First Day of Spring....

Spring officially starts next week, and the ground has finally dried out enough so that we can get to work on it. Things around the farm have become very busy. With my list (and the “add-ons” that my dear wife places on the list) never seeming to end there just aren’t enough hours in a day to get everything done. Life has become most busy with all the planting, tilling and trellis building going on here.  With warmer nighttime temperatures and less chance of frost the cold hardy seedlings, such as onions, leeks, and cabbage, can go out and stay out to get hardened off before going into the ground.

 The more sensitive plants are getting their first exposure to the great outdoors, and the truly warm weather plants such as peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants are still nice and warm underneath their plant lights. They will stay inside until it is reliably warm.

With thanks to Mom… we have the wonderful addition of fruit trees to our homestead.  Once my wife and I agree on the placement of all these trees, which may take a while, they will be planted and in a few years we will enjoy plums, cherries, apricots, peaches, and apples.  Thanks again Mom!

 

We are getting our plots into shape by adding compost; otherwise known as black gold. This will be our only “fertilizer”.

The over-wintered greens are coming back nicely and we have been enjoying fresh spinach and chard these past nights.

After we cleaned out one overwintered plot of cabbage and broccoli to make room for potatoes, the chickens had the remaining vegetation for dinner. Chicken salad buffet.

As you can see they have pretty much wiped out all the vegetation in their winter pasture. They will soon be moved to the fresh green pasture behind them. We rotate the chickens on a 3 year schedule to allow the vegetation to recover.