Spring Showers Bring May Flowers

Spring showers have brought in the wind and rainstorms that blow the white bits of flowers off the Bradford Pear trees. Puddles of petals everywhere. They cover the property and collect in the ever growing pools of water around the farm.This shot sums up my morning trip out to the greenhouse to water seedlings. Drainage. One of the challenges of farming in Pungo. Maybe I should be growing water lilies!? Well the good news is, frogs certainly don't mind this ponding. The symphony of croaking night life echoes through the woods and has been amplifying in volume every night. Tadpoles on the way... bring on the future bug catchers! Weekends are turning into one big blur of planting. I regret not getting more sweet peas in during the fall. Couldn't resist starting extras though. The ones sprouting up look so healthy wish I had a thousand more! All this seed starting has made me realize I need to get on the perennial bandwagon, before I wear out. Thankful I had planted some last spring that are coming back and will return a little better every year, without any input of labor from me! This trend will continue -Lavender plants are starting to leaf out. Heavenly scent. My goal this year is to grow more flowers with fragrance, an attribute usually lacking from most commercially grown bouquets. Mints, lavenders, sweetpeas, rosemary, and as many varieties of basil as I can find (from lemon - to cinnamon). - and edible to boot!

If you reap what you sow, hope there is alot of fun in store for us this summer!

Wouldn't be a blog post without a picture of Dumpling. He is busy dreaming up the next project on the horizon - a new sign.

Silly me :) I just assumed we would use the existing sign and repaint. Then I find random napkin drawings around the house of the new designs he's got constructed in his head already. "Gotta match the building babe!"

Chocolate and Lemon - The Fresh Smells of Spring!

So cold and wet out, been yucky out all weekend. Down in the 30's at night, windy and barely breaking into the 40's during the day. Blah! I'm up to my muck boots in mud and certainly not hospitable to being outside farming. Made the best of it by hunkering down in the potting shed to start up all the fresh cuttings gathered from the spring herbs leafing up around the farm. I can still smell their scent on my hands as I type! If I can get enough of these growing, they will make great fillers for the bouquets and add a fresh scent as well. Lemon Balm cuttings, placed into organic potting mix and set out in the hoophouse for a month or two until roots form. Yep it's really that easy. Only takes a few minutes to potting up the cuttings. A much welcome break from planting thousands of seeds. Needed to see some of that instant green! Yumm - Chocolate mint!

Here is a shot of an experimental plot we are starting this year - it will not have the perfectly made plastic mulch rows, like in the front of the farmstand. Instead - it will have alittle more of a natural look since we will use the chickens to strategically weed the plots. This is experimental because we will have to learn alot - like how big plants have to be so the chickens don't damage the plants and flowers we are growing. Should be interesting since we have to find plants that the girls won't want to nibble on as they eat the bugs and weeds around them. Chris already tilled it up before the rains started, and another truckload of manure was worked in. Below is a shot of what the idea is: On the right is a green carpet of fresh weeds starting to take over a flower bed. The whole area looked like that, but on the left, is what the girls did in less than 3 days time. Our farm mascots - I think they are up for the job!

Speaking of weather, here is a picture of the sweet peas planted last fall. The seeds made it through the cold and are sprouting through the mud and finally taking off. Sweet peas actually thrive in our wet, cool spring temps. Hope they hurry up and bloom - I am craving their soft flowers on my desk at work - it's fun to watch because no one can resist stopping to sniff a vase full of the pastel petals! - Sweet pea flowers are the most romantic and old-fashioned spring flower there is.

Speaking of blooms - spotted the first blossom of a Shasta Daisy. Hard to believe these babies were nothing more than micro-specks of seed last summer - whole lotta daisies on the horizon. They are lush, healthy and huge and ready to bloom! Countdown to the last frost date here, about 2-3 weeks away.

Installation of Plastic Mulch & Painting!

Noticing an increase in the egg-output, with the turn of spring and the lengthing of the daylight hours. I had to burst out laughing when I collected this one from the coop the other day! Almost thought dumpling was trying to play a joke on me, but nope - it's real! Well you can't find that in stores, lol- Mini-omlet anyone?

Greenhouse is getting full of seedlings awaiting the last frost date. I have them in a hoophouse with a second layer of plastic over them to keep them sheltered from the cool nights.

Have blisters on my hands from all that Soil-blocking - many heirloom veggies this year.

Dumpling staining the boards and decking.

Here's dear dumplin' on round two of paint samples. Had a few emergency "Date Nights" at home depot this week, since we couldn't decide on the color for the farm stand. Originially wanted to match the color with the main farm house, and paint it white, however, it just looked way to bright once a full wall was painted. Opted for a more natural brown tone for the main color,but kept the white trim give it some pop.

Like it? After a few trips to the HD - We think its groovy. Dumpling finished a test wall so the electrician could install the meter box. Another big step accomplished!

On a more fun note, We got to attend a great seminar this month at "The Gardener's Workshop" http://www.thegardenersworkshop.com/ . A class taught by a mentor of mine and fellow flower farmer in Newport News, Virginia - Lisa Ziegler. Lisa's farming philosophy is all about building great soil. We learned about a tractor attachment she uses on her farm called a sub-soiler. Luckily we had not installed our plastic rows yet, and were able to purchase one so we could add another step in our field prep. The attachment is just a simple spade that goes about 18 inches in the soil to open up the subsoil level to receive, oxygen, nutrients, water, and micro-organisms. Without breaking up the clay subsoil level, roots have to grow wide, instead of deep, where all the moisture and nutrients migrate to.

Here is a visual showing the 2 distict layers - notice the topsoil level is the color of a dark chocolate brownie, whereas the subsoil level, is well...more like creamy peanut butter! Hopefully our new tractor implement will open up the clay soil and allow roots to grow deep, and tap into water and more nutrients. A tomato plants root system, for instance, can go down to depths of over 6 ft, if your soil prep will allow -

Got that sub-soiling done just in time for the Plastic mulch to be installed. Love, Love, Love this part! We planned it so much better this time and Chris and I were glad we had learned so much from last year. Including to make the distance apart large enough to take a riding mower through. Makes life alot easier in the heat of the summer.

Took about 40 minutes to get all the rows down thanks to a fellow neighbor - who is a strawberry farmer, with access to a huge tractor and mega - plastic mulch layer.

Here I am shoveling the soil back on top of the edges. Then dumpling drives the tractor tire as close to the edge of the row as possible to pack the soil down over the plastic's edge. Last year we did not know about this extra step and the wind caught the plastic, and blew it off of the rows. What a pain that was. This year is already off to a better start due to a jump on the learning curve!

You can see the uncovered edges here on the right, which can catch easily in blustery March winds and that is no fun. Luckily this year, we had the tractor tire trick under our sleeve.

5 lovely rows all done! So the soil is all prepped and warming up with the black plastic mulch, can't believe tomorrow is the first day of Spring -

Excited that we are hosting a seed/seedling swap here at the farm - April 23rd, 5pm.

This weekend got my hands dirty - Starting seedlings for the stand. Alot of heirloom varieties this year.

Sticking with the technique we used last year - organic soil amendments with old fashioned - soil block method. Only last year I used tiny soil blocks, and this year, will stick to the larger blocks. They give me more wiggle room on the planting date since they have more room to grow.

Have the standard 3-pack seedling trays for the stand.

My little system - once the seeds "hatch"/germinate - under the grow lights and heat mats, they go out to the greenhouse to grow for a few more weeks. My goal is to maintain a steady flow from shelves to greenhouse.

Outside, dumplin was on his own to do list. Well-aged horse manure was delivered to the stand last week and Chris got a chance to till it into the soil before more spring showers started!

He wouldn't admit to it but think he was having alot of fun with this project.
All tilled up and pretty before the plastic rows go in.

Preparing For Spring!

Busy getting all the seeds ordered/organized and ready to go. I did manage to save some seeds from our garden last year and am excited to see how they do. Also read a great tip from a fellow blogger about making labels recycled from mini-blinds and created a bunch of those for next to nothing. (my wooden ones from last year did not last long and the writing faded much too quickly!)
Spent a day getting greenhouse prepared for the spring as well by just cleaning house and ready for the season.

Was so thankful for the greenhouse last spring - to really get off to a great start since we started 95% of all our flowers and veggies from seed.

Used another part of a weekend to get all the plastic mulch up from last year. Wasnt hard at all. Was surprised it only took me about 2-3 hours to pull it all up. Here is a shot of dumpling walking the isles and checking to make sure I didn't leave any little pieces behind. I posted an ad on craigslist on a Friday night asking for someone to deliver horse poop to our flower farm. Couldnt believe the reponse we got and one of which was a guy who lives a few houses over from us on our road. Saturday morning he was at our stand delivering 2 dumpsters full of composted horse manure and wood shavings on our front acre. The woodchip and manure mixture had been composting for the last 4 years so its good as gold...Not to mention he had a dump-bed so our backs and entire weekend were saved from having so scoop it in the wheelbarrow! phew - its the little things sometimes that can make a huge difference in quality of your weekend when you are a farmer. LOL! Well as you can tell by the post, it is finally warming up here to go outside and get our hands in the dirt. Here is a Cute pic dumpling made me in the dead of winter while he was away on deployment. It was created on his computer because he wanted to get a glimpse of what the stand will look like this summer! We are getting there!

Stand Construction Update

Dumpling completing roofing. Luckily I got to help him with bringing the panels up the ladder to him so he didnt have to climb up and down but so many times. That will wear a person out! Learned that I do not like being up there on the roof - at all - so I kept my two little feet on the ground! Dumpling however, has no fear. The rear view of the stand. My hero. If he can dream it, he can build it. One of the most satisfying parts - finally putting down some decking.

Our porch coming to life :) Grand cathedral entrance
One veggie stand coming to life that can-not wait for some spring time! !!

Announcement: We got Married on the Farm

Jan 29th 2011 - we tied the knot!

We were working like crazy on the vegetable stand roof that Saturday morning. Determined to get the final panels up before the next scheduled rain! Luckily, we managed to finish up just in time to clean up and change into our clean jeans and brush off our boots before the marriage commissioner arrived at the farm.

It was an quiet little ceremony on an unseasonally sunny and warm winter day. Behind the old farmhouse, under the big oak tree, where dumpling proposed - We were married, just me, Chris and the Marriage commissioner. (The hens were in the background so I consider them my bridesmaids, lol). Our rings were from a little jewelry store Chris picked up from his last deployment in Italy. Dumpling has plans to carve our intials and date in a heart on the oak tree.

We made calls to family to let them know about the news and then went to dinner with my parents. That night and they took this pic as proof of our newlywed glow. How romantic ! We have so much hope and excitement for creating our life together on the Farm.