Growin’ Good

Things are growing good here at the Runamuk micro-farm and the spring garden is well on it’s way.

Our first delivery of “super-loam” from Lynch Landscaping in Skowhegan, Maine arrived Monday evening and I was so happy I could have rolled around in that beautiful stuff!  And wouldn’t you know it–the man who delivered the soil was one of my classmates from the 2011 Master Gardener’s course.

Keith spent Monday evening constructing boxes for our new raised beds, and here are a few of them splayed out on the lawn.  I’ll go place them where I want them as soon as the weather permits–hopefully Keith will be here to lend a hand since these are made with hemlock lumber milled from the Burns property outside of town, and they are heavy!

I can’t wait to get them where I want them and start filling them with soil!

In the upper garden things are growin’ good, and it looks like I’m right on schedule for our first CSA harvest and delivery in just under two weeks now.  I’ve had some apprehension about whether or not I could actually pull this all off.  This being my first year in production for other people who have actually paid me with their hard-earned cash–there’s a level of accountability to be met.  But it’s looking really good, and I’m confident that our CSA members are going to be happy with the return on their investment.

Here I have the first round of lettuce growing, Black-Seeded Simpson, a butter-crunch loose-leaf heading type.

Yes–there are a few weeds mingling with the lettuce–but there’s more spinach interplanted between the lettuce plants,once the spinach gains in size they will block out the weeds and provide a good ground-cover for the soil.  On the other side of the bed, almost out of the picture, there is a row of peas growing, and a bunch of chives too.

We have four varieties of peas growing in the garden, all of them are sprouting and I have more trellises to make.I love spinach–it’s just so damned versatile!  and healthful too. 

You can eat it in a salad, on sandwiches instead of lettuce, steamed with butter and vinegar, put it in pasta dishes or any number of recipes.  I’ve got three different types of spinach planted in four different beds, and–as I mentioned earlier–I can interplant some of the taller crops among the spinach beds as a space-saver, which means I can increase my yields.

I have these clumps of chives distributed throughout the upper garden–chives are delicious in a salad or any other dish–they also help to repel insects that might munch my crops, as well as attracting beneficial insects like honeybees and butterflies.  Not to mention they’re gorgeous when in bloom.  Which they are about to do–don’t worry–I’ll post pics.

This clump of rhubarb has been here probably as long as the old barn has, and is just about ready for someone to pick it–I just love the way it looks so green and healthy!  I’ve been pouring over recipes, looking for yummy ways to utilize this traditional spring–er-fruit?

Now if only the rain would subside for a few days so I can move that soil into the new beds!