What's for Dinner?

This was just too cute not to share :-) ER and MB were out in one of our raised beds having a contest to see who could dig up the biggest overwintered carrot. All bets were off once Ellie, our 2 year old Great Dane, spotted them. She loves carrots at any age!

1,100 plants later........

Well Saturday's gorgeous weather was not to be wasted around the farm. Russell and I planted nearly 1,100 transplants including purple and green kale, white and purple kohlrabi, orange, green, and white cauliflower, broccoli, brussell sprouts, red and green bok choi, red and green butterhead lettuce........ah, the list continues! Don't forget this Friday, March 22 is the last day to sign up for the summer CSA.

Spring/Summer CSA Shares Now Available

It's official, we are now accepting shareholder applications for our second Spring/Summer CSA season. Applications can be printed below.  We will only be accepting a limited number of shares as this is our first season of subscriptions. The deadline for this season is March 22.  We will begin a fall season share program in August. We will post information for that sometime in May. Please let us know if you have any questions about this upcoming season.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/129140023/Spring-Summer-Season-2013-CSA-Application

The Greenhouse Is Filling Up

Here are the first round of transplants that are going to get prepped for planting out in the next two weeks. Did you know that plants have to be 'hardened off' before going from greenhouse to garden. This process gradually introduces the plant into natural outdoor growing conditions and toughens it up a bit. We'll begin setting trays outside the greenhouse for a few hours at a time, until they can handle an entire day, at which point they'll be transplanted into the garden.

Green Un-Guns Galore

Well you probably call them onions, but our first born has always called them "un-guns" so that's what we call them. We have about 2,000 to plant and harvest at the green onion stage and here we are planting the first 700. Hard to believe that doesn't even plant the entire 200' row.

MB is a little man of perfection. Things must be planted just so and the rows laid off with the Allis G were not up to his standard. That's where the multipurpose trowel comes in.

3,000 Plants and Counting........

That's right, we've gone a little greenhouse crazy and already have over 3,000 plants in the first 3 weeks! It's nothing less than amazing to watch everything sprout and thrive in there. We're now at the stage where we are transplanting planting from the 105 plug size to 48 plant trays. That's alot of transplanting! At this point we have kohlrabi (white and purple), beets, spinach, bok choi (red and green), mache (corn salad), cauliflower (orange, green, and white), kale (green and purple), lettuces of all kinds, cabbage, collards, leeks, onions, and I'm sure there's something I'm leaving out! If all continues to go well, we should be expecting our first harvests around the third or fourth week of March.

Now, for those of you who have purchased our eggs in the past, our newest hens have started to lay and we have eggs galore! We are gathering about a dozen a day. Even in our off season MB does sell his eggs to help with his feed cost. Just let me know if you'd like to purchase a dozen or two ($4 a dozen) and we can arrange a pickup time.

How many omlettes can one family eat?

 

 

 

"Okay sissy, this is how you very delicately wash the eggs."

This is no optical illusion, pretty sure this is our first double yolk egg.

There's no place like home.....

The hoophouse/greenhouse was put to the test with last night's wind and thankfully, it survived. We all went to work first thing Wednesday morning making some sandbags for the side 'curtains' of our new structure. Since it is really a hoophouse, which means we can roll up the sidewalls on both long sides, we were a little nervous about the forecasted winds gusts.  As we explained to MB and EC why we were doing this, I mentioned that we didn't want to see our hoophouse sailing in the wind like Dorothy's. MB informed me, straight-faced as could be, that it would be okay because we didn't live in Kansas!

Hauling the sandbags on the tobacco sled/trailer.

Stepping back and admiring your handiwork.