"HON, WHY IS THEIR PLUG SPAWN IN OUR REFRIGERATOR?"

Yes, I placed my order for seeds for the garden last month and they are starting to arrive!  Yay!  I now am storing plug spawn in my refrigerator and the seeds continue to arrive every day, it seems.  Very excited about this year's plantings! I've got some new items like totally purple carrots that are purple inside and out!  A hop vine, grapes, a cherry tree, Yin Yang Beans and of course the plug spawn, which is to grow mushrooms!  Yay!  Mushrooms!  I've got a ton of old logs laying around and thought that, because we love mushrooms and only one person really sells them at market, it would be a good investment to make and product to sell.

I decided to go with seedlings this year for the tomatoes, peppers and other crops instead of growing them myself.  Much easier and they arrive when they need to be planted and all I have to do is put them in the ground. Easy, schmeezy! I like the easy button.

THE GARDEN IS BLOOMING WITH LIFE! AND IT'S REALLY FRICKIN' HOT OUTSIDE!

Ahhh, the garden.  Of course!  I love my garden. In less then four weeks - it's grown huge!  Look at the difference:

Image taken May 11th

Image taken today - June 6th

 I had just 10 raised beds the year before last, last year we added another 8 and this year we added 3 more just for the tomatoes.  i know, right?  but I went over board this year with the tomatoes i started from seed, i actually got them to make it to the garden, alive!  So it was difficult not to plant them all! Last year, i had a hard time with that whole 'hardening off' thing' (where you are supposed to introduce the plants to the outdoors for one hour then increase an hour each day for a week. Yeah,  - too complicated). But i did do it right this year and i did it in a timely fashion, planning it all around the time before we left for Milwaukee and the horse show.

our friend Jason building the new skinnier beds for the tomatoes

The beds done before we added the dirt.
 I intend to run string up from the bed to the pergola to tie the plants to.

So yesterday we spent the whole day in the garden, building another bed for the tomatoes (for the total of 3) and mowing, weeding, and getting the final things in for the summer harvest.


 I planted more beans and used dead branches from the copious amounts of branches we have laying around here.  Seemed a more reasonable thing to use then going and buying a trellis, plus it looks cool.

For the pole beans to grow up

The Three sister's - corn on the top of the mound, pole beans around them,
then squash around the bottom..  I think i have too many squash planted
in there.  But who can have too many squash?!?!?

The Goyo Kumbo eggplant

The tri color peas

tomatoes!

peppers!

Potatoes!  All Blue and Fingerling's

Isn't she lovely and makeshift?

and it's so damn hot the chickens are panting!

So here it is - the garden!  I got more then enough spinach, and lettuce last week, but the weather is warm and rainy (actually rain forest-y hot and humid - heat index of 103 today!) and things are blooming with life!

THE APP'S FOR CRAP! AND THE FIRST HARVEST

Yes, i got the Blogger app and i made two posts with it only to look at my phone today and notice that it is still publishing the post - from 2 days ago!  really?  So maybe that won't work.  But here's the gist of the post:

Garden harvest!  Yes, the other day i was out there and there was just a few inches of lettuce and spinach up.  I went out today and its up to like 6 inches! YAY!  The corn, pole beans and squash are looking pretty in the Three Sister's beds too.  The asparagus is coming up, finally!  But here's the first harvest of spinach and lettuce:

So tomorrow Sam, her boyfriend Mike and I leave for Milwaukee for the Badger Horse Show.  I guarantee that the garden will be overflowing with stuff when i get back. Today i put in my lovely tomato plants i started from seed.  I have Black From Tula, White Snowball, Green Sausage, Range Pear and of course, Beefsteak.  I also have to get in some of these little melons we are trying this year.

Plus today i have a photo shoot at noon, meeting at three and if the rain holds off - a date with Khrome for a pony ride!  We'll see how that goes!

MY DARK ROOM HAS BECOME A GREEN HOUSE

Yes, last year i finally gave in to the fact that using a dark room anymore is not a viable option.  It's too much money and who really wants to be a dark room for hours at a time?  I do miss that beautiful smell though.....

we dragged all my equipment including a 5' x 12' developing sink, two enlargers, a color developer and numerous other darkroom items with us all the way from Illinois 8 years ago, thinking  I would have this fabulous darkroom, which i did, but then well..... life happens, things change and technology advances.  So about 4 years ago now I gave into the fact that digital is here to stay.  I am truly sorry to say that darkrooms have become an "alternative process."

So I decided last year that i needed a semi heated place in which to start my seeds in the spring.  The darkroom got the gig.  I built a 4 x 8' bed, complete with 4" x 4" sides and through in some good dirt.  I set this up in the dry area of the darkroom and got some lights for the little seedlings. When the seeds arrived i got busy.

I bought a heat tape to place in the bottom of the box and put in some really nice dirt.

So I planted the tomatoes in this one, names like Green Sausage and Black from Tula. But still had the eggplant and peppers to start.

Notice that the ziploc has written on it "tomato seeds," not what KIND of tomato seeds, just - tomato seeds.  Really?  this is my record keeping?

Then that wasn't enough room so I went into the wet area, the developing area of the darkroom and made use of the big, beautiful sink in there.

Noon was there to help, as always!

So now i have two areas in which to work and grow seedlings.  Plus i have water readily available to sprinkle on them.

Then i got really excited thinking that i would go check out the garden area and see what it looks like right now.

BLAH!

Last year at this time we were planting peas out there!

Noon was there to help.

Then i got even more excited when i realized that i had bought these little floating row covers!  Well, its time to check them out.

I threw some beets and lettuce and carrots under there!

And Noon was there to help.

So was Oaky.

I check daily and water as well, and there wasn't much growth yet.

 But it has been oh, let's see - i planted them on the 17th and now it's the 30th so it's been 13 days and no sprouts yet. Until yesterday....

See? right there, a little bit o' green!  Oh!  Spring planting can't get here fast enough!

 But nothing here. : (

IT WAS A TOTAL OF 46!

Yes, it was time to clean the goat stall.  I take full advantage of the winter and allow the goat stall to fill for three months, this allows the heat from the pile of hay, bedding and goat dung to become a furnace for the goats.  The only disadvantage to such things is at some point you have to clean it out.  Well, actually relocate is the way to describe it.  I relocate the piles of hay, bedding and goat dung - let's call it crap from this point forward - to the outside of the barn where the horses can turn this beautiful stuff into the best darn black dirt that you've ever seen!  You see because horses are naturally heavy creatures they sink into the dirt and crap and compost it all into some wonderful dirt.  Each spring at this time, i empty the goat stall, put it in the dry lot, allow the spring thaw to make it muddy, the horses trample the dirt and crap and when it dries out - we get out the skid loader and relocate this bounty to the other pile - the dirt pile.  Where it lies until i haul it over to the garden for filling up the raised beds.  See? it all makes perfect sense and all the animals work together to make life simpler.

So before we left for vacation I put on my muck boots, traipsed out to the goat barn and began the cleaning.
The Goats always get a little curious as to why i show up in the middle of the day in the winter:

I started out thinking that after 12 wheel barrow loads full, that it would be about 30 maybe to totally clean it out.





















But barrel load...

after barrow load...

and my back now really tired, i quit at 24 and waited til the next day to begin again.




















It didn't even look like i made a dent in it.

So maybe my calculations were off.  We will wait until the next day to find out the total. Right now the dry lot is getting full.

Edy came out to help and so did Woody

Isn't she just so cute!

And so did Aphrodite (Aphie).

Always wanting to step on the shovel.  Gosh i remember when we first got her you couldn't even get close to her she was so afraid of people, but not anymore! She loves everyone.  See what a good farm life can do to a person... i mean an animal.

Noon was there too, of course!

Then i started seeing the light of day!

No not the light from the door, but the end of the crap!















and i was at a total of about 35 wheel barrows full at this point. But i made many more trips to the dry lot with more crap.
When I finally got done with the wheel barrow hauling, i sprinkled the floor with barn lime,

Added some bedding,

Aphie again being a good helper!

 Admired the beautiful job i did:

And then went out to tell the goats their stall was ready.

They love the sun!

All, in total:  46, count 'em, 46 wheel barrows full of crap!  Who needs a gym when you have this work to do?

Now get to work ponies and turn this into compost!