2nd week of April 2008

Spring planting A stretch of warm days has encouraged the daffodils into bloom, transformed the pastures from brown to green and dried out the gardens for planting. Plenty of sunshine has also necessitated daily waterings for the lettuces and greens in all the cold frames. After the gardens were disked, I could start planting in the driest areas. It is exciting to see the garden all clean and ready for a new palette of plants to liven it up. As usual, I'm imagining how it can stay beautiful and weedless all summer. It felt good to get some beds filled with lettuce seedlings and greens, plant a good block of peas (4 different varieties), and put in some potatoes that were sprouting heavily. Some of the other seed potatoes are setting in trays on our porch to "chit" - let their eyes begin to sprout to give them a head start in the ground. I also put a handful of the earliest tomatoes into the ground in the greenhouse hoping for some juicy treats in June.

Spring Lambs It also feels like spring when we watch the youngest calf bound around the pasture and see lambs following their mothers. In addition to baby Mandy born a few weeks ago, we had two sets of triplet lambs born in the past week: Candy, Randy and Dandy in one set and Clover, Rover and Dover who were born this morning (Clover and Rover are pictured). There should another set of lambs coming, more calves are on the way soon and the children just discovered a hen setting on a clutch of eggs today. Spring is an exciting time of new life!

We are looking forward to sharing the joy of spring and gardening at the Healthy Kids Day event at the Orrville YMCA on Saturday from 9-noon. Our table will have farm pictures and hands-on gardening items like a tub of composting worms, praying mantis egg sacks and free lettuce seedlings or seed packs for kids to take home. I hope we can encourage some young gardeners to try growing a few things in their own backyard.

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