Missing Willow Farm

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Here are the plants we started from saved seeds in January.  They will eventually end up on our back deck.  We have two other sizes from later plantings.  The next size down comes with me to the farmer’s market to sell as starter plants, and our small ones will be planted out in our raised beds once it’s safe to  do so.  We’ve been hand pollinating the flowers every morning and already have some tiny tomatoes.  Once again, we should be the first vendor with tomatoes at the market.

Jessica likes to taste everything.  She believes it would be impolite not to.

Potatoes are still growing in one of our greenhouse beds.  Just a few of them, we’ve already harvested and eaten the rest as small or new potatoes.  I was saving the last few plants, hoping these would grow to maturity but a bunny kept hopping through our open greenhouse side curtains and digging them up and leaving them half eaten.  I threw a couple of bell jars (normally used for protecting tender plants from freezing) on the area where they were digging and look what happened.  Plants have sprouted and are growing like crazy.  We learn something every single week in our garden.

Those potatoes we planted a few weeks ago are coming up nicely.  IF we find the time to deal with these correctly this year, we’ll mound soil up around the plant as it grows taller which is supposed to result in a lot more tubers per plant.  Oh… and keep the plot weeded.  That’s a big if but it’s in the plans.  That’s an official gardening objective for 2012.   That’s poopy straw from underneath our chicken roosts.  We remove it every morning.  It’s there for both weed suppression and fertilization.  Pretty cool, eh?  I’m also planning to actually read my pumpkin seed packets for days to maturity in an attempt to have pumpkins (more than one would be lovely) in October this year.

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Jenna’s feeling well enough to follow us out to the pasture so we’re letting her come along for the exercise.  She won’t get her stitches out for almost two more weeks so we don’t let her go in.  She wishes she could help get the sheep up for their breakfast.

Chickadee babies in our feed room waiting for their mama.

Spring gardening is in full swing here.  We’re a few weeks from our last possible frost date, but it’s been so warm we’re thinking about planting a few tender plants.  Inside the greenhouse, our tomato plants are 4 feet high with flowers and tiny tomatoes on them and the hot peppers have started to bloom.  Outside, we’ve got peas, carrots, chard, leeks, and cabbage planted, and our garlic looks fantastic!  That wire hoop structure is just a cattle panel secured between two beds.  The arch is like 7 feet tall so it’s easy to walk under and will provide support for anything that ‘runs’.  Brian and I are constantly surprised that we’ve figured out this food growing thing after lots of failures in our early years.  We learn something new every week.

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We finally found a shearer to come to our farm and shear our sheep.  This is the first year we’ve had it done here, we usually take them to another farm on their shearing day.  You’re supposed to have them ‘put up’ in close quarters for a few hours prior to the shearing.  The warmth gets their lanolin flowing and makes the shearing process easier on their skin.  Our appointment was at 5PM so we got them up in the barn during our morning chores.  Since Jenna’s still convalescing from her surgery last Friday, Brian and I did the task ourselves.  It took an hour to get our sheep into the barn without her help.  It really makes us appreciate what a partner she is on our farm!  When the shearer arrived, most everyone was good except for Beatrice.  She’s a kicking, thrashing brat!  After she was shorn, she came and stood right by me and let me pet her head.  She was probably looking for a ‘good job!’ but didn’t get one…

Spring is when we do preventative medication for different intestinal parasites.  One preventative method consists of mixing a medication into a very large tub of water and restricting access to the Ritchie, which is continuously fed from our well.  This forces them to drink the medicated water.  We tied concrete blocks together over the Ritchie access points to force everyone to drink from the tub.  They ended up draining it in a day so they figured it out!