I kind of went through an identity crisis as a gardener. Being a carnivore kind of complicates stuff like growing your own plants. To eat. But as time has gone on, I’ve sorted my self out a bit and am ready to max out my garden space once again. Last summer the weeds were atrocious so I put plastic down to solarize the soil and now it’s time to get it all ready. Added to the list of winter work was pruning (fruit trees and roses) and bee hive prep…me and my resident lawn-gnome-farm-girl-in-training (that would be Corra) have been busy.

We’ve had a warm spell which the goats have loved. Also I’ve loved it because it’s a lot more fun to milk goats when it isn’t in the 30’s. But when I pulled out the seeds to sort out if I wanted a spring garden, I read a lot of labels saying “plant early, as soon as the soil can be worked.” That kicked up my need to get out and play in the dirt something fierce. My moonglow pears have thrown out buds (true to form) so that meant I couldn’t put off winter pruning anymore either. My roses are grateful for the haircuts and I can’t wait to watch the daffodils start to wake up. Something else that is a part of winter work is yard clean up. Our neighbor’s tree lost a huge limb that smashed our fence and almost took out my favorite fig tree. Sigh. Neil still needs to go out with a chain saw and clean up the rest of it, but he valiantly rescued the fig. I’m having surgery the beginning of March which means there are things I have to have ready for bringing our bees home…mainly the platform to hold up the hives. Little girls were enlisted and on this slightly less than warm afternoon we knocked it out. Child labor for the win!

I broad-forked this small bed then formed hills to plant. Corra helped me every step of the way. Goats ate the weeds we pulled out. This bed is our small cold weather stuff: peas, carrots, spinach, lettuce, chard. Most of the leafy stuff is for bunnies and goats. I’m going to do the same thing with the other small bed (last picture of the three) and that will have corn in the whole thing come May. Another winter work project happened today…mucking out rabbit runs. All of that goodness went into the corn bed where it will be broad-forked in and feed our corn.

Corra has a work ethic that amazes me sometime. It’s fun to watch her get good at my favorite activities.

Getting this thing painted means we can set up hives and cross some major things off my pre-surgery to-do list.
It has felt so good to get my hands dirty and get my farm ready for the spring and summer explosion that is on its way. I love my life.