The 2014 farming season is off to a good start

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.

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.

Casper:  "Gonna just water this here overwintered kale plant a bit"

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.

"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.

"Daddy's helping me tractor!"

We've already had our first harvest of a handful of asparagus - delicious!

Gratuitous photo of the toddler summitting the rock pile

Mike hard at work planting raspberries

Sometimes, while planting, you need a hug.

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.

Farming season begins

Winter has been desperately hanging on here this year, but finally, my beds are starting to poke out from the snow.  The cold frames are thawed (and no, my attempts to grow food in them through the winter were not successful at all - I think it may be more realistic to see them as season extenders rather than as a possibility for year-round fresh veggies).  It seems like we're going to have a cool spring, so I'm not in a huge rush to get the garden started.  We still have a good amount of cleanup to do, and I would so love it if this was the year I stayed somewhat on top of the weeds.

I have sorted out the seeds by planting date, and started the first batch of seedlings this past weekend (eggplant and brussels sprouts).  The brussels sprouts have sprouted, eggplants haven't.  I was planning on starting peppers last weekend but didn't get to it, so hopefully that will happen this weekend.  As I mentioned, not in a hurry this year!

Our big plans for this season revolve around planting more fruit trees and berries.  We're adding rows of raspberries, blueberries, and elderberries behind the vegetable garden, and need to replace a few of the apple trees that were terminally damaged by Mike's mortal enemy, the fearless deer.  I also found a variety of fig that's supposed to be able to withstand cold winters, and we'll be planting a couple of paw paw trees as well.  We may also put in a few ornamental trees to follow the landscape design that we had drawn up last summer - since we're going to pick up our tree order at the FedCo tree sale this year I have a strong hunch that there will be quite a few tree impulse buys.

Our landscape design includes some gorgeous ideas for perennial gardens, which we'll be holding off on for another year or so to focus on getting the trees and berries established.  We will, though, be ripping out the mess of existing plants that we have surrounding the house (tractor!), which I'm very excited about.  I'm also day-dreaming about putting in a perennial shade garden underneath some existing fir trees that we have in a corner of the yard.  We're lucky to have full sun in so many places, but I'm wanting to have some shade-loving favorites somewhere near the house.  And doesn't a sprawling shade garden tucked in a corner under fir trees sound a bit magical?  I've got to let this idea marinate a bit but I think I'd definitely like to include lily of the valley (I know it spreads, I don't really care.  We have a lot of space and it smells so lovely), bleeding hearts, and helleborus, and maybe this lovely silver lace black primrose (http://www.gurneys.com/product/silver_lace_black_primrose/shade-plants).

First frost last night

Light one, haven't surveyed the damage yet.

Notes for 2014

Haven't been blogging, but I have been farming (a little, at least).  Notes for myself for next year:

Need to figure out how to prevent/treat blight better.  So frustrating to lose yet another crop of tomatoes.

Start the eggplant seedlings earlier and transplant earlier.  This year's plants were so stunted that they've only just flowered.  Protect the seedlings from flea beetles.

Row covers/some kind of row cover type protection for cauliflower/brussels sprouts to protect from cabbage moths.  Also, apparently starting the seedlings when I did in 2013 gives you a fall crop.  Not bad.

Take a break from winter & summer squash.  Squash vine borers win this round.

More edamame, garlic, and onions!

Kale was awesome, next year do a mix and be sure to get some purple kale for color.

The perpetual spinach swiss chard is awesome.

Mexican sour gherkin cucumbers were tasty and lovely, but not productive.

Don't plant the poor peppers and eggplants in a bed where they'll be shaded and outcompeted.

Staggering green bean plantings does, in fact, make a big difference.

Red noodle poles beans are cool and worth growing again, Fortex is overrated.

Staggering carrot plantings is also a great idea.  Planting April & July worked well.

Stagger fennel, too.  A spring and a fall crop would be much better.  Direct seeding fennel is fine.

Direct seed the cauliflower/broccoli and eggplants in the coldframes in late spring.  Once it's warm enough to take off the covers, attach hooped row covers over the coldframes to protect from bugs (pvc pipe with fabric clothespinned to the pipe to stay attached).

Potato bugs

They're here, and the larvae have hatched.  No pictures, but trust me, they are as gross as ever.

Also, the cucumber beetles have stepped up their game.

Organic gardening is a real challenge for this farmer who hates bugs.

Next year, I think I'll do individual hot cap type protection for my most vulnerable plants (broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, eggplant, squash) rather than row covers.

OMG, I thinned the carrots!

And it's just as exciting and monumental as the title of this post indicates.  I've been terrible about thinning out my carrots in the past, but this year, I actually made it out into the garden and did what I believe is a very fine job getting them all straightened out.  The thinning was desperately needed, as I had monster clumps of carrots starting.  So I thinned the carrots (and to a lesser extent, the parsnips) to about 2 inches apart.  While I was on a roll, I also thinned my squash, beets and kale, and added a few more fennel seeds to try to fill in the empty spaces in that bed.  We are relatively on top of the weeds this year, and while my eggplants are still struggling against the predation of the flea beetles, the garden dust has helped and I think they may pull through.  We've also had a good amount of rain this week, and so I haven't had to water.  Mike has been regularly giving compost tea to the asparagus, tomatoes, eggplants, and to the trees, and that seems to make them noticeably perkier and greener.

On the pest front, I've made tin foil collars for my brussels sprouts, broccoli, asparagus, eggplants, and peppers, and that has helped tremendously with the cutworms.  I've also been using garden dust on the eggplants, broccoli and cauliflower.  The potato bugs are here, so I've been hand picking them and their eggs, and dreading the emergence of the larvae.  Today I noticed the first herd of cucumber beetles, who are going to town on my squash, so I'll have to do something there.

Speaking of trees, we have deer nibbling on the apple trees.  Apparently even though we added a third dog, they have done nothing to deter deer.  Weird, since they're all fantastic at barking at the wind....So Mike has purchased some deer repellent, and is hoping that it will work.

Fennel

Snap peas are coming!

Shell peas, spinach, snap peas, and pole beans

Edamame (front) and green beans

Tomatoes

Eggplants in their tin foil collars

Close-up of the sad, dusted eggplants in their collars

Walking onions

Shallots - apparently they really can't take a joke about being transplanted

Makeshift hotcap for a particularly delicate brussels sprout

Broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts

Glorious potatoes

Parsnips and carrots, pre-thinning

Salads galore

No time this morning for pictures, but the garden is going like gangbusters.  We've been feasting on salads with our own arugula, mesclun mix, spinach, and radishes, and have been cooking with our own herbs, for a few weeks.  The harukei turnips are ready and have been amazingly tasty.  I've been roasting the turnips, and using the greens in egg scrambles and stir-fries.  Yum!  The shelling peas are setting flowers, potato plants are getting ready to flower, and everything for spring/summer is now planted and (mostly) germinating.

The bug issues have started (flea beetles and cutworms, I'm looking at you), and I had to replant my eggplant row because the flea beetles completely ravaged my first set.  Good thing I started such an excessive number of seedlings!  We've been spraying with neem oil to try to fend off the flea beetles until the plants get better established.  I've also had several plant losses to cutworms (two marigolds, an eggplant, two chinese broccoli plants), which just make me angry because those pests don't even eat the plants.  They seem to just be destructive because they can, and it's totally getting under my skin.  I've also seen a few potato bug eggs on my eggplants, but none so far on the potatoes.

Yesterday I tackled weeding the shallot bed, which I had covered with a row cover and then ignored for six weeks.  Apparently, that's really great for weed development, so that project took a while.  I also realized that I hadn't fully separated my shallot cloves, so I had to dig, separate, and re-plant them.  I went from having what I thought was 1/3 of a bed's worth of shallots to filling an entire bed, plus two other quarter beds.  At least we like shallots.

The brussels sprouts and cauliflower/broccoli seedlings that I started are still so sad, so I bought supplemental brussels sprouts at the farmer's market this week.  I'm still going to plant some of my own, but I think I'll need to cover them with milk cartons to give them a fighting chance, and still don't have high hopes.