The following posts were taken from the website for Harms Vineyards and Lavender Fields, which we operated from 2010 until 2019. They offer a window into our lives on the farm and the ways the farm changed us. In 2018 we decided to end our lavender business but we continue to work with our land in ways that bring balance and health. Posts on this website will continue to follow our work.
Gemini: Working with the Moon
Last Harvests of Season, Composting What’s Left We are doing the last harvests of the season: yesterday, the rose geranium (and distillation), today the harvest of the Fuyu persimmons, which our son Jesse will include in First Light Farm Share boxes. He and his wife Lisa planted them some years ago and the trees are… Read more »
Learning to listen with Wesley
Biodynamic Farming Heals the Farmer The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage they did not know they had. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr…. Read more »
Interview: Charlie Toledo on California Water Legislation Charlie Toledo, Executive Director of the Suscol Intertribal Council in Napa, CA, spoke with me this week about the upcoming election’s Proposition One, on Water. Charlie helped author the Watershed Development plan for Napa County in its seminal years, 1992-1995, and… Read more »
Rainfall: Only the Goats Complain! We woke to light rain, 0.3 inch, added to the 0.1 from last week. After months of the summer dryness in the third year of drought, everything looks fresh and clean, except, of course, the goats, who hate rain and complain about coming out and about staying in. In the… Read more »
Coyotes Why are the coyotes so active right now? A mother and her two almost fully grown pups saunter across the meadow this morning and our guard llama Hijo alarms with his whiny. Not okay! he seems to say. Not on my watch! They are an important part of the ecosystem here, and I would not… Read more »
Grape Harvest Over, Two to Go!
Do you want to take my picture? he asks. We finished the grape harvest this week, just as showers came and the earth was as muggy as the Midwest. There is a certain joy and sigh of relief when the truck is loaded with a season’s labor and it is… Read more »
Some of the Demeter certified product which is becoming more and more available, including at Whole foods. Yesterday Donald and I attended the National Heirloom Expo at the Santa Rosa, CA, fairgrounds and sat in on two Demeter seminars. The room was packed in the seminar in which Grover Stock and Erik Ohlsen of Permaculture… Read more »
Surveying the fruits of his labor of the last year. We picked the first third of the grapes yesterday morning, the area of the vineyard we call the old Chardonnay. It produced almost 3 1/2 tons per acre, a good yield of quality Biodynamic organic grapes! The workers began at dawn and finished late morning,… Read more »
Baked Chicken or Turkey An easy way to bring the taste of Provence into your kitchen is to stuff a chicken or turkey with our cooking stems. Soak the stems for at least 30 minutes in water. Meanwhile, wash the bird and then rub salt and olive oil into the skin and body cavity. Put… Read more »
Savory Roast with Lavender Meat is wonderful seasoned with lavender. One of my favorite ways to cook a pork roast is to insert garlic cloves into the roast (and this works with beef as well) and then roll the roast in a mixture of flour, salt, pepper, and a handful of loose lavender flowers. Go… Read more »
© 2024 Patricia Damery.
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