In which it's spring AT LAST, so here are some farm photos to celebrate

 It's the first day of Spring--what do you think I was doing?

Yes, of course.

But after that?

Yes, yes.  The garden.

Here's the 2022 Haiku Farm Update

Beginning with brassicas.

These little dinky things are broccoli. 

I started broccoli and purple cauliflower from seed indoors mid-February.  They moved outdoors to the greenhouse about ten days ago, and went into the garden today.  

They look very puny, but I have faith.  I had really good luck with broccoli two years ago, skipped planting it last year, and this year I'm adding in cauliflower for the first time--a purple variety!

Different dinky little things:  these things are (purple) cauliflower.

Secondly: spinach

Last year's spinach was amazing.  I planted two varieties in 2021: Lakeside and Nobel.  They both got enormous, with leaves the size of tobacco leaves, and neither turned bitter, even when the plants finally started to bolt in June.

This year I planted Lakeside in Haenaheim about two weeks ago, and threw in a batch of Nobel seeds into the Classic garden yesterday.  

The Lakeside spinach in Haenaheim sprouted up right on time on St. Patrick's Day

Over in the Berry Garden

The strawberry plants really didn't appreciate the "extreme heat bubble" last year, and we didn't get much fruit.  Also, there were slugs.  Gahhh.

Albion strawberries, an ever-bearing variety

I've added more strawberry plants this year, and will soon surround them with the dead branches thrown down by our sequoia trees.  The branches act as a mulch to keep the soil cool(er), and slugs don't like the prickly branches on their under-tummies.  

A new addition to the Berry Garden this year:  lingonberries!

Lingonberries are practically a staple in nordic Europe, and they grow very well here.  I got some branches from a friend that we are trying to root up into plants, and I also bought a few plants from my favorite local nursery.  I'm looking forward to making lingonberry jam this summer.

I pulled the evergreen branches away from the plant for the photo--they normally 
snuggle close in to protect the young bush from cold and slugs

The established raspberry bushes are beginning to leaf out already!  They didn't appreciate the 2021 heat bubble either, but I think they survived it better because they weren't trying to produce fruit at the same time the sky was trying to kill them.

raspberries threw out lots of volunteer canes last year, which I dug up and moved elsewhere

Berries elsewhere:

I've been threatening to uproot the grapevines for several years--nobody here eats grapes, and the vines are obnoxiously invasive to the neighboring blueberry bushes.  This winter we had a week of not-too-cold and not-too-wet, so I took some very sharp tools out to the yard and dug/cut/chopped/cussed those vines out.  We did leave one grape plant--the one that climbs up the cedar tree, because the birds like that one.

In place of the grapevines I planted a small clump of raspberry canes and a second row of blueberries.  This is a good sunny spot, with a few young fruit trees on the northern edge of the blueberry row.  

This sunny spot should suit the berries well

I also got a couple of young cranberry bushes for this area--they are planted in an old water tank at the end of this row.

Elsewhere in the yard:

Growing garlic in these buckets down by the barn works really well.  I dumped out the soil after harvest and then put in fresh dirt before planting garlic last October.  

What about indoors?

The indoor grow-op is full of young plants.  

Several types of tomatoes, and some orange thyme that I started from seed in February

Ground cherries.  Patty has a bunch of these and they self-seed readily, so I grabbed a 
bunch of fruits for seed.  Sauces and jams from ground cherries will be awesome.

Up in the orchard, it's time for some preventative maintenance.  Anybody who spends time driving our I-5 corridor has seen these signs:

We used to sing the "apple maggot quarantine area" song as a round, to the tune of
"Dona Nobis Pachem."  Because yes, we are those people who do those things.

Patty has had good luck with these sticky traps, so I'm going to give them a try this year.

The adult fly is attracted to the shape and location of the plastic ball, and flies to it.

Ahhh, but these enticing plastic balls are painted with a sticky resin!  Bugs get stuck
to the glue and thus can't get to baby apples to lay their nasty eggs.

Finally, there are a few plants that exist here just to be pretty.

The forsythia (photo left) produces loads of yellow flowers that the pollinators love--
and they also make loads of baby forsythia bushes that we've planted all over.

Temps are slowly rising here, and soon it will be time to plant more things!