Getting the Garden In!

We have been pretty busy around here getting the gardens prepared and planted.  I feel like there are just never enough hours in the day to accomplish all that needs done.  I know I'm not alone in this feeling!  Every year once May and June rolls around it just seems like everything else comes to a giant halt and the main goal is to get things planted and maintaining the gardens.  A lot of what we produce I preserve by canning and freezing for us.  We try to produce and save as much of our own food as we can.  The rest, which is still a large amount on a good year, goes to market with us on Saturdays.  We decided to stick to more of what we always grow.  The old saying "If it ain't broke don't fix it." comes to mind!  Multiple varieties of heirloom tomatoes, squash, green beans, cucumbers, and sweet/hot peppers can all be found growing, as well as some other wonderful vegetables.  This year I was able to get my hands on the infamous Bhut Jolokia or Ghost chili pepper seeds.  This is apparently one of the hottest peppers known and comes from the region around India.  We also have Fatalii and Carribean Red Habanero Peppers this year, too.  We seem to have this thing about really hot peppers.  I mean, yeah we're chili heads, but come on!!  If you like it hot, come see us at market and we can fix you up!
Getting the gardens prepared is no small task.  This year we invested in a moldboard plow to really help dig deep and get the rich soil turned over.  It also seems to have helped bury a lot of the weed seeds.  We try to avoid plowing/tilling too much as we don't like to disturb the soil ecosystem anymore than we have to, but we do give it a good going over at the beginning of each season.  Here is my brother Josh breaking in the plow.  It was like he had done it one-hundred times before!

A week later Matthew went over the turned over soil with a walk-behind tiller.  This was a massive undertaking.  The moldboard plow leaves giant mounds and dips of soil that need to be smoothed out.  Matthew certainly got a good workout fighting his way through it all.

Ronan had a great time playing in the freshly tilled dirt that day.....

Willow spent the entire time picking "flowers."  In this case it was some type of yellow-flowered weed that was blooming like mad.  I told her she could pick all of the yellow flowers she wanted and I tell you what...she picked every single yellow flower she could find!  Here she is with flower smeared on her face and eyes closed for the camera...typical Willow.

 So now we can fast-forward to the last few days.  I've spend many long hours outside getting plants in the ground so they can start growing.  The warmer spring we've had this year has been quite beneficial in many ways, one being that we were able to work the gardens sooner.  Last year I wasn't able to get the tomatoes or peppers in the ground until after June 1 because it was so wet for so long.  The plants were pretty sad by that point and they never did fully recover.  This year I have had some of the best looking transplants I've ever had.  I think this is in no small part due to the generous sun and early mild temperatures we've been blessed with.  This morning when I went to let the chickens out I snapped a couple pictures of what things are looking like now.  Here is what the main garden looks like at this point.  Give it a few weeks there will be a lot more green in this picture as things grow bigger and bigger!
This is a portion of our tomatoes and "greens."  Putting up the tomato tee-pees is always A LOT of work, but we always have the nicest tomatoes when we use this system.  Each stake gets one plant and I just tie the plant up as it grows.  I don't do too much pruning either.  This is just my preference.  I'll sacrifice a little fruit size to have larger yields.  Needless to say I get some sprawling branches despite my best efforts to keep them all up off the ground!

 Here's a lovely young Lacinato Kale plant.  It produces lovely dark blue-green leaves that are just packed with nutrition.

As I was walking out of the garden I spotted this tomato plant with flowers in bloom!!  This is wonderful because it means the first of the tomatoes aren't too far of.  I can not wait...

I like to intermingle flowers in my gardens along the veggie plants.  Some flowers can actually help ward off certain pests you don't want in the garden.  I thought this little lady was just too pretty to not share.  This is an heirloom flower called Zebrina.  Such pretty colors on a easy to care for plant.  Imagine a small version of a hollyhock...

The sheep couldn't help but notice me while I was out and decided to come and say hello.  Well, it was actually more of a "Are you going to give me some sweet feed?" kind of greeting.  They are now permanent additions here I'm glad to say.  Matthew had to get the fencing finished before we were able to move them up here from my mom's barn.  So now the sheep are here and the goats are at her house.  Matthew and I have decided that we do want to get a couple weeder goats just to help maintain the lot.  It's really big for just two sheep!  It's nice to have livestock back here on the farm.  I'll leave you with a picture of my two balls of fluff!  Until next time!

Gandalf and Raziel