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Farm
Journals
The Seeds of March (by Sharon)
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Butterfly Hollow Farm ____ The Path Leading Us Here ____ How The Farm Got Its Name ____ Restoring the Old Farmhouse ____ Where The Beefalo Roam ____ Saddle Up The Horses ____ Saving Wilderness and Farm Land ____ Farm Journals ____ Sharing The Farm ____ Guest Book ____ Site Map ____ |
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March has a combination of everything here in Tennessee; melting snow, cold rain, shiny new foliage, and sunshine. Today the unmistakable feeling of spring is in the air. A pair of bluebirds is continuously doing a flyby to check out the possibilities of making a home in the birdhouse nailed to a nearby tree. The March winds dislodge the few remaining walnuts from a tree that hangs over the porch. The walnuts land with a loud thud on the roof causing me to jump up startled for a second. It's a nice day today. The temperatures are in the high 70's and the birds, squirrels and the cows on a nearby hill, are all enjoying this sneak preview of spring. Myself included. Shoving an old well-used straw hat on my head, I join David in the garden for a little ground breaking. We are still working towards our goal of moving into the farmhouse in April, but on days that are this beautiful, we find it rightly justifiable to be outside. We are going to put some potatoes in the ground, plant some lettuce and weed a little in the herb garden today. We organized our seed packets earlier this month into "plant indoors now," "plant in the garden now," "plant next month", and "plant later when the soil warms" categories. David turned a couple of the gardens this month, and after adding back to the soil with our compost, the earth is rich and dark. This year we rotated the potato rows so that we weren't planting in the same rows where they grew last year. We ordered our potatoes from Gurney's. In the past we used our own stored potatoes as seed potatoes. But infected seed potatoes can spread potato diseases, so now we buy them from a reliable source where they are inspected for diseases. There are literally thousands of varieties of potatoes, and several hundred of them are available commercially in the United States. We have our favorites; so continue to plant them each year. They are Red Pontiac, Yukon Gold, and Irish Cobbler. We planted them in 18 inch-wide rows and covered them with 2 to 3 inches of soil. As soon as the sprouted potatoes are above the ground we will cover the whole row with last years dried leaves. This is good mulch and also serves as a great weed deterrent.
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Herbs and potatoes go hand-in-hand. Potatoes are one of the best foods to demonstrate the individual flavors of our herbs. We grow an assortment of herbs and plan on expanding our gardens, as time permits. I dislike to weed but know that it's part of gardening. I kneeled down in the walkway and started pulling up the reluctant weeds from in-between the parsley, lemon balm, oregano, and various other herbs. I planted parsley from a pack of last year's seeds just to see if they would grow. I still have plenty of parsley growing since the mild winter did not harm it. David made four neat, small rows with his hoe handle and planted lettuce. The best homegrown lettuce bed is not limited to a single variety; it's a colorful patchwork of types and flavors. Some of our favorites include, Buttercrunch, Winter Density, Black Seeded Simpson and Red Sails. When the lettuce is ready to harvest David will take homemade salads to his work and share them with his coworkers for a small contribution towards the farm. To this delicious assortment of greens he will add crisp red radishes, purslane, spinach, mulberries, herbs and possibly a dandelion or two.
We took a break for lunch and when we returned to the garden our neighbor Larry rode up on his horse Skipper. He had ridden up to the Low Gap in search of a cow and her calf and stopped by to say howdy. He tethered his horse to our hitching post and walked over to investigate our gardening progress. I went into the house and cut us all a piece of homemade lemon icebox pie. We sat under the shade of the old elm tree, eating pie and talking about the beautiful day we were lucky enough to enjoy.
At the end of the day, David cleaned up his tools and I picked a few daffodils to put in the old mason jar on the kitchen table. Hand-in-hand we headed to the house. Earlier this morning David had brought back out the old hammock. It still smelled a little musty, but there was no hesitation on my part when he stretched out his hand to me. As we lay there and watched the sun melt away, I snuggled up closer to David. I felt a definite chill in the air and I was reminded that it was still just March, but I smiled anyway. Oh yes! Spring is in the air.
info@butterflyhollow.com
Butterfly
Hollow
Gordonsville,
TN 38563