Well another month has passed since I've last posted, seems to be a trend I can't break out of!

We got all of our garlic dug and hanging in the barn. That was a big job as it had to be dug all by hand then bundled, tied and hung. We have 72 varieties and planted about 100 cloves of each variety so you do the math!:)

We've been picking tomatoes out of the hoop house. This past week was the peak and we sold over a thousand dollars worth on Saturday, but that will go down drastically now. The outside tomatoes in the big field are all dead. The University thinks it's herbicide carry over in our composting, but we still do not think that's entirely the whole problem as we put the same compost on other fields and they did fine! We did manage to plant about 3 dozen late ones in our front garden and they are looking good, in fact I need to get them caged up. Our sweet potatoes are looking good and so is our winter squash field. I pulled one carrot yesterday to see how they are doing and they look like we can start pulling them any time, but it will be a little bit as we are digging onions now and then will move into the second potato field that didn't get hit by whatever the first field did?! I've been cutting up and dehydrating 2nd tomatoes so I have some for soup mixes this winter. We had some nice blueberries and managed to freeze a couple of gallons of those. Our blackberries won't amount to much but what is out there should be ready in a couple of weeks maybe sooner. My basil is really coming on strong now and the fennel is looking good.  Of course the zucchini is going gang busters, but we need to get a second planting going of them. Peppers and eggplant are looking good in the hoop house, but they are still a little ways from producing, we got them out so late. The green beans aren't much as between the rabbits and the deer they haven't stood much of a chance! Greg keeps spraying them with an egg & hot pepper spray and it keeps raining and washing it off! The deer have eaten a lot of the apples off that they can reach in the orchard which may not be all bad as the trees are really loaded!

The deer are getting a lot more brazen and don't know why with all the garden produce they have access to, but the other morning one was in the drive way outside our back yard gate and then just a couple of mornings ago Greg saw one in our front yard when he went out to go to work at 5:30 in the morning.  That's getting way to close to my day lilies which they really love to eat! I will not be a "happy camper" if they get into them!!!!

We are now officially out of the chicken business as the last two passed on a week ago. Now all that's left are 3 ducks and 7 guineas.  

Sorry it's been a month since I last posted. Can't believe it's been that long! We have been busy, of course:)! We are winding down on our strawberries. We had two weeks of a little over 200 quarts each week and one week of 195 quarts. This past week we had only 67 quarts. We picked about 12 quarts off the outside ones this past week, but they are not going to amount to anything. The winter was too severe for them and then we had a late frost and two hail storms on them! We had another down pour and high winds early this morning and I noticed we have minor damage on our big hoop house with tomatoes in it, but it is easily fixable. Speaking of which, we are starting to get some cherry tomatoes out of it and I noticed this morning one big one is getting pretty ripe! So it won't be long! At least this year I have managed to get them all tied up and it looks pretty good in there! We got our ginger and leeks planted in the strawberry hoop house and have been working on getting the sweet potatoes planted. We have most of our slips that we started planted just waiting on some that we have ordered out of Iowa to arrive.

We used our new box trailer while we were taking plants to market and we really liked it, but the last time we used it we had a tire blow out on the interstate on the way to market and had to unload it and leave it till we could get back to change it after market. That is something  we definitely  do not want to do again, so we bought two new tires for it!

Our potatoes we planted are up and going strong, at least the second field is. The first field we planted March 15th has major issues. They all sprouted which is better than the second field did, but all the plants in the whole field, which is about 160' by 90' are curled, deformed and stunted and we don't think will make anything. We at first thought it was cold damage but that has been ruled out. We took samples into the plant diagnostic center at the University for testing and so far they can't figure it out either but are still working on it. We really need to know so we know what we can or can not do with the field for next year?!

Our garlic has started to send out scapes so Friday Greg picked a bunch and we took them to market to sell. We sold 97 bunches of 10 each and didn't make a dent in our offerings!  There will be more ready to pick this week. They are fun to use and I had an elderly oriental lady who was so excited to see them and thanked me over and over for having them! She was very happy! That makes market fun, to hear how different people use and fix things. It doesn't matter what we take there is usually someone who knows what it is and what to do with it!

Strawberries and asparagus are here! That must mean Spring has arrived! Yea! We picked 87 quarts of strawberries this morning and three pounds of asparagus. We don't have a very big patch of asparagus mainly for us, but we share a little:)! We got hit Monday with a hail storm and it messed up our three hoop houses. Luckily we still didn't have the plastic replaced on the fourth one. We can get by for the summer, but we will have to put new plastic on the three next fall and one of those we just had replaced a month ago! The joys of farming and dealing with the weather! Luckily we didn't have much crops outside yet to damage. The potatoes are just breaking through and the garlic didn't seem to be bothered. Our arugala took a hit, but it will grow out of it. Next week is to be a lot warmer, up in the upper 70's so it should grow out of it pretty quick. Our green onions got beat up a bit, but not too bad. Pulled 100 bunches for market tomorrow. We have also gone through our heirloom tomato plants and pulled out the ones we are keeping for ourselves to set outside. The extras we will have at market tomorrow, also. So looks like we will have a good day weather wise and finally some new Spring produce to offer along with our sweet potatoes, baked goods and dried produce! We also found a used 10 foot box trailer for sale and added it to our farm family this week! That should make getting things to market easier and eliminate taking a second truck a times. Will also make it easier to load crates into and we can take plant racks in it! We are taking it this week to test it out! :)

Just thought I'd post some pictures and let you see some of what we're doing and how things are progressing!

These are our first strawberries of the 2014 season! Greg picked about 1 1/2 quarts on Sunday, so we should have some for market on Saturday! There won't be many but it's a start! These are out of our hoop house. The outside ones are just barely beginning to bloom so we could have strawberries for close to two months if the weather and everything aligns just right!! :)

                                                                        These are some of our sweet potato slips that we are starting. When it gets warm and stays warm we will cut these and root them and then plant them for next Fall's crop. We have a little over 30 different varieties!








This shows some of our basil, leeks and okra that are started in the green house. Some of the basil will be for sale at the market, too.

 

More of our sweet potato slips going. These pictures were actually taken over a week ago so they have really grown since then!

 These are some of our second planting of  heirloom tomato plants. Some of these (around 1300) will go outside and the rest will be for sale at market.

These are a few of tomato plants that will be for sale also. They are from our first planting. Their mates are already planted out in the hoop house. Some of these are already blooming!

Well since I last posted we planted more potatoes, onions and shallots. We seeded in some greens and peas and we transplanted about 1600 tomato seedlings into 4 packs. We also planted out those first tomato plants that we started back on February 2nd into one of our hoop houses. We were finally able to get the plastic on one of the hoop houses that needed replacing, but have yet to get the second hoop house that lost it's plastic back the first of March in a blustery 60 mph day! Our strawberries in our 4th hoop house are blooming and looking good! Greg has been spreading Boron and gypsum on the fields to get them ready to disc. He needs to spread compost yet, but last week we got almost 9" of rain and most of it came in two days! Luckily we missed the hail that hit in town. They had so much that they had to get the snow plows out to clear the roads. Lots of windshields and roofs were damaged! We've got 150 more pounds of seed potatoes to plant and may get that done tomorrow after market. Our sweet potatoes that we are sprouting in the green house are really starting to set slips. I think I counted about 32 different varieties this morning while I was watering. I also got my basil seedlings potted into 4 packs and have some more fennel, tomatoes, parsley, celery and more tomatoes that need to go into 4 packs. Also need to get the tomatoes in the hoop house staked and strung up.  The alternator went out on Greg's big tractor so he is waiting on parts for that. He was hoping to get it done this weekend so he could finish up on the hoop house that still needs plastic, but will have to wait. That's where we are planting our peppers and eggplant and they are ready to go out!. So as you can tell we are keeping busy. One of these days I'll remember to take my camera out and get some pictures!

It's been a while since I last posted, but we are still here and kicking! Things are starting to pick up, always the way it is in the Spring, you go from almost a stand still, to an all out run! And boy does my body feel it!  We've got one potato field disced, beds made and 250 pounds of seed potatoes planted. Have gotten two of the hoop houses just about ready to put new plastic on, just can't seem to get a calm windless day to do that. We've gotten about half of the blackberry patch cleaned out and the dead pruned out. Have been working on starting our sweet potato slips. Got most of them done yesterday and will finish the rest up tonight. We have heirloom tomato, pepper and eggplant plants ready to go out one of the hoop houses, but  the weather is calling to be around freezing again next week, so guess we'll have to wait. We are hoping to get our onion plants planted tomorrow. Greg finished re-working our little transplanter over and hopes that it will work to plant the onion plants. I hope so too, will save a lot on the knees! We also planted over 1600 heirloom tomato seeds that will go outside later. I also planted some basil.