Spring!

Spring has been very busy, as per usual, on the farm. I've been working a lot in the gardens and we have a new greenhouse!

So, if you'd like to see what I've been up to, read on (lots of pictures)!!

Oh greenhouse, you were such a huge pain in the ass to build, but you're so pretty now. Here's the link to vaguely the plans we used. Tim made a bunch of changes to make the PVC required a little cheaper. We snapped so many connectors trying to put this damn thing up. If you want to build one buy extra connectors.

We painted the pipes with primer so they didn't off gas and destroy the nice four year cover that we bought for it. In the end the footprint ended up being 13' X 13'. I can't begin to tell you how excited I am that we have a greenhouse!

 Here's a cool table Tim build for me using a section of countertop we had lying around. There's a sink that fits it which we could use for mixing soil at some point. I'm planning on buying myself a meyer lemon tree to keep in here for the bulk of the season. :)

Some of our tomato seedlings.

Now, back outside to my near-the-house growing plots. First we have my mint which is all returning nicely after that super hard winter. The chocolate mint (top left) almost didn't look like it was going to make it!

I know, I need to weed.

Then the old kitchen garden where I have some herbs and some veggies... and some weeds.

Not much of the garden is planted.

This is where I'm planning on having most of my medicinal herbs as I acquire them. Right now it has sage, thyme, chamomile, lots of catmint, and veggies.

Lettuces look yummy.

Extra tomatoes and peppers.

We had some extra tomatoes and peppers that Tim planted yesterday in this garden. We are going to have so many freaking tomatoes. I can't wait to start saucing.

Onward to the big garden!

Path to the garden (can you spot my little water tower?!).

I have a 100' X 50' deer fence protected vegetable garden that is quickly filling up with delicious foodstuffs.

Maybe this gate was a little too wide.

The garden doesn't look super impressive at the moment, but that's pretty normal for spring. This year we will have irrigation and I'll be digging and installing drainage so next spring I can get started much earlier. Tim already built a red tower and put the 325 gal plastic tank up on it that will provide the water for the garden.

Sweet Potatoes

Cabbage and Broccoli

Radishes marking a row of carrots.

Something sprouting, I think this was the chard... maybe?

Peas!

The same peas!

Onions! No, I swear, they're there.

See, onion.

Potatoes we planted yesterday, eight 17 foot rows (about 15 lbs of seed potato).

Mmmmm, compost. God bless goats.

So, that's been taking up a lot of my time. I did get a couple crafty projects done which I'll post about later. I've been having trouble finding the time to write up these posts even when I do find time to craft.

Lastly I thought I'd include some pictures of our happy little meat chickens, and one very lost duck (can you spot him?)

Awesome chicken tractors my husband made.

Delicious.