Behind, but daily getting more planted. We now have all of our tomatoes in the ground! Yea! Not all of them are mulched, staked, and caged, however. But we’re slowly getting there — while we’re doing other planting. In went the Hopi Pale Greys, Seminoles, Canada Crooknecks, Theron’s, and more beans. Today, Will went out and tilled half of the North Garden with my little orange Kubota while I planted sweet peppers in one of our hoop houses in the Main Garden. (Yes, I “let” him drive my new tractor.) We’ve also got a lot of our muskmelons and watermelons in.

Will, tilling the North Garden with my new Kubota.

This afternoon, we’re planting several varieties of corn in the North Garden. It’s encouraging to see the Seneca Blue Bear Dance and Seneca Sunrise corns popping up nicely. We could sure use some rain though. We got a few sprinkles in a couple of days but not adding to a quarter of an inch yet. Our perennial flowers don’t seem to mind though. We’ve never had such nice lilacs and the bleeding heart by the entryway is so beautiful!

These Beauty of Moscow lilacs are blooming their heads off this year!
Our flowers, like this beautiful bleeding heart, keep us pumped for planting!

It looks like it’s going to be a good fruit year. We haven’t gotten another late frost and all of the wild and tame fruit has set. Apples, plums, cherries, honeyberries, blueberries, and more are lookin’ good. Now if I could just get time to can! But once everything gets planted, our crazy schedules should slow down. Well, maybe not as haying season is fast approaching. But at least it looks like it will be a good hay year for a change! We were kind of holding our breaths as the big round bales in the hay yard got fewer and fewer this spring. But we have a dozen left so whew! — Jackie

20 COMMENTS

  1. That white lilac is beyond gorgeous!!! And I love bleeding hearts. Two of mine have died and I haven’t found a replacement for them.
    That Kubota and Will are doing a bang up job. The garden area looks ready to grow some amazing food.

    • We are so thankful that all that rotted manure has transformed our gardens from rock piles and slabs of white clay to fluffy, black dirt!

  2. We had the same problem with a late spring made worse by a record snow fall last winter. Potatoes are in, tomato’s in the green house since May 10 but other things are slow since some of the ground just got dry enough to work and we have had to rebuild both of our hoop houses. One of them is planted including onions, squash and early cole crops plus a few carrots, parsnips and spinach. Hope to get the peas planted today, we had to move them to a different place and are building an eight foot fence around that garden in hopes of keeping the moose out! Lost all of them the last two years! Keep on plugging along!

    • Yep, we still don’t have plastic on our two hoop houses! Try a stand-off row of electric fence wire to keep those big-nosed critters away. Ours is powered by 12-volt batteries and does the job. I hope you have a great garden this year!

      • We had some luck with wide electric tape over the four foot board fence. The last two years before this it was very dry when the peas were about ready so the moose’s feet didn’t make good contact so she hit it on the run and took it down with her passage. I have to protect the cabbage etc in the same way. Before i got the fencer I lost twenty cabbage in one night. Our neighbor tried multi strand electric fence and had so much trouble they finally built an eight foot woven wire fence! It may be certain cows who put up with a quick shock in passing for a delicious meal!

  3. Finally got the rhubarb pie made! Had to remake it this morning though because it was very runny, and the pie crust was raw in the middle. But I added a little corn starch and pulled out crust I had made that I froze. I cooked it again and did the meringue topping and it is like 10 times better with the pie not being so runny! I am very impressed and have shared it across Facebook! Many people wanted your recipe, so I gladly shared!

    I started with a sourdough starter last week, and have made bagels and muffins s far. Gonna make cream of cauliflower soup and buns to go with it for dinner today.

    I only have my tomatoes is. I’m glad I started a ton of other things in the green house, because I’ll be able to get them in quickly this weekend/week. Just haven’t had too much time to spare. Our milk cow calves, and we had to take on caring for the baby because mom wasn’t being too helpful, but that just added to the daily chores! It takes 45 minutes for me to milk the cow by hand every day. I can’t wait to buy an automatic milker, cause I sure need one! Another cow is starting to bag up, and I can’t handle milking all that much!

    Hay season is looking good so far, but like you said, we need the rain. And like several inches more to solidify the crop. We make 1000acres in hay, not counting second crop. It’s a busy busy time, but I mostly love it. We’ll be glad when the rain comes and first crop is over with. Just got our delivery of diesel today. Which was very needed! Prices are insane at the pump.

    Here’s to a good week due us all, and some much needed rain to land!

    • Amen Melissa! Fuel prices will sure drive up costs of everything farmed or manufactured and hauled via semi truck, won’t they??? I think we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg…..

  4. We here in MO also seem to be on target for a good growing season. For the first time in 4 years we did not have a late frost. Our fruit trees are all loaded. Of course, we have to get through summer storms, deer, coons etc. But maybe this year…

  5. Brave girl, letting a “child” (aka man) drive YOUR tractor! LOL I think many of us can relate to that. We had an abnormally cool spring here in TX and then a quick turn around with triple digit temps 3-4 weeks EARLY. It is mind boggling, isn’t it? Just keep doing what you can do each day (that is all I can do). Tomorrow is another day.

    • That’s so true! I saw that you’re having triple digits. Wow! That must be hard. We’re complaining about 90’s!! It just flattens me. We went from 61 one day to 91 the next. Bi-polar weather!!!

  6. I’m always amazed at what you can grow in your short season. The amount you plant, tend to and grow is staggering. I have 2 -30 by 90 foot gardens and a 1/4 acre corn patch. That’s all I can do. Our hay shed is empty and hopefully there will be a good hay crop. My wood pile has shrunk and that’s another “project “. All stuff I love to do! I have to pace myself. Do you like your tractor any issues?

    • I LOVE the tractor!!! The front-end loader detaches in less than 2 minutes. How’s that for convenient? It looks like we’ll be having a good hay year too. Last summer was way scary!!!

  7. I’m currently seeing the first soaking rain in years! I actually have puddles standing in the garden. We’ve had a lot of “trace” rains this spring, but not a really good soaking rain. In fact, we’ve not had a rain like this in the last six or seven years. It would have been nice to have had this amount in several less intense rains, but after the years of drought, I’m not going to complain.

    My garden is in although I still plan to plant more carrots and maybe a few other things. I use tomato cages and only 6 are installed. That leaves 8 or 9 yet to do. I did get all mulched yesterday so hopefully the leaves will not be splashed with dirt.

  8. Mom (and her sister) liked bleeding hearts, think there is at least one still at the house. We don’t want any plants around the foundation so when we moved here, we re-homed all the plants the prior owners had planted.
    Ten quarts of strawberries picked on Monday – we shared 4 quarts. Then picked another quart this morning to give to our elderly neighbors.
    Had my neighbor and her family come down and pick tonight (warned her the heat might take a toll). We *still* need to thin out the patch however. Last fall we told the neighbor to take as may plants as she wanted from the “thickest” end of the patch and as well as the daughters that had escaped the patch proper. Daughters gave her plenty of plants and she’s harvested some berries this year. She hopes some day she’ll have a patch large enough to invite someone else to come pick. Gives a person a good feeling.
    IMHO, there’d be less people in trouble/up to no good if gardens were more prevalent.

    • The heat did a number on the berries – I picked one more time. Berries were still highly edible compared to what you can buy in the store but not as good as the previous harvests. Neighbor made the right call to come down and pick when they did.

      • Yep, that heat will sure do in the strawberry crop. I’m glad your neighbors got some before they petered out.

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