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Weekly farm update

By on March 17, 2012 in farm life, farm update

I am happy with my progress in the garden this week.  Almost all the beds are planted now with the exception of the two big ones and I hope to get those done on Monday.  I am dreaming up some wire towers to grow potatoes this year without having to take up lots of room so I need to keep working on that.

do you remember last weeks shot of these just planted pea shoots, they finally popped up out of the ground so I planted two more pots full.  These should be a salad in another week and a half.
first tomato of the season and on the smallest bush
Veronica’s squash finally popped through the ground
we will hopefully have a good blueberry harvest this year, every bush is loaded down with flowers and now berries.  The bees were buzzing everywhere.  There are so many more bees this year than last and usually in the blueberry orchard I only get the big fat bumble bees but yesterday I saw lots of different kinds everywhere.  To a farming girl, this is good news.
What I planted this week:  
mache corn salad
mild mesclun mix
spicy mesclun mix
russian kale
joi choi greens
red purslane
french breakfast radishes
pink beauty radishes
green onions
cilantro
lettuce leaf basil
yellow squash
The last of the grape vines, which I was sure was dead has come back to life.  I planted about 7 grapevines last year and put the pruning off till this year.  For some reason this really scares me, but they have to be trained to the trellis so I am busy reading up on it and watching youtubes.
I found lots of little mulberries growing on our tree down by the pond (the one that never gets watered and somehow still lives)
The feathered girls close to bed time, they come back to the coop right about an hour before sunset, from wherever their adventures took them during the day.  The boss (rooster) starts sounding the call and everyone nicely goes inside the coop.  I love the sound of roosters and this one is very good with taking care of his girls but I don’t trust him so I always have my walking stick next to me.  I don’t know why, he just has that kind of face.
Did I mention that we are once again totally drowning in eggs.  I have a handful of people who want to buy eggs from us weekly but I have just been too busy to have anyone come by here…I think I probably need to let go of my perfectionism and have some customers come by even though my garden isn’t perfect yet.
I will be making some good old fashioned egg custard though to use some up but seriously I have 90 eggs right now and we have been putting them in everything we can think of.
I am joining Ginny in her Saturday Garden Journal, check out how her garden grows.



If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or follow me by email at the top right hand of the screen to have future posts sent to you. Tricia (Crunchy Catholic Momma)

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Weekly farm update – Where the heart is

By on March 10, 2012 in farm life, farm update

Having Poppa home all day every day has been amazing…it has but it has also turned my world upside down and I feel I have completely lost my rhythm.  No longer is any specific day laundry day or baking day.  Every day is cleaning day and doing whatever project he has decided we are doing that day, day.  If that sounds like sour grapes, I don’t mean it to be.  It’s just that I feel I really need to get back to what I consider some kind of rhythm.

Usually at this time of year and most of the year, I am in the garden in the morning.  Lately, I feel like I have to get all my “chores” done first and so by the time I get out into the garden it is pretty late and I am getting very little done.  I do have the cleanest house ever though but the garden…ehh not so much.

My kids decided to jump in with me today and we did get alot of weeding done.  As I was weeding around the grapevines growing along the fence I saw this pretty flower bud.  I thought, “that looks like a blackberry”  but we were at least 50 feet from the blackberry patch.

 I pulled out enough weeds so that I found where it started and it looked like it was about 2 feet long.  My first thought was to pull it up and put it in the blackberry patch but as I followed the vine I discovered it was taller than me, so we decided that if it grew that much right there in between two veggie beds, maybe we should leave it there.  Eddie brought over one of my wrought iron trellises and we trained it around the trellis which will now be its permanent home.  Permaculture and me have never really been friends.  I have too much need to control where everything grows but I guess this is permaculture and I am OK with it.

new blackberry trellis in the yet to be weeded part of the garden
this little noble grape vine seems pretty much dead…but if you look closer
little signs of life are sprouting
a scupernong fry grapevine
loads of white little flowers on the blueberry bushes and the wonderful sound of lots of beautiful bees buzzing around
Eddie digging compost from last years horse manure pile
my trusty compost tumblers (mothers day gift 5 years ago) surrounded by more weeds that need to be pulled.  We put any food compost in here and everything else in the big pile.  Otherwise, we get too many critters looking for the buffet line.
simple entertainment 
compost piles are bouncy fun
View of the garden from a distance.  As you can see the fence needs to be repainted black as do all the fences on the farm.  Hopefully the next picture will look at lot neater and greener.  
row of strawberry plants


tomato flowers
future pea shoots for salad and then we will replant them for conventional peas.  Should be about two weeks from farm to fork
hierba buena mint
sage 
hoping this little lavender plant will get lots bigger because I have so many uses for it
In the herb bed all the different mints are spreading out and I was so happy to see them back again for another year and the rosemary which is now 8 years old is perfuming the garden again. 

There is still so much to do and lots more weeding to before I can get to the fun stuff  but right now I can surely say.
My heart belongs in the garden.  

I am linking up Saturdays to Small Things.   I will be posting a weekly farm update on Saturdays.  This will be my way of documenting all that we do on our farm.  Thanks for spending a little while here in the garden.



If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or follow me by email at the top right hand of the screen to have future posts sent to you. Tricia (Crunchy Catholic Momma)

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