Next to our patio we have a fairly large landscape area and it was made up of ornamental plants – penstemon, daylilies, lavender, ornamental grasses and wild lilac. While it was blooming it was gorgeous, but that was just a short period of time. Since I’m a landscape design consultant, I am always specifying ornamental…
The days are getting shorter and the nights colder. As we quickly approach our average first frost date I realize that it’s time to pull out our sweet potatoes. Because of late rains all over the U.S. we didn’t receive our slips until late June, giving them a rather short season. As usual, most of…
We made a mistake by scheduling a trip in September. September is not only our biggest season for harvesting, but also the month we have to do all of our planting for Fall. After mid September plants will just languish and not grow enough to be harvested. Needless to say, we’re behind. The spinach and…
One of the biggest mistakes I did this year was not keep the pepper tags with the peppers. I have over a dozen varieties planted out there and most of them I have no idea what they are. I’ve looked online and attempted to match them up, but really I’m still not positive on what…
Two weeks ago our oven died. The pilot light wouldn’t stay lit and neither would the actual oven if you turned the gas on. I rejoiced. I hated that oven. It was some cheap, never-heard-of brand that came with the house. I had been looking for an excuse to replace it. Of course we weren’t…
My mom’s vegetable garden Last week we were in Ohio visiting my mom. We got a chance to visit a lot of farms. As an added bonus my mom’s next door neighbors are organic vegetable farmers. While there we learned a lot about growing food even though they have a significantly different climate. We took…
We got some great questions to go over today! The first is from the Metropolitan Homestead:I’d like to ask how you got started with milking goats and how much daily work they really need. Our girls Daisy (front) and Bella (back) We had been thinking for quite awhile about getting goats but at first we…
We moved into our place in late December, 2008. In January we raced to get in vegetable beds. I used one of those home soil test kits to determine what we needed to do to the soil. According to the tests our soils were slightly acidic but completely deficient in all macro-nutrients. Ok, I’ll buy…
You can definitely tell Fall is coming around here. The beds are slowly starting to get cleared out. Squash plants are dying back. The tomatillos are harvested and pulled out. Kale and lettuce are done. That opens up one entire bed for fall planting. The dry beans are done and will also be pulled out…
The Perennial Plate Episode 68: A Tale of Three Seasides from Daniel Klein on Vimeo. I’m super excited about this episode because it includes my hunter-gatherer hero, Hank Shaw. I have yet to meet him, but hopefully in the future I will.
Dog Island Farm is a small urban farm in the San Francisco Bay Area.
