I planted the first 8 corn seeds. I think I’ll do 8 more each week for the next few weeks.
We think spring is finally here. We’ll have highs in the 70s and lows around 50 this week.
The potatoes and peas are doing well… and of course the garlic. Everything else is small, even the cilantro, broccoli, and kale.
The first row of corn is up, and I planted the second row today. The potatoes are up, too. Instead of thinning the tatsoi, I tried transplanting every other plant to give them enough space. We’ll see how they handle it.
With the tractor running again, I was finally able to do some grooming on the driveway (I had to wait for rain, too, to loosen things up and keep the dust down). While I was using the tractor, it suddenly died. It turned out to be a buildup of deposit on the rotor in the distributor. A little sandpaper took care of it.
I forgot to mention, the bees died over the winter (probably from mites). Alden got a new nuc a couple weeks ago. Yesterday, he added a second brood box and two supers back onto the stack. We hope we can figure out how to help the bees survive the winter. We sprayed for mites last year, but apparently it wasn’t effective.
Heather planted red Pontiac potatoes in the east end of row #2 a few days ago.
I planted the first of four rows of corn today. The seeds soaked for almost a week before I got a chance to plant them.
Heather planted Jerusalem artichokes along the southeast fence line of the pasture in March. They’re about a foot tall now.
Lots of work in the garden today. We seeded peas and carrots. We transplanted six plugs of leeks, two Juliette tomatoes, a habanero pepper, and a Thai pepper plant, as well as six snapdragon plants. Heather transplanted a anise hyssop plant in the herb row. We laid down two more soaker hoses and watered. Things have been really dry lately for springtime. Today involved lots of weeding, cultivating soil, and raking.
This evening we planted tatsoi, muzuna, and orach in row 5, and little gem lettuce and cutting mix in row 6 (3×3 patches about 6 feet in from the east end). The seeds are so tiny, they remind me of having “faith as a grain of mustard seed.” It’s hard to believe that these ones will grow into food for the dinner table.
I seeded some carrots and spinach along the center of my row. The peas have been giving us a sparse harvest, and the beans are barely surviving, let alone growing. On the other hand, we’re harvesting plenty of chard and kale.
Slugs decimated my beans, so I replanted most of the row today. I also planted a few additional corn seeds to replace ones that got eaten by slugs.
Trying to keep up on what Heather has been planting…
The carrots she planted on April 11 didn’t sprout. She replanted today.
Half of the beans that she planted on April 17 didn’t sprout. She replanted today.
She transplanted a gypsy pepper plant today.
Miniature slugs have been eating several of our garden plants the past couple weeks. We have been picking them off and they seem to be diminishing, but not before doing a fair bit of damage to my peas.
Heather seeded pole beans.
A couple days ago we got a male duck on loan from our neighbors. We might have ducklings sometime.
Heather seeded beets and carrots today.
I transplanted kale and chard, and I direct-seeded Oregon sugar pod peas, which were really productive last year. This time, I only seeded one row, leaving more room for planting beans later.
Heather transplanted rosemary, parsley (curly and flat), sweet oregano, and Italian basil (with cloches covering the oregano to promote growth and basil to protect from frost).
I noticed chives growing next to the well.
Isaac and Heather seeded the pasture with 25 pounds of all-animal pasture blend. It is supposed to rain off-and-on for the next week, so that should help with germination.
The swale in the pasture went from empty to half full in the past 24 hours. Now we’ll see how long it takes to drain before it needs to absorb rainfall from the next storm.
I bought a winter-blooming heather plant and planted it at the edge of the ditch by the road.
I harvested the last of my peas, and I’m going to remove them from the pods and dry them. I pulled out the plants, too. In their place, I planted (from west to east) rainbow mix carrots, danvers half-long carrots (north), chantenay carrots (south), some marigolds by the tomato plant, bloomsdale spinach (north), cylindra beet (south), calabrese broccoli (north), and chioggia beet (south). I also tried running some twine around my tomato plant on the east end to get some of the tomatoes off the ground. In doing so, we accidentally harvested some green tomatoes.
The peas that I direct seeded have taken off in the past week. They’re looking great. The beans have been up for a couple weeks. I planted 14 more beans today.
The tomatoes and squash plants have been doing poorly.
The NHS plant sale is a dangerous place of you’re wanting to have the value of your harvest exceed the cost of planting. We spent $31. I transplanted dwarf blue curled Scotch kale, Italian silver rib Swiss chard, and Mortgage Lifter tomato in my garden row (all heirloom), plus Delicata squash, yellow summer squash, and spaghetti squash in the row that we planned to leave fallow this year. Grant transplanted a black Krim tomato in that row, too.
Heather transplanted herbs out into the pasture along the fence.
I ran a 1/4-inch soaker hose on my row. It’s not very good. All the water leaks out within the first 15 feet–especially the first 5 feet. I might try a 1/2-inch soaker hose.
The peas that I direct-seeded have caught up with the transplanted ones, and they’re healthier. Today I planted an Early Girl tomato plant that I got at the Ag Fest, and 10 blue lake bush beans. The soil on my garden row dries out quickly and can absorb a lot of water.
Heather planted a few Oregon sugar pod peas on her row and transplanted two tomato plants of unknown variety from the Ag Fest.
In the back corner of the property, one of our douglas fir trees got mowed down. It was the one that wasn’t doing well anyway. We planted another one in its place that we got at the Ag Fest. We also planted two lodge pine trees that we got at the Ag Fest, and we mulched the trees with wood chips.
I transplanted some plants that Heather started. From the end in: kale (dwarf blue curled), chard (mixed colors Swiss), spinach (Bloomsdale), lettuce (cutting mix), lettuce (unknown–the label faded), and marigolds (petite orange). Some of the starts were waterlogged and others were dry, so we’ll see how they do.
We planted about half of my garden row with Little Marvel peas that Heather started, two rows with one-foot spacing, and direct-sowed Oregon Sugar Pod peas every six inches down the center of the row.
Transplanted two Douglas fir trees for Christmas 2026, one in each corner of the back acre. They’re about 2-3 feet tall.
Transplanted a bunch of chives found in the hazelnut orchard.
