil, planting here and there for winter harvest.This is truly a time to be savored.Golden days.

I finally got the rest of the garden in and we’re getting baby peas and new potatoes!  Pot roast for dinner, damn the hot!  I need some fatty meat and veggies!  Jeff put in a new screen door in the kitchen that slams and Squeaks! We have both decided that there can never be anything that really fits in this house and if it doesn’t squeak it isn’t worth it.   I absolutely love summer.  Flip flops, the river, the sun, eating, planting, eating, harvesting, eating, canning and freezing, eating! 

I have a bouquet of hot red sun flowers on the kitchen table with a bright yellow table runner,  and the freakin’ robins are eating my Rainer Cherries which are almost ready to pick!  A flock of geese flew like two feet over my head this morning!  They just went swoop, swoop, swoop.  No honking. Really spooky, it was like one giant bird!  They are getting better at flying in formation, Potter Valley geese are kind of retarded.   And I saw a bald eagle fishing the pond.   

There are times I just don’t care how funky this house is, you can’t keep a floor clean here and you have to dust and vacumm every day, and bugs crawl in and out – we found a potato bug in the bedroom today,, ugh, they look like little aliens! But otherwise it’s beautiful.  When it gets too hot we sit on the porch with the misters and the fountain going.  The lavender will start to bloom next week so it’s good the garden is done!   There is a climbing rose that grows up the crabapple that is in full bloom and honeysuckle and roses just make the air perfume!      

When I think of my happiest times I think of my mom and dad drinking a beer on the porch after a hard day of yard work in Tacoma, dad in shorts with  his sandals with socks, brown ones with stripes at the top and his horned rimmed glasses (such the geek)!  Looking at Mount Rainier while it turned all pink and purple in the sunset.   And then I think of Memo’s  five foot back porch and the screen door and her yelling at me don’t slam the screen door, and stop jumping off the porch!  And then I would jump off the porch and cabbage wilting on the porch and running through laundry on the line because it smelled so good!   And that crazy folding stool thing in her kitchen!   

Greenjeans Farm and CSA becomes the NWF 113,581 Certified Wildlife Habitat

The National Wildlife Federation has announced that Greenjeans Farm & CSA located in Potter Valley is now recognized and an official Certified Wildlife Habitat site.Greenjeans Farm attracts a variety of birds, frogs, and other wildlife, while helping to protect the local environment.

The Wildlife Habitat certification program began in 1973 and since has certified over 110,000 habitats nationwide, including the special 100,000^th certification of the U.S. Botanic Garden’s National Garden in Washington, D.C. at the base of our nation’s Capitol.

The majority of Certified Wildlife Habitat sites represent the personal commitment of individuals and families to provide important refuge for wildlife near their homes, but NWF has also certified more than 3100 schools and hundreds of business and community sites.The average habitat is between one half and one third acre, but certified sites can vary from urban balconies to thousand-acre farms.

Any habitat enthusiast can create a certified habitat and learn the rewards of gardening for wildlife.NWF teaches the importance of environmental stewardship by providing guidelines for making landscapes more hospitable to wildlife.In order to become certified, a property must provide the four basic elements that all wildlife need:food, water, cover and places to raise young; and must employ sustainable practices.Habitat restoration is critical in urban and suburban settings where commercial and residential development encroaches on natural wildlife areas, limiting the availability of resources wildlife need to survive and thrive.In addition to providing for wildlife, certified habitats conserve our natural resources by reducing or eliminating the need for fertilizers, pesticides, and/or irrigation water, which ultimately protects the air, soil and water throughout our communities.

Jeff Adams, owner of Greenjeans Farm sums it up:“Seven years ago we moved to this abandoned piece of land envisioning a Farm, the soil was sog in winter and hard packed clay in summer and the only wildlife we entertained were Ticks,ants,earwigs,flies and gnats from the vineyard across the street.By using Organic practices, building and feeding our soil first, and using no pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, we have enabled a rich and varied environment in which many birds, bees, butterflies, frogs, bats and other animals grow and flourish.The bird that eats a couple of our plums, cherries or raspberries also eats thousand of bugs that are trying to get to the vegetable garden!We have a couple of covey of quail that live in the blackberry bushes at the bottom of the property. And many finches and hummingbirds of all colors.We have bats that from time to time fly into the bedroom at night if we leave the door open but they also eat something like three times their weight in bugs a night. The toads like to eat the slugs and they are very comical popping out in the strangest places!And it is not unusual to have a brightly colored tree frog jump out of the sink overflow drain while you are brushing your teeth in the morning if you leave the bathroom window open! They take care of everything BUT the weeds!The real reward is when you are working in the field and you hear the wooosh wooosh of giant wings and look up to see an eagle or a giant red tail hawk coming right atyou and then you watch it soar over your head and high into the sky and dive down to catch a fish in the pond across the street”

Creating habitats not only helps wildlife, it can help reduce global warming, pollution and save energy costs as well.Burning fossil fuels to heat and cool our homes and maintain our lawns releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which is the main greenhouse gas responsible for global warming.Strategically located trees and other native vegetation can insulate our homes for heat, cold and wind, reducing our heating and cooling needs and thus our carbon emissions.Wildlife friendly native plants don’t need constant maintenance from gas guzzling lawn mowers or fertilizers that require fossil fuels to manufacture and often leave harmful chemical salt residue.An additional benefit is that plants actually absorb carbon dioxide, helping to further reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.All of this adds up to increased areas available for wildlife and a better quality of life for all.

Habitats can also produce an added value to your home.A beautiful, living landscape is an acctractive element to many potential home buyers looking to share their homes with Mother Nature.

The mission of the National Wildlife Federation is to inspire Americans to protect wildlife for our children’s future.

It’s early February and I can’t wait to get out to the greenhouses! Today is damp and foggy and cold.I am eyeing the packets of herbs and flower seeds on the kitchen counter anxiously.

Jeff has the habit of inventorying our food which drives me CRAZY. Nobody owns food! He knows I would give it all away in a hot minute.But as usual with Jeff, there is a method to his madness.We put a lot of food by in the late summer and fall and always complain about not having enough room to stuff another thing in the freezer or the pantries. How great is that? Even after the CSA season is over, there is always excess.There are also things I would never give to a subscriber, unless I knew them very well and explained it to them first.(Corn with worms (don’t use that part), over ripe peas that we didn’t get to in time. (good soup stuff)) We throw nothing away. And we totally use it.I’d rather eat an organic worm or a starchy pea.Truth be told we will let a huge zuchinni fly from time to time.If we throw it, it goes to our neighbors cows who enjoy a delicious treat! And treat us with some thankful moo’s.We take over the top vegetables to Plowshares, and there still always seems to be an abundance!

By the end of winter after Christmas and the first property tax payment, when we are feeling very small and poor, Jeff always knows exactly how many bags of corn or peas or cauliflower or broccoli, onions, marinara sauce we have in the freezer. He does all this in his head!On the days we have to pay PG&E for our winter “Got to put up Christmas lights” sins.I come home to a hearty healthy meal from our farm!These are the days that make me feel grateful for our life! I am perfectly happy to be the day job partner in this farm if I can have a corn soup made with a little broth and rice or barley that warms my body and my soul in front of a good ol’ fire.If we have some meat to add in it is a plus, and we have herbs to flavor it. But a good loaf of bread is great with it.We both reville in the taste and the fact that we grew this food!I can pull out a bag of black berries from early august and make a pie in January and it tastes like August!

Life is great, and made to share!

I pruned the orchards last week.I picked up most of it, but left some in my wake.It has been an extremely nice January this year.Warm afternoons and sunny skies.The grass is growing and Jeff decided to mow last week.

He picked up a few of my stray trimmings to get them out of the way and stuck them in the metal arbor in back.I noticed them this morning and went AHA! Soon the arbor in the rose garden was covered and shored up with cherry branches and the finch sock was full and the finches were happy with plenty of perching places.I had a yellow and black arbor and it was great!

One thing farmers know how to do like nobody else, is reach out to each other.

I remember the first year we lived here in Potter, during the fall and winter we made the house livable, we had our first greenhouse (a growhouse sent from heaven which blew away in the storm the next year (another story)) and our first Christmas, and then we borrowed our friends Barbara and Skip’s tractor to plow up the area where the garden was going to go.This was in March and we just couldn’t wait to get it all ready.

Well March in Potter Valley is not exactly the best time of the year to decide to plow.The Tractor got stuck, really stuck in the wet soggy ground.I remember looking out the window and watching Jeff standing in the field waving his arms up and down out of frustration like he was doing jumping jacks.I put on my rain boots and we tried the ol’ stick a board under the tire trick.It didn’t work.We stood and stared at each other trying to fathom how the heck were going to get that thing out, and how the heck we were going to pay for any damage we may have done to it.Suddenly, like the cavalry arriving our other neighbors came up the driveway with their tractors and ATV’s and chains!It seems they’d been watching with just a little amusement the scene at Greenjeans, and decided to help us out of our misery.At the same time Barbara was driving into our driveway to see how we were doing with the tractor!The neighbors got it out and Jeff drove it back to Skip and Barb’s.Everyone got pickles and jam for their efforts and I will never forget the outflow of neighborliness for the newbees.

I think this year will be much like that year.Many of us are feeling a pinch, but with each other’s help we will get through it! I hope to be one of the "calvary" neighbors, but you never know... No matter how hard you have it, you just have to look out your window!