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Little cabbages two weeks ago. They are now alot bigger, and closer to harvest time!

Well, the rain we had last week was fantastic! It completely watered everything, and filled my well up! I can stop worrying - for this year, at least! I feel so much better about things. It is supposed to get really hot again this week, so I'm super glad the rain came when it did. I am still being frugal with it, though, I don't want to abuse my water priviliges!
I had an entire week off watering, so that was nice, too. I had to start watering again this morning, but because the rain did such a good job, I only have to water each bed for about 20 minutes - instead of the 40 minutes I had to do before the drought.

The deer have been out munching quite a bit lately. I obviously have been too lax with the deer control. I need to get on it! They have stripped my new fruit trees more than once - when I have time this fall, I guess I had better fence them in - and some of my veggies got a good munching last nite. Damn deer. They are so quiet and sneaky, even the dogs don't hear them coming in the middle of the night.

I have tried planting kohlrabi for the first time this year. I think I might even get some little kohlrabi's! I've been researching the companion planting, so have planted the little kohl's with beets. Both seem to be doing very well. Can't wait to see what a kohlrabi tastes like. Never had one!

There was a bunch of slugs out this morning... all were having sex. Ooooh, that made me mad! How dare they procreate when there are so many of them to begin with? They died. They all died. I massacred them. I don't even feel bad about it! Slugs having sex is NOT something you need to see early in the morning. Just so you know.

ATTACK of the slugs!

HELP!
Yesterday morning, I was walking the gardens, checking everything over, making sure all was ok. I was so pleased by what I saw for the most part. Little lettuces, all green and growing, little carrots and peas and cabbages, all looking fantastic. I had a brief moment of pride there.... then it ended. My gorgeous arugula, which was looking fabulous the day before had disappeared. Gone. Vanished in the night. Was it birds? Was it slugs? Was it deer? I was looking forward to my first harvest in just a few weeks. I checked the beer slug traps. In them were hundreds and hundreds of little dead slug bodies. So, I thought Great! My little traps are doing their job, and I guess I'll just replant the arugula.

Then it started to rain. Crap! Within minutes, THOUSANDS of slugs were all over the place. I was madly hand picking them, and dropping them into a deep bucket of water with dish soap in it to drown them. I was out there for over 2 hours, until it got too dark to see the little bastards. I'm pretty certain trap or no trap, slugs were what got my arugula. It was an invasion! You've seriously never seen so many slugs in one place in your life.

This morning, I went to the liquor store, and bought a bunch more beer. I made a ton more traps, and set them up. I emptied the old ones of all the dead little bodies and refilled the beer. I am on a MISSION, folks. I refuse to let the beasties eat all my profits before I even get a crop. I'm all for sharing, but this is ridiculous! I plan on going out tonite to hand pick what the traps don't get. My only long term hope is that once all the grass and weeds between the beds are killed, the slugs won't have as much to eat, and maybe they will think my garden is just to far to go for a meal. Luckily, the weatherman says it will get hot and sunny for the next week, so hopefully I will have a chance to replant and get my little lettuces and arugulas going again before the next invasion.

Here's to hoping.

Last Blast of 'Winter'

I feel the need to put 'winter' in quotations this year... most of the year, it was so mild and lovely, it really didn't feel like winter at all! Officially, it has been my favourite winter of my life. Wish they were all so wonderful! True to form, however, winter decided to rear it's ugly head for a week there... we had some dumps of snow (which didn't last long!) and some colder temps... I blame myself, as it only gets cold when I plant my gardens... lol!

The cold snap didn't seem to do much harm, however... I have radish and arugula coming up already. I LOVE seeing little green things coming up! I also planted my first ever asparagus plants... Jersey King and Purple asparagus. I won't get any crops this year, but should be able to start harvesting a bit from them next year. I've been working on filling and planting the rest of my garden beds... I am getting there! I now have 35 beds all ready to go, most of them planted already. I was so happy to have my goal of 50 beds in this year, but now I see it probably won't be enough for everything I want to do... I am going to slowly start building more as I go, and just keep plugging away at it.

I went up to my friends' greenhouse last week to check on my little seedlings. Everything is doing fantastic! The little cabbages will be ready to plant outdoors in just a couple of weeks... then I have to figure out how to keep the deer from gobbling them all down. grrrrr... deer.

A friend of a friend also gave me 30 more laying hens. This are just your regular run of the mill hens, but suddenly I have eggs coming out my ears... I am working on building up a good new customer base on those, too, so my fridge doesn't fill up completely with eggs!

I sent out an email to all my customers last week, to get preorders for meat chickens. I have now officially sold 46 chickens! I ordered 75, so I will have 20 for myself, and a few extras for some late orders. I am super happy with that! The little poults will arrive in a couple of weeks, and they should be ready for processing in early June. It will be nice to have a bit of extra money coming in at that time, too.

I am now off my EI self employment program, which is somewhat scary, but I am determined to do whatever it takes to make a living from my little farm, and I know everything will work out just fine!