a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Category: How Things Grow

  • No Robots Needed


    The prescription these days for solving the world’s problems are better robots. Robots to vacuum your floor. Robots to water the garden. Robots to mow your lawn. But I doubt any robot will do as good as job of keeping my garden pest-free as the four Cayuga ducks. Watching them scurrying through the leaves and vegetation in search of bugs and slugs to eat is awe-inspiring. They have more intelligence in their brains than any robot Silicon Valley Millennials can conjure up. Millions of years of evolution have honed the ducks’ senses and drive to scour every bit of the garden. I don’t have to recharge them, and they convert everything they eat into fertilizer in a matter of hours. I don’t have to upgrade them every year or two, no need to call support, and they self-reproduce to boot.

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    While the ducks tend to the garden, I make tofu to deliver to the Anacortes Food Coop on Thursday. There is a pure beauty to soybeans when you soak them overnight under cold, running water. The soft flow of cold water washes away all impurities, leaving plump, pure soybeans.

  • Bow on Fire


    Bow is on fire this fall, brilliant hues of red, orange, and yellow. This year the fall colors have outdone themselves. The forecast is for plenty of sunshine this next week. The brighter the sun, the brighter the leaves.




    The ducklings are on their own. Friday night I took Claire back to be with the other chickens. She was done mothering the ducklings. I think she’s as amazed at what her babies became as I am. She never dreamed she’d raise chicks who like swimming so much.



    Claire enjoys a freshly picked Asian pear 梨, and spending six weeks alone with the ducklings with me attending to their needs, has made her quite tame. She lets me pet her and feed her out of my hand.


    Fall produce is special. It’s gleaning time, gathering up what’s left and savoring it. Nothing beats an onion plucked out of the ground. Slice through it and the juices flow out like milk.

  • Fall Madness


    The cooler weather has encouraged the stinging nettles to send out fresh shoots. Their bright green could fool one into thinking it is spring.


    Leeks are in bloom. Before they bloom they spin fantastical caps. Maybe not as amazing as gravitational waves, but mesmerizing still. It wouldn’t surprise me if medieval jesters conjured up many of their costume designs from observing blooming alliums.



    And after they develop their seeds, onion and leek flowerheads sway in the breeze, looking like long-haired professors gone mad.

  • The Bags Have It


    Back in June, I mentioned using fruit ripening bags from Japan for our nashi 梨, Asian pears. You use them by covering the developing fruit with them when they are still small. The bags protect the fruit as they develop, and help them ripen. The results are in, and they work.



    This pear which I picked this evening weighed 450 grams, almost a pound, 15.9 ounces. And it was juicy and sweet. I bagged half the fruit on the tree, and left the other half unbagged to see if there was a difference. The bagged fruit are larger and sweeter. We will be picking them tomorrow for Saturday’s Mt. Vernon Farmers Market, the last market for the season. It’s nice when simple things work.

  • End Times, Beginning Times


    It is the end times for the tomatoes. A week or two and they will be all gone. The next Sungolds I pop in my mouth, I need to close my eyes so I can remember all winter long how sweet they taste. These are too good to take to market. Since I can’t buy anything like them, I want to savor each one. It’s a sad truth for those who like to buy produce at Farmers Markets, the best produce the farmers keep for themselves.


    It’s the end times for Claire and her ducklings. At times she looks ready to be with the other chickens. Each night I keep debating whether to take her back. When I do it will be a new beginning for the ducklings, on their own, and caretakers of the garden, doing their part to banish slugs forever. They are making their first timid forays out of the hoop house and into the garden. I am impressed with their fondness for all things slugs. There are none too small, none too big for them. I heard that ducks like slugs, but it wasn’t until I saw them slurp them down, that I understand the truth of that statement.



    One of the weeds I am tossing into the compost pile has the most beautiful, delicate flowers. I’m pretty sure it is a weed, because the black berries that their seeds are turning into do not look like anything I planted this year. Though if those black berries are fruits with tiny seeds inside, I could be mistaken.




    Daikon are worth growing just for their leaves. Not only are they pretty, they do wonders in a stir fry or in soups. You can also pickle them. They have enough fiber to flush your bowels clean as a whistle. A heaping plate of daikon greens, and you’ll be able to poop like a cow.


    The end times are approaching for the sunflowers. Each time I see them, it’s like Van Gogh has taken his brush to the garden and gone mad, painting a splash of orange from here to there.


    The treasure of spending a morning in the garden, is a bounty of produce for a hearty, fall soup. Soup so fine, it could only be served in fine china. I swear, no one for a hundred miles around, had a fine a lunch as we did this lovely, first day of October.