Farm Update

We've been busy with stuff around the farm. I finally got the rest of the main garden planted this morning. We usually plant on Mother's Day or shortly thereafter, but due to late frost we were about a week late. Then, on Saturday, when I was finally planting the garden, it decided to rain......I had to wait until today to finish the planting.

I must say that this year our soil is the best it has ever been! My hubby was amazed at the ease in tilling and how fluffy it is this year! I think the grass clippings, leaves, ashes from our outdoor wood furnace, and chicken manure are really making a difference! It is now Soil, not just Dirt. When I compare the soil in our garden to the soil in our field(that we are renting out still and is still farmed with GMO corn/soy---we're trying to work up to not needing to do that) the difference is phenomenal.

This year, we went minimal on buying seeds and are mostly using up our stuff from last year/s.
We are growing in the main garden:
~Yellow tomatoes
~Red Italian tomatoes
~Thai tomatoes of some sort(these and previous tomatoes were generously given to me by a friend)


~Chocolate Cherry Tomatoes - I did buy seed for these this year-couldn't resist!
~Beefsteak-from my Boyscout son
~Some sort of Mountain tomato-from my sis-in-law

~Banana Peppers(purchased-these are the only ones hubby will tolerate other than jalapenos, which no one else will eat)
~Rainbow peppers(we'll see how the seed germinates)

~Rainbow Chard
~Vulcan Chard
~Monstreaux Spinach--different family than regular spinach and very heat tolerant/slow to bold
~Baby Romaine
~Organic Buttercrunch

~Waltham Butternut Squash
~Royalty Purple Bush Beans
~Early Wonder Beets
~Cherokee Bush Beans(yellow)
~Those beets that look like a target--alternating red and white
~Bush Cucumbers and some pickling ones that, again, are supposed to tolerate heat and be prolific-not much luck with those last year but we'll give it another go
~Golden Zucchini
~an Italian zucchini
~Yellow Crookneck squash

And of course the usual sunflowers, nasturtiums and marigolds strewn throughout. And soon to be transplanted borage around the tomatoes.

After the rain ALL DAY yesterday, there is water still standing in part of the garden. Thankfully I had already mulched pretty heavily over the part I needed to get into this morning. I didn't get all muddy tip-toeing along the row planting greens. :)


Oh, and on my Overwintering Box Experiment. It's kind of overgrown.
I have discovered that overwintered Kale and Chard bolt very easily. I have decided to let them do their thing, especially after seeing a few bees loving them, and I will harvest the seed for planting this fall or next spring.
I had transplanted some teensy carrots into the box last fall, and those are also focusing on greenery/seed production. Today I pulled those out of there to give the peas more room. I smelled the sweet carroty smell from the carrot greens as I carried them over and gave them to the chickens to enjoy. The chickens have been confined to their chicken run since the rooster has decided he needs to attack everyone when they are free-ranging and also because I don't want them eating every seed I have planted/kicking up the seedlings.

I had a volunteer lettuce in there that I harvested today and that we will have with dinner tonite.

And some French Breakfast Radishes that I planted next to the box with some onions a few weeks ago:

To finish up, one last picture of today's "Bounty", including the eggs so far today.