Tomatoes are in and grape planting party!

We're a little late posting this, but we planted our 120 tomatoes out of the greenhouse about a week ago.  We have several varieties -

Arkansas Traveler (excellent heat tolerance),
Ilini Star (testing for heat tolerance, is an early bearing variety),
Red Cherry Tomato (garden snack),
Amish Paste (salsa and sauce, have tried this one before without luck but thought I'd give it another go)
Brandywine (best tasting tomato! not super prolific though)
Mortgage lifter (trying it, has a good reputation)
Ozark Pink (testing for heat tolerance)

First tomato tunnel

 

second tomato tunnel

 

Another 60 planted along the fence

 

I still have 65 pepper plants in the greenhouse to put out, but they aren't as root bound as the tomatoes were.  In other garden news, many of Catherine's flowers are coming up, so the north side of the garden should bloom beautifully this year.  Our cabbages are looking fabulous!  I thought we'd lost them all right after we transplanted them, but the long cool and wet spring has really brought them around.  I'm hoping they keep going so that we can make some kraut this year.  The onions and potatoes are super healthy and the vast majority of our transplanted asparagus is coming up wonderfully. 

This week we had a garden shed delivered.  We bought it from a local craftsman who is, unfortunately, moving away.  It is very well built and will work perfectly to hold all our garden tools out of the weather.  It also provides a roof to collect some rain water.  It is sitting on the hill above the greenhouse right now.  We'll be moving it (somehow) down into the garden tomorrow if we're lucky.

6'x8' handmade shed

 

Next Friday afternoon (May 31st), we will be planting the first row of grapes in the swales behind the hoop house.  Anyone who wants to learn about planting and growing grapes is welcome to come and participate.  We will start at our house at 12:30 and will hopefully be at the farm by 3:00.  We will be digging up the 4 large, established grapes at our house, loading them up along with another dozen or so cuttings I rooted last year, then taking them to the farm and planting them.  It will be a fun day and hopefully the weather will cooperate. 

Lastly, we've started getting bids to do the foundation for the cabin at the farm.  We are really hoping to get to break ground soon, but there are several things left to nail down.  The pressure is on since we have to be out of our house by mid July (no, we won't have it built by then).  Keep watching to see how it goes!

Fence, flowers, mulch and scythes

Its been a busy and good couple of weeks for us.  Last weekend, the kids and I transplanted several perennials from in town - 65 raspberry canes, 3 clematises and an assortment of herbs.  We also moved the arbor from in town.  And, if that wasn't enough, I couldn't help but stop by a garden center (or two) and pick up a few other plants.  :D  This little corner of the garden is starting to fill in...

The kids planting raspberries

Arbor from the south west gate

Arbor (and Jacob) from inside the garden

Catherine planting flowers

During the week last week, Jeremy managed to get all the wire strung for the fence.  That's no small feat when you consier that there's about half a mile of wire required to do 3 pairs of strands!  Then, this past weekend we started weaving withey's into the fence to make a more significant barrier to the various critters (namely deer) that would like to eat our garden.  As of the end of the day Sunday, here's where we were:

Cedar withes woven into the fence

While we've been working on these projects, Catherine has taken it to heart to plant a flower garden.  She has now planted some hundreds of seeds, plants and bulbs along the north fence line of the garden as well as helped plant nasturtiums where our squash will be this year.  It's been a huge help.

Catherine planting flowers

On Saturday we also stumbled across someone selling 2 scythes!  They are in good condition - one needs a significant re-peening to be in good cutting shape and the other is like new - and even came with a snath that's about Jeremy's size.  Now we can both cut grass or brush and we have a back up snath for someone who wants to help (and is over 6' tall).  Sweet!

New scythe blades!

Lastly, Jeremy lucked out and had his boss from work get us in touch with a tree service.  They need somewhere to dump many dump truck loads of chipped mulch and logs and we happen to need a TON (actually several tons) of mulch for the garden and various other projects around the farm.  SCORE!!  No pictures of this yet, but they've already brought by 2 dump truck loads of wood for us with the promise of many more.  Now we just have to get all that spread...