Tag Archives: gardening

It is officially time, y’all.

Last week, Zac and I spent nearly every waking hour out of doors. We hauled load after load of compost down to the garden, and turned load after load of it in to last year’s double-dug beds, transforming the wintry, clay crust into a dark, even tilth.

In the first bed went our root vegetable seeds: St. Valery and Jaune Obtuse du Doubs carrots, Chioggia, Bull’s Blood, and Golden beets, and, in a row together, Guernsey Half-Long parsnips and French Breakfast radishes (the radishes, quick to germinate and come to maturity, mark the parsnips’ row, shade out competing weeds, and are harvested and gone by the time the parsnips need the space. This is a trick I picked up from Country Living, which is hands-down our second favorite magazine, next, of course, to By Hand.)

Jerry observed us carefully.

From a llama’s eye view, you can see the layout of the garden a little better. In front is the root bed, the bed I’m standing and planting is the greens bed (succession planted with about 8 types of lettuce), and the bed to my back is the onion bed. Beyond that, there’s a perennial bed on the left (overwintered garlic, to be replaced by asparagus, two rhubarb crowns, and some horseradish), and a yet-to-be-dug potato bed on the right.

Further beyond that, in another fenced-off area, is the New Garden– a plot about the size of four beds, currently inhabited by Elwyn, Brooks, and White, our wonderful weed-eating geese. Once they eat the weeds down to nothing, we’ll dig four beds there: one for tomatoes, one for peppers, one for cucurbitaceae, and one for beans and peas.

I’d go in to our plans for putting berry bushes all along the back of the house, and planting herbs and dye plants all in the front, but it makes me tired just to think about.

If you remember the insane bounty of last summer’s garden (only the original three beds), you may wonder why on earth we’d want to grow any more food than last year.

It might have something to do with the best compliment I’ve ever received (I overheard Susan telling someone this weekend “Caroline never met anything she didn’t want to grow,” which, isn’t that just the best?), but there’s another, bigger reason there as well.

Baby Jalapeños

Here is the big announcement: we’re starting (another) CSA!

But don’t get excited just yet.

Since it looks like we’ll be faced another deluge of food (not only vegetables, but also milk, cheese, eggs, and bread) this summer, we realized we’d need a release valve of sorts– we needed to find someone to give all this food to, so that we weren’t sneaking squashes in the A/C repair van, giving bushels of beans to the mail lady, and plying everyone who set foot in the house with watermelon jam.

Leggy Tomato Babies

Since Susan has the alchemical talent of turning everything she touches into gold, she suggested with sell 5 shares in our summer garden (20 weeks, from Mid-May through September) at the cut-rate price of $100 each to some friends. At $5 a week, the shares were gone in about 37 seconds, and we’ve got a heck of a waiting list. Since the whole venture really is experimental (how much do Zac and I like gardening for an audience? Did we plant enough lettuce for 5 families?), we decided to start really, really small.

That makes us back all the money we spent on seeds and plants, while teaching us what works and what doesn’t, and also allows us to offload our inevitable zillions of tomatoes onto our 5 lovely customers.

Little Herbs

So keep your fingers crossed for us and for our garden (and if I owe you an email, think of me transplanting thousands of thread-thin onions, and forgive me). I’m already pretty sore from shoveling– just in time for Shearing School next weekend!– and a little more tan than I’d like to be. That said, if you have a spring or summer farm stay coming up, prepare to be pressed in to service! (Just kidding (Or am I?))

This is going to be the best summer yet. And we’re never going to spend money on food again.

P.S. Zac and I are going to go cut down some trees in the woods today. Why, pray? To inoculate them with Oyster and Shiitake mushroom spores, and start a little mushroom garden under the deck. We’ll expect our first harvests in about a year. No problem.