Good Stuff

I am back on the farm after a quick weekend trip to Bellingham. I had such a great visit that it was a little hard to come back to the farm. I really just wanted to stay in Bellingham awhile, where I was enjoying the great city, spending time with my friends, walking through Boulevard Park, sipping on real coffee, seeing my folks, drinking too much whiskey...

But if I had to come back, at least it was on the nicest day ever! Oh my goodness, I love all this sunshine so much. In fact, I am so delighted by the sunny days that I am not even bummed that this early spring weather extends hay fever season into a good six month block, instead of the usual two or three.

We spent some time this afternoon digging in the garden. It was nice and cool, good weather for hard work, but sunny and bright and happy outside. Perfection. I would be a farmer every day of every year if it were always like this in the winter! We started measuring and digging to create a garden of raised beds. We only got a couple of beds and their paths dug, but it loks great so far. The beds will be 4' x 30' -ish, and there will be five or six of them in the south garden, and about four or so in the north garden. So thats about, um... 1,200 sq ft of growing space? That sounds about right. Should be almost enough. Of course,the tough part is deciding how much of everything to plant. I think we've got one entire gardens worth of tomato seeds alone. I am not sure how we will narrow it down!

The tomatoes are all heirloom varieties that we got off of a really great website. Of course, I was sure we could find a vendor closer to us, and resisted online ordering at first. But the photos and the descriptions sounded so good, I caved pretty quickly. We are getting giant white tomatoes, sauce tomatoes, tie-dye color tomatoes, melon flavored tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, chocolate tomatoes, green tomatoes, yellow tomatoes... the list goes on. We ordered eighteen kinds, I think. Hopefully they find someonewho loves making sauces and salsas to work here in August, because they are going to be swimming in tomatoes by then!

Hopefully, the gardens will be really successful this year. If they get some good compost stirred in there in time, and they continue to give the veggies enough attention throughout the season, there should be a pretty good harvest. The plan is to feed the farm crew, and have enough left over for a farmers' market stand. I think they will have better luck if they don't count on having much to sell this first year besides just the dairy's raw milk. After all, its unlikely that a first year garden with a rotating garden staff will really yield its full potential. But with just a little encouragement, there should be a good amount for the twelve person crew that will be living here this summer. That is pretty cool. I don't know that I'll be here to see the literal fruits of my labors, but its fun to imagine someone eating the veggies we are preparing and planting shortly. (Well, someone who is less weird than me about the content of the compost here, anyway.)

We bought 100 trays for seedlings and starters, so the garden should be completely planned and half planted by the end of the week! I am a little nervous that our enthusiasm- and this beautiful sunshine- will lead us to start our seeds too early. A late snow or even an end of March cold snap could be disastrous. If our plants were outside already, they would die in the frost. But if we leave them inside, they may get too big for the seedling trays before we get them outside. Oh well, one worry at a time! For now, there is still a TON of digging to do before I even worry about transplanting. (I'm sure you can relate, Mr. Bird!)

Besides tomatoes, we will be planting the usual suspects: carrots, onions, lettuce and salad green mixes, zucchini, squash, peas and beans. We are also planting corn, basil, radishes, kale, chard, potatoes, strawberries, raspberries, several types of cooking herbs and several medicinals, melons, artichokes, and sunflowers. I am not sure what else. I suspect that, when the time comes, we'll have a few more exotic and impractical choices as well. I do not have faith that we are going to get enough sunshine for melons, but Marcia has boundless enthusiasm and optimism, and maybe even God on her side, so we'll plant whatever crazy thing she wants and it will probably work out just fine!

Here are some photos of a few the cool tomato varieties we are planting. Absolutely beautiful. Pictured are the Black Krim, assorted Berkley Tie-Dyes, the Chocolate Cherry, and the Yellow Pear (I think).