Bleak Winter Days in Store

Hard to believe another gardening year has come and gone. Worse still, being so busy to not blog about it since the first spring till; damn!

Overall, it was a good season. The only real crop failure was the cucumbers that for some reason just didn't thrive. So no naturally fermented dills for us this season. The other big issue was not scheduling out the lettuce starts as well as in years past which led to several weeks of having to go with the store bought stuff. But the mini romaines are definitely the way to go as they are very easy to harvest and wash.

The other big news was finding a local source for small numbers of heritage chicken pullets; in this case the Dominique. They hatched out last May but took forever to begin laying (just a couple of weeks ago). I probably should have stuck with the red hybrids we've had before but these are really neat birds (the main variety of our colonial ancestors and rescued from near extinction in the 1970s).

The annual solstice fire was spectacular. No wind, crisp temperatures, spectacular sunset and moon all in the same frame.

Skol!

Early Spring Activities 2017

Its been a busy spring with little time for posting. But here's a few shots (from two weeks ago) of the garden clear off, first till, cherry tree planting, etc.

 Tilling in the winter rye.

 Last of the over-wintered collards. They were really yummy!

 The cherry trees. One "White Gold" and one "Regina". Both sweet and semi-dwarf.

Dad's red buds. He gave me these several years ago as 12 inch sticks from the Arbor Day Foundation. They didn't even have roots! I didn't have the heart to put them in the wild border back then so I gave them one season in the vegetable plot to establish themselves. Last year was the first time they set seed. This year I'll try to collect them to start more.

Down Time And Waiting For Spring

It's that time of year when for once there is nothing to do in The Patch. A rare occasion indeed! A month or two of rest is a welcome treat. And contrary to tradition, I decided to not start onion sets on Christmas day this year which means that the seed starting table and grow light have yet to make an appearance from the basement.

Post holiday chores this year included a complete turn-over and replacement of seed stock as well as sending the chickens off to slaughter. Their lay rate was dropping off and one of them managed to develop a taste for eggs. This is bad news for such a small flock because once they start eating eggs it is almost impossible to get them to stop. We were down to only three girls as it was and only one or two eggs a day just wasn't cutting it. Better to get them out now before the depths of winter.

This provided an excellent opportunity to clean the tractor and get it up on the patio for winter.

Now all we need is some spring-time weather!