Happy Productive Spring!

This spring seems to have come sooner than last year. In March we had a week of 80 plus degree weather, significantly accelerating our work here on the homestead. Our maple syrup season was a dismal week long sap run. We are very fortunate to get the amount of syrup that we did, which was 2 1/2 gallons of syrup (108 gallons of sap).  The quality of the first batch of syrup was amazing, the second batch was similar to last year and the last batch was much darker, probably grade B.  We spent roughly 40 hours boiling sap, this does not include the time spent collecting sap or filtering and canning the syrup.  It's a labor of love that we look forward to each year.

Tapping Trees, March 5th

Inside the Sugar Shack, boiling sap,

 

3/10/12

Jason placing the jug on the spile to collect the sap.

 

Early season plants under the safety of row covers.

Due to the early snow melt, we were able to get the garden ready for early season vegetables.  Jason planted winter wheat last fall.  We intend on tilling the rows to amend the soil with the green manure and plan on keeping the winter wheat growing in between our rows to keep the weeds at bay. We planted early crops such as lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard,peas, parsnips, carrots, beets, potatoes and cabbage family crops under the safety of row covers.  Most of these were all planted on April 7th, or a few days after. For certain, we have lettuce, spinach and peas that have sprouted.

Jason on his newly purchased John Deere 950 tractor, moving rotten logs.

As the homestead has grown, the need for a tractor has been apparent.  The property had several rotten logs and areas of uneven ground.  We needed to level space for the garden shed, chicken coop and orchard.  Jason has been searching several years for a tractor that would be able to handle the jobs around here.  He finally found something a bit bigger than he had originally wanted, but is very happy with his purchase.  It is a John Deere 950 4x4 tractor with a loader.  This tractor has enabled us to clear rotten logs and level land for the fruit trees we have purchased from the Conservation District.

The Greenhouse, through the apple tree.

Today was a big planting day in the greenhouse.  I try to following the 'Gardening by the Moon' type philosophy when planting and transplanting plants.  You can find specific activities to do on the Farmers Almanac website http://www.farmersalmanac.com/calendar/gardening/.   Last year, I generally followed these dates and had an amazing garden.  I know there are several aspects to a successful garden, but feel these are good standards to build upon as the growing season progresses. Today I planted 90 tomato seeds, which include a Rainbow Heirloom variety, 3 heirloom paste tomato varieties, 2 slicing varieties and cherry tomato plants. I also planted 18 Ground Cherry seeds, 9 seeds from the free packet Jung gave me last year and 9 seeds I collected from the fruits.  Ninety pepper plants were planted, 5 varieties of green and red peppers, 3 varieties of hot peppers and a strain of purple bell pepper. Tomorrow, I will plant the Cole Crops, which include cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. If all seeds sprout and survive transplanting, we will probably have plants to sell this spring. 


Foraging season is here!  Jason found a wild leek (Ramps) patch and brought a bag full home.  Today I concocted a soup consisting of wild leeks, dehydrated morel mushrooms (collected by Jason's parents last spring), wild rice and chicken. It was pretty good for something I just threw together.