Oh boy, Pluck & Feather has been buried in weeds and going through hardscape transformations. Two large trees have been removed leaving much turned up land, holes in the view and workworkwork. Beds are growing but framed by overgrown weeds. The space where Virgl had been kept was made fertile by his daily habits. Now with a month of good rains and sun to heat the soil there are Jurassic sized weeds popping up.
 
Its a mess basically. Sigh…
 
The fun continues however, as my young pullets have started laying so egg production is back up. One of them is an Auraucana which means I woke one morning to retrive bright green eggs! Its a pleasure to have them in the mix again. They are so pretty. And what does one do with too many weeds and lots of new eggs? Make salad!
 
Ingredients (yield: 4)*
For the croutons
2 cups stale bread, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoon minced herbs, such as thyme or rosemary
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
 
For the salad
8 ounces thick-cut bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
Canola oil, as needed
1 tablespoon minced shallots
2 tablespoon sherry vinegar
1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard
4 cups dandelion leaves
 
For the eggs
4 large eggs
6 cups water
1/4 cup white vinegar
Procedures
 
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Toss the bread with the oil, herbs, and salt, and spread on a baking sheet. Bake until golden brown, about 10 minutes.
 
In the meantime, start the bacon cooking in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook until the fat renders and the bacon is chewy and starting to crisp, 7-10 minutes. Remove to a plate lines with paper towels, then add a little canola oil (if necessary) to make about 1/3 cup of fat, depending on how much fat the bacon rendered. Add the shallots, vinegar, and mustard and bring to a boil, scraping up any brown bits in the pan. Stir quickly to bring together into a dressing and keep warm.
 
While the bacon is cooking, bring the water and vinegar for the eggs to a simmer, then crack the eggs into a small dish or ladle. Slip them carefully into the water and simmer until the whites are just set and the yolk is still runny, about 3-4 minutes.
 
In a large bowl, combine the dandelion greens with the bacon, croutons, and dressing. Toss to combine, then plate and top with the poached egg. Serve immediately while the egg and dressing are still warm.

*recipe obtained from Serious Eats.

 
I love my new urban ag family at the East Bay Urban Agriculture Alliance. While we gather to organize resources to promote urban farming and to educate, most importantly, we gather to share wisdom of how to cultivate and manage livestock. The group attracts expertise in a number of areas- hunting, cultivating, composting, cooking, and much more. This month’s golden nugget was learning that one can make a rooting solution from the bark of a curly willow branch.
 
Apparently the bark lets off a rooting hormone that can be used to propagate. How cool is that. I have been soaking my branches in water to prompt roots of their own as I’d like to grow a willow (thought they get up to 30′ so I’ll have to be careful about where it goes). However, I’ve also been using the water the branches are sitting in to water a Curry Pata plant I have (the leaves of a curry pata are used in Indian cooking – super delicious) recently transplanted.
 
After some reading, I have learned that one can brew a stronger tea by chopping the branches into 1′ pieces, covering them with boiling hot water and letting them sit overnight. You can then strain the water into a jar, cover and place in the fridge for up to two weeks.
 
Tis the season to get going with propagation so this lesson was perfectly timed!

 
As cities move to support urban agriculture another layer of resource issue comes up, predominantly, land use. That is how to access land in the first place. This is assuming you are either expanding beyond your own backyard or you don’t have a space and having been eyeing the blighted lot down the street for years.
 
Lots of folks are working on this very issue of best way to access. I expect to see guidebooks issued and workshops held on the very topic over the next year. That said, the East Bay Urban Agriculture Alliance was generously given permission to use an amazing checklist of steps to take to inquire and access private and public land from The Essential Urban Farmer the new book by Novella Carpenter (author of Farm City) and Willow Rosenthal (founder of City Slicker Farms).
 
You can find it in their Land Access toolkit (click).
 
The book has many more fabulous resources. Its well worth the modest $25 they charge for it, you can get it here.

Ok. Finally harvested half the honey. It was a multi-staged process that took a week. I am at 25lbs right now. Thats about $125, great! Well, minus the jar I gifted to Mr. Danny Glover, cuz you know, its Danny Glover. Mr. Glover is an excellent conversationalist preferring topics of social change and human rights. In fact, turns out he did an event a while back with Food First. Doesn’t surprise me.
 
What did surprise me was this morning’s news. San Diego, CA has approved an urban agriculture plan for its residents which includes fowl, goats and bees. “Last March, the city received a $50,000 grant to promote healthier living and urban agriculture. On Tuesday, the City Council voted 8-0 to make it easier for residents to grow and sell food, as well as simplify rules for residents to keep chickens, goats and bees.”
 
There is a great summary table of their regulations which makes it much easier to decipher what you can and cannot do.
 
If conservative San Diego is willing to support their community to grow and raise their own food (especially during an economic downturn), I am sure Oakland will as well once the ordinance is proposed.

Big changes for the new year. It can be tough to tally up the lessons learned in a previous year and be ready to let go of habits and things that no longer really serve the purpose we sought out to accomplish. However, wisdom dictates it is the best thing to do. And when we fear a change, lean into it.

With that, I have been paying close attention to the rhythm of my little farm project for the last year. I’ve also been paying attention to the amount of energy I put into the project as this is one of the first questions folks ask me when they tour the space. How long does it take? How much effort is it? My answer to them is that if they are maintaining their space to be tour worthy each season, it takes a ton more time and energy.

I’ve also decided on some changes. First, I don’t eat enough rabbit meat to require a full rabbitry (this is what I am calling my two doe, one buck set up). With several friends now keeping rabbits, I can actually seek out their bucks to impregnate my doe. This means two of my rabbits found a new home. I miss them and feel sad but I can also visit them so that helps.

I am also doing something I never thought I would do. I am clearing a portion of my main growing space to accommodate a new building project of my significant other. I wrestled with this as I have been working to build the health and fertility of that soil for nearly eight years. However, my husband is a clever man with many great ideas. So, though I have to witness my soil being covered by concrete (or some such material), I have confidence it will be well worth the sacrifice.

In the midst of this my bee colony disappeared…or died or both. It happened in December. I did not know they swarm in December and I never saw proof of this but lo and behold, one day the hive was dead silent. I checked it and only a few dead workers remained. They were just dead in the middle of whatever task they were doing like their battery plum ran out. So odd. However, with an empty hive I can now move it to a new space without risk of disrupting my colony. Though a loss for now, the timing was incredible. They also left an amazing bounty of honey behind.

Now I set out with the challenge of reconfiguring growing and walking space and try like the dickens to keep up with our Bay Area pace of the season. Good lord. We only get one month off in our season. Its January and I can already see slight buds swelling on the bare tree limbs, which means I have to prune asap. December was my only reprieve but it was a well used one.

Wow. I am finding it hard to keep up with the flurry of articles about projects and initiatives that are generating a new food landscape. Here are a few to catch up on over a cup of hot coco.

Oakland City Council approved a pilot project that will allow mobile food vendors to offer their creative concoctions in more areas around the city. In fact, we can look forward to a new year of food events through Oakland where caravans of food trucks (and bikes!) will huddle up to new areas, kind of like a lonchera flash mob. It will be fun to stay up to date and catch these hip events! Read more.

Now imagine if you will, a pod of mobile food vendors located adjacent to an Oakland urban farm abuzz with community members. If you need any inspiration as to what this could look like, read about this very thing unfolding in Brooklyn.

Wondering if this is pie in the sky thinking? Don’t think you can make this happen in your city? Well consider the District of Columbia’s “Food Production and Urban Gardens Program Act of 1986.” Read more about it here.

The Turner Environmental Law Clinic at the Emory University School of Law, in partnership with Georgia Organics, have released one of the most comprehensive looks at urban agriculture policy in the U.S. The study provides a look at urban agriculture policies implemented by many of Sustain Lane’s top ranking sustainable cities. Download the report here.

Grody but pragmatic. It is necessary to know what normal and abnormal waste looks like from your birds. To this end, the Poultry Page Forum has created an online guide to poultry feces. Great job PPF! You can view what they have created thus far but be forewarned, its not pretty. Read more…

The apples were languishing on the branches. The figs being stolen and half eaten. It has started to get chaotic. With a more aggressive schedule, how do I keep up? My approach is to do frequent walk throughs and take small steps each day to keep the space in balance. Though I  let go of the reigns with the apples and figs. They just all came in at once. So I did what I could. I schlepped the ladder from its storage place and set it up, left it there overnight and with the threat of rain and being barked at by the hubby for leaving the ladder out in the rain, I was motivated to strip the tree of apples and grab the figs while I was at it. Now to deal with 23lbs of apples and 5lbs of figs. I need great fig jam and chutney recipes. Anyone?

A toolkit providing a framework and model language for land use policies that local policymakers can tailor to promote and sustain urban agriculture in their communities (click on image to download pdf).