The Ghost is Here!

You can tell Spring is officially here when the truck comes back for it's annual donation to the Gods of Forni- Brown... For those of you unfamiliar with FB... They grow veggie's for some of the best restaurants in the Napa Valley and each year sell plant starts to those willing to make the pilgrimage to Calistoga! Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, basil, you name it they've got it! This year we bought 70 little babies and are watching them daily... Each year the owners give suggestions for something new. This year it's a Naga Jolokia pepper, aka the Ghost Pepper. One million points on the Scoville heat unit scale! That's 10 times as hot as a Habanero! Stay tuned for a little private fence and pictures to follow the little beasts development!!

Harvest 2010

Harvest is finally here and besides grapes the last remnants of tomatoes and figs are being snapped up before the rains ruin them. The last of the summer crop surprisingly to me are always the tiny red Thai peppers...Hundreds of fiery pods from just two bushes. It's as if the heat inside the peppers keep the plant going through the first frosts...

Summer 2010

Ah Summer is finally here! The weather was wet and rainy up until a few weeks ago... Our tomatoes and basil were shivering in their planters and wondering when the sun would show up... In addition to the perennial apricots, peaches, pears, and plums; we planted 60 starts of tomatoes, basil, chard, peppers, zucchini, eggplant, and strawberries! Guess it's time to get the drip system back online...

Winter Settles In

Winter finally has settled in, which for Napa means a generous progression of rain and occasional frosts. Lettuces, citrus, onions, and fresh garlic are still gracing the studio table while stacks of seed catalogs grow in anticipation of the coming growing season...

Wrapping Up The Summer

What a wonderful long growing season we had here in the Napa Valley this year! Here we are marching towards the end of October and we're still gathering fresh tomatoes, basil, peppers and zucchini. In the next week we'll be planting for the winter garden adding lettuces, beets, chard, garlic and onions!