First, Claire volunteered to clean out winter from the hen house. About five overflowing loader buckets (liberally soaked with water to aid the composting process) and the hen house was ready for fresh bedding, and next year’s compost is on the way.

Many plants and seeds and mulch found their way into the garden as well. We got the recycled lumber tarps out of the barn, Linda planted a bunch of peppers and tomatoes. I went to the neighbors via the bumpy dirt trail between the crop fields and retrieved two loads of loose straw from the loft of their barn and put the tomato cages on, pounded the stakes in, spread the mulch and wet it all down.

This photo shows some hearty garlic on the right, a cattle panel trellis that we put up this weekend.  It has pole beans on the outside and lettuce and spinach underneath, hopefully to last a bit longer into the summer with the shade of the beans.  To the left of the trellis is some space reserved for viney plants before a row of tomatoes.  It’s nice to have that mulched portion of the garden already weeded for the whole season!

At the end of the day, I took some time to pull thistles from the pasture.  It appears that last year’s pulling them out by had greatly reduced the population in the paddock we tested last year.  We’ll continue that on the other paddocks this year.

Doesn’t this look yummy?

The garlic has poked its way up through the mulch.

Even the spinach we kept covered until January and then gave up on has rejuvenated itself for another early harvest. Yes, this overwintered from last summer!

Won’t be long before the first rhubarb crisp is thrown in the oven!

We found some space with a southern slope and the barn to the north to block any strong north winds, worked up the soil a bit and put some stiff wires in the ground.  I put some wires on the ends straight across and put the rest at an angle.  Then we planted and watered.

Put the plastic across, stick another round of stiff wire crossing the first wires now inside the plastic, secure the edges, and wait.  I’ll have to come out and open up a side on warm, sunny days so the plants don’t wither in the heat.

On pizza earlier this week, springtime favorite spinach from the garden made it on the homemade pizza.

We’ve picked a bunch for the fridge, to guarantee December lettuce.  Any day we could get that first day it’s in the low teens at night and not above freezing during the day to finally kill it off.

Brussels sprouts are a great crop because they aren’t much good until after a hard frost, and are one of the last fresh crops out of the garden. Many people can’t stand them, in part, to the chemical that get released after overcooking in boiling water.

The plants loved the dry late summer and fall. It was an epic tomato canning year – our final tally ended up to be 97 quarts and 37 pints canned – even for us, a lot! So, we are ready in case there is a crop failure next year – we’re good for a couple of years for chili, minestrone soup, red hot dish and whatever else we can use our summer canned in a jar.

one year ago…”In the News”

It was a great row – here’s the yield from one 50 foot row! A rinse, dry and storage in the basement will give us potatoes well into winter.

one year ago…”Francis Thicke for Secretary of Agriculture”