Missing Willow Farm

We had a few tomato starter plants left over at planting time and decided to plop them in our greenhouse beds to see what happens.  Just plant them and water daily.  We had no expectations because it gets HOT in the greenhouse in the summer.  Are we ever surprised, the plants are healthy and taking over.  This means next summer, we’ll plant lots more stuff in there.  This time on purpose and with the intent to actually take care of them.

We see these a lot in the pasture, mostly sitting on poop for some reason.

When we first moved to the farm, I ripped out the ugly bushes around the house and put in perennial flowers.   I also added a few flower beds between the house and the orchard, and gladiolus were one of the things I put in.  Fast forward to now.  If we can’t eat it, I don’t bother with it in the garden (there are only so many hours in the day) but I am always happy to see the gladiolus come up.  Thankfully, the weeds can’t keep them down!

She was born the day before the Mayan apocalypse  last December and lives to tell the tale.  Seriously, she’s as big as her mom Kat.  They are always together.   I hope she turns out to be a good mom, too.  She has a great role model.

Bindi has a knack for finding the one sunny spot in our house at any time of day.

Our blueberries seem to enjoy the pots we have them planted in.  They are a few years old now and look nice on the back deck.  The berries plump up as they ripen and we pick them daily.  They’re going in the freezer for muffins this fall.

Tomatoes are coming on strong.  I’ve canned some, roasted and frozen some, made two batches of a spicy chicken wing sauce and a delicious tomato apple chutney.  Tomorrow I’ll make a huge batch of lamb puttanesca from our tomatoes, garlic and lamb shanks.  We’ll have it for dinner and I’ll freeze a few meals.  I’m tired.

Those fabulous beans that grew like crazy overnight are no more.  We think Jack broke a part of our invisible fence (fishing line) running into the garden and the deer found their way in.  They must have enjoyed them a lot.  In related news, the bugs destroyed our pumpkin plants so no pumpkin for me this year.   Dang it.

Our sourwood trees are just starting to bloom.  No clue if we’ll get any sourwood honey this year.  We didn’t get any last year and folks are asking for it at the market.  Our spring honey is selling like crazy.  Someone who bought a quart this morning at the farmer’s market  just called and asked me to set aside 2 more quarts for him next week.  I’d call that a satisfied customer!

We are swimming in tomatoes!  I spent yesterday canning and have plans to make a tomato apple chutney and another batch of a tomato based chicken wing hot sauce today.