Monday, April 19, 2010

Busy, busy, busy!

So much has gone on the last few days that I hardly know where to begin.
First the county was out to look at separating the waterline that ran to the pasture across the street that is no longer part of our property.



We also have had a week of above average temps again so all the perennials are going like gangbusters. The rhubarb has already needing to be pulled. So Jess made a rhubarb compote that we had over some English pouring custard she made with some of our eggs.
The asparagus is starting to show itself as well.

We also rented a sod cutter and started our expansion of the garden. Turns out cutting sod is pretty easy with a sod cutter but lifting, rolling and finding a place to put the sod is less simple.
So far I have found places to stash some of the sod. Low places in the yard that needed to be filled. I also put some on the hill where previous tenants had buried something along with all of the topsoil. I still have enough sod to build one or two sob cabins like the old timers did. So far the plan is to use up what I can and then make a berm or two with the rest and let it rot down to a nice even loam.





All this and we rented a truck this afternoon to pick up supplies for the new duck enclosure and fencing for the garden expansion. We also picked up a tiller to start converting all the new garden to usable land. I don't actually intend to till the soil much after we get the soil worked up and compost and organic mater worked into it. No till would be good but with our garden and time available we will have to settle for minimal till.
We also laid out our plan for the ducks. The plan is to build the enclosure around the orchard so that the ducks can patrol for pest insects and fertilize the trees. We also plan to direct run off from the pole barn into a small pond form for the ducks to splash in.

All this and we got a great bloom on the apricots and few decent bee flying days so fingers crossed for apricots this season.

5 comments:

Jo said...

You are busy! So what are the plans with the water line?

dhratrashtra said...

Hi,i ask for an apology in advance for my poor english. ok now i begin.
i am from India. while just wandering from one blog to the other i saw this blog with beautiful photographs of the farm. i liked it. i loved the pictures. now on i will be visiting your blog on regular basis.

the Knitters Block said...

Nice pictures. I really like the fruit trees, must smell great. Any word on what the county is doing with your road?

Mr. H. said...

I am surprised that your apricot is ahead of ours, we just started to get a few little blooms. The weather has finally warmed though so I suppose everything will be growing like crazy soon. I love the new garden plot, it's going to be huge.

Frustrated Farmer Rick said...

Jo- The county is modifying the road. They intend to widen the road so they had to make sure they wouldn't compromise our well if the line was still connected.

dhratrashrea-Thank you for visiting. I plan to post more pictures this year.

Leah-Yeah the apricots smelled good.Now we have the plums blooming and they smell even better. The county will probably be buying land and trees from us for the road project.

Mr. H. It has been a weird spring this year. We have had an March that was among the warmest on record and now an April that is on track to be one of the warmest ever. Now we just need to see our friend rain a little more often.
Yeah I can't wait to start working that new expanse of soil.