Garden planting (and eating) weekend!

Due to our anniversary weekend getaway (which by the way was luxurious and well worth anticipating for an entire year!) and to last year's late frost, we bumped our main garden planting to this weekend.  And to be honest it is doubtful we would have gotten to it any sooner anyway.  Spring has a way of keeping us on our toes, that's for sure!  This weekend couldn't be more different than last weekend, except for the fact that both have been wonderful.  Last weekend included long naps, lazing in bed reading, playing games, hikes, sleeping in and waking without an alarm, and spending very little time doing anything that might normally be deemed "work."  This weekend has been one of waking early and moving all day long - weeding, mulching, sifting compost, spreading compost, planting, watering, harvesting, washing produce, and keeping lots of hungry mouths fed.  I decided it was worth taking a few moments during Alida's nap to put a short post up since these days and weeks fly by so fast that I often don't take time to step back and reflect at all on them. The thing about the past few days that has been so fulfilling is how much fun it has been to all be outside together - working and playing.  Friday and Saturday we didn't see a whole lot of Kali since she had a sleepover Friday evening with 3 friends and a long playdate last night with another good friend.  So she is out in her garden now trying to prep the ground for her eggplant to be planted.  Alida had a grand time with the big kids the last few days too but she also was my sidekick for a good portion of the garden work I got to take part in.

By far the most fun and rewarding work of this season has been getting compost for the first time out of our composting chicken coop.  I can't remember if I mentioned this before but if I did bear with me as it feels worth repeating.  Jason is a genius at designing systems!  The longer we live here, and the more things get established, the more in awe I am!  As one small example, he built the composting coop with a ramp for the chickens to get out that also serves as a sifter when you put a wheelbarrow under the ramp.  It works great!  So Alida and I have been sifting load after load of compost and spreading it on beds and around plants.  A smattering of what is going in the ground this weekend includes tomatoes, peppers, basil, cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloupe, beans, trombone squash and other squashes.  We also put compost on the rhubarb, raspberries, blackberries, perennial onions, gooseberries and the list could go on but I can't remember it all. While we are still not pleased with the amount of grain our chickens consume and want to keep working at developing a system by which we get help them get more of their nutrition from wild foods, on days like today it certainly feels to me like they are earning their keep.  We have never had this much compost before and the plants just appear so very happy when I ring them with a nice later of the dark fine organic matter.  The only task I think I like more is watering in new plants.  Jason has left a good bit of that for me to do so that is probably where Alida and I will head once she wakes.

Regarding Alida's afternoon nap, it seems like gone are the days of argument-free-nappy-walks.  Jason has been dealing with this for weeks now and I was always able to say, "Hmm, that's odd.  Alida never complains about going on nap walks with me."  I'm no longer special.  As early as when she hears that it is about lunch time she starts noting that she does not want to go on a nappy walk.  Thus far I've been able to make a game out of it, sort of. But I can see that not being a good strategy for much longer.  And maybe that is just as well. I'm not sure I'll be eager to go on runs between 1 and 2 p.m. (also being right after lunch) when the temperatures climb much higher.  So we might soon be wrapping up this phase and it will be a good year later than it was with Kali, as she hardly napped from 2 years old on. But when Alida is not in the jogger for 5 minutes before sacking out, it is hard to take from that that she wasn't tired.

The girls have been our main strawberry pickers so far this year and I have been very grateful for their enthusiasm (and assistance)!  We are not clear yet what the season will be like (as far as having enough to put up for the winter), but we definitely have plenty to enjoy for fresh eating.  They have seemed highly motivated the last two times I asked them to pick - the first time offering to make a strawberry shortcake if they found enough berries and today there was vanilla pudding waiting to be topped with fresh berries.  But even without those offers, they seem happy to head out with their bowls.  I love that they are growing up surrounded by the planting, growing, weeding, watering and harvesting of the food they eat.  While it will be important to me that they understand that the abundance we experience is not shared by all, I hope that savoring the gifts of our land and the food we work hard to produce (and some we don't work at all for) will make them eager to share what we have with others and make it possible for more to enjoy bountiful harvests.  Alida certainly is not yet familiar with strawberry shortages:



I used my solar food dryer for the first time the other day drying a large batch of oregano and trying out drying stinging nettles for the first time.  I don't know yet what I'll use the latter for and I did learn that drying them reduced significantly, but did not eliminate, their sting.  I also dried a large batch of apple mint tea.  It's a good thing all our tea patches look amazing as we are plowing through the stuff. I'm currently making two gallons of tea daily and we are easily keeping up with it!  We continue to enjoy spinach in all its forms - salads, steamed, baked in quiche, in soups, etc...  We are using stinging nettles in bread and lambsquarter in pasta.  And the fridge is loaded with lettuce, spinach, kale, and mustard greens for the coming week.   These things will start to fade here soon but the flowering peas have our mouths watering for what is coming next.

As I'm outside working, what feels so good is how connected the pieces feel.  Sometimes I kind of chuckle because it feels like what we are mostly doing on our little 5 acres is moving stuff around.  We cut autumn olive berry branches for the goats and put them in their pen as part of clearing out the frost pocket below the garden.  Once they have eaten off all the leaves and we have moved their pen on to the next location we pick up the remaining brush and take it up behind the shed.  There we chip and sift it.  The larger twigs are for kindling for our fires this winter.  The smaller stuff is then taken wheelbarrow load at a time to mulch garden paths.  Similar things happen with leaves and soil and rocks.  All of those things feel like precious resources, especially when they are in the right location serving an intended purpose.  They can seem like a nuisance in the wrong spots - like the many rocks we are finding in our garden and slowing dumping bucketful by bucketful on a future parking spot.  The way it all fits together suits me - it feels integrated and interconnected and that has always made my heart sing.  It also serves very well in keeping us in shape without leaving the property - all that moving stuff around!

It's been fun to see the girls enjoying springtime and being outside.  They found this little turtle the other day while I was at work.  By the number of pictures that were on the camera just now when I downloaded them, they were enjoying watching it for quite some time.

 Alida is taking after her Grandma Myers in being our flower bouquet collector (though she could use some lessons!).  She will come in with a handful of "flowers" and ask for a vase, into which she will delicately put a few grasses and then stuff the rest in with her little fist!  There are flowers of all colors in abundance right now.  Jason and I are both taken by the sage in bloom right outside our side door, and the various colors of columbine are a close second for me. To date, I hardly ever feel inclined to bring flowers inside (I do not take after my mother on this one!) since it feels like I could never do justice to their beauty in their natural environment with my flower arranging skills.  It feels like Nora's garden has kind of come into its own this year, hardly requiring any weeding and is just overflowing with color.  Every year it is such a special reminder of the gathering we had on the first anniversary of her death where many friends brought divisions of plants to contribute to a garden in her memory.  We have been so grateful for it, so often!

Well, I better get a few inside tasks done so I can be ready to head out once Alida has fully recharged!  It's hard to feel motivated to do things like laundry and dishes when there is so much fun to be had outside. While I still feel most comfortable and "in my element" in the "inside arena" of our home, I'm enjoying stretching myself in new areas and getting to participate in some of the process of things pre-harvest.  I've got a long ways to go, but I learn so much every time I work outside with Jason and little by little I gain some confidence too.  I even planted parsley all by myself (well, not exactly - Alida helped me) while Jason was at a birthday party recently. Let's hope it does well!