what a great day!

Today's weather was wonderful, warm, sunny, not much for wind.  We had some melting that happened and the ten day forecast is looking great.  I spent a good part of the day in the greenhouse and I moved a bunch of the little seedlings from the house to the greenhouse.  I made many trips back and forth and each trip the snowbank that I was walking across was a getting a little softer and a little more slushy.  I took a few pictures.  Not sure that we won't have more snow and more winter but for now it feels like spring.

This is the tables down the center of the growing room.The greens make up most of it with a few potted tomatoes toward the front and the row on the right of the tables is broccoli.  I don't know if I will get broccoli heads before it gets too hot in the greenhouse.  Greenhouse broccoli is rumored to be a slow grower in the winter but the flavor is so much better than summer broccoli.  This is my first attempt at growing it in the winter.  

This is the north side of the room, I removed the planters of mizuna and did a little rearranging of the others to make a little bit more room on the tables.  

A couple pictures of the tomato experiment.  Some of the tomatoes have been transplanted into big planters which will be their final location.  More have been transplanted into 3 liter or gallon pots.  The will hopefully go in the ground.  Some of them are looking pretty tall and leggy and I am hoping that now that they are not in the house under the lights but getting lots of natural light in the greenhouse that they will start to get a little more sturdy and fill out.  

Some outside pictures.  this is the gate.  That snowflake has got to be replaced with something that says spring.  Last year a wreath hung there that I made out of an old hose.  This year I am going to hang a peony that Caitlin painted.  

This is the orchard area.  Lots of brown grass visible today that had been covered not too long ago with snow.

This is a picture of the 'cornfield'.  The snow is melting from the front of the space but there are still big drifts on the north and west sides. The black is the raised rows for planting.  It is pretty wet.  The poles divide the south half from the north half.

This shot is a little farther away.

Here you can see the snowbank on the west edge that extends into the grove and is probably five or six feet deep.  The snow is so dirty, end of winter is a not a pretty time of year. 

This is the little mini farmstand.  The farmstand that we made last year is tucked in the machine shed.  I am working on closing the ends and putting an awning on it and once that is done and the weather is a little more reliable it will be coming back out to this space.  In the meantime I built a small table to hold a cooler and a basket.  The cooler holds gallon zipper bags of mixed salad greens and the basket this week has homemade egg noodles and some artisan bread.  Over the next day or two I hope to add a few shamrock cookies for St Patrick's day and some dog treats.  

first of the month garden update-the orchard

It is the first of July and I thought I thought I would try to do a photo update over the next day or two of all of the parts of the farm that are growing food.  I decided to start with the orchard.  Things are coming along nicely.  We are getting fruit on the apple trees and it is early yet to expect fruit on the plums and pears but they are getting bigger with lots of leaves.  I have an email in to the company where the trees came from to see if I can find out if i need to do something with the funky plum tree with two kinds of growth.  So far I am still waiting for an answer and I am hoping that they can help me.  

Here is the new pear tree, this is the replacement tree for the one that didn't grow last year.  This one seems to be doing well.

Here is the other pear.  This was planted last year so it is in its second season.

Hear is one of the plums.  This one seems to be doing well.  It is surprising to me how tall it has gotten.  This was also planted last year.

And here is the funky plum.  I am not sure if this is normal growth for a plum but there is a lot of new growth from the bottom and the leaves and branches are different than the original growth. Not sure if you can tell from the picture but the original growth has gray bark and long, narrow pointed leaves.  The new growth has red/brown bark and a more oval leaf shape. 

Here is the apple that we believe to be a dwarf tree.  You can see the small green apple that is about a inch across.   The tree is looking good.

And here is the tree that we believe to be full sized.  It also has apples about an inch across.  These apples are green with a hint of pink on them.  I am hoping that having fruit this year will help us determine what variety they might be. 

watering the cornfield

Well, we didn't get the rain that was predicted on Friday so on Saturday I hauled water to the cornfield to water.  The little green wagon that pulls behind the lawn mower holds 8 cat litter boxes and I think that I made six trips.  I got all of the south half and the melon patch done and half of the Johnny's sweet corn.  I am still considering laying a hose through the grove to allow for easier watering.  I may have to get some measurements to see what I have for hose and how wide the grove is.  I am not sure how easy it will be to drag that much hose to the end of the cornfield. 

The weed situation is pretty grim.  With all the moisture that we have had the lawn and the weeds are flourishing. I did weed the orchard, rhubarb, blueberries, asparagus and black raspberries.  There were two holes in the row of asparagus and the two new transplants that were grown for those spots are now planted and everything got a drink of water.  There were a few blossoms on one variety of blueberry and lots of blossoms on the raspberries. 

I am noticing that there are blossoms on the older growth of raspberries (what we planted last year). There is also lots of new growth coming which is not flowering yet.  Perhaps it will not flower until next year.  I will have to note where the fruit comes and then make note what to prune.  These plants are transplants from those that have grown wild on the edges of the grove so we do not know what variety they were. 

The grape plants got weeded and watered but I still have to weed the patio stones under the arbor.  All four of the grape vines are getting lots of little baby grapes.

I have lots of weeding left to do in the flower beds so that will be on the agenda for this week as well as planting the rest of the sweet corn.  It will be interesting to see if there is a benefit come harvest to staggering the plantings of the corn.   

Took Sunday off to go to the lake for Father's Day.  The mosquitoes were thick by the time we got back to the farm so there was no chance for evening weeding.  I did harvest a few radishes and made some kale chips to take along to the lake. 

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

cornfield update

I spent some time today in the cornfield.  It was really too muddy to do much planting but I was able to spread the grass clippings that I had collected between a few rows and lay out some stakes to mark planned rows.  I did plant about half of the sweet potato slips.  They were looking pretty wilted, as the directions said they might.  I decided to chance putting them in the too wet soil and have the rest standing in water hoping to revive them and plant them when the ground dries out a bit.  Hopefully both groups will do well.

Two of the three rows of potatoes that were planted on May 7 are up nicely.  The third is coming but a little slower.  These were gift potatoes from my sister and were of a couple different varieties that were mixed up and they were planted without sorting for variety.  It is possible that there is a difference between varieties.  The potatoes in the potager are also up in both towers and some of those came up earlier than the others as well.  I have more to plant.

Our apple trees our blossoming.  Both are full of blooms.  This is the first year that we have had blossoms and I am hoping that means we will get some fruit.  Last year we lost our blossoms to a later frost and had no fruit.  I have got my fingers crossed that come fall we will be having some of our own apples. Here are some pictures of the trees in bloom.  the full size apple continues to lean.  It was staked for the first year but last summer I took the stake away.  Looks like I need to put it back.

The dwarf apple

the full size apple

Here is the new pear tree.

And last years pear tree.

And the plum trees.

The plums have had some very tiny white flowers, so maybe they will produce fruit this year as well. In the background you can see my scruffy lawn.  It needs to be cut again at a shorter setting.  I had to raise the deck up because it was just to long to cut but it did leave me with some grass clippings to collect and

gone three days and look what happens

Last night i returned after three wonderful days in Kansas.  Well, to be honest it was two days in the car, one fun evening, one lovely day and one fun breakfast in Kansas.  The reason for the Kansas trip was to attend the graduation of my youngest, Caitlin, who received her Master's Degree in Interior Architecture and Product Design from Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas.  I couldn't be prouder and that event deserves its own post and I will do that soon.

A lot happened while I was gone.

We had a shot of rain on Friday night or Saturday, more rain during the day on Sunday and still more rain during the night on Sunday night.  I hear predictions of more rain Monday afternoon or evening and maybe more still the next couple of days. 

The lawn grew.  It desperately needs to be mowed but of course it cannot be mowed while it is this wet.  One good thing is that by the time I am able to mow it i should have enough grass clippings to pick up and spread between the rows in my new growing space.  Not only is it long but there are wide swaths of yellow dandelions.

The orchard--the apple trees and plum trees are blooming.  We have flowers opening on both apple trees and both plum trees.  Both of the pears, last year's and the replacement planted a few weeks ago, are getting leaves and I am hoping that flowers won't be far behind.  The flowering cherry, an ornamental tree is also blooming.  I am hoping that will bring the mason bees to the yard and they will find the house I set out for them.

The asparagus went from being a bunch of spears to being fern-like over the weekend.  I knows that there is probably a word for that but it eludes me now.

The rhubarb is getting bigger and still needs desperately to be weeded.

More of the raspberry canes are leafing out.

The blueberries do not look any worse.  The one variety still has no leaves but the other two varieties are looking okay.   I am glad for the rain because I think the rain water might be better than the well water.  Last year I pH tested my well water and it was alkaline so it is not helping to acidify my soil.  I think that I will make an attempt to capture rainwater over the next few days and use that for watering.

The peas are up.  The transplanted kale are surviving.  The potatoes are just starting to come in a couple spots.  Maybe some varieties are earlier than others.  Nothing coming yet from the strawberries, a couple of the grapevines are just starting to get leaves the others are not yet.  Nothing much from the garlic. 

the orchard gets fertilized

Today the UPS driver brought a mother's day gift from my son, Nathan.  It was a vibrating hand seeder and a bag of fruit tree fertilizer.  The hand seeder is supposed to dispense even the smallest seeds one at a time.  Many of the seeds that I plant are very tiny so I am anxious to give it a try.  I already have used some of the fertilizer.  As soon as it came I was outside, I weeded around the trees, sprinkled a cup of the fertilizer around each of the trees and spread a few shovelfuls of compost over the fertilizer and gave each tree a good drink.  It is fun to see the buds starting to come on the trees.

the full size apple

the dwarf apple

The east plum

the west plum

last year's pear

The new pear-Waterville

This week I will weed and fertilize the blueberry plants, the raspberry canes, the asparagus bed and the rhubarb as well as the strawberries in the tower.  No signs of spring in the blueberry or strawberry plants but there are leaves coming on the raspberries and a few asparagus spears have started to poke thru the ground.  The rhubarb is also starting to make an appearance.

The ornamental flowering cherry tree starting to get leaves.  Yep, spring is coming.

mowed a little lawn

Today was my first opportunity to do some mowing and all of a sudden the lawn is looking rough so it was time.  I started with the lawn around the house for a couple or reasons.  That part had the fewest branches that needed to picked up before mowing and I wanted the grass short so that I can see any snakes that show up near the garden.  I mowed around the house, the ditch and around the new cornfield.  What usually happens when I mow is that I drive by all these projects that need to be completed and today was no exception.  There are lots of things to do.  There are getting to be little signs of things coming to life.  There are a few tulips in the flower bed and the fern peony is starting to come.  There are a lot of poppies started and a few left over milkweeds to remove. 

I did a quick tour of the orchard and the apple trees are starting to look like they are getting buds but I am not sure if they are leaf buds or flower buds. The plum and pear trees are not a far along yet, but I am hoping that what i am seeing are tiny buds just getting started.  There is no sign of asparagus yet or or blueberries, strawberries or raspberries coming to life.  There may be a hint of rhubarb starting to pop through.  All of the above need to be weeded.  Hopefully there will be good weather on the weekend.  It was clouding up in the west but only  a sprinkle so far. 

I have been spending a little time trying to lay out the front half of the cornfield.  I want to make the best use of the space and match the plan to the seedling inventory that is also a work in progress.  Excited to get started out there As I was making laps around the space with the lawn mower I was picturing it all growing.  Most of the planned crops for that area are warm weather crops so another two or three weeks to wait.  I think our last frost date is May 23 but I will need to verify that. Looking ahead to this week there is one night with an overnight low of 32 so it is pretty early yet.