Pruning, Planting, & Prepping: A Day On The Farm

Busy weekend pruning, planting, and prepping gardens.  Sunday of course is always a day of rest. Thankful for that.  ( This is last weekend I posted it late.)

I love rhubarb!  An early spring treat!  So I am planting more.  Rhubarb is a perennial.  When you purchase rhizomes, which are dormant,  be sure to open them immediately.  If they are mushy they are no good otherwise keep them moist and in the refrigerator until you are ready to plant.  Rhubarb is known as the pie plant and makes delicious desserts, lemonade, jams, and syrups.

The Pie Plant: Rhubarb

Rhubarb Crisp

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam

Next project of the day was cleaning out the garden.  Below is sorrel which is a perennial green.  Great in omelets and mixed salads.  

The picture below is Mache.  I let it go to seed last year and it is coming up.  Cant' wait for my first salad.

Spring Greens

Next I removed some row crops over  cabbage I was trying to overwinter.  I planted these cabbage last fall and just covered them with a medium weight row cover.

Ruby Perfection

Savoy Cabbage

I'm liking the look of my soil.

Each year I experiment with a few grains.  This year I am trying spelt and Red Fife wheat.

Spelt

I also overwintered some fall planted lettuce.  It frozen down but has come back and looks great.

Merlot my favorite red loose leaf lettuce

Bronze Arrowhead a beautiful oak leaf variety

Fall planted garlic

To finish off garden chores, I planted some spinach and peas.  

The rest of the time was spent in the orchard pruning, pruning, and pruning.

Starting Tomatoes: A Day on the Farm

Beautiful March day with sun shining and small breeze.  I can just feel spring wanting to come.  So today I started my tomatoes  and annual flower seeds indoors and cleared out the front flower bed.

Tulips making their appearance.

Starts of onions, leeks, celery, artichoke, kale, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and lettuce are already up.  Once the seedlings are up I put fan on them to strengthen the stems.  It's also important to keep the light 2-3 inches above the plants.  

Once the seedlings make their appearance it is time to thin.  Thin out each cell so only one seedling is growing per cell.  Do this with scissors instead of pulling out the seedlings so you don't damage the roots of the one you want to keep.

The first leaves that appear are cotyledons.  Until the true leaves appear there is no need to fertilize.

Tomatoes are one of my favorite crops to grow.  There are so many varieties, colors,  and shapes.  I have my favorites I plant every year and then I always plant new ones.  

Here is a list of the finalist that will have a spot in my garden in 2017:

Paste Tomatoes:  Amish Paste, Sheboygan, Principe Borghese, Hungarian Heart, Martino Roma

New Paste Tomatoes:  Black Icicle, Orange Icicle, Hungarian Grushork

Cherry and Salad Tomatoes:  Sungold Select, Chocolate Pear, Nyagous, Ivory Egg, Green Doctor, Topaz Or Huau U, Fourth of July

New Varieties of Cherry and Salad Tomatoes:  Yellow Currant, Red Currant, Pink Tiger, Green Tiger, Pink Bumble Bee

Slicing Tomatoes:  Paul Robeson,Caspian Pink, Taxi F1, Green Zebra, Ananas Noire, Blue Beauty, Pineapple, Celebrity F1

New Slicing Tomatoes:  Rose De Berne, Golden King of Siberia,Amana Orange,Carbon, Cour di Bue, Dixie Golden, Kentucky Beefsteak

Flowers:  Nictotania, Stocks, Snapdragon, Impatiens

My does enjoying the sunshine.

These two does are due within the week.