Our Farmlet!

It's coming up on 4pm and like real farmers, rebby and I have put in a full day's work already. We anticipated a rainstorm (which hit about an hour ago) but wanted to do a lot of work in the garden beforehand. So after a really beautiful night at the Point listening to Kris Kristofferson sing like a prophet over the cell phones and innane conversations of stupid people all around us, we went to bed early and got up early and headed down to the Strip to replenish the protein coffers. I got a big wad of catering money this week, so it was a super happy coincidence that our favorite grassfed beef man (Patrick from Harmony Hill Farm in Evans City) and the chicken man (West Liberty Farms) and the Salmon People (Wild Alaskan Salmon Company) AND the lamb lady (Pucker Brush Farm)were all there. Our Pork People (Heilman's Hogwash Farm) were there too, but we are all set on pork. So we got a giant brisket, and two ny strip steaks, and a bag of ground beef. A whole chicken, two sockeye salmon filets (one of which is going to be gravlax in short order with garden dill!) and two pounds of ground lamb. It's a great feeling. I had to stop in Wholey's for butter (they stock the amish roll butter and unsalted butter in big chunks which keep nicely in the freezer) and they had wild caught Mahi Mahi on sale, so we got one of those as well. That will be tonight's dinner. After stocking up on tortillas and Reynas and a few other odds and ends at Stamoolis, we headed home. Unpacked the groceries and headed right back out to do recycling and get a load of garden soil. Most of the first load went to the potatoes---three of them (the Swedish Fingerlings, Red Clouds, and Buttes) got their third and final tire today, and I dumped a bunch of dirt on top of the Yukon Golds too. I had ground planted them because I read that they didn't really respond to hilling, but the plants were getting so tall I thought it couldn't hurt to give them some more soil. We'll see. The Caribes are lagging behind a little, but I'm sure they'll catch up soon. I started one more tire of Caribes today too, just because I had so many seed potatoes left and I felt bad for them. And there aint nothing wrong with having more potatoes, right?
So we dumped most of a truckload of dirt on the potatoes, and then rebby went to get another truckload while I started the girl chores of laundry and washing out all the accumulated plastic bags on the counter. There were a LOT of them. Now they are waving in the breeze on the clothesline (after taking another shower in the rainstorm.....hope the sun comes back out to dry them!) When rebby got back we unloaded the second load of dirt and I made a bunch more Three Sisters mounds. I am trying to grow blue hopi field corn as well as Lucious, Country Gentleman, Stowell's Evergreen, and Quickie. The first and last are hybrids, the middle two are heirlooms. I have high hopes but low expectations about my ability to grow corn. Last year we had a total of six ears, I think.....but I only planted six plants. This year each mound has six plants in it, so hopefully the yield will be better. I can't wait till the corn sprouts so I can start planting beans! I have, I kid you not, FOURTEEN varieties of beans. Some of them will go in the raised bed where the peas are when the peas are done, but most of them will grow in the Three Sisters mounds where they can climb up the corn stalks. Then once the beans sprout, I plant the squashes around them. Woo!
Besides the corn, I planted some bok choy and mustard greens today in the spots where I pulled up the early beets earlier this week. I got a nice looking beet crop! So pleased since last year I only got tiny roots and big bunches of leaves. This year the spring beets did a much better job of forming beets. We're going to eat some of them tonight, marinated in balsamic vinegar and grilled. With some goat cheese on top. Oh yes.
Afer all the planting, I harvested. The chard was out of control and the spinach was bolting already! So I cut a big laundry basket full of greens. Then picked through, washed, spun and bagged em. Three gallon bags of chard, one of dinosaur kale, one of spinach. Feels good. We are stocked up!