Early spring planting
Date: April 6, Temperature: 60 degrees, blue sky, perfect garden weather.
I’m a bit late on posting for last weekend. It was a perfect day, just before a week of rain, so getting down to the garden was a priority. The willows are blooming on the farm, and just about everything looks poised to explode with new growth.
First Sal and I moved the rhubarb crowns away from the raspberries to a much better location. Rhubarb crowns are easy to split, so we did that and we now have five rhubarb plants instead of three.
Since the garden plan is done, I was able to stake out several rows - a quick pass with the new Honda rototiller and we were able to put in Purple Mizuna, a mix of Italian arugulas (from seeds our friend Jim brought from Italy), Spicy Mesclun (a Johnnyseed mix of mustard, arugula, kyona mizuna, and a few other leaf lettuces), and Wildfire lettuce. Then down to the other end of the garden, where we put in a couple rows of Resina Calendula (for Sally’s first aid spray), as well as Larkspur and Milk Thistle.
The last bit of work for the day was moving stray garlic plants that had popped up from last year’s garlic plants into the garlic section (when you pull garlic in mid-summer, you invariably leavebulbs in the ground that come up next year). And finally, at the end of the day, we put down Agribon-15 row cover. This is a miracle product - I used to put this on with metal row hoops, to keep the stuff off the plants, but I’ve found it works just as well (and is a lot easier) if you just lay it on the ground and then put dirt on the windward edges and rocks on the leeward edges - that way it’s easy to pull the
rowcover off if it’s a nice day and you want to check things out. You do have to make sure you don’t leave holes in the dirt along the windward edges (our winds are normally from the northwest), because if you do a windy day will come along and your row cover will be in the fence.
Heading back up to the house, I heard a commotion from Caroline and I got up there just in time to snap this picture of our visitor from a couple weeks ago - the red fox that got six of our chickens, trying to dig up one that we’d buried. He ended up getting it that night, despite me putting a palette on top of the spot where we’d buried her. That fox is gonna be a problem.
Stay tuned for next weekend - it’s time to fertilize, and since we’re organic here, that means a trip to the alpaca farm for manure.
