weekend garden notes: spring in the air

After a week of the most wintery weather we've had all year, (the snowmen lasted for two whole days!) we finally had a bit of spring warmth this weekend. And how better to celebrate than by bringing home a new little flock of chicks!

 This one is an Australorp, a beautiful black-feathered breed purported by our farm store to be record-setting egg layers.

We also got a Rhode Island Red, a Golden Laced Wyandotte, and a Delaware. All but the Rhody are new breeds to us, and we're looking forward to observing their habits and personalities.  Egg production aside, I think this will be a flock of beautiful birds!

The warm sunshine beckoned us all outdoors for lots of gardening. Dan mowed down the crimson clover cover crop to prep a bed for potato planting.

The greens will go in the compost, and the roots get gently tilled in to the soil by hand with spade and fork to add organic matter and nitrogen. Our little helper was such a champ, staying with us outside contentedly for hours.

We potted up the calendula and cilantro...

...and salvia. They're all happy in new pots with room to grow.

The air is fragrant with freshly mown lawns, daphne, flowering plums, and star magnolias. It's a nice change from the stagnant air of winter fog and woodsmoke.

Other garden notes:
~We planted basil, pepper and tomato seeds indoors.
~Dan dug up last years strawberries that never performed well and prepped the bed for brassicas, which we'll plant out soon. We'll try some new strawberry varieties in a different bed this year in hopes of harvesting a healthy crop. 
~I re-potted the mint for a fresh spring crop. I keep it in pots to prevent it from taking over the whole garden. Each fall and spring I dump out the root-bound plant, pull two or three hearty roots from that plant and re-pot it with new soil. This method has worked great for me.
~Ate more over-wintered leeks and greens with dinner!

Happy Spring gardening!

first yarn-along of spring

I've been remiss in my knitting lately. Somehow I just can't convince myself to finish the last few stitches and seaming on these little Saartje booties. And I've got this wonderful locally grown yarn in the color "spring sage" calling out to be used, but I can't decide on the pattern. I'm thinking of something to keep a 3-6 month-ish babe warm next fall...a little vest would be nice--maybe a Colin, or a Pebble? Any votes?

Reading-wise, I finally finished Middlemarch, and I am sad to part with it. Such a good good good book. I love the last paragraph so much--"...for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs."

I have a stack of child development/parenting books to work through now. Positive Discipline, Your Three Year Old, and You Are Your Child's First Teacher. We're going through some significant developmental changes in our house, with a toddler becoming a preschooler, and I've found these books to be quite helpful. And for my own personal development, Ina May's Guide to Childbirth. (Oh, did I forget to mention that 3-6 month-ish babe in the first paragraph would be our little babe?)

Joining up with Ginny for yarn along...

St. Patrick's Day garden journal

So much green in the garden on this St. Patrick's Day!
Our crimson clover is flourishing...

We were inspired to go with the shamrock theme to make a little birthday crown for a friend turning two (tutorial here).

The over-wintered spinach is growing nicely... (that red-veined variety is called Beaujolais, from Uprising Seeds, and it is divine--so mild, sweet and tender. It is quick to bolt though)

As are the leeks and kale under cover in our little hoop house.

Leeks and spinach for the scramble tonight! Unfortunately, we didn't have backyard eggs for the occasion--our ladies developed a nasty case of pecking over the last few weeks (blood was involved), and since we were planning to give them away this spring to make room for new chicks anyway, we decided to part with them a bit early. They were adopted by a very nice country family with lots of pasture for roaming, and a rooster they claim will put the kibosh on the pecking problem. We're planning to get new chicks next weekend--stay tuned for introductions!

The red flowering current blossoms are just too irresistible not to pick a few...

And soup must be prepared for the squirrels!

Our neighbors' flowering plum tree is so stunning for these first few weeks of spring...

And other little details...

~Tomorrow we plan to do a large flower planting indoors--marigold, calendula, and salvia (seed saved from last year), zinnia, cosmo...any other suggestions?

~The seeds planted last week are all beginning to germinate (save the leeks, which take longer). 

The peas are also beginning to come up in the front bed. 

~We did some pruning of woody plants today, and pulled out the raspberries which never did well. We think they may have been afflicted by root rot. Need to do some research. 

Joining in with Ginny's Garden Journal-along today...Happy gardening to all!

weekend garden notes

 The seeds we planted three weeks ago were ready to transplant out to our little hoop house today. Arugula, lettuce, and scallions. Only a few more weeks till these turn into fresh salad--yum!

Inspired by Audrie's post, my husband and I enlisted a friend to watch our daughter for a couple of hours on Saturday so that we could sit down and plan the garden in earnest. It made such a difference to take this time up front--now that we know when we're going to plant seeds indoors, transplant outdoors, direct seed, prep beds, etc. we can really make use of the 15 minutes we have here and there to be productive. We're hoping to make the most of our small space by doing some succession plantings, and if we don't have these things on the calendar, we just forget. Same with planting for a fall/winter garden in the summer.

We had a cold day of rain, with a few windows of sunshine where we raced to put these transplants in the ground. My husband also planted beets, chard, and spinach directly into this covered bed, and broccoli, kale, leeks, a few varieties of flowers, more lettuce and scallions in trays indoors.

The plum trees are beginning to blossom, the daffodils are open, and the tulips are growing taller each day...it seems that Spring has arrived in our parts, and it has taken me by surprise!

{this moment}

Joining in with  Soulemama today...

In her words: "{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

a belated visit from old man winter

Just when we thought spring was around the corner, we awoke to this, which is truly a cause to celebrate in our land of rainy winters...

"Mama, take me out in the snow!" my daughter cried over and over promptly at 6:45 am after looking out the window. And it certainly was a race against the warming temps to get out in time to enjoy this slushy wet white stuff. I had to head off to work shortly after these photos were taken, but I heard of much fun had by a girl and her father, and even stories of snowmen (I believe there was also a snow-mama). It looks like winter isn't done with us yet!

Today's Writer's Almanac poem was lovely, and appropriate for this first day of March.  In like a lion, indeed!

snap pea for my sweet pea

It's official. I absolutely loved knitting this cardigan. (Ravelry notes here). The yarn (Quince and Co.'s Lark in snap pea) is a dream--light but durable, stretchy but strong. We'll see how it holds up to the wear and tear of a wiggly preschooler. The pattern was just the thing I needed--so simple and fluid, with only one set of needles, no seems to sew, no little extra steps to slow things down. Just knitting. It only took me a week, which for this pokey knitter is quite quick indeed. Thus, it was finished in time to be a real birthday sweater for my little sweet pea. (Though it turned out to be big enough that it might fit her better on her next birthday!) No pictures of the model today, though, as she always takes a while to warm up to a new article of clothing. She has allowed me to help her try it on (twice!), and she kept it on for nearly a whole minute, which is quite a success. I attribute that to the cupcake buttons, a sweet little find at the fabulous Stash. I was privileged to visit this beautiful shop while I was in town for the Oregon Small Farms Conference over the weekend, and it was such a treat to meet its gracious owner Sonia, whom I had previously only known via blogland.

The bookshelf hasn't changed much in the last few weeks--still happily working my way through Middlemarch. The farm conference got me thinking about a few permaculture-themed books I'd like to look at-- Gaia's Garden, The Woodland Way,  and Farmers of Forty Centuries. And I'd like to revisit the work of Masanobu Fukuoka and Wendell Berry. My husband also inspired me to check out Paul Stamets' Mycelium Running:How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, after listening to this podcast.

What are you knitting and reading this week?
Linking up with Ginny at Small Things for yarn along...