Once the gardening season starts, there is always more work to be done. It is a never ending activity until the frosts of late fall bring it to an end sometime in November...maybe. When I read other blogs and some of the comments, it's hard for me to imagine still having snow on the ground and having to wait until June to plant. By the middle of February, I am ready to play in the dirt and get things going. Here is a run down on our latest activities.
Earlier in the week we planted more onions, then we got the last of them in today.
Even though the carrots are not growing as good as they did last year, we went ahead and planted them by the peas as well. Even though the peas are growing, we feel they should be doing more than they are. We will see.
The potatoes are coming up and look great.
The beets are growing and look pretty good.
This afternoon we got out the pots we had made and filled all 220 of them. Here is a list of the seeds we planted. Some of these varieties we have tried before and some we have not.
- Romano Italian green beans (very good pole beans)
- Dr. Jaeger's Cantaloupe (new variety)
- Early Cluster Cucumbers (new variety)
- Swiss Chard Fordhook Giant (new variety)
- Oakleaf Lettuce (new variety)
- Summertime Lettuce (new variety)
- Tendercrisp Celery
- Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach (new variety)
- Earliana Cabbage
- Early Jersy Wakefield Cabbage (new variety)
- Premium Crop Hybrid Broccoli (the only hybrid we grow)
- Early Golden Yellow Crookneck Squash
- Large Smooth Prague Celeriac (new variety)
- Red Russian Kale
The tomato and pepper seedlings are doing very well. We will begin to harden them off out on the porch after the cool nights expected this week pass. Then we will plant them in the garden in a few weeks after it warms up a little more.
Even though April 1st is our last average frost, we are still having some cool nights. Once these seedlings are up and hardened off, our gardening season will be in full swing. It's a very busy time of year, but one of our favorites. We will still be trying to tuck in some projects in between all of the regular chores that come with everyday life at our homestead. Life is good.
Until next time - Fern
It's time to pick peas again. It is our first try at growing them and we do not have a very big patch. Enough for eating a meal about once a week. Next week I will be planting Romano pole beans on this trellis in amongst the peas. The idea is when the peas are about finished producing for the season, the beans will be up and growing, thus utilizing the trellis twice. We haven't tried this before, so we will see how it works.
We also had some broccoli that needed to be picked. Broccoli - it's okay in small quantities, but it is not our favorite, so we don't plant very much and don't freeze it. One of the first times we grew broccoli we cooked it up and enjoyed it. A few days later my mom asked me if we had soaked it in salt water first. No...well, she highly recommended it to kill the worms on it next time before we ate it. Yuck!! I always soak it now. Except for today.
There were so many worms on this head of broccoli that the chickens get to eat it for dinner instead of us. It got moved outside on the porch. I also picked a few onions.
We try to eat what we grow and preserve regularly. That doesn't mean we don't have a box of chicken or a can of soup occasionally. This evening we had the peas and onions with some chicken we canned last summer. The rice was cooked with chicken broth that we made from the chicken. That was a good learning experience. We put too much water on the chicken bones and parts so the broth is rather weak, but still good to use in a meal like this.
The chicken is a little tough because the birds were older when we butchered them, but the meal turned out to be very tasty. There is rice chicken and peas left for another meal tomorrow. We are blessed with abundance.
