Putting on the poo

Ben loading up some poo

Manure is a necessary part of farming in a sustainable way.
People think that farmers only grow plants, but at the heart of it, farming is the cultivation of soil microbes. Without a healthy crop of microbes in the soil the plants have trouble absorbing nutrients. In many ways plants and people are very much alike, we both have a symbiotic relationship with single-celled organisms to help us get nutrients from our food.

So Melissa and I spent the better part of yesterday putting the poo onto our field. We had 6 yards of organic source cow manure delivered into one big, stinking pile. From that pile we manually spread the aged cow pie mix onto each of our 80' beds. It smelled a bit, but anyone from farm country gets a sense of nostalgia from the scent of manure.

Baby plants, Melissa and our farm-cat friend Boomerang

Today we began the muscle building process of forming our raised beds. Each 2' wide pathway has to be dug out a bit and dumped onto the adjacent beds before a final tilling. Farmers lucky enough to have a tractor can do this with very little sweat, but since we can't afford one (yet), we're putting our sweat equity to work. Given that many people spend tons of money per year at a gym to reach a similar result, I'd say its quite a deal. However my sore muscles presently disagree...

Anyway, all of this work is so that these babies have a place to go. These babies, as well as tons of seed are waiting to move into their beds next week. It is a pleasure to know that all of this work is leading to the best part of farming...PLANTING!!!

 - Ben

Frozen

February observed temps compared to average at SeaTac Aiport.

We don't get the kind of cold temperatures we've been seeing this past week very often in the Pacific Northwest.  When we scheduled to have our 1/4 acre plowed two weeks ago, we thought it would happen right away.  However, farming is an exercise in patience simply because it is undertaken under the open unpredictability of a large planetary body.  One cannot rely fully on averages to predict the weather, as you can see on the graph we've been nowhere near average lately.

At first the plowing had to be postponed due to heavy rain over a few days.  The wet soil was too soft for the tractor to traverse the land without leaving ruts.  The irony is that waiting for the soil to dry out meant waiting for the drier, colder air to arrive.  The dry air was nice, but it was Yukon air.  Instead of drying out, the topsoil froze.  You can't plow a frozen field.  And so we've been waiting.

We thaw out starting tonight.  Hopefully we can get the field plowed quickly after the thaw, as the warmer air is being brought to us by a series of wet storms.  Farming is not for the impatient.

From cold to wet...Winter in the PNW

 - Ben

Nursery and pasture

Before...

Our new 1/4 acre farm plot in Langley is part of the lower pasture that has been graciously donated to us by Chocolate Flower Farm.  Now that we have scheduled the pasture to be tilled, it is time to get ready to make babies...Plant babies!

Babies need a warm place to get their start, so we cleaned up an old Chocolate Flower Farm greenhouse that has sat unused for a few seasons. In the northwest a wild greenhouse becomes a weed jungle pretty quick.

...Later

There were blackberries going all over the place. Grass was growing along the entire inside edge, and bindweed (morning glory) was beginning to take over one whole side of the structure.  I lost count of the number of spiders I saw under all the pots and platforms.  It was not for the faint of heart.

The spiders were not the worst of it though, and we were lucky it is still winter.  Even in the middle of winter the wasps were beginning to stir inside the greenhouse.  We found dozens of yellow jackets just beginning to wake in the warming air of the sunny greenhouse.  Small dormant wasp nests were all over the place; in boxes, under tables and throughout seed trays.  Removing them made me feel like a one-man bomb squad as I carefully investigated each wasp infestation before gently carrying them outside.

Despite the hazards, we made quick work of the weeds and were able to begin organizing the jumbled interior.  Much organization remains, but after a day of work we can officially claim this greenhouse ready to nurse some baby plants!  It is not a moment too soon as we are finally getting the pasture opened up this weekend.  Very soon we will have baby plants going in the greenhouse, and a new tilled pasture ready for them when they grow up.

Flying Bear Farm's new digs - 1/4 acre of former horse pasture

 - Ben

The move to Whidbey Island

First Street in Downtown Langley, WA

Invoking the pioneering spirit of our ancestors, Melissa and I made the hop off the mainland to Whidbey
Island at the end of October 2013. We found a humble home in Langley, the 'Village By the Sea'.

 I will always think of the time I spent in Seattle fondly, and of course to Melissa it will always be her childhood home.  We will never really leave Seattle entirely, as we have a myriad of friends and favorite places to visit; not to mention the Seattle Sounders.  Still, it was time to make the bold move to pursue our mutual dream of establishing a homestead and farm.

Now that we've settled into our new lives in Langley and entered into the new year, we are forging ahead with our plans to make Flying Bear Farm into something that will nourish our family and enrich our new community.  Our search for a permanent home continues onward, but in the meantime we will take root on a 1/4 acre plot of land generously donated to us by the local Chocolate Flower Farm.`On this site we will grow flowers and produce for the Langley Farmers Market and for our wedding clients.

It will be an exciting and challenging season in our newly adopted home. We face a limited water supply on our plot that will require us to be creative with our irrigation system.  Balancing the day-to-day work at Useless Bay Coffee Co. while helping Melissa establish our business will also be interesting.  Even so I can't help but face these challenges with a great big smile.

 - Ben

Popping Up...Again!

Remember last summer!? We did this! And we're doing it again!

Tomorrow, Saturday 9/7, from 10-3 we will be slanging veg, making bouquets and talking up our new offerings! It's a great time of year for seasonal produce buying...my favorite, really. Because, finally, the tomatoes are on! We're growing about 30 plants this year, a notable increase from last year's 17. But I didn't experiment with varieties as much. I stuck with my true favorites: Cherokee Purple, Paul Robeson, Mortgage Lifter, Persimmon, Green Grape, Black Cherry, Sungold, Matt's Wild Cherry and Juliet Hybrid. My only experiments were a lemon yellow currant-sized cherry for floral designs and Indigo Rose, the *actually* black tomato, which I am still figuring out...hard to tell when that one's ripe!

We're also growing my favorite kind of tomatillo, Mexican Strain. It tastes nothing like it's bulbous, Hulk-green cousin! It's sweet...I mean, caramel-cherry-pineapple-kinda sweet, but with a serious tang, too. Oven-roasted in salsa, it will absolutely knock your socks off. Raw, cut into a green salad with sharp white cheddar and blueberries? Incredible :)

And with any luck, we'll have some hella-hot Scotch Bonnet peppers to continue with the socks-knocking-off!

Ok, speaking of new offerings...I have them! I'm still in marketing materials development, but I'm totally ready to talk vision. I've realized that my heart is calling out to do more of my art, extend my aesthetic out into the world, work hard to create sustainable beauty around me and for my community. So Flying Bear Farm is shifting business focus onto Floral, Event, Garden and Lifestyle Design! The other part of my realization was that, no matter what, growing food is life. It's what I do, what I want to teach others to do, and where I find true beauty. But it's not what's going to pay the bills...YET. So I'm turning my innate skills and gleaned wisdom around design into my livelihood. Come talk to me more about this awesomeness and what I can offer while I'm tying bouquets at the POP-UP FARM STAND!!!

Lots of summer love to you all!
-Melissa

Summer Love

Hello again, my loves! Time has passed...a crazy amount of it when I actually look back to what I was doing the last time I wrote to you all. Let me just say that last winter and spring were HARD. Yes, there were some really delightful things going on, and, as always, friends and family filled my heart-space with a ton of wonderfulness. However, depression wormed its way in...and I felt like a shadow for a while there. It is also really hard to talk about feeling depressed, so thank you for hearing me. And thank goddess for life coaching, walks around Greenlake, cross-country skiing in Glacier National Park, flowers, naturopathy, my childhood home, and my amazing habibi Ben, who weathered it all with grace, patience and love! I feel much more like myself now, particularly after embarking on a soul-nourishing, BIG LOVE journey! Ben and I GOT HITCHED!! Woot! To begin my re-entry into blogging and reaching out with my work, I wanted to share the vision that we had for the design of our wedding reception. The photos below are of a lil' photoshoot my mom and I did about a week AFTER the wedding. This is totally representative of the feel we were going for...cheerful, eclectic, sunrise-y, abundant and blissful! I hope you totally enjoy this little vignette!

 We found all of the dishes, flatware and table linens (enough for almost 20 tables!) at Goodwill, except for the table topper, which was a family heirloom. The flowers are all from my farm, as are the tomatoes. The tomato tarts are made with love by Molly. The jam favors, which we handed out at the wedding, were made over the summer by the two of us! The tags are handmade by me :)

 Nina, of course, wanted to know if we were done with those tarts...

Many new offerings, due in part to this amazing endeavor, are about to be revealed by Flying Bear Farm! Keep your ears perked and eyes pealed for more! 

With sweetest, deepest love,

-The Flying Bear

Creating a Floral Art Installation

 

Last Friday night I went out on a limb (good pun there!) and created an organic, whimsical, unexpected floral art installation for the Greenwood/Phinney Art Walk at Urban Light Studios. The back story is really pretty straight forward: I did wedding flowers for my dear friends Geoff and Carrie at ULS, the gals that run the space dug my designs and loved that I'm a local artisan and grower, we met and came up with this idea to get me some marketing exposure and them some added interest in the event space...done deal!

But what is really more mystical and slightly mind blowing (at least to me) is the process of actually getting to the point of creating this thing: coming up with the vision, planning it out, asking for help, trusting my skills, trusting that people wanted to see it...hell, actually calling myself an artist...this is all epic in the context of my growth as a designer and a human being. I engaged in probably 3 weeks of active creative thought, sketching, imagining, scoping out blooms and branches and budding things in my neighborhood...and about 5 days of incredibly challenging, anxiety-producing, yet fully blissful work to actually create the installation. Let me just say now, without the endlessly encouraging, pleasant, hard-working support of my mom, Molly, I would have crashed and burned on this project. Not because of any dire failing of vision or planning on my part, but because in any venture like this one, you just need help...it's just always freakin' true. On the morning of the show, I came down with a whopping head cold that left me in a FOG...and my mama pulled me through it with drugs, love and soup. And, she held the ladder...she held the SHIT outta' that ladder. Not only is that literally true, but is a figurative metaphor for how much she really did to help me with this show, from creating cocoon lanterns to sweeping up after me...I feel immense gratitude to know that she believes in me so much that she would dedicate so much to me...THANK YOU!

The Flying Bear Farm office, night before the show.

The Bower

My inspiration for the installation started with this time of year...the earliest buds on tree branches, forced bulbs in the garden stores, the tulips just beginning to push out of the ground in my garden, the very first plum blossoms, and a deep desire to see COLOR. After all that grey, white, brown, and evergreen around, a pop of magenta, cascade of saffron and streak of violet really speak to me! So the colors I settled on were a Bohemian mix of jewel tones and bright pastels with a weird splash of mustard yellow and pop of turquoise.

But deciding on colors wasn't helping me to create an actual art installation...What did that was two fold: a faerietale I told myself, and the bowerbird. I'll start with the faerietale...

There was a young man...a charming, dirty farm hand. He fell in love with a beautiful sylvan faerie he met in the woods beyond the farm. To show her his love, he created a wedding scene with all of the beauty he could find around him, on the farm and in the woods. When she saw what he had created, she fell in love with him, too...

 

And then there's the bowerbird, meticulously curating collections of beautiful objects to attract his beloved. Check out this video for the full story on this inspiring lover!

So I created an installation of collections, objects and flowers pulled together all for one imagined, overarching reason...to draw in the beloved! Flowers with intoxicating scents and bright, unexpected colors. Lanterns shaped like cocoons and tiny magical teepees to live in. An spell-binding bridal bouquet, complete with beets from the field, heavy with orchids, tulips, hyacinth and jasmine. Organic, gnarled, lichen-covered branches to get caught in. And a bower filled with precious piles of leaves, shells, rosehips, feathers and old tin cans filled with flowers.

The Bridal Bouquet...with beets!

I feel like this was a really successful event. Not only did I get to talk to great people about floral design (yay networking!), I also got to explore myself as an artist, put myself out into the Universe in a challenging and blissful way, and enjoy the hell outta myself while doing it! So, huzzah!! Thank you to all who came to be a part of this ephemeral event, and who supported me through the creative process. There will be more, much nicer photos soon, thanks to Katie, so keep an eye out for those! I can't wait to spread my wings again, as an artist and growing human being...xoxo!

With love,
~The Flying Bear