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.

Octo mom notification

What is octo mom up to? Is there a new octo mom? Read on in the latest garden by the sea blog at Octo Mom

Octo mom

Let me start out by saying I am no fan of octo mom..in fact I regularly condemn her actions. But here is a snapshot of my babies. I started many seeds because how could I tell who would survive. Aren't they all so cute

Here is a close up. I did what any mother would do. I transplanted them all. Survival of the fittest will come later.













First I mixed the dirt in a soft bucket from www.gardeners.com. This makes it easy to transport and fill with water. They come in all sizes.

Each baby received its own basinette seed tray and was relocated in several rooms in our bedrooms, living room, Kitchen greenhouse.

Meanwhile, fresh from his master gardening course, Mike is delicately placing seeds with chopsticks. He does not understand why I don't get his labeling system???

birds and salad

To go with the tasty salads I am growing, check out this new local farm:
browdersbirds.com

first plantings

Today is a sunny 70 degree day and perfect for putting a few more things in the garden. I planted carrot seeds, snow pea seeds and plants that dad started, beets and scallions. I also found rhubarb, strawberry plants, coriander, sage and oregano returning from last year. The garden is always full of surprises, and it felt so good to be digging again. I am trying new trellises for the peas...it is an easy method and very portable. You can also see a photo with the outline of the soon to be (I hope) outdoor shower...yea. I am trying to figure out how to post a notice of this blog without the whole blog showing in the email..any ideas?