Gardening · Homesteading

Spring Settles In On The Homestead

Kirk and I took a vacation for 11 days in Mexico and got home a week ago. I jumped right into back on the homestead the morning after we got back. We had so much to plant, seed and weed. It was spring break for the boys, so it worked out well to put in 6 days of work. My brother watched the homestead for us, and kept everything alive. Thankfully it was mostly cool PNW weather, so no 120° days in the greenhouse to contend with.

Plant starts in March, before we left on vacation.

Romaine lettuce starts, which I was testing where in the greenhouse they’d grow strongest – and I found the exact shelf they should be on.

Came home to strong starts waiting for me.

Golden Raspberry starts.

First up though was potting up over 100 tomato and pepper starts as quick as I could, from 4″ pots to 1 gallon size. Now they will sit in the greenhouse until end of April, then will be hardened off for planting around Mother’s Day weekend.

Tiny pepper starts a friend dropped off, that I potted up. I am running an experiment on these, to see how much cold they can take. I really believe in testing the limits of where you grow.

I cleared the first bed of over wintered plants that had seen better days. Fed those to the chickens.

A Kale tree that was going to flower? An afternoon delight.

 

Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower read to go in.

Lettuce starts in the ground.

Potted up Clancy Potato starts – they grow from actual seed, from the flowers. While I was prepping a row in one of the beds, I found some leftover potatoes from last year’s crop. Oops!

This bed is basically planted. Now…we wait for spring to get warmer, and everything surges. It is mostly onions, garlic, leeks and brassicas.

Pretty, weeded bed rows.

The work carries on….spring is here. It’s planting time!

~Sarah