Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Busy times in the garden

What a bountifully busy time of the year. There don't seem to be enough hours in the day to get it all done. I feel like I am choreographing a complicated ballet....getting seeds started ahead of planting time, prepping the garden beds, direct sowing, weeding, rearranging plants from previous plantings, re-designing certain areas of the established garden, creating new beds and doing away with more lawn! There is SO much happening... and even with my best of intentions to keep up with blogging about all of this, it seems to be the blogging that falls by the wayside. Can't eat the blog... spend time on the food.

This is the first garden year.. (year number 4) that I have been working without a bunch of help from friends and co-conspirators.. As much as I liked having the help and company, I am certainly enjoying the solitude that I find out there by myself. My daughter, Rebecca, now nearly 8, helps out when she gets a mind to and my fiancée, David, helps when I need him... but mostly it is me out there keeping up with the ballet which is Spring planting time. I am a busy farmer!

This year I have added a new batch of Asparagus, so I now have 3 plantings of Asparagus. We have been getting a few spears here and there.. generally not enough to have a big asparagus feed.. but rather tastes of asparagus in other things.. YUM! Last night, however, we had asparagus sautéed with garlic and mushrooms as a side dish.. the closest we've come to getting to really eat asparagus.. wow... what a treat! I am looking forward to MORE!

I have also added Jerusalem Artichokes this year.. this is a first for my garden but my parents grew them when I was growing up and I remember really enjoying them. They have a new bed outside the garden fence.

I rearranged the herb bed on Saturday. It was time to give the sage plants more space and to break up the chives. Everything got a little cultivation and mulch. Then Sunday was a day of light rain. What perfect timing. Everything looks fabulous!

There is lots of salad greens for fresh salads and kale that wintered over and is now producing well. Spinach that made it through the winter and snow peas are up and coming soon. Arugula is doing well.. but now that it is warming up.. it is bolting.. but I keep cutting it back to prolong the going to seed process.

Life is good, Full and bountiful and BUSY!

3 comments:

Leasmom said...

I am feeling the opposite. I have just a few things started and I'm buying the rest since we're moving and not knowing where were going. But around here it is going from rain to cold...

The Forge Village Farmer said...

We are getting earnestly underway here in NM. The spinach and lettuce are starting as are the peas, radishes and beans.

Judy said...

April is a busy month. There is just so much to do in the garden this time of the year. I still have one 4'x8' bed that I need to plant! I'll probably do that later this afternoon.