Busy Summer(?) Has Begun

I woke to 36° this morning, a temperature which definitely does not qualify as summer time.  However, it's not unusual for this time of year for those of us living up here near the Arctic Circle.

 

The past few days have been lovely (except for the on and off showers on Tuesday) and much has been accomplished out in the garden.  Dear daughter has been helping me and to paraphrase (badly) the old saying, "Two people working together more than double the efforts of one."

 

I'm staying ahead (almost) of weeds springing up in still yet to be planted areas.  Our asparagus patch is flourishing as is our giant rhubarb plant.  I simply cannot indulge in another fresh rhubarb pie.  (Okay, maybe just one more.)

 

Our hens have finally (we hope) decided we are not letting them go broody and hatch out chicks quite yet this season and the egg production is climbing again.  Hooray.

 

As I was finishing the task of getting our strawberry bed ready for the season, I noticed the planting of comfrey was ready to be cut.

 

Although Papa Pea dries a lot of it each summer to use as a supplement to our chickens' feed during the winter months, I decided to steal some.

 

Since comfrey is said to be a great addition to compost piles and also adds lots of nutrients (fertilizer) to the soil, I cut it to lay between the double rows of strawberry plants before covering the same area with mulch.

 

The strawberry plants are now completely ready for the season.  I've already seen some white blossoms, harbinger of berries, on many of the plants.  Can hardly wait for those first, fresh strawberries! 

Attempt To Catch Up

Oh, my.  I can't remember a busier spring.  Maybe it is true that the older one gets, the faster time goes.  Uh-oh.

 

We've been having many rainy days lately.  Which is a good thing considering our drought conditions last summer and lack of snowfall this winter.  Yesterday morning our rain gauge held 3" of water.  This morning we have lovely sunshine, and I'm hoping it will dry some of the puddles and muddy dirt everywhere outside.  But rain is predicted to come again later tomorrow and continue through the weekend.

 

I've been using my time indoors to stock the freezer with casseroles and soups that will come in handy this summer.  (No rest for the wicked, they say.)

 

One more cutting of chives (if the four clumps in the garden ever dry out) should fill the quota of frozen chives I use all winter long.  Our asparagus patch is bursting forth with a bumper crop that gives us plenty to eat every day and still more to share.

 

Rhubarb is a miraculous plant that just keeps on giving.  Unfortunately, the rhubarb desserts I've been happily baking are giving me visibly tighter pants.

 

The southern part of the most recently plowed up planting area has so many good sized rocks (mini-boulders) in it that not only has my little Mantis tiller proved totally inadequate in working it up, but even Papa Pea has been hesitant to use the Gravely garden tractor in it fearing the rocks will cause unwanted damage.  If nothing else, we grow magnificent rocks here.

 

So our good neighbor offered to bring his small backhoe over to do the job of extricating the blankety-blank rocks.  He's a pro with his machinery, and now we only have to haul away the piles of rocks unearthed.  We'll use the bucket on our tractor once the ground dries enough so we won't tear up the area needing to be accessed.  The guys finished up in drenching rain.

 

Our haskap berry bushes have been totally blossomed out and the earth beneath them is carpeted with falling petals as the berry buds form.

 

That's all for today as I'm heading out in my muck boots to pull up the rest of the hardy and healthy weeds I was working on removing from the blueberry patch before the most recent rains began.  If the lawn area, which is particularly long and lush, isn't dry enough to mow before tomorrow's rain arrives, we may have to use a hand scythe to beat it into submission. 

One Onion, Two Onions, Three Onions, Four

I use a lot of onions in my cooking and meal preparation so plant a big bunch of them each year.  (No, it's still a wee bit quite a bit early to put them in for this season, but it's coming.)

 

I plant both red (Red Comred) and yellow (Stuttgarter Reisen) onions and normally use about the same amount of each variety.  A total of three 4' x 8' raised beds are devoted to growing them every year.  I plant them fairly close to each other, about 8" apart in each direction, which works for me.

 

Keeping our onions over the winter months hasn't been much of a problem as our basement that stays close to a constant 52° seems to be a place where they're happy.

 

Curiously, last year the red ones developed much larger than the yellow ones so I knew there should be more of them left this spring.  I've been noticing some of both varieties were starting to go . . . sprouting big green shoots or developing mushy/rotten spots . . . so it was high time to sort through all the remaining ones.

 

Brought them up from the basement and spread them on a table on the deck.  Gosh, I had more than I thought in those two crates.

 

I went through all of them, checking carefully and these are the ones I relegated to the compost heap.  That leaves me with maybe 5-8 pounds of yellow onions and a heap of reds.  Guess I should lean more heavily on the red ones now.  Wonder what French Onion Soup made with red onions will look like? 

Chickens, Compost and Asparagus

Our chickens seem thrilled to be outside and able to roam their yard and pasture in this good weather.  They're already finding bugs, worms and the first of the green grass.

 

While Mr. Rooster watches his happy flock, several hens gleefully take a communal dust bath. (I'd be gleeful, too, if I hadn't had a bath in months.)

 

Papa Pea is spreading beautiful black compost on the field garden.

 

While he was doing that, I worked on prepping the asparagus patch for the season.  Old dead ferns removed, the first of the early weeds dug out by their roots, compost applied to the top of each ridge and mulch laid down between the rows.  All set for the first little green spears to appear.  Asparagus has many beneficial qualities.  It's loaded with antioxidants that promote detoxification (no wonder some people feel it's a spring tonic) and is great for your gut health.  And we all know good gut health is instrumental in promoting health throughout our whole body.  So bring it on! 

First Day In Garden of 2024

One day this past week I went out into the nearly barren garden and started to do some clean-up.  (Thanks to my daughter for all the pictures.)

 

This was taken from a second story window.  I was able to till up three of the raised beds before the tines of the tiller got bogged down by wet soil.  We had had some rain the night before and we were thankful for every drop of it. 

 

I raked up straw I used for mulch in the pie pumpkin patch last year.  Back to the main mulch pile it went and will be used again.

 

Our little crocuses have started to pop.

 

How do their delicate blossoms survive 

in this cold weather?

 

A bunch of lovely lavender

and white ones.

 

What a welcome sign of spring, even though our temp has been dropping down to freezing at night.

 

A Job Well Done

Yesterday Papa Pea asked our daughter to re-glue a couple of spots on the kitchen floor where the self-stick tiles had come loose.  (Only 23 years on the floor that gets an incredible amount of traffic and they're failing us.  Geesh.)

 

I thought it was interesting to note the particular objects she chose to put pressure on the repaired spots while the glue dried.  What does that say about us?  Hmmm, a vise that isn't fastened to a work bench, bar bells and a couple cases of beer.