I can't wait to eat this stuff!

What a wonderful week of sunny weather!  And, boy did we relish every minute of it…even our backaches felt less painful with the sun beaming down.  Plus, we got some farmer tans started! 

We’ve almost finished digging out all of the greenhouses- a major accomplishment.  We even planted two beds of basil in greenhouse 3, which already smells amazing- and as Stuart put it: “like bruschetta”. Soon all of the beds in the greenhouse will be filled with tomatoes and cucumbers - crops that need a little extra heat and protection. 

Hallie, Stuart, and Dawn planting our new strawberries!



Misty morning strawberries

Another major accomplishment this week was all of the plantouts we did. On Monday we put over 1,000 potato plants into the ground.  On Tuesday we did 6 beds of onions and shallots.  Wednesday brought more lettuce and broccoli, and Thursday, more baby lettuce.  And today we got to plantout strawberries.   Since strawberries are perennial fruits, it isn’t necessary to plant them anew every season (though most big strawberry operations do).  In fact, we’ve been harvesting strawberries from the same plants at Horton for the past three years.  However, as time goes on, the plants start to grow more fruits per plant, but the fruit is significantly smaller.  We spent some time cleaning up the older strawberries – clipping their offshoots in hopes that they will begin to produce larger berries, but Bill thought it was time to start some new plants, which we may not harvest from for commercial use until next season.    All in all we planted over 2,000 strawberry plants!  I can pretty much already taste the jam.  

Hallie has been baking bread like it is her job, and it seriously could be – we are all super impressed and thankful for her bread making talents!  However, David (one of our barn cats) broke into the kitchen Tuesday night, most likely taken by the smell scrumptious cooling bread, and left a partially nibbled on loaf in the middle of the floor.  Unfortunately that one went to the compost. 

Today’s Pie Friday marked the end of another great week in which we celebrated Ashley’s birthday (albeit, a day early), with Tiramisu.  Happy Birthday Ashley!

Check.

-Rachael

Sugar snap peas!