Spring time, the beginning of busy season!

Ground cherry pie, with a juicy blueberry pie in the background

Things have been going well around here. Spring came early - average last frost is May 17th, and I think we got our last one around April 20 this year. That's a-ok, since things were late last year! 

I've been doing a lot of early spring clean up, both outside and inside (in the freezer). After making pies for Easter, I've been making them regularly again. This coconut oil and butter crust is absolutely fabulous for fruit pies.

Overwintered parnips

Out of all the plants I tried to overwinter, the parsnips did by far the best. I also got some leeks and green onions, but the kale and collard greens did not make it. 

My strawberry patch is doing okay, as long as I keep it weeded. Some of my fruit trees didn't make it through the winter, and that is a major bummer, but most of them are alive and well.

The two big old apple trees were in bloom around May 1st. I didn't get my first spraying done until May 9th, which is not ideal at all, but I just sprayed the trunk, so hopefully things should be okay. 

   

Potatoes planted in the lovely black dirt in our back field

We've been doing a bit of planting on our back acreage this year. A neighbor farmer has planted it in corn for the last many years, and this year I bought field peas to put in on a few of the acres. So far they seem to be doing well. We need to get some tractor implements to do more field work though!

I've hand planted small sections of potatoes, hull-less oats, buckwheat, amaranth, sweet corn, flint corn, popcorn, melons and squash.The neighbor farmer also planted most of the remaining acreage in field corn, slightly to our surprise, but at least that gives us more time to figure out bigger plans for back there. 

One of the Maran hens has been sitting on a clutch of eggs - hopefully there will be some babies next week! A couple others have tried to go broody, but only this one has been allowed to continue. The others were not nearly as dedicated as Mama Maran.

Mister the rooster and some of his ladies in the lilacs