Oh, the farming we did this weekend. So much planting, and I think we ought to earn extra tough-farmer credit due to the fact that much of it was done in the cold rain, with the very hands-on "assistance" of a two year old and three dogs. But I should back up, because we are such diligent farmers that this weekend wasn't even our first farming weekend. Amazing.
As soon as the ground thawed, we went out to finish the remainder of the garden cleanup. Even though we did better last fall at putting the garden to bed than ever before, we still had a lot of work to do. Luckily, we had a task master to remind us that we needed to get started.
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| Guys, let's go! |
So we headed out with the toddler and the dogs, and it was all hands on deck. Please note that my dogs are disgusting, and you should never let them kiss you. Ever. Seriously. Below, see exhibit 1.
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| Casper: "Gonna just water this here overwintered kale plant a bit" |
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Literally seconds later. Lily: "Yum!"
Bullet: "Hey that looks tasty, can I have some?" |
Deciding to view this in a positive light, we let the dogs continue to clean out the former kale bed, since apparently overwintered, rotten, very soggy kale plants (some of which have been freshly urinated upon) are a delicacy for bad dogs. The toddler figured it was time to enlist the tractor, so he recruited his trusty sidekick "Otis." Otis required quite the pep talk to get into the garden bed (there was much "come on Otis! You can do it Otis! How you doin', Otis?", but he made it).
I was hard at work weeding the beds, but the toddler decided it was time to move on to inspecting the cold frames, so off we went. The far left cold frame tipped quite a bit after the ground thawed, spilling a very exciting amount of dirt. Landon was ON IT. As to how they functioned over the winter, well, the parsnips did great. The kale/chard/mache that I planted in the fall got stuck in seedling phase, but now they are growing so I guess I'm getting a head start on the spring crop? I planted the beets and carrots too late and they all died. And my herbs overwintered better in the completely unprotected herb bed in the garden than they did in the cold frames. So, a mixed bag. But the dirt spillage was awesome.
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| "I doin the dirt!" |
Outside of the garden, Mike started preparing for the epic berry expansion of 2014 by first marking out, and then digging, five very long rows of holes for blueberries, raspberries, and elderberries. Landon assisted with much of the tractoring, and then got busy trying to fill in the holes again.
Because the boys were already in tractor heaven, they took a quick detour to pull out some of the old trees and brush up against the house, which is the first part of our multi-year landscaping plan. It was awesome.
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| "Daddy's helping me tractor!" |
We've already had our first harvest of a handful of asparagus - delicious!
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| Gratuitous photo of the toddler summitting the rock pile |
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| Mike hard at work planting raspberries |
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| Sometimes, while planting, you need a hug. |
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| Boys planting potatoes |
Mike has also started three hives of bees, and I've got a bunch of seeds started in the mud room. This year, Taperman is growing all of the squash and tomatoes in his garden, since we've had such terrible luck with blight and pests. Taperman also has a new flock of chickens going, but doesn't remember how to blog, so I'll have to give him a tutorial so that we can get some reports on how they're doing! I think we're done with frosts for the year, but it's still pretty chilly so I'm holding off on planting warm weather crops until around Memorial Day. We've got potatoes, carrots, peas, lettuce, shallots, scallions, and beets in the ground - I planted all of them the last weekend in April. The toddler has also been busy planting his toy cars in various beds, but so far, none have germinated.
