Farm Update - Blackberries, Garlic, Collards etc.
Last weekend I managed to pull (ok pry) the boys away from their Wii video game system to get outside, enjoy the milder weather and soak up some vitamin D. The task for the boys was to pick up all the black walnuts that had dropped to the ground - they did a good job. They relocated the walnuts to the edge of the woods (as opposed to the middle of the yard) so the squirrels could still find them for food.
I spent some time weed-eating and determining how many of my new Triple Crown Thornless Blackberry starts survived our record drought. I have already ordered more and requested some replacements from our vendor. I'm looking forward to the production bump we'll get in the next 1-2 years - especially without the thorns. The Triple Crown variety is very close in size and flavor to my Kiowa variety. It is one of the sweetest you can grow and we enjoy eating them right off the canes.
I checked on our three types of Garlic - French Rose and Chesnok Red, a stiffneck variety, and Chet's Italian, a softneck variety. This is our first time to grow garlic and so far it looks like we have had good germination. We covered them up during our short cold spell last week and have uncovered them again in hopes of collecting some rain tonight. We'll keep you updated on the progress and hopefully in June we'll have a large garlic harvest from four of our box beds.
We have been enjoying our collard and turnip greens this winter and continue to pick them often for a healthy treat.
Lastly, we have purchased a greenhouse for our seed starting operation. We ordered a Solar Star Greenhouse Kit from Growers Supply. This will allow us to get a start on the season with several crops without having to move plants around every day.
In our next post, we plan to have made some seed choices for next year, so stay tuned! If you have any suggestions in that regard, please hit the comment button and leave us a note.
Thanks for the update and the photos! The plans are very exciting. I am looking forward to enjoying some of those wonderful blackberries and garlic with you this year.
Blessings,
Lynne