Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Happy Dreams


I woke up happy this morning, fresh from a garden dream.  In it I was in Greenfields Market with some extra vegetables and the clerk there suggested I try selling them there.  So we put them out.  For some reason they were placed at the checkout.  (This may be related to the fact that I impulse buy vegetables all the time.)  There were only about 3 bunches of something or other, perhaps thick stemmed mustard was one, that part is vague.  Then as usual in the market, I got to talking with a friend.  A bit later we looked up and everything had sold!  I was so excited.  The two of us (sorry pal I can't remember who was with me for this historic moment) walked out laughing and talking about the book we could write about all this.  Then I suddenly remembered, oh right, they give me money for this too.  So we turned around and walked back to the market, grinning all over.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

It's a garden; it's a farm? It's a blog!



Well, here I am.  Starting a blog for the farm.  I hope that this will help build connections with my farm CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) members and friends and family.  (ooh, I just made an interesting typo: "farmily")  My goal is to keep a record of what's happening on my little farm and to share pictures and news with interested people.  I plan on posting about once a week, unless inspired to do more.

This week is the first of my Farm Weeks, time that I have carved out of my usual working life so I can stay home and farm full time.  Each month from April through September I get a week to just farm.  Bliss.  Last Saturday my most excellent working member, Karen, came over to help out.  That was lovely and we had a great time visiting, digging, planting and patting the earth. 

Much progress is happening.  I planted spinach, red summer onions, mesclun, kale, endive, leaf lettuce, Swiss chard, New Zealand spinach, beets, turnips, radishes, Asian onions, turnip greens, mizuna, 3 kinds of mustard, the new mystery green called "Zen", early carrots... You get the picture.  Plus I planted cosmos, marigolds, zinnias, and centaurea.  Amazingly, many things are already coming up just a few days later.  It's been pretty warm so I guess that's why.  There are 5 kinds of mustard coming up: Golden Frilled, Red Streaks, Big Stem, Tainong Emperor Heading, and Osaka Purple.  For beets there are Touchstone Gold, Chioggia, Merlin, and Red Ace.  I won't fill in all the varieties of everything for now but that gives you a taste.

Hopefully I will now figure out how to post this and a few pictures.  Then I am going out to prune sumac and other brush.