Back from the Dead - the January Farm

Hello, friends. I've been pretty quiet here because the past year, farm-wise, has been such a disappointment. Late spring/summer in 2019 gave us such a severe drought, coupled with our absence in June/July, that the farm suffered. Compound that with two hurricanes in two years (Florence and Dorian), and our little place looks rather woeful. It was too easy to shake our heads and walk away from the garden.

But we intend to garden this year, albeit on a smaller scale. Adam removed one of the long raised beds in the veggie garden. He made these beds when he was push-mowing the spaces between them. But now we have a riding mower, and he needed to remove a bed so he could get the wider mower in there.

the metal that lined the bed

Hurricane Dorian flattened a lot of our garden fencing. He's begun that repair.

My elderberry tree, which was a tiny plant last April, looks pretty good! I hope to cut slips off of it this spring and start some of my own. I'd like four more trees this time next year. I want to make elderberry jam.

I still stand and contemplate this big ol' field and wonder what we should do with it. We've pondered a Christmas tree farm, and an RV park, and a few other things. For now, it's just a beautiful field for dogs to run around in.

The fire ants are thriving in parts of the garden. Ugh. I hate them.

Miraculously, it seems that a tiny bit of my lavender has survived! That's a first. I still have no faith that it will keep going if we have a wet spring or summer, which we often do.

It looks pretty DEAD.

But there's a little bit of new growth at the bottom!

And some bits of branches still green too.

Our strawberry bed seems to have a fighting chance of doing well this spring too. We shall hope!

There's not much else to report right now. I'm past due ordering seeds, but this year I'm only ordering my Matt's Wild Cherry tomato seeds (one packet) and probably some sugar snap peas (one packet). We're cutting, way, way back on what we plant in the garden:

*peas

*maybe lettuce, maybe collards

*okra

*strawberries and asparagus we already have

*potatoes

I imagine that will be IT for the garden. So many things just haven't done well over the years, and we personally are inclined to limit ourselves to the plants that thrive here, rather than the ones that present us with failure year after year. The tomatoes will be grown in a huge container near the house. This will give our garden beds a year to kill off any tomato diseases residing in the soil there.

Video Tour of the Herb Garden, Etc.

Hello, all. I finally made a little video for you, touring our sunny side yard with the herb garden, rose bushes, and other things. I successfully loaded it into Youtube.(That is no small feat!) Here it is:

I also took photos of various wildflowers blooming on the farm right now -- mid-March. Here they are:

a bright buttercup

sweet little violet

I'm uncertain of this flower's name.

happy dandelion

a different variety of buttercup, I think

Henbit is this weed's name.

 This weed is purple deadnettle (above and below). It is edible. I think I'll pick some for my chickens.

 This is chickweed.

Sweet little chickweed flower

I'm hoping this is calendula, but will wait for its flowers to aid in identification.

Broad-leaf plantain is a wonderful weed.
I have more of the narrow-leaf variety.

 Our Japanese magnolia continues to bloom and hasn't been zapped by frost yet this year.

 Adam made headway with his fencing yesterday. He's about halfway done.

 I sold a shawl at the market on Saturday, so I'm weaving another one.

That's it from the farm!

Ripping It All Out ~

Today began the Great Kitchen Redo. We started with the great emptying of stuff:

 We'll be living with chaos in the dining room for a while.
Then we continued with the Great Ripping Out:

Apparently these cabinets were brand new in 1986!

The only thing we actually ripped out today were the two lower cabinets on either side of the oven. We figured that indicated serious commitment, haha! Adam wants to work from the floor up; we'll be putting in a plywood floor, either painted or finished with epoxy.

It didn't take long, but it was exhausting! The kitchen is by far the ickiest room in the house. We've threatened to do this redo for months, and we knew if we didn't give it a good start, we'd put it off again until after the wedding (in June) and after summer, and then after Christmas and .... yeah.

In other farm news:
The three baby chicks are fine. I've named one Applesauce because she has a cross-beak.
Adam has begun cutting down unwanted crepe myrtle trees along the road front.

This tree is now removed.

 And he's building a new fence to divide the pasture in half. It's a natural fencing technique from England in the Middle Ages, used to keep pigs contained.

 A double row of low posts, filled with woodland debris, becomes a thick barrier.

He'll leave a wide gate on the right-hand end and a small gate on the other end by the garden.
Adam has trimmed one pear tree and begun cleaning out the garage too. Much must be done before the wedding in June -- we'd better "get a move on"!!