DH and I have been hard at work on our compost bin, based in part on the one from Drumlin Farm, which you see below:
More on that soon, once it’s finished (tomorrow?).
In the garden I sowed fava (broad) beans, more peas, lettuce, beets, radishes and a quick growing onion. I transplanted out the brassicas (cabbage, kale, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts), onions, chives and kale. I moved all the huge tomato seedlings to the big window window in our guest room, where I think I can keep them for another week, by which time our hoop house should have moved – or rather been moved as, no, it doesn’t (yet) move itself – to its Summer position.
Getting those seedlings out of the basement cleared some space for new seeds: squashes, pumpkins, zucchini, cucumbers and garbanzo beans (chick peas), all in coconut fiber pots – which I have come to like more than peat pots, because they take up water so much faster and seem to lose it slower, and because they’re more sustainable. I also sowed basils, more cabbage (don’t ask me why), marigold, elecampane, yarrow, sunflowers and sorrel. I have a long list of what else needs to be started, but I am again full up downstairs. I’ll start sowing a lot in flats in the hoop house.
Pickup of my bee package has been postponed to the beginning of May, due to cold weather in Georgia, where they breed them. Maybe it’s for the best, because so much else is due to arrive at the end of April: some twenty berry bushes, hazelnuts, paw paws, kiwi vines, cherry tree, mushroom spores, asparagus, new hoop house poly…Which means we need to clear and grade land, build trellises, planters and arbors, dig holes, put together sawdust and wood chip beds…
1 May is of course also – according to my wager wit the weather gods – my Last Frost Date, at which most of the seedlings will find themselves hardened off and out there. Oh, what a glorious time is Spring. Mmm, and that smell when you fill up the hose that’s been stored away for winter…
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