Coronavirus Farm

I'm not entirely sure, but I think we're in the third week of "stay-at-home" life. Adam has been sick, not with Covid-19 it turns out, but with Mono. In addition, both mowers and our weed-eater were experiencing springtime refusal to operate, and new parts were ordered. Today, at last, we mowed. 

The beds in the house lot: herbs and some flowers

In the herb garden by the house, I put some itty-bitty basil plants out today.

This is the only annual I plant in my herb beds. The old herb bed looks a mess, but it's chock full of lemon balm, tarragon, cilantro, oregano, thyme, and a bit of mint that I rip up regularly.

The two teepee affairs are for sweet peas.

This horrible mass of weeds is actually many daffodils, whose greenery I must give a chance to yellow so they will bloom next year. My eucalyptus tree died there. Soon a huge tub of cherry tomatoes will sit there.

Weedy pasture:

The buttercups are blooming in the pasture.

In the veggie garden, the peas are lovely!

 We have a resident black snake living behind/inside the metal liner around this bed. He introduced himself to me yesterday.

The strawberries are hiding under a cover.

I picked four yesterday.

We're eating as much asparagus as we can. I'll freeze the leftover.

asparagus bed

I'm digging out the bed for okra, which I should sow soon.

The soil temp needs to be warm for okra. It grew so well here last year I'm doing more this year.

My year-old elderberry gave me five little elderberry starts this spring that I've put each in her own tire bed.

We'll see if they decide to live.

Tiny little thing.
What else? I'm awful with flower beds, but a little clump of Sweet William and something-else-I-should-remember, are blooming. See the encroaching grass, vetch, and onions? I'm more interested in my herbs.

And I put 3 lemongrass plants in the ground. There's a Sedum a friend gave me a cutting of.

I put it in the bed and it lived! You never know.

You'd think, being stuck at home, that we'd be vigorously addressing our 4 acres and being productive. Adam is too sick and tired to do much. And honestly, I'm giving myself a pass on the usual guilt-trip of productivity and accomplishment. The world seems fractured, living is scary, the immediate future is woefully uncertain, and I find it hard to focus on much. This is not despair I speak of, just stress. In God's hands, our lives are safe and we will be well. But if the grass grows high and the asparagus goes to seed, I will not worry over it. Don't you either. Much love from the farm!

March 1st Farm

This is a couple of days late, but I'd better record what's happening on the farm and in the garden in early spring:

Onion sets are up nicely.
Peas are up a bit.
Strawberry plants (5) that we overwintered on the front porch are now in their bed.
9 asparagus spears are up.
Onion seeds are up in the greenhouse.
Basil seeds are started in the greenhouse too.
My herb beds overwintered - just about everything but basil. Dill, cilantro, parsley that seeded in the fall all survived. Tiny basil seed leaves in the garden that I reseeded by hand in the winter are starting to pop up.
I've scattered collard and kale seeds in their beds. Spinach and lettuces will go in this week.
I'm doing new oregano starts from seed because my oregano seems to be dying off.

Adam relined my newer herb bed in metal.

 Asparagus

 Strawberry bed:

 The old strawberry bed:

 Strawberry plants that were covered in straw all winter:

 Adam relined this whole bed in metal roofing. So much work! Peas are under the trellis and collards/kale are at the far end.

Snow and freezing temps in the low 20s are forecast for this week, but we hope all these will withstand that assault. 

When Everything Happens at Once!

After more than a year, these fellows came to our little farm at last.

They're clearing tree limbs for the power lines along our two-lane highway. Adam talked with them, and they agreed to come dump all the wood chips/mulch that they cut-and-grind, here on our farm! Yay!! Free mulch!

They delivered the first pile this morning. Adam's spent the whole day thus far hauling mulch in the wheelbarrow back to the garden.

He'll mulch between the garden beds and other places we want to keep weeds down. And speaking of garden beds, I finished planting the spring bed. The close end now has a row of peas with a row of spinach in front of it. That's FIFTY FEET of spring garden yumminess!!

It doesn't look like much now, but hopefully it will later! It's the worst of the garden beds, as you see -- it doesn't have any edging to keep weeds at bay. Much of this bed was actually under last year's greenhouse and hasn't been a bed before.
Yesterday Adam worked on bees before they were flying. It was a cool morning. He's putting two heavy posts into the ground. They used to be stands for grinding telescope lenses. The bases are cement in 5-gallon buckets. The buckets are buried, so these stands will be quite solid. He'll build a new bee table atop them and raise the hives higher than they presently are.

This morning our asparagus is looking lovely. Lots of spears coming up. We will give it another year at least to strengthen and proliferate.

Adam is trying again to start new fig trees in the hoop house. Last year I think we failed to keep them moist enough, and none of the cuttings took. We'll see how it goes this year.

One willow branch is also there, given by a farmer friend. We have plenty of low spots just perfect for a pretty willow tree.
Below, you see our old collard/kale bed from the winter. Soon it will be full of strawberries. It's about 2 feet by 5 feet.

Adam bought some fun new additions to the farm: two packages each of strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, and grapes.

Today I planted the strawberries in their bed, kicking the kale out just in time. We ate the kale for lunch in a salad :) There were 22 little strawberry plants in those two boxes. I do hope they thrive! It's a very nice bed for them.
A local chicken lady also gave me two new hens. You can see the one on the right is younger -- she's not full-sized yet.

It's wise to keep them segregated for a while and incorporate them very slowly into the flock. Hens can be mean. This is a large dog kennel, but Adam also put together a small new coop from some things around the farm, and it's in the old chicken yard.

We still have some chilly weather coming and some freezing temps, so we are not quite "free-and-clear" for spring, even in this balmy part of the world. So much is blooming, including forsythia.

Baby, our new farm dog, is just doing great! We are so pleased about how nicely she's settled in. She seems relaxed and happy, and not stressed and afraid as she was at first.

Last but not least, I must announce a personal mile-stone. A little while ago I went on the front porch-cum-greenhouse, and I saw a small brown snake there. slithering along the wall. And I didn't scream. That is a major accomplishment!