Our First Harvest

At the Hidden Valley Retreat and Spa, we have compost gardens where we grow fava beans, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, beans, various greens, potatoes, and more! We were excited to visit the retreat last week and we harvested these potatoes and fava beans! Yummy!

We dug up the potatoes out of the ground, and let me tell you, fresh potatoes are delicious! Although we planted the fava beans late in the season, we have an abundance of them!

We are excited to see what else is ready to harvest!

Rebecca's 12th Birthday

all bets in

friends

turning the compost

stop and smell the flowers

slumber party

rock climbing

poker anyone?

What a wonderful celebration that we had for Rebecca's 12th birthday. Lots of her friends and many of their families were able to join us for a celebration. You can see the girls working the compost. They also enjoyed lots of great food, hanging out in the jacuzzi as well as late night Karoke. Thanks Nomi for the great pictures,

Garden Markers

You may have noticed the cute plant markers in some of our recent pics.  These are so cute and easy to make!  Not only will you know what seeds you have planted but they add some color and whimsy to your garden.  We took paint stir sticks (free at Home Depot or Lowes) gave them a coat of paint and used a sharpie to write the plant names.  That's it!  They are sturdy enough to last the season and are tall enough to be seen amongst the tall tomatoes and zucchinis.

Here is a close up pic of our radish sign.

Garden Anxiety

Every year I go through this!  We work and clear weeds, repair the irrigation, plant the seeds then wait...  Will my seeds germinate?  Will they survive the gophers, rabbits, slugs?  Will they be fruitfull?  Then I go up there and see that something new has emerged and I rejoice that all our work was not in vain!  Here are a few pics of the most recent arrivals in our garden.

Compost Tea

Compost tea is compost that has been mixed with water and fermented.  The benefits include a biodynamic culture of healthy bacterial and fungi that not only feed the plants with nutrients but also ward off bad bacteria, molds and fungi. While the jury is still out on whether or not it is better than using regular compost we decided to give it a try.  At the very least there are asthetic benefits to using a tea rather than sprinkling compost or fertilizer on our lawn :)

I found the directions to build a fermenter online here http://www.care2.com/greenliving/guide-to-compost-tea.html.  It cost me about $25 in parts and 15 minutes to put it together and start it up.  After letting it run for about 4 days (the weather stopped me from doing it any earlier) we opened the lid and were greeted by the very pungent aroma of fermented, decayed plant material...yum.  We strained it and used a watering can to sprinkle the new grass coming up on the lawn.  We also plan on adding it to the soil of our vegetable garden before we put in our new seedlings.  The directions also recommend using the tea on the folliage to prevent diseases.  I'll keep you posted on how it works out.  In the mean time we think compost tea is a great way to get living micro organizims back into the soil.

Our Terraced Garden

Ok, so this is part 3 of our series on terraced gardening.  In this post we wanted to show how we have used our terraced garden to plant our community victory garden.  As you have read earlier we have only planted peas, lettuce, arugula, garlic, onions, swiss chard, fava beans and potatoes so far.  Many things have already sprouted! The rest of the plants have been started in a greenhouse and are kept warm at night with a heating pad.  They are doing beautifully and will be ready to put into the ground as early as April (if the weather cooperates)

Here is the link to a drawing of our garden and the plants we are growing http://www.hiddenvalleyspa.com/images/garden2011.jpg.

Sorry about the blurry pics but you get the idea, stuff is growing!

Arugula

Strawberry

Peas

Radishes

Hunza Garden

This is part 2 of our series on terraced farming.  Dr Jensen was equally inspired by the people of the Hunza Valley not only for their healthy diet and longevity but also for their resourcefulness.  They farmed an area that was was abundant in nothing but rocks.  Similarly, Dr Jensen named the rockiest garden of the Hidden Valley the "Hunza Garden".  We do have some native vegetation that makes it's homes among the rocks and hard soil, mostly succulents, native grasses and of course weeds.  Which leads me to another similarity between HV and Hunza, everything is done by hand.  Hunzakuts had a very "labor-intensive culture" and we too have experienced clearing, planting and cultivation all done by our callused yet loving hands.  Lastly the Hunzakuts were crazy about apricots and mulberries, both of which thrive abundantly on the property.  They dried the apricots for winter consumption, a note right out of Dr. Jensen's books.  The more we learn the more we realize Hidden Valley is a melting pot of cultures from around the world and everything was done with purpose.