slow growth

well here I am on a sunny, 80 degree day watching the sprinkler wave its fans of water over my garden as the sun shines down through the illuminated green oak leaves and the goats browse placidly on pine bark. Since my last writing I have seen the sprouting and re-potting of my cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, borage, oregano, basil, squash, and lettuce plants. I have more borage than i know what to do with!

through a stroke of luck Anthony saw a 1969 epiphone guitar advertised in the newspaper bargain box and he ended up buying it from a nice woman named Susan. They got to talking about gardens and he mentioned that I was hunting for tomato plants. Next thing I knew she invited me over and GAVE me 76 tomato plants! Beefsteak, Best boy, super sonic, and the prized San Marzano tomatos.

I feel so lucky! I concocted a silly looking cold frame out of a collection of old windows and each night I put them back under glass, just in case.

I also inherited some baby herbs from Morning Glory Farm: Mint, Catmint and more Oregano!

Next step is to roto-till more ground and add 8 more beds to make room for all these little growing things! I also need to order seeds online and get my amarynth, beans and artichokes in the ground!

I guess the biggest news here in my world is our new PUPPY! she's a gorgeous little mixture from Vieques, Puerto Rico. Anthony and I found her at the humane society while we were down there and she was finally flown up to Massachusetts with some kind tourists. We named her Aleida, (pronounced Alayda) and she is a sweet heart for sure!

what with walks, training and snuggles she has taken most of my time and energy. It was great to let her off leash for the first time today and see her racing around a field with two pedigree golden retrievers. they were lovely, but she ran circles around them both : )

anyway, doting mother and gardener is signing off here in the sunlight. It's wonderful, I haven't had to chase sunlight for the last 4 days! perhaps I should consider changing my name to chasing rain...

me and alieda

Anthony and the whole family: momma Madeline on the left, aleida in the middle and the sister Tulla on the right. they have all three been adopted now!

The princess of puerto rico

more photos from the last week

the silly result of a days hard work in the heat stringing up new fencing and constructing goat proof gates...

fresh laid chicken eggs!

mustache: the resident king cat

gate construction

digging post holes

my mother untangling yards of wire

MOTHER DEFEATS THE BRANCHES!

Bubbles: the self appointed queen of the goat herd.

newly transplanted scallions

garden beds freshly planted

the finished garden bed

the ladies: sky, desmelda, bubbles

Anthony at work constructing the frames for raised beds

tools in hand, he's ready for anything!

tulips blooming in our yard

planting seedlings in the new bed

filling the new bed with radish seedlings, even though i don't really like radishes...

Hoorah for the man with 32 chainsaws and a commercial chipper who provided all this glorious mulch!

tulip splendor

radish seedling

planting planting planting

the goats receiving nibbles

collecting scrap wood for the raised beds

rototiller in hand

watering the raspberry canes

me and mustache about to do the water bucket tango

measuring the beds

Jeff and my father teaching me how to use the rototiller

my father giving me rototiller instruction

Anthony clears brush! look at the size of that pile, we'll have to chip or burn all that eventually

photos

goat day

today was very full of construction to improve and change the layout of the goat yard. we just bought 3 nubian goats for milking. our old flock of 7 sanclamente goats has slowly diminished over the last 14 years until now only our old lady Rosemary is still with us. the 3 new queens of the goat world are VERY pushy and slightly dangerous when you are holding food in your hands. they have already broken into the chicken yard several times, as well as breaking the grain house door. it's practically impossible to feed them or any other animal without being mauled, so we decided to end the chaos today. we rewired their yard to divide them from the chickens and grain house. this involved building a new gate for them, digging up locust posts and re-planting them to make the new fence line, restringing electric wire, using the screw gun often, wrestling with tangled wire, sweating in the unseasonably hot sun... all this work evoked quite a bit of swearing, straining and panting from us all. after a full days work we have succeeded in our mission... mostly. the goats have yet to really learn that the new fence WILL zap them if they wiggle under it (which they have done already several times) and we need to do some finishing touches tomorrow, but all in all a successful and productive day.

I also managed to plant up two flats of seeds this morning in the garden. cucumber, melons, squash, pumpkins, gourds, hot peppers and more borage. I also laid out paths between the last 4 beds and planted one bed in sweet corn.

Yesterday I erected a hurricane fence of wire bound wood slates to make the side and back wall of the garden fence. thats a good step in the right direction for preventing hungry rabbit invasions when the lettuce shoots come up!

Anthony and I are REALLY exhausted now, it's been a long day, our muscles are sore and we have passed up a perfectly good cinco de mayo dance party in favor of going to sleep! off we go now...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

planting day!

today Anthony and I created 5 new wooden frames for raised beds and I laid out the garden paths around them. It was hard going making the first frame since it was 14 feet long by 3 feet wide and pieced together from scrap wood, but the next four were easier, only 6x3 feet. the garden looks so orderly and beautiful now!

I planted basil, cilantro, oregano, parsley, borage, fennel, dill and radishes in the super long bed, and made one bed just for carrots and another just for lettuce. yippee!!!

now it's bedtime, tomorrow will be another long day of planting, organizing and creating. I also have to make a separate electric fenced area for our 3 new milk goats, who unfortunately have all the manners of a crowed of tourists looking at the Mona Lisa. pushy, bolshy, rude, gigantic creatures with hard heads and shoving noses. when the biggest lady goat (named bubbles) stands on her back legs she's taller than me! I'm a generally peaceful person, but they were so irritating today that I was swearing a blue streak and practically wrestling with them!

Another project is making a bunny tractor out of boards and wire fencing so that my rabbits can get out of their earth yard and enjoy the fresh green grass! they look so bored with their tunnels and their alfalfa pellets.

I got a sun burn yesterday : ) summer's coming!

First day planting

We finally got the rototiller working yesterday, and today I used it to transform the garden area into a rich ocean of soft fluffy earth. This welcome development came after I had spent the last week working with a pitchfork and my hands to turn the soil and pull up the grass and weeds that covered the whole area. The space I am working in was originally a maze of bittersweet vines and bushes and has been a goat yard for the last 13 years. Hand tilling was very hard work!

Today Anthony (my boyfriend) and I constructed the first raised bed and planted radish, carrot, chard, cilantro, parsley and basil seedlings my sister sprouted for me. It's really starting to look like a garden, and it gets full sun from east to west all day long!

Now I need to lay out the rest of the paths and beds and get down to the real work of planting.

Hooray for machines that are worthwhile and useful!