Certified Professional Horticulturist

It's official. I'm a CPH! I passed the exam in March, and I now have well over 2,000 hours of industry experience. See below.

Homegrown Revival Is Live!

Homegrown Revival is now an official business. It's a sole proprietorship operating in King and Snohomish counties, providing landscape maintenance and installation services. For the time being, I'm running this business by myself, out of my overworked Saturn Ion, so that limits some of the services I can provide, but that's okay, since I would rather focus on fine gardening anyway. I'm starting out small and seeing if owning a business is a good fit for me, and if it is, I'll expand into bigger projects once I can afford a more suitable vehicle.

It's October, and if you're looking for someone to take care of your fall clean-up, feel free to contact me. This is also a great time of year for planting!

Job Transitions, New Class

Landscaping

I just got laid off from my landscaping job on Monday. I knew work was slowing down a bit, which sometimes happens in this industry. I understand, and have no hard feelings. We all wish the best for each other. Strangely, I don't feel as panicked about the situation as I imagined I would be. I'm still working Sundays at Gray Barn, and there's a chance I can turn this latest setback into an opportunity. Stay tuned.

Cultivating Success

Caera and I just began the Business Planning course last night (the one we started taking last January in Mount Vernon and dropped out once we discovered there's a much closer class in Everett). It's part of WSU's Cultivating Success series, and if you're interested in getting started in farming and/or ranching, this is an excellent program to get involved with.

One of two foundation courses in the Cultivating Success program, Agricultural Entrepreneurship and Farm Business Planning helps new and current farmers gain skills in business planning and direct marketing.

This in-depth business planning course covers evaluating resources, planning and research, legal and management issues, marketing strategies, budgets and financial statements along with how to cultivate capital resources.

During the course, participants will develop a business plan they can literally take to the bank to finance a new enterprise or expand an existing farm-based business. In addition, the course will have a special emphasis on the financial and legal issues unique to farm-based businesses.

Okay, maybe that description seems a little dry, but the instructor and the weekly speakers are great, and you get a lot of useful information and feedback. I'm looking forward to it.

First Completed Season at Red Barn Community Farm

As the days get shorter and the harvest peters out, I can look back at our first completed season at Red Barn Community Farm with pride, humility, and some exhaustion. Caera and I worked hard on our 40'x40' plot, building six 4'x16' beds out of cinder blocks and wood, starting a bed for the hoop house, completing an entirely enclosed 16'x16' space for our berry patch, hauling in soil (that was an adventure in and of itself), amending the soil with compost and a fertilizer blend we mixed based on Steve Solomon's recommendation from Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades, and planting lots and lots of seeds and starts. Over the summer, we also acquired a 275-gallon water tote, which we elevated for future use in a drip irrigation system. We had wanted to fence off our entire plot, as the deer were a persistent problem, but we couldn't get the materials fast enough. Nonetheless, despite our battles with deer, bugs, supply transportation, materials cost, out-of-control weeds, a summer-long drought, and a brutal wind storm, we had quite an impressive harvest.

 Let's take a look:

Jami riding the tractor.

Working the soil was tough, but we had a good attitude.

After many ridiculous trips back and forth between our home and the plot with buckets full of soil stuffed into our sedans, a friend let us borrow his truck to finish the job.

We hauled a lot of soil. Here we're in the process of filling up the berry patch.

Making soil angels in a half-built raised bed.

Fours beds complete, and starting to fill them...

Beds are finished, and seeds and starts are in the ground.

That's the berry patch in the background, and this bed with tomato starts will eventually be inside a hoop house.

Finished berry patch with chicken wire fencing, bird netting, and a simple PVC pipe gate.

Why do we need so much fencing? This is why. Unfortunately we put the berry plants in the ground before the fence was finished. The deer ate the developing fruit and a lot of the branches. They don't even care about proper pruning technique!

This is my sweetie Caera. She's very happy after supporting the LWIT plant sale.

This is Caera's first large-scale attempt at growing food. We're stoked to be working on it together.

The start of our flower bed.

Our flower bed took off! The pollinators loved it, and we brought home so many bouquets of cut flowers.

Our kitchen alter to the Irish goddess Airmed, with flowers and food from the plot.

Strawflowers have become a staple in my flower gardens. Xerochrysum bracteatum for the win!

Well-used moving boxes from last year. I think their final destination is appropriate: suppressing weeds in between our raised beds, decomposing into the earth.

Gooseberries that became deer snacks.

I set up two propagation stations in the laundry room.

Emerging seedlings.

The house we're renting came with a greenhouse. A lot of these plants were are from last year, and were neglected a bit while I was moving all the time. To my surprise, a lot of stuff came back.

A nice little pot of yarrow came back.

I thought all my perennials were goners after last year's moving chaos, but the Pagan Purples Delphinium popped up in the spring. Love the color.

I grafted my first apple tree during my 2013 hort class. Since then it's sadly remained unpruned, a bit neglected, and moving around from place to place in a pot. This year it started to fruit, and I let it just for funzies.

My boss at Ironwood gave me some mystery daylilies in the spring. Score! Don't they look delicious? I mean pretty?

I brought home some columbine for my sweetie. We grew it in a pot that's visible from our bedroom window.

Backyard pots.

Since this isn't our own property, we aren't able to do much landscape design. Container gardening is our compromise.

Back at the plot, we upgraded our two 55-gallon rain barrels to one 275-gallon water tote elevated four feet above the ground. My intention next year is to hook up a drip irrigation system.

My tomato bed turned into a hedge. Once again, this is what happens when you don't prune or stake your tomatoes.

My magic beanstalk is working. Next stop: Coin Heaven!

Flower power! (Okay, I'll stop with the Super Mario Bros. references.)

Towers of quinoa. First time growing this crop.

We had lots of colorful harvests.

So much food. This makes me happy.

Proud mother of twins.

Tomatoes and basil. You know where this is going. I'm sorry, is my Italian showing? ;P

Well-pollinated corn. This is a first for me.

Gardening is more fun with loved ones.

Herb garden.

She said yes!

Life update (upgrade?): Caera and I went on a little romantic getaway this past weekend on the peninsula. We stayed in a cabin (actually, two) in Elwha and explored the Olympic National Park. And after a day of hiking and a home-cooked dinner, I surprised her with gifts and a proposal. :D

This is the spot by the creek where I proposed to her. She doesn't know it's coming yet. I love my goof.

This was part of the back yard.

At the Hoh Rain Forest.

I am so lucky to be with this woman.

And we're such saps.

The book is a children's book about spirals, an important symbol in nature and her band's music. The sprouter is something she had on her wishlist so she can eat healthier. The sunflower plushy is from a video game called "Plants Vs. Zombies," and it's adorable when she sings the theme song. But the key here was the chocolate, which I made sure she ate before I proposed. And the ring is a rhodolite garnet set in Celtic knotwork.

So how about that?? There's a woman out there who's weird enough to want to marry me. :)