Bagging the tomatoes

Bagging tomatoes so they do not cross pollinate

Unbagged Rose Quartz Multiflora

Bagged Rose Quartz Multiflora

Flowing together

The location of Confluence Farm is somewhere in this photo. The Clearwater River is on the right and the Snake River is on the left. We are near the confluence of two rivers but the deeper meaning behind our name is from the other definition of confluence: a coming or flowing together, meeting, or gathering at one point. I will facilitate the "flowing together" of a vast array of genetic material. I plan to create complex grexes of many different fruits and vegetables. The goal is to have a genetically diverse base and let the genes "flow together" over time to end up with varieties that are better adapted to our location. But I may also keep adding to the grexes continuously so as selection pressures change with changing climates these grexes will be able to continuously adapt.

Farm Photos

We had a freak frost here around May 4th (our last frost date here is April 22nd). The frost hit only a small spot in the yard where I had some tomatos planted using the lasagna gardening method with cardboard and straw. I had to use my back-up plants to replant but this Chinese Velvet tomato for which I had no back-up. Luckily it survived and I can use it in my tomato breeding projects. Always have a back-up plan!

Martoc broad beans. And those are Sugar Magnolia peas in the background, one of the better purple peas I'm growing. Sugar Magnolia is a Alan Kapular variety that I got from Peace Seelings. I wan't to try to cross Sugar Magnolia with Carouby de Maussane.

A jungle of stuff!

Lasagna style garden area with tomatos with sunchokes.

Paste tomato trials. Each bamboo stick is a different variety.

Bush bean trials.

Three sisters area. I just planted some of the beans.

Rows of stuff

We Love Carrots!

What can I say? Burros are cool!

Photos from Mexico

Just wanted to post a few photos from a trip I took to Mexico a few years ago. I wish I would have brought back some vegetable seeds with me. This first photo is some corn vendors in Jalapa. The corn they sell is not sugary sweet like the corn they sell in the States. I noticed that there was corn growing almost everywhere I went. If anyone is visting this site from Mexico or South America please send me some of your vegetable and especially corn seeds. I should have plenty of seeds to trade this winter.

Vegetable display in Jalapa

Potato digger somewhere in the mountains of Mexico.

The taco on the right is made with corn smut. The taco on the left is pig fat.

Corn growing near Parque Nacional El Chico.

Burros are everywhere too. Burros are cool!

Corn growing 10 km north-east of San Miguel Del Valle, Oaxaca. They serve delicious garlic fried trout here.

Blurred corn field with Popocatépetl in the background.

Compost Bin Craziness!

Tuesday growers market?

Well we have never sold anything before but here we are getting stuff ready for the Moscow-Food-Coop-Tuesday-Growers-Market.

Peace Seedlings Lettuce Mix

Zlata Radishes

Things are really starting to grow! :,)

I have been really busy working out in the yard this weekend. Todays excitement was setting my hand on the engine of a hot rototiller and burning myself. Always wear gloves when operating equipment. Also be careful not to step on nails. My foot still hurts. Here are some photos of the garden with short descriptions.

Monk's Madness straw-bale peas.

Just some peas. These pods were really stringy so I am growing them out for shelling.

From right to left. peppers, strawberries, potatoes, onions/mix of greens and herbs, beans and potatoes grown from true seed, more onions and stuff (like beets and carrots), peanuts, soon to be sweet potatoes, wine grapes, more wine grapes, paste tomatoes, more pastes tomatoes, more peppers and tomatoes, raspberries/blackberries, good bug attracting plants, row of ornamental wheat, cover crop rows of alfalfa/buckwheat/clover (yet to be planted), microclover along the fence-line. Well the last few rows did not quite fit on the photo.

Here is one of my three sisters circles for the confluence corn project. The squash in the foreground is from where I had the compost bin before it was moved. There are also some melon, potato, and tomato volunteer plants. Things here seem to be growing quickly. The questions are will the squash overtake the corn and when do I plant the beans?

Peanuts in Idaho? I attempting to grow two different varieties of peanuts. One is a hierloom black peanuts from the southeast and the other I bought as raw peanuts for boiling from CB's nuts. I still need to try boiled peanuts as I have never had them before. The picture below is the CB's nuts variety just starting to sprout. Did you know that peanuts are high in resveratrol?