Saturday, April 12, 2008

When she puts on her petticoat

There are never leaves on husbands birthday. There are always leaves on my birthday. Right now is between the two and the poplars burst their leaves this week and it always makes the mountains look like they've put on a lace petticoat to me. This is what the garden looks like when the mountain puts on her petticoat.

Today we planted about 150# of potatoes. Some we'd saved. Some we bought. We're eating a few of them as baked potatoes with the works for supper tonight. It worked out to about 17 rows I think.

These are the strawberries I've been trying to weed. It is a permanent bed, inside a fence, and it always seems to get away from me.













Peas looking to climb the fence.

A bed of fava beans. Onions from sets in the back.
Garlic that was over-wintered. I wanted to show some weeds!
Onions plants which are different than sets in that these will make actual honest to goodness bulbs. Hopefully I'd laughed at Barbara Kingsolvers book when she said she figured on two onions a week. I figure on two good sized onions a DAY, plus green onions and garlic.
Some slightly sad kale transplants. It was supposed to be cool and overcast today, with rain. It was cooler but still warm, and windy and sunny. They'll probably recover. It is black kale and red kale, the reds are sadder because they were bigger.

I'm tired of loading images so I'll save you from the photos of pear blossoms and peach blossoms and the not quite open but oh so cute blueberry blossoms. Only a couple of the blueberries are blooming yet (they are all different varieties). I'm hoping the coming cold snap doesn't get so cold as to freeze off the fruit set.

14 comments:

Kitt said...

I'm really enjoying all your planting news! (And all your Flickr photos, too.) We are a few weeks behind you, still getting a little snow, but I am eager to get out and do the same, albeit on a much smaller scale.

The poodle won't take to a plow harness, so it'll just be me doing the digging.

barefoot gardener said...

Beautiful photos!

Walker said...

Well it is my first time on your blog and I am pleased to be here. Love the mountains with a petticoat. You seem like a delightful person.

dND said...

Wow, you have been busy. I'm still trying to get the soil into shape and sort out the drainage. My potatoes are raring to go but nowhere to put them in the veg area so they might have to go somewhere else this year.

I love the photos but they do take a time to size and load don't they.

Danielle said...

We seem to have stepped directly from the 30s/ 20s to the 70s up here in Maryland. I've been wanting to transplant some berries into a permanent berry patch I'm slowly building (lost about 75 raspberry transplants to last year's drought), but it's been too sunny and hot to get it done. This week looks pretty good though, assuming the soil isn't too wet.

We plowed this weekend with our silly little tractor—I can't imagine plowing with a horse! I'd love to see you out there doing it. I've seen folks on tv doing it, so I have some sense of how much work it is for horse and plowman.

Ren Allen said...

I'd love to watch it too!

I've gone and covered things, though they'd probably be fine with the cold. Seeing as I have a very little garden it's not hard to protect everything.

Oh, and I finally did the meme!
http://radicalunschooling.blogspot.com/2008/04/meme.html

CG said...

Driving (the horse) by and waving at everyone!

The Scavenger said...

150lbs of taters? Now thats a bunch of tater salad. i planted 50lb and thought that was alot. garden looks great and keep up the good work. With food prices maybe I better plant more too.

CG said...

It is a lot of potatoes. Probably an overkill. But we planted a bit better than 100# last year and ate them. We probably pulled 75 pounds or so as we plowed (that made our french fry supper that night). And we have a big family of teenagers and they tend to eat a lot. And you can fatten a pig on taters.

It will be a LOT of hilling though. (*unpaid product endorsement* and really, you can't beat the Amish hoe from Lehman's)

Heather Jefferies said...

Waiiitttt - my suburban mind is going haywire - they aren't covered with dirt! Are they supposed to just be lying there? Did the Burpee people lie to me? Should I have left them unhilled until they did something with their eyes? (I know DO NOT dig them up)

CG said...

Alecto, I couldn't very well take a picture of them after I'd covered them UP could I??? Then they'd just look like a plowed and disked field!

Here's what we do. This field is one of the few places where we grow things in rows. It works to our advantage in hilling is why we do it here. We plotted off the corn area, then started the rows of potatoes, putting a stake at each side of the field and running a string. Then we (ok, husband) dug a trench out of the soft dirt under (or slightly beside of) the string. We placed the potatoes and pieces thereof, which is what you see. Then we went to eat. Then we (ok, husband) came back and covered them.

After they start coming up, we'll be hilling them, which basically means covering up the green growing part. We'll try to hill them (which serves as a weeding too) three times.

Is that better???

CG said...

sometimes I think I shouldn't read other people's blogs. But I was reading a fellow's blog who would seem to have every potential to be a good example but who time after time is a horrible warning instead. So I don't link to him. But he says he spent $300 on 200# of seed potatoes. Folks, we spent less than $40. If the wacko holier than thou people would bother to look at the impact of earning money as well as spending it, they wouldn't spend so dang much. Besides, whatever happened to "act locally", since all our money went through local vendors. Yes, folks, seed potatoes this year cost right around $12 for 50#. I know you can pay more. You can get expensive (and environmentally unfriendly) shipping. Lots of things.

Why is it that stuff like that makes me want to scream? Because it is just an different expression of consumerist materialism is why.

Anyway.

Heather Jefferies said...

yes, ma'am, that makes a lot more sense and $300 is a lot of money for anything to plant.

clairesgarden said...

its good to see 'growing'. I am really looking forward to very fresh salad.