When April comes there is a kind of frenzy. The snow has gone, but the cold remains and frosts are hard. We get everything in the soil, starting with the hoop house and cold frames. We also get wind, lots of it often all the way through May, making it difficult for the hardiest of early veg to get their heads above the ground. Carrots and peas and radishes usually go first.
Here’s where we’re at as of May 31:
These radishes are superb. Multi colored, some spicy some mild, and big .
radishes
butterhead
These lettuces will be ready in a week or so. Then they’ll bolt. We’ve had others from the cold frames for 2 weeks. Nearly done with them.
mustard
Mustard was the first thing in the hoop house in April. It was milder when it was small. Now its killer and Katy won’t eat it. I think it has hallucinogenic powers.
broccoli
Bigger than when transplanted. This was started from seed in cold frames in Apil. Its been cold and windy all month so hopefully it’ll catch up in June.
peas
Peas in the hoop house are three times the size of ones planted outside. Even though they are the hardy early heroes, they like it a bit warm. We’ll see how they fan out on the ceiling.
pole beans
These are planted in compost dug from behind the barn, where horse and cow shit was shovelled for some years. We’ve added a couple of winters’ worth of goat crap and its looking pretty good.
fall garlic
This garlic was planted in fall and in spring it was the first thing out of the ground. Bedded in aged horse manure, our own compost, and covered in seaweed all winter, it looks good.
lettuce
Maybe next week. These were admittedly grown from plugs.
Rockett
Otherwise known as Arugula, but I’m trying to avoid political statements here. Maybe another week or two to go here, then it’ll quickly shoot its load and get bitter.This is grown where the tatsoi was a couple of weeks ago. Ate that. Very good.
squash seedlings
I Need to transplant these as soon as possible. I am running out of room. I thought the 50×50 bed i had plowed would be more than enough, but i’ve nearly filled it with corn and potatoes and onions and cukes.
watercress
I Love watercress. Slightly to quite spicy. It came up in mid may and seems to be fine just growing slowly as we nibble at it.
vetch
Vetch is a legume, weed, which grows like crazy in the pasture. The goats and sheep like it. Look closely at this pic, you can see how one plant grew until it found another, tied itself to the other so that they look like one plant that has grown out the ground, formed an arch and grown back into the earth.
