Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Is it spring yet?

Looks like we lucked out again. We were supposed to get about a foot of snow today; heavy snow with high winds. So far, we’ve had a nice, steady, gentle snowfall since about one this afternoon. We only have about two inches of new snow on top of the four that was already there. Of course all that could change overnight, but most likely this is the third winter storm with lots of hoopla and very little action. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. lol

Anyway, today was nice, watching the snow fall and sipping homemade hot cocoa, munching homemade chocolate chip cookies. I should be in a sugar coma by now.

Along with all the sugary goodies, Little Sis and I got a head start on spring. We planted over 60 seeds to start indoors. We’ll probably triple that in the next two weeks.

If things work out as planned, we’ll have a HUGE garden this year. I’m hoping to have every available spot covered in some kind of crop. That way, I don’t have to mow. ;)

We are planting some old favorites, along with a lot of new stuff. Here’s what we have on our list so far:

Green beans: the bush variety. These are much easier to deal with than pole beans, and they produce continuously as long as the beans are kept picked.
Lettuce
Onions
(the green bunching ones)
Carrots
Zucchini
Cucumber
: Marketmore, Lemon Cukes, and Mexican Sour Gherkin. The Marketmore are the only ones we’ve grown in the past.
Tomatoes: Early Girl, which is my favorite. It’s a hybrid, but an excellent producer and the perfect tomato taste, IMO. New this year are Sub-Arctic Plenty, Siletz, and Japanese Black Trifele.
Peas
Turnips
Celery
Asparagus
: I planted it two years ago, so this will be my first harvest, although I did sneak a few spears last year for munching while in the garden. ;)
Potatoes and Sweet Potatoes
Radishes
Bell peppers
Spinach
Melons
: Sugar Baby, Tigger, Collective Farm Woman, Blacktail Mountain, and cantaloupe. We’ve grown Sugar Baby and cantaloupe before, the rest are new.
Also new are:
Amaranth (3 types)
Quinoa Kaslala
Hungarian Broom Corn
Mangels


Oats and hay will take up the rest of the free areas, and then we hope to get some winter wheat out this year.

Keep in mind, we are doing all of this gardening without a tractor. Heck, we don’t even have a tiller; just a garden fork and lots of stamina. Of course I’ve been known to ‘cheat’ occasionally and let some of the critters do the work. We started our garden with the chicken tractor, and then let the rabbits do a clean up and get the spot ready for the following year. No one can dig a deep bed like a rabbit. Is it ironic that I grew carrots in an area dug up by rabbits? Lol

Oops, I spoke too soon. There’s the wind, and now it’s snowing sideways!

ETA: Pumpkins..I can't believe I left out pumpkins. We have a huge amount of seeds saved from last year.

5 comments:

Phill said...

That's a lot of gardening space! Get much bigger and we're going to have to call you a hobby farm! Congrats on the good work. I love planning!

Country Wife said...

Thanks! We have a little over 6 acres, and most of it is wooded, but there's still about an acre + that needs mowing (front yard, side yard, etc,) not including the hay field.

I hate mowing. I have a push mower..not even self-propelled. So this year it's food, not lawns. :) Every available space is going to be growing something we or the critters can eat.

VAMP said...

Turnips, really? Turnips? LOL

I had aspargus last nite with lemon/butter/garlic, YUMMMMMmmm...

I guess I shouldn't mention it's goning to be 70 here in Calif., should I? the news showed Chicago's lakefront with it snowing horizontally -- sorry, but I just laughed....I don't miss that AT ALL. But I do miss cold days and hot chocolate and the sereness (I don't know if spelling these words right, sorry) of light falling snow.

Country Wife said...

Yes, really, turnips. lol DH and Little Sis love them raw, cut up into slices and salted. Whatever's left in the garden when they are tired of them gets fed to the rabbits, since no one around here will eat cooked turnips.

70!! degrees?? OMG!! I'll just sit here and think about 70 degrees, sunny, with an ocean breeze. *sigh* Right now it's 14 degrees with a windchill of -3.

I like snow, but it's too cold to go outside and play in it. We've only been sledding ONCE this year, and that was last weekend. It was sunny and 31 degrees, which felt absolutely balmy after the -10 windchills last week.

VAMP said...

When I first moved here to CA from Illinois, my husband said we can go "visit" the snow. It's only an hour away, up in the mountains. It can be 60degrees here and we head up there to play in the snow (sledding) and it's freezing...it's still weird to me.