Petaluma Urban Homestead Tour

Spring sprung and we have been harvesting, prepping beds, sowing seeds, planting fruit trees, and planning for the glory of the Summer garden. So, that's where we've been if you were wondering. It's a busy time around here.

In March we had our first official tour of the ol' homestead. 50 local high school students came through the place on a field trip for their Ecological Economy class. Their day included tours of two urban homesteads and a trip to the Regenerative Design Institute in Bolinas where they toured Commonweal Garden. All three are permaculture sites on different scales.

The tour here started in the front driveway with the gates to the backyard open to accommodate everyone. The group had brought snails from the previous site for our ducks who upon discovering the gates open walked right out into the crowd and charmed everyone! There was a discussion of the medicinal plants that have replaced the lawn, the communal growing bed we share with our neighbors where there used to be a giant hedge dividing us, the rainwater catchment system that turned a problem into a solution, the cider press and cider making with locally gleaned apples, designing greywater systems, homescale livestock- chickens, ducks, worms, bees, rabbits, compost making, honey tasting, they also got to look at the permaculture design for this site and our neighbors behind us. Then, off they went to Bolinas! Did we even go on field trips in high school? Lucky dogs.

The Gift of Bees

Many folks have been asking about our bees lately. We and many, many other beekeepers in Sonoma County and elsewhere sadly lost our bees this Winter. Their population dwindled by the time it was warm enough for them to forage again. They had plenty of food in the hive for the Winter but they still didn't make it. We will try again. We've ordered new bees from a local beekeeper and we're hoping for another swarm. We've put a swarm attracting pheromone in a nice, new, cozy hive box in the garden. So far, no takers. Our new bees arrive at the end of April. It was bittersweet to open up the hive last month. No bees. A gallon of honey. We filled many a jar with the gift the bees left behind.

With an uncapping knife we sliced open the top layer of each frame. It was very difficult to keep one's fingers out of the honey-soaked cappings! We put the frames in a centrifugal spinner and cranked away. The honey was then poured from the spinner into jars and then poured again through a sieve to filter out the bits of wax, propolis, and pollen. The result was golden glowing jars of homestead honey!

Rainwater

It's been raining for days now. We've been working on ways to keep all of this precious water on site. As long as this house has been here (100 years now) the water has flowed off our roof and through the yard straight back to our neighbor's basement. When they recently dug out yards and yards of dirt to put in a foundation I teased them that it was "all our topsoil". Since we're growing food in the garden now we need to keep that topsoil and that water here. We can't afford to just let it run off to the city storm drain or our neighbor's basement.

In the garden we slow it and sink it using swales to direct the water flow. From the the roof we collect it for use in the garden during the growing season. Our 1350 gallon rainwater catchment tank has been overflowing all Winter. It has been full since the first storm of the season. We need another tank. More on our rainwater catchment system soon. I've got to get the 'engineer' to do that blog entry.

Enjoy the rain while it lasts. As you can see our ducks certainly do!

Winter Squash Wonderland

Thanks to some wonderful starts from the the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center's plant sale we had an incredible bounty of big beautiful Winter squash. There were blue and green Hubbards, Red Kuri, a Big Max pumpkin growing out into the street, Butternuts under every squash leaf and hanging over the fence, and the spectacular Musque de Provence of which the largest weighed 65 pounds and had to have a party thrown in its honor.

As we watched the Musque de Provence growing all Summer we kept thinking "How are we going to store that thing once we cut into it?" When we finally harvested it the only option was to do as the French do at their farmer's markets and part it out. We invited all of our squash-loving friends over for dinner and didn't let them leave without a piece of the squash.

Musque de Provence Soiree

Back to the Musque de Provence....

Borrowing a copy of PATRICIA WELLS AT HOME IN PROVENCE the inspired chef of the ol' homestead got cooking. On the menu for the evening was a Winter Pistou containing a few pounds of Hubbard Squash, garlic, onions, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes. parsley and thyme all grown here in the garden. It is a wonderful soup including white and red beans, leeks, parsnips and topped with grated Gruyere cheese. From the same cookbook he prepared a Turnip and Cumin Puree and a Celery Root Lasagna. Off the top of his head he came up with a quinoa dish with fresh rosemary, a kitchen-concocted Moroccan style herb blend and sausage made of duck, figs and brandy (found at the Marin Farmer's Market and made in Hayward, probably from Liberty Ducks of Petaluma). Whew!

When people arrived they were invited to sample family-made wines, homestead-made hard ciders and local cheeses from Cowgirl Creamery, Redwood Hill Farm and Creamery, Cypress Grove and Vella. Along with bread from Petaluma's own Della Fattoria Bakery.

For dessert we served Persimmon Pudding from locally gleaned persimmons and our own ducks' eggs, pumpkin chocolate-chip muffins for the kids and Sebastopol's own Taylormaid Coffee with cream from Petaluma's own Clover Dairy.

Everyone went home with a wedge of Musque de Provence which smelled like a Honeydew melon!

Duck Season! Chicken Season!

We just found out why the salad bed looks like it has had ducks foraging in it. It's because ducks have been foraging in it! They found a way to squeeze through the remesh pea trellis and have their way with the chard and the lettuces. Everything else they leave alone- collards, romanesco, broccoli, kales, onions, mustards, tatsoi, arugula, mizuna, cilantro, cabbages, sugar snap peas.... What a quacking commenced when they realized they'd been found out! It clearly translated to "It wasn't me! I swear!". They were then put back to work on the outside of the drift fence surrounding the 'off limits' bed to gobble up sow bugs, earwigs, slugs and snails.

With the exception of this incursion we have throughly enjoyed this breed of backyard duck. Khaki Campbells seem to be a perfect size for the urban homestead. They are happy with a tub of fresh water to bathe in, a pan of chicken mash and scratch with crushed oyster shell to nibble on and free range of the entire backyard. They put themselves to bed at night in an old dog house outfitted with nest boxes and dry hay for bedding. We lock the dog house door each night for their safety. They are a whole lot less work than the chickens who have to be confined (bunch of teenagers that they are) because they'll trash the place otherwise.

I came out to the yard the other day to find the chickens had been let out. "Oh Great!" I thought, "What have they destroyed now?". I found that my neighbor had enlisted the chickens and the ducks to work the compost into the garden bed he had just amended for winter. The chickens were scratching and the ducks were dabbling. They were just doing what they do naturally.

Even though the days are getting shorter the ducks keep laying their eggs right on schedule. The chicken eggs are petering out slowly. The two Araucanas and the Barred Rock are taking turns slacking off. One day it will be two blue eggs (Araucana) and no brown (Barred Rock ). Then, the next day it will be one brown and no blues. With the abundance of wonderful 'weeds' now growing everywhere we've been able to provide the chickens with lots and lots of greens in addition to their grain and alfalfa hay. The color of their egg yolks has been spectacular lately. A boost in nutrition for all of us. Soon, the neighbors will start bringing snails over and we'll step it up another level. We have a neighborhood e-mail list on which I recently sent out a request for snails. Since we got the ducks we are virtually snail-free. Now, if we can teach them to eat voles and gophers....

Don't get me wrong we love the chickens and their eggs. We're just trying to simplify the system around here.

First Honey Harvest

With the help of a friend we went into the hive today to check on its health and prep it for winter. I thought we better get this done while we still had a few warm days. We moved a honey frame down next to the brood and took out some of the outer frames to allow for better ventilation. I had ten frames in the boxes, but there are some who have only nine or eight to allow for more space between the frames and/or better ventilation. In our case I brought it down to eight frames with blocker boards (blank boards that fill the space of a frame) on the ends. This should improve ventilation - very important in the wet season. We also cleaned out all traces of the little start of a wax moth infestation I noticed recently. What this all really means is that some of those frames we took out had honey in them. Bless you bees for all your work pollinating our world and for your incredible gifts you give us with so little complaint. It was an electric urban homestead moment in the garden surrounded by ducks and plants and friends and wet earth taking a bite of sun-warmed honey-filled comb. As I write, warmed honey is pouring through a strainer into our first jar of homegrown honey-goodness.
-P