Tuesday, April 14, 2009

A New Season brings New Growth

 

I’ve done a lot more planting this week. I chose spinach to go next to the onions. I completed the row of overwintered Mache with seeding of Mache. Now we have a row of turnips, partial row of radishes, garlic and more spinach. I’m saving the last row for tomatoes. All of the broccoli is up and some already transplanted to bigger pots. Will be running out of room for them, real soon.
Seedy Saturday was fun. I got some great heirloom seeds, talk to other gardeners and ran into my apprentice, Joanna. One of the seed sellers knows my good friend, so we had a nice chat over that. Also ran into the Dartmouth garden network people. It is always great to rub elbows with other persons of the soil.
My 5 gallon salad spinner just came to the door. The brokerage fee!!! AACCKK. What I didn’t know about shipping things from the US was enormous. Why do I have a broker and why does (s)he charge so much? It didn’t matter that I don’t want a broker! Anyway UPS is reimbursing me a bit for the fee since I wasn’t aware of it and was in shock when the driver told me how much I had to pay. It ended up still being a better deal then the one I could have bought here, but still.. my heart can’t take the stress. The excitement and thrill of a new toy has been quite diminished. I guess I’ll play with it later when I’ve gotten over the shock. Some people buy everything online and have no problem. It seems every time I order something it comes broken or breaks real soon, not what I expected or the cost of getting it to me far outstrips the cost of the thing.
We have still some spots open for the CSA program but we have a good number of paid spots. Whew. Takes the pressure off so we can move forward. We have committed chefs and green grocers, too, so that gives us the go ahead. The little I’ve had my hands in the soil so far this year tells me how much I love this business
and am so looking forward to this year and years to come. All the plans for the future are just so exciting. Greenhouse, vertical strawberry structure, adding more backyards and swapping with other growers…. just a few of my plans. Bob’s mom just passed away so we will be involved in family things for the next days and then come home to deal with our own grief. If you could pick your mother-in-law, you would have picked her. She will be greatly missed. My kids no longer have grandparents and we no longer having any parents. The thing I noticed most about my parents being gone was there was no one to send pictures and updates of my kids. We used to send audio tapes of their music and of course scads of pictures. Oh well.
Signing off from LCF (Lake City Farm) for now. If you are gardening, get out there and get your hands dirty.. it’s not too early.