Aphid Attack.

January 13 & 14th^th

For the past two days, Danielle and I have been running around the farm performing a bunch of little tasks here and there. Here’s a few of the more interesting things that we’ve been up to!

One thing that we have been struggling with is an ongoing battle with some pesky aphids that have been munching on kale, cauliflower, and broccoli in the garden. Being an organic farm, your options with pest control are limited; especially with these types of aphids… they are tiny, gray little specks that basically turn into dust when you touch them! Our best bet with the aphids has been power washing them off the plants (it’s quite satisfying), and then using a spray bottle with a mixture of biodegradable dish soap and water. The solution is fine for the plants, but it’s intended to eliminate those pesky bugs that are eating away at your precious produce.

Cauliflower

Kale

Turtle lurkin’.

Along with the aphid battle, Danielle and I got to see our farm’s gray water system in action yesterday. The gray water system allows for all water the used in the house (from sinks, bathtubs, and yes, toilets (after going through a septic system)) to be used for a hose in the orchard. The water travels from the house to a bed of layers of mulch, gravel, and sand to filter out any unnecessary contaminants (although the water was still a bit smelly…). We were able to water about a fourth of the orchard off of the gray water system. Yay water reuse!

This morning we also washed off some of the tubers that we stumbled upon the other day while we were planting onion sprouts!

Clean tubers!

The colors!

During some weeding in the garden we got to turn an edible (slightly pesky) weed into a magnificent salad for dinner. Miner’s lettuce!

Freshly picked

Ready for a salad!

Danielle and I also have a new buddy. His name is Marley. His hobbies include lounging out on the couch in the sun, purring extremely loud, and refusing to catch the mice that have been in the potato cellar. He also enjoys cuddling up on a chilly night up here in the Santa Cruz Mountains.