WoW- another whirlwind planting on the farm-  We…

planted scarlet runner beans- built a trellis out of bamboo and long canes from a native rose, planted cilantro, soybeans, sunflowers and watered all!  We then picked lilacs for the kids to take home.

I know it doesn’t sound like much as i write it, but maybe i should add  that this all in an hour with the kids.

The tomatoes spent their first full night outside last night, i was a bit worried like a mother hen- crazy i know.  I’ve been slowly acclimating them over the past three weeks, starting with just an hour or two, and slowly building their time outside to ‘harden’ them.   I think the tomatoes will be ready to plant in the garden by next week.  We have a flat of basil about two inches tall in the kitchen greenhouse- and the second planting of chili peppers is reaching 7″ now, the first planting is almost a foot tall and about ready to flower.  With them being so ahead in the season, we may actually get some peppers!  I read once that a trick to getting chili peppers hotter is to let the soil fully dry out in between waterings- almost to wilting!  We might have to give that a try.  I’ve been doing the same ‘hardening’ technique with the first planting of chili peppers- but they haven’t stayed out overnight, just yet- we’ll wait until it’s a bit warmer.

The one thing about it being such a whirlwind of activity is that soon we will have a visual of all that will be growing on the farm this year- it will be stunning as well overwhelming!!!  We’ve been documenting a bit here and there with the camera, and that will make it’s way here soon… We had most of the photos on our website that was slowly coming together, but yesterday, Cote went to the site and everything was gone- vanished!  The site now looks as though we haven’t even started yet- back to square one- I’m happy that we kept the blog going, to know that we have a backup of most everything- we’ll just need to piece it together again, after the seeds are in the ground, of course!

Happy Spring to all!  linda