Spring 2012

Spring is here!

We have been very busy in the garden and have most of our spring planting done. This year we planted some of our usual spring veggies, including cucumbers, squash, green beans, eggplant, cantaloupe, corn, peppers, and tomatoes. Some new crops we are trying this year are black beans, tomatillos, red carrots, and blue corn. We purchased those seeds from groworganic.com. This is the first time we have tried their seed and so far they are germinating very well! We will also be planting garlic and pinto beans soon. The potatoes we planted from our previous article are doing very well despite the past few cold days we had.

Currently, we are harvesting peas, lettuce, spinach, cabbage, and onions. The wheat is doing very well and is about 4 feet tall in some spots. It has been growing for 130 days and will hopefully be ready to harvest soon!

Spring is also the time to thin young fruit off of fruit trees. Our apples, peaches, and apricot are full of young fruit. Apples will usually form in a cluster and each cluster should only have 1 or 2 apples. We simply snip off the smallest fruits with scissors and leave the biggest one to mature. Our peaches and apricot are young trees so the focus of their spring growing should be on branches, not on fruit. Therefore, on these trees, we have picked off most of the young fruit, leaving just the largest ones to grow.

Our chickens are also doing very well! On the first day of spring they surprised us by laying their first egg! Only one week prior we got their nests ready, filling them with bedding and a few golf balls. The golf balls look like eggs so the chickens know where to lay. So far our smart little ladies have layed all of their eggs in the boxes!