Well we are still picking strawberries. We took a little over 300 quarts last Sat. to market and did not get the patch totally picked. They are getting smaller but still very nice size. We've put another 20 quarts in the freezer and dehydrated another 10 or so. We got the okra and field tomatoes planted, but may put in another row of tomatoes as we have the space and plants. The deer came through and ate on and pulled out some of the okra plants, so Greg sprayed some pepper and egg spray on them to keep the deer away. We also got the fennel, basil, artichokes, sunflowers and carrots planted yesterday. All the winter squash, pumpkins and gourds are up in the greenhouse and need to be transplanted out any time. We got the ginger planted in the hoop house on Sunday, am really looking forward to see how that does! I noticed as I was watering yesterday that our blueberry bushes that we have in pots along the chicken yard have some "blue" berries on them! That means I need to get out to the field and check on the bushes out there! Not exactly sure when I'm going to be able to find time to pick them though! Very busy times and not enough time in the day or energy in the body! Also the tomatoes in the hoop houses are doing well and need to be staked. That is always a job I do not like to do! Well I'm off to the local Wed. market in town to sell some more strawberries! Then there's 3 more flats of seconds to process when I get home this evening! Yea! I'm very very very tired of strawberries!

STRAWBERRIES!! We are up to our ears in strawberries! We picked a little over 400 quarts Friday to take Saturday to the Columbia Farmers' Market and sold out. We didn't get the whole patch picked, so on Sunday we picked another 122 quarts, sold 18 quarts from the house and took 104 quarts to the Produce Auction Barn Monday morning to sell. Still haven't got the patch all picked! So I will be picking and taking some to the Fulton Farmers' Market on Wednesday! We have been freezing and dehydrating them. Also need to get some made into jam to sell this winter. Our heirloom tomato and basil plants were a hit also at the Market on Saturday. We had quite a bit of kale left, so would also like to try drying some of that for kale chips, but the dehydrators are full of strawberries. So we ordered another dehydrator yesterday and hopefully will get it here by Thursday so we can get it filled up, too! I worked the other day getting fifty 50 cell trays filled with potting soil so we can get all our winter squash, pumpkin and summer squash seeds started. Greg is coming home early today so we can work on that. We've been getting a lot of rain, so it is too wet to work up the ground to make beds and get seedling planted outside. We've planted all our greens seed and radish seeds twice now, they keep getting rained out. Hopefully we'll get some to come up soon. The seedling we planted earlier are doing great and picked off them last week. Guess we will have to go to more of the transplant seedlings instead of sowing seeds directly into the ground. Our ginger is looking good in the green house and really getting tall. Need to get that transplanted out into the hoop house soon. Also need to get the tomatoes that we set out in the hoop houses strung up soon. That is one job I absolutely hate and can't ever seem to stay on top of!

Sorry it's been so long since last post. We've been busy as always. We have planted the potatoes and they are begining to sprout. Peas are up. After we planted all the greens and radishes we had a 7" rain that washed most of the seed away, so we replanted the other day just in time for another big rain, so we'll have to wait and see if they come up or are washed away again! Right now we are in the begging of our best strawberry season yet! Last Friday we picked for market 197 quarts of strawberries, and if I could figure out how to get pictures off my cell phone and on to here I could show you a really huge strawberry we picked. I always forget to take my camera out with me, but I always have my phone! We got the plastic on our hoop house and tomatoes planted in two of them. Our ginger is sprouting in the green house and will be ready to plant out into the hoop house soon. We've planted out mizuna, arugala, kale and swiss chard plugs and they are looking good. Our green onions have been growing well and have the hugest green onions ever. We are still hauling a couple loads of manure each week to keep adding to our compost piles. Our newest aquistion was a manure spreader, so that makes spreading our compost a little faster and easier onto our garden areas. This year we started extra heirloom tomato, pepper and herb plants to sell at market. Last week we took the first of our heirloom tomato plants to sell. So we are still here and still planting. I'm just slow about getting any blogging done.

Well it's been up in the 80's this week and the Forsythia bushes, Red bud trees, daffodils, and Peach trees are blooming. The apple trees are about to pop out, too. This is way too early for things to be this far along. Only hope of having any fruit is that there won't be another freeze, but that's kind of hard to hope for as this is only the middle of March. So far the strawberries haven't started blooming and hopefully won't for a while. We've got our ginger pre-started in the greenhouse. That is our "new" crop for this year. Am looking forward to growing it and seeing how well it does and if we can sell it at all!

We've been planting onions outside. Have already picked two ticks off me, and three off the dog!

Of course now that the weather is nice and we want to plant, the rain and storms have arrived. We need it to dry up before we can get beds made to start planting, but we also need the rain, as we got little moisture this winter. We are to get rain and storms again this evening. Hopefully all it is is rain, nothing damaging like hail or high winds.

We've been trying to work on our hoop house and replacing plastic, but that is something that needs very calm days to get on! We've got the ends done for the most part, waiting to get the top on.

Well it's the first of February and winter has really yet to arrive! It's been an amazingly mild winter, which leads one to wonder what our Spring and Summer will be like?
We've been hauling manure from a local horse barn and composting up a storm! Greg has most of his seeds ordered and a lot of them have already come in the mail. Tonight we are going to work on starting some of the heirloom tomatoes that we want to set out in the hoop house later. We've still got mizuna and arugula in one of the hoop houses.
We've been selling at the Columbia winter market. We still have winter squash, but are pretty much out of sweet potatoes. We do have some frozen though and also frozen strawberries.
We've been to a couple of conferences and picking up new ideas and learning new things!So even though it's winter we are still keeping busy, but at a slower pace which is nice.