High Dry Farm, Sultan, Washington….Certified Organic
This year I will be selling hops for the first time. Over the next several weeks I will be supplying green hops to the Snotown Brewery. Pictured is the Kent Golding variety, usually the first hop flower to mature. Technically, the Golding variety can be called “Kent Golding” if it is grown in Kent, but hey, Kent, Washington is just 40 miles a way. Fun fact, Kent, Washington was so-named because it was a major hop-growing area from 1870-1891.
We spent late June in Spain. We visited Bilbao, Salamanca, and Madrid. In each city we ate Salmorejo. Each recipe was subtly different, but all were amazing. Comparisons to gazpacho are unavoidable, but Salmorejo is, hands down, the best cold soup on earth. It is simplicity itself as the only ingredients are tomatoes, bread, olive oil, and a touch of vinegar, along with toppings, which may vary. The key to success is that the ingredients, especially the tomatoes and olive oil, must be of superb quality. The hard boiled egg topping in this recipe is not entirely typical, but some version of the Serrano ham is entirely typical. I have tried replacing the Serrano ham with crisply fried smoked bacon. That works fabulously well.
Ingredients
Instructions
The hoophouse is now producing prodigious amounts of tomatoes and cucumbers, much appreciated by our customers at the Snohomish Farmer’s Market.
My neighbor cut hay on our biggest field, I raked it, and the neighbor bailed. This yielded 365 bales. I took 105 bales, and the neighbor took the rest. 
Today I harvested the first cucumbers, and the first tomatoes from the hoophouse. Tomatoes included , Alicante, Flamme, Aunt Lucy Italian Paste, Coyote, Earl of Edgecombe, Baselbieter Rotelli, Beams Yellow Pear, Sebastopol, Indische fleiche, Slava, Bloody Butcher, Kimberly, Tigerella, Buckbees New 50 day, Amy’s Apricot, Amy’s Sugar Gem, Washington Cherry, Aurora and Debarao.
Our high tunnel is now fully planted with tomatoes, cucumbers and melons and plants are already sporting tiny fruit.
Last updated – December 1, 2019
Subscribe to our e-mail list to receive copies of the Fresh List whenever it is updated.
Oh no...This form doesn't exist. Head back to the manage forms page and select a different form.Our high tunnel is now fully planted with tomatoes, as well as a few cucumber and melon plants. We are growing 110 tomato varieties this year. Indeterminate varieties are trained to strings in the center two rows. Determinate varieties are constrained with a stake-and-weave system in the outer two rows.
For the third consecutive year, I have compared commercial potting soils with our homemade potting soil for growth of tomato starts. Once again, our homemade potting soil is hugely better than midprice potting soils sold at Lowes and Home Depot and slightly better than premium expensive brands such as Miracle-Gro.
Here are two sister tomato seedlings, one month after they were transplanted on the same day into our homemade potting soil on the left, and the commercial ‘Brand X’ potting soil on the right.
So without further fanfare, here is our recipe –
All ingredients are passed through a 1/2″ steel mesh screen and thoroughly mixed.
The final product is completely free of objectionable odor.
The key here is the quality of the composed horse manure, which we make ourselves. Our horses stalls are bedded with a 50/50 mix of fir sawdust and fir shaving. Good barn management with frequent stall cleaning means that the manure and urine-soaked shavings are collected without too much mixing with fresh shavings. The collected manure is turned multiple times during the first 3 months of composting and then is stored for an additional 2 years before use. The heat generated by composting, combined with the lengthy “aging” guarantees that the compost is virtually free of viable weed seeds (not to mention bacterial pathogens).
Some technical notes: composted manure is mildly acidic and peat moss is highly acidic, hence the addition of lime. The recipe yields a final pH of roughly 6. Various sources list the N/P/K content of composted horse manure at values ranging from 0.3/0.2/0.5 to .7/.2/.7. The usual ratios recommended for growth of most plants range from 1/1/1 to 1/2/1 so achieving a suitable balance in the potting soil requires supplementation with phosphate, hence the addition of bone meal. The recipe I use achieves a final NPK content of roughly .2/.15/.3. For comparison, Miracle-Gro potting soil is 0.21/.011/0.16 so arguably my potting soil is substantially richer in phosphorous. On the other hand, all of the Miracle-Gro phosphorous is likely in the form of super-phosphate, which is fully available to plants, while only a small fraction of the phosphorous in bone meal is immediately available to plants as phosphate.
Our first day selling at the Snohomish Farmer’s Market was a big success. What were the odds for a cloudless day in early May?
