April 2015

Where do we start?

Some quick catchup… Weeks 16–17

Continued planting more kale & sugar snap peas in the garden, and worked on weeding and weeding. All the mulch turned out to be a little too soon, as someone (chickens?) got in and scratched it around and covered and killed several of the baby kales. Must wait ’til they are bigger before mulching in the future.

And we did the first DOWNTOWN GROWERS’ MARKET! We had a sweet little display of lavender bundles, adorable potted starts, laser-cut stakes, and notecards, along with Gillian’s fantastic bracelets. We even made a tiny bit of money after paying for all our registration, licensing, and market fees. New goal is not to attend a market without at least a thousand bucks-worth of merch. But I did finally buy a fig tree!!! So excited!

Then we did the Nob Hill Earth Fest the very next day (without a babysitter!) and it went pretty well…

And then because we weren’t exhausted enough, we did the UNM Sustainability Fair on Tuesday. Sigh. But Callan helped and it was lovely to bask in her company and see so many friends.

Then in order to save us from having to decide whether to do another market, we got one gigantic order from out Etsy shop that wiped out the rest of our stock of dried lavender.

Meanwhile, the trellises for the peas went up and we planted carrot starts between garlic in one of the rows in the garden. Kemper also started more garlic in the west half of the garden.

And now for this week!

Still no improvements to the chicken coop, but the baby chicks are free-ranging during the day and are starting to finally getting some space from the overly-curious dogs, who in turn are finally realizing they’re just like the other chickens. I must admit though, that I am loving the devotion to the chickens, having to put them up at night and release them in the morning. They’re getting almost cuddly. It’s the sweetest.

Kemper & Jack built a magical little shade palace and mini row cover to keep our starts out in the garden at a happy temperature.

We transplanted some lettuce and chard into the west rows of the garden today and started seeds for lots more little plants—lots of herbs and perennials that I’m excited to plan spaces for! Spending the morning in the warm spring air, playing in the dirt and blessed seeds in the shade… That is the recipe for happiness.

The peas have grabbed on to their trellises and will be huge and fruitful any second now, I’m sure of it.

Kemper has been feeding fish emulsion to all the plants and treated lots of the newly transplanted starts with Sulfur! We shall see how they do!

This is definitely the life.

Beginning a new project: Weekly Farm Journal!

Hopefully this will serve as a resource to us in future years when we can look back on our humble beginnings and smile with satisfaction at how far we’ve come.

All our dino kale starts are in the ground (with the exception of one, which is just beside me in a pot in the window.) We ran new drip lines and planted them all in the plot around the fruit trees. We’re hoping their season will be extended by the shade… and not stunted by it!

With Callan’s help, we weeded nearly the whole garden and applied a nice fat layer of alfalfa mulch. And it’s only a matter of seconds, I’m sure, before the bindweed starts sprouting right up through it.

We’ve got squash, lettuce, carrots, chard, cabbage, tomatoes, bell peppers, and some herbs still in trays… moving in and out from the floor of the greenhouse/office every day. (MUST have greenhouse by next winter!!!)

Our baby chicks are spending each day outside in the old hog cage and are getting more and more awkward by the day. We have work to do still to finish up the coop so the chickens are happy in their roosting spots.

Had our conference call with Western SARE about the grant today and are excited to get started with that project!

The peach tree is happy and pregnant and the apple tree is filled with the sounds of happy buzzing bees.