Where does the time go

The garden continues to grow and mostly flourish. The garlic is not doing well and I do not know why, but many stalks are turning brown without any big bulbs beneath.They just slide out of the ground. Broccoli, coriander, thyme, spinach, arugula all have bolted, and I cut off all the flowers and I am hoping for more growth. Everything is substantially earlier this year and there has not been enough time for the plants to grow properly..this is my theory, although my new farmer friends confirm this in our discussions. The strawberry season was very short. I attempted freezer jam and needed to redo it by adding more pectin, sugar and lemon juice. The key apparently is measuring carefully, which I did not do the first time. Mrs. Wickham said strawberries are difficult and, whenever possible, one should use 1/3 under ripe berries, 1/3 perfect berries, and 1/3 over ripe. It is easier to get that mix if you own the farm producing acres of berries.. Today we had a garden scare. My leaves on my prize snap peas turned brown, and I thought they were dying. It turned out that our watering system had been turned off (?) and nothing was being watered for some period of time. So I hope the water perks them up. I put in some more lettuce seeds in the hopes it will not be too hot for them, but today it went up to 90. Here are some random photos....it looks like a much more mature garden.

Master Gardener

Congratulations to the newest master gardener, Mike, who completed his course at the top of his class. He is showing his skill in the flower gardens around the house, adjacent to the farm. What a perfect complement he is to the farmer. Lucky me.

A page from a farmers diary

 

8:00 AM First stop a dump date to pick up mulch. The first 100 pounds per car are free; then it costs one and 1/2 cents a pound. This was great mulch..see all the worms in the shovel. Already the day is off to a good start.

 

9:00 AM Go to Hallockville and see the sheep get sheared for wool and coo over the babies nursing.

10:00 ish Bring mulch home and do rounds on the garden. Oh no..trouble in the nursery. Eggplants, zucchini, peppers and cucumbers not looking healthy. The broccoli is iffy..some of it looks great;some have yellow droopy leaves. So it is off to Sang Lee and Trimbles for replacement plants. I will also plant some Asian vegetables from seeds from Eddie Lin (Mike's Chinese cooking teacher and friend).

Noonish I pick some berries..we only had about a dozen and supplement them with some from Sang Lee. They will be for lunch, while Mike shucks the oysters from our own babies that grew at Cornell. They are huge and fabulous with just some lemon added.

                                                                                  

Lunch is fabulous on a glorious day. Being a farmer can be tough, but one can get used to it very quickly.  A quick update on the bees I was hoping to get. I met with Laura, the bee lady, and she said we do not qualify because we are so close to the water. The saltier air is not good for the bees, and our location is very windy. Both these conditions will cause the bees to fortify their hives with some kind of sticky substance, making the hives harder to access, and decreasing honey production.                                                                                                                                                                                             I have a question to ponder...what is the difference between a farmer and a really expansive gardener?

Lots of growth....

 

The garden is fully planted and growing well. The beans and snap peas are huge, as are the potato plants. A few of the broccoli are being nibbled and the bok choi doesn't look well. The beets are also doing well and will have to be separated soon as they are quite crowded. The tomatoes are being staked around brightly colored spirals. I am waiting to assess how well this works.

The herb garden also thrives. The coriander, which reseeded itself from last year, has turned into a bush, and the sage and oregano seem to be in a race as to who can take over the garden. The oregano is winning.       We are watering two times a day for an hour each , with the drip system...so far so good.                                                                                                                                                     

Our salads are plentiful, and all in all I think we have a good start. Oh yes, one sad note..the sweet potatoes don't seem to have madeit. I am not sure why and will call Johnny's on Monday.

    

     

Help Wanted

It is hard to find time to blog when my hundreds of infants need attention. They are too hot; they are too cold. They need to harden..whine whine whine. They need to watch the geese babies out there swimming-no complaints from them and they are younger than the plants.

So here is the update-zucchini, cucumber, patty pan squash,and brussel sprout seeds where all planted. None of them are in their original rows, because Mr. Greenjeans, an amoral almost master gardener broke into the garden late one night and planted squash all over the place, upsetting the carefully organized garden. There is a warrant for his arrest and his picture is posted in Agway. The chili plant is planted outside, with a drip hose coming through the bottom of the pot. It is rumored that the aforementioned Mr. Greenjeans is a drip installer by day.

Eggplant and Pepper plants were planted on May 5 after 2ish days of hardening..they seemed tough enough to take it, and broccoflower, cauliflower, broccoli, and herbs except basil. Lavender went into the herb garden, a special kind that deer hate. I overheard this conversation just the other day.

One deer to another:
 "Hey family , look the grocery store is back across the creek."
" Oh yuck, they have the kind of lavender we hate..let's go to King Kullen instead."

So here all all the goodies, with lots of garlic in the first rectangle, to ward off all evil.

The bread was great and another step toward local sustainability and country living. Entrusting my seedlings to Farmer Ferber while I'm away. They should really fill out of the next week. FYI, right here in New Jersey in the yard, we saw a fox this morning. It was beautiful but terrifying the geese. Guess he wanted some eggs.

April is a busy time

An exciting event happened this month when I went to the farm to pick up my wonderful large eggs from Farmer Dave. He had a sign saying he was selling local wheat, and we got to talking about how I wanted to bake bread from local wheat, but had trouble finding it. He said he would give me some wheat berries, but did not do any milling and we decided I would do it with a blender. He also suggested using a fan to get out the chaff, and I thought I would use a hair dryer. Fortunately there was very little chaff, and I did not have to test that theory. So I proceeded to make whole wheat flour just like the pioneers, with very successful results..according to everyone who sampled my bread.







April appears to be one of the busiest times for seedlings and garden prep and it is easy to forget to document when each step is taking place. Separating and transplanting all the little plants to larger quarters takes time and patience...a good learning experience for me. I learned you have to wait for the seedlings to get a second set of leaves before moving them and now all I have left are cherry tomatoes to do. I also put onion and leek sets in the garden, as well as directly planted carrots, potatoes, soy beans, beets, spinach, more lettuce, fennel, arugula, and raddichio. All kinds of squash, broccoli, cauliflower, broccoflower, eggplant and pepper will go in early in May. I think tomatoes go in last as they are the most fragile. Here are some photos of the some of these activities.

Please bear with me while I hone my formatting skills; my goal today was to document all the activities before they fled my mind..which is as scattered as this format.