Tom Doing His Farmer Thing

Today is a gorgeous day.  Tom is out in the garden tilling up the ground so we can plant our potatoes.  So far we are putting in Yukon Gold, German Butterball, Fingerling Potatoes, Red Potatoes and Georgia Jets (yams).

 I will be planting more herbs and starting the process of taking our plants from the greenhouse to the outdoors. I will also be starting our corn plants in the green house.  Candy Corn and Bodacious varieties.

Those are our Bucket Gardens (with peas) in the foreground followed by our square foot garden frames and blueberry bushes!!!

Our New "Cow-Boys" ... and Tom, too!!

Here is Tom with our new cows.  He won't let me name them any more because then I make pets out of them and when it is time for them to go to "McDonald Land" I can't let them go!!!!

More Boys and Their Toys: Tom's Dump Truck

Here's Tom with his "toy" truck!!!  I swear I am going to paint it yellow and black and paint "Tommy's Tonka Truck" on the side!!!

My Salad Bar in the Making

Tonight we finally put our lettuce starts in their new home.  Tom is posed with two of the main ingredients for this transplant: potting mixture, alfalfa meal, and behind him ... the ever present compost material!!

The hints I picked up from Jerry Baker said to mix your planting mix with compost material.  Nearly fill your container to the top and add a cup or so of alfalfa meal (this adds nitrogen to the soil).  Add two more inches of potting soil on top of that.  Then put in your transplants.

We have planted arugula, red and green roamine, red leaf lettuce, and buttercrunch.  We have already been snipping off lettuce for our salad ... the leaves are so tender and delicious!  There is abolutely no comparison to the stuff you buy in the store.

We are going to plant new seeds every 10 days so we have lettuce throughout the growing season.  I can see Tom out there now out on the patio with his little bowl, clipping his evening salad.  Can't you?

Farmer Tom Plows His Field

Farmer Tom is so excited.  He was able to use his very own tractor/rototiller for the very first time today in the garden.  Let me tell you, this has been a long time coming ... but very worth the wait.  He was happy as a clam as he rumbled through our hard packed clay!!

How We Spent May Day 2011

What a fantastic day!!  The weather was gorgeous (63 degrees!!)  We set up our little green house and put all the plants we bought from Territorial Seeds in it, which consisted mostly of lettuce and tomatoes.  We started our squashes, peas and beans in our little peat pots.

We put all of our herbs into the planter box.  And although you can't see them in our pictures, we set up all the geraniums (which were still blooming in the pool building), in their planter boxes on the deck.

It was a GREAT day!!  Smiles!!

Building Our Raised Bed Gardens

Tom and Russell are building the raised bed gardens.  We are excited to start the planting.  We should have lots of fresh veggies and fruit this year .... ummmm? ... I might have to learn to can!!!

The lettuce is ready to go in as soon as it stops raining a little bit this weekend ... Can't wait ... I love fresh greens for my salads!

Earth Day Trip to Territorial Seed Company in Cottage Grove

Tom and I had a great EARTH day, April 22nd, 2011.  We drove down to Territorial Seed Company and bought some seed and starts for our spring garden.  It was a totally beautiful day.  And we had a lot of fun planning the garden together.