Next Generation Organics

Its that time of year again, hop rhizomes are dug and ready to grow into those beautiful little nuggets to flavor your beer. I have four different varieties ready to plant. Cascade which is an American standard used mainly for aroma. Canadian Redvine which is similar to Cascade but grows and yields more. Centennial which is a high alpha variety for those really hoppy beers like IPAs and Chinook also a high alpha variety. All Certified Organic of course. My counts are a little down this year due to an irrigation project last year that led to a lack of water in the fall. Ooopppssss. On the plus side I got a drip irrigation project funded by Uncle Sam and the NRCS. OK, let me know if you need some rhizomes, you can ‘comment’ at this site or email me direct at oldbart@hotmail.com

It was  80 degrees in the green house yesterday. Plants are popping and I’m ready for spring. Is it really only February?

Spring comes a little early around here. We are firing up the greenhouse, with all those wonderful herbs, onions, chives, spring greens, and early tomatoes. Its so nice to duck into a 70 degree greenhouse when its 30 outside. I have a hot water heating system made from a recycled water heater and some 1/2 in. tubing that circulates hot water at the plants root zone. It works awesome and keeps the soil of the plants nice and toasty. We are super excited to be into our 3rd year of production, and can’t wait for the Capital City Public Market to kick off in April. There are lots of plants to care for until then so stay tuned.

Check out these baby tomatoes, so cute. Those are Bull Blood Beets in the background for a killer micro greens mix.

Guy Hand, who does  the radio shows Edible Idaho and NW market news on BSU radio did a piece on our Mulberries today. How cool is that?  He writes on all sorts of great food and ag stories as well as the restaurant reviews for the Statesman. He comes by the stand on Saturdays sometimes and was pretty intrigued by the Mulberries. His piece spoke of the Farmers Market being the perfect venue for super short season, fragile produce like the Mulberries.  The Redfeather lounge is running a Mulberry soufle special this month also. MMMM…. Matt at the Bittercreek/Redfeather is always looking for unusual stuff so the Mulberries were a perfect fit. We sold some to them last year and this year people were starting to ask and request them again so thats pretty cool.  This will probably be the last week on the Mulberries, there might be a few next week but the trees are looking pretty thin. Next week we will have red and black raspberries though…. IF you come early we might even have a few this week.    Here’s a link to the Mulberry story and Guy Hands website.

http://www.nwfoodnews.com/2010/07/09/market-garden-report-mulberries/

http://guyhand.com/

Last year, 2009 there was a severe outbreak of late blight in the eastern states and even into the midwest.  Many university researchers and county extension agents attributed this to infected plants bought in large retail stores such as Walmart, Home Depot and Lowes. These stores are supplied nearly exclusively by Bonnies Plants.  While these stores have great deals on plants they are not worth a thing if they shrivel up and die a month after you plant them. Buying from a local organic greenhouse is a good way to prevent this from happening here in the west. Smaller greenhouses are better able to monitor their stock than a greenhouse with millions of plants that are shipped hundreds of miles away.  It just makes sense to buy local.