Out of the textbooks and into the compost here! It's amazing how the days are slipping away, I just can't keep up with anything. Well, I think maybe with school ending for the school year I may be able to at least attempt to catch up. We'll see
For the last several years, the ranch owners had employed people to "manage" the ranch, and some of them even gardened, yet not a single one of them every grew food for the ranch owners on their own place.
That annoyed me.
Now me, I am not an employee. Apparently I am the beloved Restoration Consultant. Whatever I am, one thing that I actually am is a person who knows how to and loves to grow food. And growing food I am. So much food. TONS of it!
Last week alone I renovated the greenhouse and got all manner of plants installed. This is the first year since like 2010 or so that I didn't start my own tomato plants, but since I was on my world walkabout tour during the time I needed to start them, I decided to just buy some.
Plus, as I am not feeding a herd of heathens, I have found I need far less plants over all. Amazing thing that.
So, the greenhouse was a pretty straightforward job, and I was quite happy after I replaced the soil in the boxes, transplanted tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and various herbs. I even started a Crimson Sweet watermelon that I am going to train along the ceiling and the walls. Should be fun.
I also started around a hundred marigold plants, some squashes, pumpkins, and pickling cucumbers for putting out in the garden later. Spring comes late in the mountains of Montana, and my soil is different here, so I am learning and adapting as I go.
One thing I absolutely nailed though, and am so grateful for, is the garlic growing project. It all survived the winter and is thriving. The other day I gave it its fertilizer feeding for the spring. It's so, so pretty, and I am so, so happy about it.
When we tilled for the garlic bed, I ended up with about one and a half extra beds that I decided to put beets and carrots in, as I found a ton of netting in the greenhouse, and I figured root crops with netting might survive the eleventy billion deer I have here. We shall see. I have it all planted save my second succession of carrots that go in here shortly.
Inside the garden realm, I have some turnip greens, lettuce, and radishes coming up already. I'll do some more cold weather crops and I have some cabbages to transplant that I bought. There are big intercropped, space saving planting plans in the work for the actual garden, but as the weather is treacherous up here, I won't be putting much more into that realm til later this month.
So, in the interim, I am enjoying the just flowering tulips and daffodils, cleaning out around the giant peony that is in there, tidying up the honeyberries that I planted last year, marveling at the raspberries that I renovated, and smiling a lot as I take in the old fashioned rose in the corner that I tackled the other day.
It was such a sad, overgrown, neglected mess, but now, now it is a tidy, trimmed realm. I am hoping it comes back wonderfully.
It's amazing how much work a hobbit woman can get done when she's actually turned loose to work on one thing instead of managing about thirty things at once. Wondrous even!
But now, now I am going to go slather some butter on one of the sourdough bluberry muffins I pulled out of the oven. I needed to feed my starter Rufus, so it seemed only right to whip up something, and muffins are always a pleasant and easy thing this to craft.
Now if I can only start to make some headway on my backed up posting to do list...
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's still slightly dusted in flour and compost iPhone.