11.08.23

Around The Farm

Saving Tomato Seeds for Human and Environmental Health
By Tabitha Lederer, Senior, Environmental Studies, Farm Food Security Intern
 
As the fall season draws to a close, we have been harvesting many of the final crops at the farm. After the harvest is finished, the leftover plants get pulled out and composted to clear the beds completely and prepare them for cover cropping over the winter. 

11.01.23

Around The Farm

Cover Cropping Enriches UW Farm Soil
By Aisling Doyle Wade, UW Farm Production Manager

Fall is a magical time of year on farms such as the UW Farm – the work of summer (primarily harvest) crescendoes and then finally begins to wane. With our final storage crops making their way onto our shelves and our hardy greens slowing down for limited winter growth, our work shifts towards preparing our fields for winter. 

10.25.23

Around The Farm

Garlic Bolsters Long-term Health

By Siffre Tooth, '23-'24 AmeriCorps Food Security Lead
 
As the days become shorter and temperatures cooler, we find ourselves more often amongst misty mornings and bright gusts of autumn breezes. Our priorities may be shifting with the changing seasons as well, which is especially true around the farm. While there are still some late-season crops to harvest, we are becoming increasingly occupied with tasks that wrap up the growing season and put many parts of the farm ‘to bed’ for the upcoming winter months. 
  

Scientific name: Ailanthus altissima
Common name: Tree of Heaven, Stinking Sumac, Paradise Tree
Family: Simaroubaceae
Native Range: Taiwan and China, hardy to USDA Zone 4
Habit: Grows between 60-90 feet tall and can grow to around 25 feet in a single year. The bark is smooth and tan to gray in early growth. With age, bark will become rugged with heart-shaped leaf scars. 

10.18.23

Around The Farm

Do It Yourself Quinoa; From Flower to Fork

By Chrina Munn, UW Farm Staff, '22-'23 AmeriCorps Food Security Lead
This season the UW Farm has experimented with growing grains. You've likely read about our experience growing wheat, and last week we talked about our quinoa crop and the history of growing quinoa. This week, I would like to share the Farm's experience growing quinoa and processing the grains to be ready for consumption. 

Rare Care staff, volunteers and agency partners convened in June in the southeastern corner of the state for Rare Care’s annual monitoring weekend. Our goal was to help US Forest Service assess the impact of the 2021 Lick Creek wildfire on sensitive plant species. Located on the northeastern flank of the Blue Mountains, the Lick Creek area has some of the highest concentration of rare plants on the Washington side of the mountains. 

Rare Care’s team expands each spring when we are joined by seasonal staff who assist with field work to support the recovery of endangered plants and restoration of their habitats. This year we were thrilled to be able to hire five talented biologists, and their experience, enthusiasm and hard work were a tremendous asset to our team.
Teddy Pierson joined us for the entire field season and assisted with the Wenatchee Mountains checker-mallow introductions (Sidalcea oregana var. 

Five years ago, Rare Care established vegetation plots in a population of Wenatchee Mountains checker-mallow (Sidalcea oregana var. calva) to evaluate how to control the spread of shrubs and non-native grasses in its habitat. This federally endangered plant grows in flat, seasonally wet meadows in Ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, or aspen forest openings, and is known from only two large and two very small extant populations in the Wenatchee Mountains. 

Rare Care volunteers are known for going on some pretty extreme adventures each year to search for rare plants, and the 2023 monitoring season was no exception. From paddling down rivers to trekking up mountains and cliffsides, it doesn’t seem like there’s much that can stop our volunteers, except maybe the occasional rattlesnake encounter!
Volunteers Carol Mack, John Stuart and two friends took their canoes 10 miles up the Pend Oreille River to search the shoreline for lesser-bladder milk vetch (Astragalus microcystis). 

10.11.23

Around The Farm

UW Farm Cultivates Quinoa

By Kove Janeski, Masters of Landscape Architecture, Farm Staff
The UW Farm has been experimenting with cereal cultivation this growing season: we have grown and are processing multiple wheat varieties at the Center for Urban Horticulture Farm site and are also testing out a small planting of quinoa within Mercer Court’s Chenopodiaceae plot.