Hello everyone! I pray you are all staying safe during this time. We are all good. Getting things done at home.
So many things are coming to life here on the farm. This is an apple tree some good friends bought for us last fall. It looks like it survived the winter. We are very excited to have our own apples soon.
I see dandelion jelly coming soon!
We have starting making our fresh teas. We gathered this mullein the other day.
Today I am making lemon balm tea. I scavenged around and found a little curly leaf spearmint to add to it.
We found blood root blooming on one of our walks.
Our forsythia bush is beautiful this year.
I straightened up my little fire pit and have it ready to go. It is hard to have an outside fire here sometimes because we have so much wind.
We have been doing lots of garden work. I have planted a few things already. Beets, turnips, radishes,-things like that. Yesterday I planted peas and onions. Today I have some cabbage and broccoli plants to plant, also lettuces, kale, lots of greens. I LOVE this time of year and am so thankful I have the health and the space to grow all this yummy food.
Grace and I built this little teepee for our malabar spinach to run on. It is something new we are trying this year.
We mowed the yard for the first time. It takes us a long time to mow. Almost 3 hours with 2 push mowers and that’s not counting the weed eating. But it looks so good when it is all finished.
I have also started my tomato and pepper seeds. I plan on starting cucumber, yellow squash and zucchini in a few weeks.
Our little greenhouse. I keep it on the glassed in front porch because of the wind.
My helper!
Our amaryllis is blooming so pretty.
I hope you all stay safe and have a great week. God bless.
Sunday the Bates crew came over and helped us get lots of stuff done. Dave and I worked on the fence that goes around the garden. Then we moved the arches down to the lower garden and put them up as trellises.
I think they will be much more efficient this way. The arches were pretty but I didn’t have much success growing things on them last year. Now I have trellises in the upper and lower garden.
I did leave one arch up over this raised bed. I think it adds a little cuteness to the garden.
Our neighbor came and tilled the garden for us. He comes every year and tills it for the first time. Then Grace and I keep it up after that. I LOVE the look, the smell, the feel of fresh turned dirt!
Then it was time to bring in the greenhouse. At first, I thought maybe I would not start seeds this year. That maybe I would just buy plants. But after Grace and I calculated the price, we thought it would be much more cost effective to start our own seeds. And, of course, much more fun. Juicy was helping me, as usual. He loves it when we bring in “new” things! He is so curious!
Another reason to start seeds is that we have a lot of seeds. Some we saved last year from our own plants and some that are bought.
Another new thing I have been doing is fermenting. I have done it before but not on a regular basis.
I did these carrots with a little garlic and they are delicious.
Dave and Jess ordered me some more glass weights and burping lids so I can now make more than one jar at a time.
This is what I am fermenting right now. One of the carrot jars is for Dave and Jess.Jess has been put on a low inflammatory diet due to health reasons. She has been diagnosed with Lyme related arthritis. She has been in so much pain from this. She has been on this new plan for about 3 weeks.
This is a picture of her before she stopped eating foods that are inflammatory. She is basically doing a vegetarian diet with no processed foods and no sugar.
Picture of her now. I am so proud of her. It is so hard to change how we eat. She says though that it is definitely helping with her pain level so that motivates her to eat as she should.I know this has been a long post but I had a lot to catch up on. I hope you all have a great day and God bless.
Merry Heart Crafts 