Spring is on its way! I’m so excited!

Even though we are in between a couple of snowstorms from the stretching of the #PolarVortex, I can finally see the end of the tunnel. It’s time to plant seeds for vegetable starts. Time to send the combs and cutters for sharpening. Time to carefully ration the remaining hay and cross fingers for lots of spring rain, as well as hope that the tornadoes and hail miss us.

I’ve started some cabbage, spinach, and several different kinds of lettuce in the basement. I’ve also started a tray of bok choi and a tray of peppers. Also, I stuck a sweet potato in some water in an attempt to see if it will produce slips. There is an eye already, so more crossed fingers!

Attempting to grow sweet potato slips.
Basement starts. Pardon my messy cardboard.

The chicken moult was the longest ever! The mature hens have just started laying again. We discovered BeepBeep is NOT a rooster as suspected, but a hen who lays the teeniest white eggs (they’ve gotten a little bigger as the days have passed). I’ve already ordered another half dozen Icelandic chicken eggs for incubating. We need a rooster!

The dirty green eggs are, you guessed it, duck eggs, the brown eggs from our older hens, and the white egg is BeepBeep’s.

I had to pull the poly back on the low tunnel about a week ago since we were getting up over 60 degrees Fahrenheit (we even got up to 82 degrees before this last snowstorm!). I took inventory of what made it overwinter, thanks to Orange’s extermination of Peter F’ing Rabbit. There are a few seedlings still alive including one cabbage, three collard greens, four lettuce, a bunch of leeks, red and white onions, some very pathetic shallots, and some beets. The rest perished due to extended extreme cold sub zero wind chills in early February. All of the garlic cloves I planted in December have come up and are also doing well. Finally, I also harvested two mature leeks, leaving one in-ground.

Doesn’t look like much at the moment!

I’m determined to start everything on time this year. I’m ready and focused. Every plant is important, every harvest/picking to be eaten and/or dried/preserved/frozen. Please observe a moment of silence with me for last year’s plethora of orange gourds, two buckets full of cucumbers, the unripened watermelons, and the excess zuchinni and yellow squash that went unused and were either composted or eaten by field mice. This year will be different!