Almost done!

It occurred to me today that if I resist a trip to the greenhouse to buy a couple seedlings that everything in my garden will have been planted by us - from seed! Tomato, leek, onion, peppers, eggplant, potato, flowers, etc. That's really exciting and possibly just too neat to mess around with. Though the thought of going an entire without fresh Lemon Boy tomatoes is over-ruling right now. But we'll see. Right this minute I've just got about 30 more tomato plants to get in the ground and we'll be done! Now for a good soaking rain...

Introducing my truckactor

*photo credit Andrew
When you're desperate - you punt! I was desperate! I'm about a month behind on planting and I've moved the garden to a much bigger location. The old location was very small for what I want to do and didn't really get enough sunlight because of the huge old oak tree to the west of it. I'm not about to cut that down beside it's the best place for hanging the tire swing.

This is the area that was really overgrown last year, so we ran the pigs in there, and what a wonderful job they did eating the grass, weeds and rototilling by rooting it all up. Nature doesn't like bare open ground so by being a month behind schedule there was lots of bare ground that was fair game as far as weeds and grass were concerned. So I borrowed my brother-in-law's spring tooth harrow (that "old fashioned" as Andrew calls it - piece of equipment behind the truck) having used one with great success before I knew it would work. Only problem was that the wallows or nests that the pigs had made were too deep for me to drive the tractor over with the mowing deck on. I nearly burst into tears out of frustration. I walked into the house defeated and told Ron my woes. He brilliantly suggested I use my truck in 4WD! I never pass up the chance to drive my truck, I LOVE driving it. So I grabbed the keys, a chain that I'd used to haul out some logs (with my truck) a couple years back and went to work. It worked great, I cranked the harrow way down so it would really dig it up and was even able to smooth out all the wallows from the pigs! Once that was done I knew from past experience that I'd be able to pull it with the tractor. Yea!

Now that that was done, (I am forever thankful for the harrow), we could plant! I've got big plans, but have to first see how things go and grow here this year. Andrew has big plans too, he wants to have a vegetable stand. Great idea, right? well we only have 5 people on out entire road and we're so far off the beaten path that he'll likely have to tweak it just a bit. I'm sure he'll figure out a way to work it. Ha! He'll soon have Buckley harness broke and driving and plans to build his own goat cart, he'll likely be driving his cart to all the neighbors veggies in tow - how will they be able to say no to that?! Watch out world, Andrew's coming!


Clearly we did a bit of planting before I was able to get it all harrowed, I'm not the most patient person you know!

And of course they had to be inspected by Bridger, Mr. Potato Inspector.
After the rest of the potatoes were planted; and just for the record was about 10-12 pounds of seed potato, which should produce about 100-120 pounds of potatoes. I don't know who figured that out, but that what I read somewhere so I'm going with it. Anyway, after they were planted Andrew wanted to plant his corn, he loves sweet corn and Indian corn or ornamental corn and had tried desperately to grow it for years in his square foot garden with minimal success. He'd have an unannounced competition with the local dairy farmer as to who's corn would be up first and who's corn was taller and get so excited when he won. This year since we've got a much larger garden he's planted several types and rows of it. I sincerely hope he's successful! And now that I could use the tractor, I did! And Bridger; my faithful sidekick, followed along dutifully. Since this was in fact Andrew's corn I thought I'd let him have ago of harrowing and making a row to plant his corn in. (I was going to let Faith have a go at it too but the rain forced us to get as much in the ground as quickly as possible, I'll let her have a turn next time.)
You want to talk about an excited little boy?! Over the MOON happy!
I think this grin is permanent! He said to me today, "I love being a farmer!" Me too; son, me too.

Faith is such a trooper! It spit rain on an off for most of the afternoon, which incidently is when we were trying to get it planted. I'm not complaining, I'd much rather plant in the rain or spitting rain than the stifling heat we had last week.

Beautiful hands. Just like the young lady they belong to. We were forced to stop planting because the rain got heavier, but tomorrow's weather looks like ti might work. Honestly though if it doesn't too bad for me, I'll have to suck it up and deal with it, I've got to get it planted! We had a wonderful day today; being silly, slightly hucklebuck, working like crazy, making memories and
capturing smiles!

One row planted!

my kids are such goobs!

Most kids leaf through the toy catalog and make lists of toys they want; not mine, my kids leaf through the seed catalogs making lists of veggies they'll grow, or look over the pile of seed packets on the table reading and dreaming of long summer days and fresh veggies pulled from the soil. Cool!

couldn't stand it a minute longer!

I HAD to get some seeds planted! So the other day I popped some lettuce seeds in this beautiful little pot and look what popped up today! The peas I planted have still not sprouted but I have faith they will soon. Looking forward to a salad made with lettuce I grew in Maine in February!

question

What is it about the descriptions in a seed catalog that makes us feel like we can grow anything?

I'm ready for Spring how about you?



**I say this but I'm really enjoying the snowstorm we're getting right now, (and the restful, quiet, downtime that winter provides) as it's the first real snow we've had this winter. Tomorrow however I'll not be so happy about it as that's when the real cleanup happens, and it requires more than a pig trail to the barn! All this being said if Spring were to arrive tomorrow I'd be a happy woman!

Success!!!

This seems to be a year of redemption, for the garden at least, as many of the items I attempted to grow last year failed miserably, but did well this year.

Swiss Chard for example...
Last year I planted Swiss Chard and was sadly disappointed when I didn't get any to harvest, but I was determined to get some this year and was successful! I'm looking forward to a delicious mess of greens soon!

My Great Aunt has a crab apple tree that, for the past two years at least, has been loaded with crab apples. She has no interest in putting up anything anymore but is ever happy to give it to someone who is. My attempt at crab apple jelly last year failed miserably, it turned out more like pink goo but the pigs really enjoyed it! This year I was successful! Isn't that color beautiful?

And finally, I made broth from the chickens I raised. So not only did they feed my husband once, but twice with the same bird then I boiled down the carcass to make broth. Hopefully I did it right and will have it to make him some chicken noodle soup when he gets sick in the winter. Let me just say that picking chicken bones is not my best thing to do! I think three meals from one bird is pretty honoring to that broiler. I hope that would be considered being a good steward.

from the garden

Fresh from the garden tonight, green zebra, (grown by Andrew in his own garden) lemon boy (yellow tomato) and mortgage lifter (pink tomato) and basil, combined with a few other ingredients makes for the most delectable bruschetta ever, and colorful too I might add! My mouth waters every time I look at these pictures. It was that good!

Not a chicken post...

This weekend is official time when it's "safe" to plant your garden where I live and I did my part in the annual tradition but spending most of the weekend in my garden. To say that it was in a depressing state if disarray is a gross understatement! Weeds in some places were up to me knees! (Well, in all fairness to the weeds, I have short legs.) It's so much easier to weed when you've got the motivation of loads of company coming to the the farm and the weeds are big enough to have something to hang on to and when you give a good yank the whole damn thing is ripped out of the ground! Only then is weeding that satisfying. It's done, thankfully, the kids and I are tired, covered in dirt, and so excited to see how the garden does this year. We're hoping that the late blight that wiped out all out tomatoes and potatoes last year will not return and that if it all comes in that we'll be eating like kings!

Since the broilers are being housed so close to the garden and nothing significant had been planted yet I thought it would be ok to let them out and knew they wouldn't wander off. Well, shortly after they came out, this little guy came over to "help."

*Mom, I felt like asking him to go vacuum he was so much help!

He was a smart one though, he knew I'd be the one doing all the work and he'd have to just stand there and eat the worms, bugs and well, whatever else he was eating that had just been unearthed. A few others joined him later, but all together they were too much help and had to be shooed off.

Mom calls them hay burners....

.....I call them black gold makers!

This is some of the compost that I just pulled from our pile. I've put some in the raised potato bed. I planted 1 lb. 12 oz of seed potatoes, wonder how many pounds I'll harvest later.

Garlic is up!

Planting starts today!

Tomato and peppers and chives oh my! Eggplant and leeks and basil oh my!

It might be a bit early yet, but I've got to start something from seed today, to soak the little peat pots and swell with as much pride as I get from seeing ity bity seeds go into the dirt and come back out as food for my family. I have high hopes for this year, hope that the goats will stay out of the asparagus and rhubarb beds I put in last year, hope for not getting blight like we did last year, hope to be able to fill the pantry like I've been able to do in previous years. (The above picture only shows 5 shelves, I had more shelves and two other sets of shelves just as full, it was a great year!) Hope that my children get as much joy and satisfaction from planting and growing as they have in years gone by and hope the we don't have 27 days straight in a row of rain again. Hope that the pumpkins grow big and fat and blue, that the squash is a bumpy as an acne ridden pubescent teen and that the tomatoes are as purple as the eggplantand other are as yellow as the sun! Loads and loads of hope!

garlic in...Garlic out

garlic in the ground..... Today Faith and I planted next years garlic, in the hope that it will do well and provide us with plenty to eat and some to replant next year. Last year we planted enough to have our cloves to plant this year. Add the fact that this year I'm already one step ahead of the chickens I've already put the fencing over it to keep them out as last year they had quite a time digging it up within days of planting but not this year! Ha Ha! Some of our garlic came up in a pretty wonky pattern, but despite the chicken attacks and all the rain it fared well. But on a larger note of garlic......

Garlic out in print.....

A local author/photographer has written a book of horse stories and she chose to do a story about my horse, Garlic!! We were invited to the book release last night and got to see the book first hand and meet some of the other people whose live have been blessed by a horse. I had already read the story she'd written about Garlic but seeing it in print in an actual book moved me to tears. (Something that does not happen easily.) I'd been waiting for the book to be released to get my hands on a copy and came home and read it cover to cover than evening, she was really able to capture the spirit of the lives that have been touched not only in a story, but in the photographs as well. The photos are stunning! I'm the lucky one, I get to spend every day with Garlic, but now through the wonders of books others can meet him too.