What's Growing On

 Since February is coming to a close I thought I'd take a minute to share what we have growing, or started this month.

The strawberries are coming along nicely, even if they are in a jungle of weeds.  After they're finished producing this season they will have a happy new home in beds covered in plastic.  Live and learn. 

All of the peach trees are budding out.  Most have blossoms.  But this one is already loaded with little peaches.  I've had to pull some off to keep the limbs from becoming overloaded. 

Early peas

We've already had to start mowing!  Riley's taking his turn in one of the fields.

We've had great carrots this year.

The big field is awash in yellow from the wild mustard.

The lemon tree hasn't finished producing the last crop and has started blooming with the next.

And the roses have just started blooming.  What a February!

In the garden we still have onions, wheat, garlic and a few carrots from the fall plantings.  Some of the flower seeds we went ahead and planted in the fall for spring cuttings are coming along nicely.  They include sweet peas, black-eyed susans, (and several I can't think of at the moment).

 I dug the last of my potatoes a couple of weeks ago.  I left a little of the crop in the ground and just dug up some when needed.  I was giving the ground-as-root-cellar a try.  It worked beautifully.  I'll try it again this year.  I've also planted this spring's crop of potatoes. 

I have the spring broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower in the garden.  They look like horrible little nubs because the chickens have gotten to them.  TWICE.  They did it once and I spent a long time nursing the little plants back to health.  I was finally ready to plant them in the garden but I needed my trowel.  I set the flat of plants down to walk back inside for the trowel and two minutes later returned to find the plants stripped again.  The chickens had apparently come running from far across the yard as soon as I walked away.  Those ladies are on lock down in the barnyard for their own safety until my plants recover. 

The other things planted in the garden this month:  spinach, radishes, dill, a new crop of carrots and onions, lettuce, beets, mustard greens, green beans and marigolds.  I know it's early for the green beans but I'm giving it a try and have row covers on standby if the weather decides to turn cold. 

I have seedlings of tomatoes (lots of them), peppers, eggplant, lavender, cumin, oregano, thyme, ammi and foxglove.  The tomatoes are already huge and itching to get in the garden.  I may try to go ahead and plant some early and leave some until closer to normal planting time. 

Of course we've also been busy with other chores like adding compost to the beds, pruning and fertilizing the trees, expanding the fenced-in chicken run, mowing, etc. 

And since spring is upon us--we've ordered new chicks to keep pace with demand for eggs. I'm also excited because we've ordered a few turkeys! 

I'm going to try and do a similar post at the end of each month to give you an idea of what we have planted (and to remind myself). 

Thanks for joining us on our little farm adventure.