Happy Spring!
I suspect that this calendar year will be filled with ‘firsts’ for us. This week it was our first sightings of Wild Turkeys right on our own place. Last Tuesday I saw them across the farm field, a flock of hens followed by a strutting Tom Turkey- too far away to photograph, just near enough to tell what they were.
Saturday, just as we were sitting down to a nice hot bowl of home made Butternut Squash Soup, I glanced out the sun-room door to see them much closer! Al ran and got his camera before they passed out of range.
In total, there were ten hens plus the Tom, last one on the left at the back. It was really cool to see wild turkeys so close.
Early the next morning, Al took the dogs out just at dawn and heard a Great Horned Owl calling, and the wild turkey tom answering, so that was exciting too!
Spring Arrives!
The grass is beginning to green up, the maples are blooming, along with the crocuses I planted last fall. Some perennials are just beginning to pop up and soon we’ll have our hands full moving plants around to re-landscape the property.
Our fruit trees arrived early last week. In anticipation of their arrival we selected spots for them to grow and prepared the area for digging holes and planting them. We removed the sod from a generous area for each, but waited for their arrival to dig their planting holes. Each needed a different depth and size of hole to accommodate their roots adequately, so there was no point in digging holes in advance. A generous watering followed planting, plus a bit of organic fertilizer and top dressing of wood chip mulch the following day. They will need regular watering for the first season to get them established. In a couple of years they will start to bear fruit.
This year’s fruit orchard order included the Northern Spy Apple, a Red Haven Peach, the Chestnut Crab above (for pollination, a pretty landscape tree as well as some tasty fruit) and two elderberry bushes. Elderberries are good wildlife food, plus food for our bees in future years. I am not much a fan of elderberries, but some of the fruit can be used for mixed berry jellies and jams when they start bearing. The fruit trees are all dwarf varieties to make it easier to care for them and to avoid an over abundance of fruit we can’t use.
Seed Starting
The vegetable garden is underway in the basement! The first to arrive are the cole crops- Kale and two kinds of broccoli. They like cooler weather, so they can be set out later in the spring after we are done setting up the vegetable garden for the growing season. I have a few flower seeds I will be starting as well to plant around for our enjoyment, as well as several other vegetable crops early in April.
Work has begun on preparing the vegetable garden, laying out some raised beds and creating new ornamental beds to move all of our plants into that we brought here from our old condo. Last fall, we hastily planted them in rows in the vegetable garden to hold them over the winter. Now, we’ll need to put them in more permanent locations as they emerge from winter dormancy.
So, that’s the news from the first full week of Spring here on the farm.
