This calf is so cute! He’s out of our favorite heifer, Hope, who has always been a huge pet. All of our cattle get scratched, petted, and fed treats. All have names. Such softies for cattle ranchers, huh? Luckily, the calf was born in the warm afternoon as the night temps dived down to 21 degrees. Holy cow! We were forecast to go to the low thirties, but we also know the forecasts are quite often kind of optimistic in that regard. So Will lit an additional propane heater in the new greenhouse as the night before it got down to 24° F and inside the greenhouse, with the wall heater, it was only 40. This morning, it was 70° F so I was sure tickled.
Will’s busy working on our sawmill’s motor, thinking maybe it was bad points that caused it to quit while running on idle last week. I’m hoping… Meanwhile, I finished up transplanting the last of the bigger peppers. I still have a few younger plants, but they’ll wait awhile for transplanting. I’d planned on getting on to the cabbage family’s seeding into six packs inside, but we had company. Two nice women stopped by to buy seeds and talk about gardening. So we visited with them instead. But this afternoon, I’m back on to that chore. I like my broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower seeds to go in about four weeks before they can be set outside in the garden. If you buy plants from many nurseries and most all big box stores, those plants are large and usually root bound. This causes tiny heads to form. With cauliflower nothing else happens! Broccoli makes one small head and then, hopefully, side shoots. Cabbage isn’t usually affected but I still like to start them later in the spring like the others of the family.
Our orchard trees are just starting to break bud on their flowers. I noticed today that the wild plums are also starting to show a tiny hint of white in their buds. One nice sunny warm day and they’ll pop out into bloom. I just hope we don’t have a killing frost this year. We do love our apricots and plums. The cherries and apples bloom later so they’re usually safer from Jack Frost.
The two kid goats are doing wonderfully. On Saturday, I’ll be picking up Willow’s half-sister, Fawn, who I left with the breeder so Fawn could nurse longer. I’ll see if I can get her on the bottle. She (and my other two babies) could be weaned but I really think they do better having milk for a longer period than eight weeks. Domingo, who used to be so shy, is now first to the door when I come with bottles! Nothing shy about this guy now. And boy is he ever growing!
–Jackie
Our watering system is a hose with a seedling spray nozzle on it. It takes me exactly two minutes to water everything. What a blessing that is. Before I spent like two hours watering when they were in the house. Whew! Isn’t it great when you make a discovery like that???
I’ve got a tray of cole crops in four packs that I started April 29 that I’m hoping to put in the hoop house early next week. I started the outside planting in six packs on the fourth. I’ve got 38 tomatoes in big pots in the greenhouse to make room in the house to start beans, squash and cucumbers. They all have to go in the hoop house to have any chance here in the Copper basin, Alaska. The last few days it has actually been warmer here than you have but I’m running a propane heater in the green house at night to be sure. It is better to extend the season up here in the spring while we have the light (first light 4AM, dark 11PM already). By October 1 we are loosing 7 minutes a day. Like your new greenhouse!
We LOVE it!!! Already our plants are looking so much better; stronger and darker green. So they love it too. I’ve planted the cole crops inside but won’t set anything out till later in May as sometimes we get some wicked cold snaps that even harm cole crops outside. Our daylight begins around 5:30 and we lose good light around 8:30 here.
Oh my. We had a late killing frost (even covered, my tomatoes and peppers were set WAY back) on April 20th. Last year, we had a late frost on April 15th! Normal last average frost date?????? March 15!!!!!!! By April 20th, most of our wild fruit bearing trees had budded and (hopefully) had fruit set!!!!! I find most cool weather crops do best started about August or September her, then planted out……… and raised in the WINTER (N. Central TX). Of course, this year, we lost a lot of last falls plants (a few survived) at MINUS 4 (In N. Central TX??????? Say WHAT?). We did loose electricity for 48 hours during that time spell. Lost all the seeds I had started. But we had stored water, a wood heat stove, a wood cook stove and plenty of food.
Good for you! We sure cringed when that nasty weather hit Texas. What a blow! I’m glad you were prepared. So many folks were far from that and we felt so sorry for them. (But I hope they learned a lesson from that freak weather; anything can happen and it’s good to be prepared instead of sorry.)
I work on a small organic farm and last year the broccoli bolted quickly after only forming a small head so thanks Jackie for the tip on root bound plants:)
Yup, those root bound cole crops often do that, sad to say.
We had twin girl lambs yesterday! So cute. Shetlands are wonderful mamas. All are doing well.
I wish you could post photos of those lambs! I’m glad they’re doing fine.
Decided to try 4 Nanking Cherries. They are 3 years old and bloomed proficiently this year. The frost got most of the blooms. Just a hand full of cherries on them. I guess we are too far south for them since they bloomed so early. We are zone 6B.
I hear that Cherries don’t do well in the south (I am N. Central TX).
I’ve found that Sand cherries or Hansen’s Bush cherries bloom much later so they usually survive a frost as they haven’t bloomed yet. We have Nankings but seldom get cherries because of those dratted late frosts.
Eating my plums now (zone 9). Harvested volunteer pumpkins from my compost. Green tomatoes on the counter. Beans and radishes just breaking the soil. Clearing the rest for fall planting.
Wow, I can’t even imagine eating plums now; ours haven’t even bloomed yet!!! How fun to see the differences in the zones. We’re in Zone 3.
I miss calving season!
I would too, especially laying in the muck, in the rain, with your arm up a cow’s butt while she tries to deliver a stuck calf! Lol
What beautiful kids!! My wild plums ( here in the Southern Tier of NY) have blossomed & as a bonus I found about 10 plum trees on the other side of my orchard that the red squirrels must have planted. I don’t know how I missed them last year. Had our first picking of asparagus tonight – so good… Love your greenhouse – do you have some kind of watering system in it?
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