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Weekly farm update

By on April 1, 2012 in Farm and Garden

This week went by so fast and I have a list so long to get ready for Easter but I am thinking that with the condition of my sewing room (its pretty unusable right now) and with the amount of chores on our little farm, I will be lucky just to get the girls dresses done by Sunday and possibly a few treats for Easter baskets and I am OK with that.  I am pretty tired all the time so this year… I am giving myself a break and the kids will understand.

I have decided that by making all my notes as far as planting and projects on this blog every week I will have a better record that is harder to lose than all my notebooks and at the same time you get to come along with me so from now on I will be including a bunch of boring notes (if you will all humour me : )  so that next year I have a better idea of what worked and didn’t.

lots and lots of strawberries, small but very sweet.  Tomorrow I will be making strawberry smoothie popsicle for the kids

new celery growing from cut bottoms of celery we already ate (you did know you could do this right?)

zukes
finally seeing flowers on the cocozelle squash

you can see the progession of pea shoots, the front container is the first one we ate, (we got quite alot of shoots from this one container), the next two are the one we are eating this week

Poppa’s jalapenos
okinawa spinach, a perenial plant which will keep producing through the summer and is very good eating and good for you.  I was so happy to find this one at the Sustainable Living Conference last weekend.  Plant it once and it will keep feeding us.
lots of little bell peppers
Red leaf purslane.  I had completely given up on this seed, it took 3 weeks to pop up and since it was 2 year old seed I had given up hope.  I am so excited to see it, this is another plant that will keep feeding us year round and I am glad I procrastinated on buying that new seed
A row of mesclun salad in one of our salad beds
yummy and I can’t wait
I have two new thornless blackberry bushes to add to our blackberry beds.  I have enough plants but these are new cultivars that I have not seen before and I think I remember reading that having different cultivars will lead to more berries
I found baby grapes!!  I was just about to prune the vines back to a central trunk and then I found fruit on them so training them will again have to wait until the fruit is harvested
new growth on old blackberry bushes

newly planted perennial peanut.  this is a ground cover which I planted around the base of the mulberry and fig trees which will hold in moisture, keep out weeds and the best part is the flowers are edible and taste like peanuts.  They are small and look so pretty in salad.
This weeks accomplishments:
Dug more trenches and planted more of the jerusalem artichokes
Planted spiderworts from a generous friends garden into a bed on the side of the house.  We also ate a few stir fried that same night and they were delicious.  Hope to have pictures of them when they recooperate from the transplant.  They have a lovely blue purple flower which is also yummy in salad.
Transplanted an allium canadense (wild garlic) and allium fistulosum (bunching onion) from my gardening friend John.
Planted two beds of spanish onion
Transplanted a new basil called greek column or Les Bos Basil that I bought from a friend (thanks John), it does not set seed and will last all summer long unlike regular basil will you have to keep dead heading so it does not set seed and die.  I beleive the column basil is more of a perennial than an annual 
Transplanted  8 nasturtiums which were finally big enough to put in a flower bed.  This is one of my favorite plants (the greens are peppery and nice in salad and the flowers are delicious and beautiful in salad.
Moved and transplanted 6 daylillies from the side flower bed to the porch garden.  In a few weeks we will start getting flowers and then I will stuff them with herbed cheese, batter and fry them. Yummy
Planted about 20 garlic bulbs to see if I can use the greens
Transplanted watercress into the herb bed until I can find a place for it.  Hopefully it will spread and is so good for you.  We eat it in salad.
I am still waiting to see if the lettuce leaf basil, cilantro and scallions I planted two weeks ago will germinate.  Fingers crossed.
I spread rabbit manure in some of the beds and need to continue with the rest.
Goals for next week:
Move the blackberries to the front of the garden where they will get more sun.  Also need to dig up all the blackberry volunteers from all over our farm and plant them all together.
Continue spreading rabbit poop in veggie beds
Transplant the dianthus, marigolds and violas to a different edible flowers bed
Plant blue pea vine seeds (this is a beautiful vine that produces a cobalt blue flower (lots and lots of them) which is edible and makes a beautiful blue tea (have I said beautiful too many times?)
Move the papaya trees I over wintered in the front porch garden somewhere on our land.
Finish digging the trench and planting the rest of the jerusalem artichoke bulbs
spread lots of mulch
Cut potatoes and let them cure overnight
Plant potato pieces in hay
Plant the Grey Stree Grape vine I bought at the conference
and
lots and lots more weeding.
Sorry if this was too boring but it really helps me to write it all out and see what I have done and what I still need to do.



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

By on March 25, 2012 in Farm and Garden

Oh boy this was a busy week!  We ate the first fruits of our labor this week.  Pea shoots, two weeks from seed to plate.  If you have never tried growing pea shoots, they take only two weeks to grow to edible size, you cut the top portion (about 5 to 6 inches long) once they are about 12 inches tall and then the top grows back.  You can take a second cutting and then I transplant them to rows where they will have the space to grow peas for us.

This is such a great crop, in a salad the shoots are slightly nutty and crispy with a little taste of cucumber.  It is almost instant gratification and great to have in the garden as you wait for everything else to grow.

If you saw my update last week, I posted the peas when they were a week old.   It is super easy to plant these and I do them in a container.  Put some good garden soil (I use compost) in a container, sprinkle dried peas (the kind for sprounting) all over the surface then cover with a thin layer of soil and pat it all down. (I added much more seeds than are shown in the picture)

at one week.  I was not able to take a picture at two weeks but at this point alot of the peas had not popped up through the dirt.  When they did, it was a carpet of peas.
This week I got more salad planted, bell peppers, jalapeno, two beds of onions and a bed of garlic just to eat the tops because garlic does not grow well here.  What I am most excited about is the jerusalem artichokes, also called sunchokes, that I received from a swap with an online gardening friend and I have been busy digging trenches to plant them.  I hope to be done by next week…long before then.
Today I am at a Sustainable Living Conference with Erica (who loves to do this one event with her momma every year)  She is one of my children who actually loves to grow things and the farm is her environment.  It is  our bonding time.  I will post pics as soon as I can.  I hope to learn lots and share lots.

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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