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Hi Everyone,
Many hands truly do make light work, and last Monday we put the saying to the test. A customer brought her two daughters (12 and 14) to help in the garden for a few hours Monday afternoon. There was not one complaint about working either. I have never seen young ladies more excited about gardening—and we did it all. We weeded and then we composted. I allowed the older one to broadfork, and then I tilthed the bed. I used a ruler to see who had a 12 inch span on their arm so that we could easily measure the distance the plants should be planted apart—and the younger one measured a foot from her elbow to her pinky. So I took the Borage plants out of the seed trays, the younger one measured where to put them, the Mom poked the whole and the older daughter planted them. We were done in no time. Then we grabbed all the five gallon buckets we could find and made multiple trips back and forth from the woodchip pile to the garden. The last thing I had to do in the East Garden was to fill the walkways with woodchips—and by 4:00 that was done! Yippee! They cannot wait to come back another day. Would you like to join me in the garden too? Monday’s and Thursday’s are my biggest gardening days and I am inviting you to join me on any of those days from 1:00 to 4:30 in the afternoon—it is free, and all I ask is that you drop me an email letting me know when you would like to join me.
It is February, and it is the perfect time for planting fruit trees and roses—and for pruning roses. It is also a good time to transplant roses. We have lots of roses planted in the Cottage Garden (the raised beds), but weeds are overtaking some of those beds, and since we plan on removing some of those beds I decided to rescue those roses and move them to different garden beds. Last Monday I thought that I could dig up and move three Fairy Roses from the Cottage Garden to the Courtyard garden in an hour. Well . . . reality was that in an hour I had them dug up and was just starting to prune them when Mama came out and told me it was time for lunch. As soon as lunch was over my garden helpers arrived, and I was thankful that Mama was willing and able to take over the pruning and planting of the rose bushes.
Wednesday night we were blessed with Clayton’s company—a young man who interned with us for six months a few years ago. He had been working at a dairy in Pennsylvania for the last two years, and has been back in Florida for the last five months. We sat around talking and catching up and then he helped me go out and finish the evening chores. Clayton spent the night with us and stayed until after milking the next day. As we went around the farm I was amazed at how much Clayton found to be changed since he was here two years ago. We have a barn lean-to where we host Farm to Table Dinners, our middle lane has been paved, fences were removed, new Market Garden tunnels have been built, more concrete was poured around the milking parlor, and heifers that were born when he was here are now in the milking herd. Yep—a lot has changed.
After Clayton left I headed to the Market Garden to transplant some lettuce and cabbage. I wanted to get them done before the rains arrived—and I actually did accomplish it, but before I could get out of the tunnel it started raining. I decided to hang around a little longer and get some weeding done.
Papa had to go to JAX to get some milk jugs on Friday, and when he got home Mama and I headed to town to look at the arts and crafts at our local Olustee Festival. That morning we managed to finally put up some broccoli. The plants have been producing abundantly, and I had picked a huge bag full—but I couldn’t manage to find the time to put them in the freezer. When we were done milking that morning I made the broccoli top priority. We had to wash it, then blanch it for two minutes, cool it off in ice water and then bag them and vacuum seal them and put them in the freezer.
When the milking was done Saturday morning I bottled the kefir while Mama packed the Gainesville order. We took care of customers off and on all day—and when I wasn’t taking care of customers I was going through seed catalogs. When it comes to spending money I am the biggest procrastinator—and sometimes it gets me in trouble. If I do not hurry up and get my spring garden seeds ordered I will be late for planting. Around 4:00 I headed to the kitchen to do some baking. I had two overly ripe bananas that I planned to turn into some banana bread, but I also had a fresh pineapple that I planned to turn into a pineapple upside down cake—and then I realized that I didn’t need two “cakes”. So I decided to make Pineapple Upside down Banana Cake. I lined the cake pan with melted butter and pineapple slices. Then I dotted it with dried cherries and sprinkled maple sugar all over it. Then I made the banana bread and poured it over the pineapples and baked it—and it tasted very good.
Spring truly sprung last week with the warmer weather. The pastures are turning green, and the clover is blooming—and I am in short sleeves and barefoot. To my dismay though, it is still winter and we get a good reminder of it this coming week as the temps drop back into the 20’s and 30’s at night and 50’s and 60’s during the day. I have to be extra careful with the gardens for the potatoes are a foot tall now—and they will not like it being in the 20’s. The green beans are also up about six inches—and they definitely do not like cold temps. I planted them a little early because I am hoping to have green beans to harvest by the time the Spring Farm to Table dinner gets here April 5. Time will tell—and right now the time is telling me that it is time to wrap up my journal and go to bed.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare