April 6, 2010

Man, it sure feels like I'vele been blogging tons over the past week, but alas, I haven't.  You know this from the lack fo posts. I guess I've just thought I'd been keeping up with it.  Oops.

Well, Easter came and went, along with spring break for the kids.  The weather was crappy all week, which was bad for letting the kids go out to play, but at least it cleared up for Easter. 

I'll spare you the tons of pictures and even video clips of my kids racing for Easter candy, though I did want to share a few shots from the day before.  My eldest wanted to leave carrots for the Easter Bunny.  Just not any carrots either, but ones from our garden.  Before I could get out there to stop them, each had pulled from the not-quite-ready to harvest patch of over-wintered carrots. I had hoped they would pull from the didn't finish harvesting the overwintered fall carrots patch.  It's still adorable what they did.



Being out there in the garden made me want to do some spring clean-up and planting of spring's carrot patch.  Logan wasn't too keen on helping this year, despite his desire for the spoils.  Thankfully by the time I had them nearly done tilling the bed to aerate it for carrots, they were in heaven. 



We did 12 SF of carrots in the middle of bed 4, where I planted potatoes last year.  I actually found a few yukon gold husks that I'd apparently missed.  With that many squares and rain interrupting us, most of the patch got 16/SF spacing, but some got far more than that.  A little thinning never hurt anyone.  And they sure had a blast!



Speaking of potatoes, my brother never asked for my potato bins like he was supposed to.  I had planned on giving potatoes a rest for a season given my planned absense during the critical hilling stage.  Of course, Mother Nature had other plans.  I couldn't help but notice that what I thought were weeds in the bins that I hadn't taken down over the winter, were actually potatoes that I swore were not there.  I dug and dug with my hands trying to find some to no avail last fall.  But sure enough, each bin looked just like this the other day.



I plan on hilling a bit to give the taters room to bloom, but not the tower of old.  The system works if you work it properly.  I just haven't yet. 

I've got tons more to talk about, but this post is getting crowded as it is.  So I'll leave it with a slight breakthrough.  I swear I only brought up chickens to my wife a few times, but the kids keep wanting to go back to the chicken house near my folks place.  So, much to my shock and surprise, my wife starts asking questions about chickens the other night, clearly looking for answers that will cross off her cons.  Like how do they stay warm in the winter and what do you do with them when they die (she doesn't want to eat pets).  Great conversation insued, and I didn't push.  I'm still bidding my time, mostly because it'd be a rush to get them now for spring and we're planning an extended vacation if I'm still not working for early summer.  Of course, if I am working, there's no way I'll have time for chickens if it's a high-pay, high-stress job.  Still, it's a MAJOR step in the right direction.

Enjoy your garden!