We’re
blooming! The violas that grace our
salad mix and help beautify our gardens have been blooming for a couple of
weeks, but with the recent rain they are out by the hundreds. Even more exciting is the blooming of our
apricot trees. Just this week the huge
old apricot tree burst into blooms by the thousands, the tree nearly vibrates
with the buzzing of the honey bees. The
younger apricot is putting on a more modest show, but since neither tree
bloomed last year we are doubly happy to see them this year and are hopeful for
a good harvest.
The second big
surprise of the week was the discovery that the asparagus is up. This event was much more of a celebration for
Jill than for Sean, who isn’t such a big fan.
We will do our best to keep it harvested so that hopefully we can keep
it producing for the opening of the CSA season.
The garlic is also up and growing nicely, even the crops that we planted
2 months later than is usual are looking good.
We had our first
“High Tunnel Emergency” recently. It was
a relatively minor structural failure that, coupled with high winds, resulted
in half a dozen six-inch diameter holes and lots of frustration. We are all patched back together now and
feeling lucky that our first HT problem was as small as it was. We are working on getting the beds in the
tunnel re-worked and should be planting them this week.
The outside
preparation is progressing as well. The
two new gardens (we refer to them as the East and West gardens) have been
disked and are ready for the beds to be laid out. The
Speaking of herbs,
following a request from one of our original Herb Share members for more ideas on
uses for some of the less common herbs, we decided to put together the Blue
Gate Farm Herb Book. This 20+ page
compilation will provide a description, uses and multiple recipes for each of
the herbs included in our seasonal Herb Share.
It will be included in the first delivery for Herb Share members.
The sunroom is
nearly full now with the 200+ tomatoes transplanted into 4” pots and the
broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage crops germinating. All that remains to be seeded indoors is the
cukes and summer squashes, and they take lots of room so we’re hoping to get
the onion/shallot/leek crops out of there before the vines need to be started.
The continuing
saga of Blue the farm dog…this chapter finds us in Blue’s new favorite
hangout…the chicken coop! We wanted her
to help protect the chickens, but she has found a whole new obsession with
them. She found a hen that had escaped
from the chicken pasture and when it wouldn’t be “herded” back where it
belonged, Blue decided it would make a good chew toy. She didn’t do any serious damage, but the hen
was none too happy about it…neither were we!
So back to square one with our “livestock protection
dog.”
Apiary
update: To date we have not experienced
the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder that is striking so many beekeepers
across the country. Of the 12 hives we
went into the winter with, 9 are still going and the loss of the 3 was
anticipated due to their questionable strength last fall. We are more than doubling our hives this year
so have been pushing to assemble and paint the new equipment. Assuming all the new packages of bees arrive
as ordered, we’ll be adding 13 new hives this April. We eagerly await harvesting honey as early
as June.
Good news this
month, as our farm worker/friend/neighbor Krisi is home and healing remarkably
well from the serious tractor accident at her family’s farm which mangled her
left arm. Still lot of therapy in her
future, but her prognosis is improving and the recent word from the surgeons is
no skin graft surgeries will be necessary.
Her current goal is to be able to scratch her nose with her left
hand…we’ll keep you updated on that one.
As of this week we
will have our full membership set for the 2007 Summer
season. We are completely full and still have a waiting list…exciting and a bit
overwhelming at the same time! We will
be setting up a new members meeting for sometime around the 3rd week
of May for a short orientation for those of you joining us for the first
time. We will send more info about that
in the May newsletter. Until then, enjoy
this new spring weather and let us know if you have any questions.
More next month…
Best from the
farm,
Jill & Sean