Mockingbird nest

I was walking through my orchard and a mockingbird darted out from an orange tree.   I thought it was odd and noticed that there was a nest in the tree.     Mockingbirds are quite common in Southern California and will aggressively protect their territory chasing off crows, and I've seen the harassing hawks in the air.    If you hear a bird singing a song that varies in the middle of the night, odds are its a mockingbird.   The males will sing all night sometimes, much to the chagrin of someone who is trying to sleep with their windows open.

The nest is well hidden in the orange tree.      You can barely see it.  You can see the sticks of the nest under the orange.

Here is a picture of the nest looking down.  It appears its still under construction.

Here is the nest with some eggs 3 days later.     What a nice color for bird eggs.

I will try to take some pictures of the babies without scaring off the parents.   They are very protective of the nest and sit on the peach tree next to the orange tree and squawk at me  whenever I am near the tree.   I am giving them some room for the next couple weeks so she doesn't pop off the next every time I walk by.   Baby birds mean parents catching lots of bugs on my farm to feed their babies.

Snake Rescue!

We were tidying up on my farm yesterday and I was throwing some bird netting that was bunched up in the corner and tossed it in the back of my truck on top of some other junk.  My helper who was doing most the heavy lifting while I recover from my health issues plaguing me lately, screamed there was a snake in the back of the truck and she started running.

I looked and could see two snakes stuck in the bird netting.   One looked like it was dead, but the other moved when I touched its tail.     I pulled the netting out of the truck and check to make sure it wasn't a rattle snake.    No rattles on its tail and it looked like a gopher snake.   It's head was tangled in the netting so it wouldn't have ever escaped.   I found a scissors and went to work cutting it loose.  It was tangled in numerous spots and didn't move very much during the process.

Once I cut it loose, I grabbed it by the base of the head and deposited it in the vegetable growing area where I have been plagued by some bothersome pocket gophers.    It curled up and tried biting me as I was looking to see if there were any wounds on it.   A snake will always be a snake.   It then crawled off and hid in the row of kale.   Diamond, my helper isn't sure whether she wants to ever harvest kale again.   I assured her that it will move on.  

Here's a image of the snake trapped in the netting.   I was sad that the other one wasn't alive and will not ever use this netting again considering the danger to snakes.  The other two images are of the snake after it was released.   It looked like it was 3 feet long or so.    As scary as they look, they are an asset to any farm considering that rodents and a major pest.   I have lost a third of my tomato plants to pocket gophers.

Here are some stock images of gopher snakes from the internet so I believe I am correctly identifying this snake.

More images

Pacific gopher snake

The Pacific gopher snake is a subspecies of large nonvenomous colubrid snake native to the western coast of the United States. Wikipedia

Scientific name: Pituophis catenifer catenifer

Higher classification: Pituophis catenifer

Rank: Subspecies

Seedstock Sustainable Agricultural Conference Farm Tour - Final Stop - Grogreen Agriculture.

Our last stop didn't require any driving as the GoGreen greenhouses are located at the Leichtag Foundation.  They were utilizing some of the Ecke Ranch greenhouses.
GoGreen grows organic lettuces in large greenhouses utilizing hydroponic growing methods.   They grow and ship organic lettuce all over the country.
Here is picture of one of their products.   They keep the root system intact to keep the lettuce alive during shipping.

We were greeted by Pierre Sleiman, the founder of GoGreen Agriculture.   He is only 28 years old and owns the largest Organic Greenhouse in the US.     Here are some pictures of him, along with his bio from the 1st Grow Riverside conference where he spoke.

Pierre Sleiman, Founder And CEO Of Go Green Agriculture

Pierre Sleiman is the founder and CEO of Go Green Agriculture, an innovative company that grows produce inside high-tech greenhouses using hydroponics. Go Green’s mission is to setup greenhouses across the country to provide local jobs and fresh, delicious, and nutritious produce to the community.

Pierre has become involved in the mission of accelerating the movement towards local and sustainable farming and fostering interest in youth to choose agriculture as an exciting career. Pierre is the founder and CEO of Go Green Agriculture, a local farming business that grows local, high-quality leafy greens.  He has been named as one of the “50 People to Watch in 2013″ by San Diego Magazine and has been featured in over two-dozen other publications and live news broadcasts.  He holds a Masters degree in Business from UC San Diego and a double Computer Science/Business bachelor’s degree from UC Riverside. Pierre was also recently elected to the Board of Directors of the San Diego Farm Bureau.

He commented to us, that his parents help him receive his education, and now his family works for him.  Here is a picture of Pierre and his father who helps him manage the greenhouses.

We grows lettuce for large grocery store chains and costco, and also restaurants in the area.    He wouldn't allow us to take pictures inside the greenhouse because of his proprietary growing methods.   

Here are some stock pictures of the greenhouse interiors.   The lettuce is grown in plastic tubes and the water slowly trickles over the roots  providing water and nutrients.   This first picture is an exterior picture of the greenhouses that I took.

3rd Stop - Leichtag Property which is located at the historic Ecke Ranch in Encinitas CA

Our 3rd stop is the historic Ecke Ranch in Encinitas CA.   Ecke ranch was once part of a 900 acre farm where todays popular poinsettas were bred, developed and marketed to become today's popular christmas party.  
The ranch has been  downsized and sold off to developers who have built homes to take advantage of views of the Pacific Ocean.   There are still 67 acres left with much of it comprised of greenhouses.   At one point - there were 200 acres of greenhouses on the ranch.

The ranch was sold to the Leichtag foundation.    The Leichtag foundation was created by the late  Lee and Toni Leightag who are well knowns benefactors to San Diego hospitals, colleges, and charities.   Here is a picture of Lee and Toni.

The foundation purchased the Ecke ranch to start  Coastal Roots farm which will use jewish farming practices from the bible.

These practices include.

The Shemitah Year (the Land’s Sabbath)

   Every seventh year, the farm shall not plant or sow any crop in the soil, nor tend or prune any orhard or vine.    Although this is a biblical rule, the practical purpose of this rule is to allow your land to rest every seven years.    Modern farmers do something similar by leaving a field fallow very few years to give it a rest.   Its a basis of sustaining your soil quality.

The Law of Peah (Leaving the Corners)

This rule requires farmers to leave the corners of the fields unharvested for the poor in the community.    This may have been an important source of food for the poor in ancient times, we don't have poor people foraging for food today.    The real benefit of following this rule is that you allow food and habitat for wildlife.   With the loss of habitat, having a part of the field left for wildlife allow for food and cover for birds, rabbits, deer, and other wildlife.    This law also require a farmer to abstain from harvesting a orchard or vineyard for the first 3 years.    This also provide food for wildlife and allows the trees or vines to grow strong before putting harvesting pressure on it.

When we arrived we were greeted by Daron Joffe, known as "Farmer D".   He is the director of agricultural innovation and development.    He explained the background of the farm and also how they are applying jewish farming practices.   It was currently a Shemitah year so they were growing all of their crops in long fiber socks which are on the surface to avoid violating the rule that nothing can be planted in the ground during the shemitah.  

Here are some images of the tour

Farmer D  - Daron greeting us and giving us a brief history of the ranch.

Here are some images of the growing tubes with various types of veggies.

This a view from one of the hills on the farm, overlooking the greenhouses.    You can see the pacific ocean in the distance.

Some newly planted vineyards.   Farmer D indicated they will not harvest these vineyards for 3 years. 

Some of the greenhouses are leased to tropical plant, cactus and flower growers who breed and grow plants for retail and wholesale customers.    Here are some pictures of grafted cactus and barrel cactus in some of the greenhouses.    It's quite an extensive operation as you will see from the sheer quantity of cactus's under production.