I am blissfully happy. We have started planting again! I have cleaned beds and pulled up old plants, weeded and tilled. As always, we have experiments. We used a plastic mulch barrier in the new granite bed hoping to cut down on hours of weeding – yes, raised beds still have weeds, just not as many as an in-ground bed. We laid drip lines underneath and planted away. My new gourmet lettuce mix is BEAUTIFUL! My daughter, Hannah, arranged for us to order some plugs directly and they are fabulous. The gourmet mix has multiple types of greens in a single plug: red mustard, arugula, dandelion, red Pak choy, several leaf lettuces and lacey mustard (pictured below).
I have followed those with greens I have seeded: bright lights chard, red Russian curly kale and romaine. I have seeded another batch of spinach, red and white Russian kale, broccoli, several lettuces and cabbage. Tractor repairs are complete and Troy has tilled up the big garden. He laid off 3 wider beds, where we laid out drip lines and cover in plastic mulch before planting. We planted tiara cabbage – a smaller 45 day variety we love - and green magic broccoli on the first bedded row. We have a second row laid out for more brassicas and will put them in the ground in a week or so when they get a tad bigger. The third bed is for the early varieties of cucumber, squash and peppers I want to lay in. Waiting for a little warmer temperatures for those babies. Troy then laid off additional rows with standard spacing for our other crops. Here we put in red and white potatoes, onion sets and marigolds. Those marigolds are such great companion plants helping keep away some nasty bugs. The last few rows in our early garden are for the tomatoes. I have some Early Girl, Brandywine and Romas I’m raising in the greenhouse to plant as soon as the nights warm a little more. Nothing is as good as the first sun ripened tomato! Of course he has plowed the rest of the areas for the summer section. We are debating on types of peas for this year. The sweet corn is a given and of course all the other vegetables and melons. It feels so wonderful to be out there again, digging in the dirt. It is so reassuring to look out over the field and see those rows laid out, seeds germinating underground waiting for their time to rise up and seek the sun. I love being a farmer…..here we grow again…