Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Planted pumpkins and hard squashes in the new area and the garden.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Disked the area between the pigs and the greenhouse.

Sandy called to cancel the manure. Have built a new skid and tarp system for hauling manure.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Seeded Seminole, Long Island Cheese, Kakai and Calabaza pumpkins, Marina di Chioggia hard squash, Burgundy okra, jicama, papayas, sunflowers.

Thurday, July 24, 2008

Watered the greenhouse, potted up some rosemary, mints, and Lipstick peppers.

Paul and I went to up to Zephyrhills to Swan’s Feed Mill to get 3 barrels of pig food. The price went up again! Last year a 250 lb. barrel cost $43.50, today it was $58.50! Gas to get there was at least $30.

Stopped at new restaurant before we left Zephyrhills but it wasn’t very good. Paul got fried whiting and grits and I got a deviled crab. Nothing to write home about. We split an order of collards and doused it with hot pepper vinegar… that was the best of anything we had.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Stuart fixed the bad hydraulic hose on the tractor and I’ve moved a roll of hay over to the garden. Thank God he knows how to do these things… the hose cost $85 by itself and I can’t imagine what it would have cost to have a mechanic fix it…. even if we could have found one to come out here in the next 2 months.

Mulched the parsley and the strawberries. It was so hot… every time I carried an armload of hay, little bits would stick to my really sweaty skin. I would have made a grand scarecrow. I could have done it in the morning when it was cool but I wanted to watch the Tour de France which started at 6:30 am. So now I’m whining about the heat.

Got a load of horse manure from Dennis and Sandy Cramer this afternoon. I must come up with a new system to offload this stuff. The current system consists of a tarp under a piece of plywood. The tarp has a cord laced around the perimeter and the plywood has a piece of halyard rope attached to one end. When we get home, we use the tractor to pull the plywood loaded with the manure out of the back of truck. Then we pull the tarp out(which has manure that the plywood left behind). Unfortunately this system is breaking down. The tarp is ripping and the cord is pulling out the grommets and the plywood has finally broken in half and the rope has broken. Back to Home Depot!

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Planted some more Italian parsley. I’ve been using some plants from the greenhouse that the butterfly catapillars have been feasting on and some of them look like sticks with roots. I hope they burst forth with new greenery now that they have room to grow.

I also planted some strawberry plants that we bought this spring from Debra Thompson. Porfumata di Tortuna (a musk strawberry) is supposedly the finest tasting berry in the world. Sequoia, which we’ve been eating as they ripen, is the best berry I’ve ever tasted. I can’t imagine the Porfumata tasting better but we’ll see this winter. Mom picked up another variety last month, a Seminole, which I don’t know anything about but have planted near the others. All three varieties should divide and produce new plantlets which we plan to put in our Vertigro boxes this fall.

Fertilized the parsley and the strawberries.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Planted Italian and Curled Parsley in the garden… about 50 plants in all. Still have room in the row for some more. Now I need to move some hay over near the garden so I can mulch it. Maybe Stuart will have the tractor fixed soon.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Pulled up ground cover and disked the garden.

The hydraulic hose that curves over the top of the tractor burst spewing fluid all over me :( Will see if Stuart can fix it.

Fixed shade cloth over outside plants and pulled smilax vine away from small greenhouse.

This market is preparing to open!

This market was added to the LocallyGrown.net system on Sunday January 27, 2008 11:34 AM. It should be open for business soon!