Thank you for the comment on The Virtues of Mulch

Here's the comment that caught my attention today.

Interesting, I read a book called lasagna gardening and I follow the book every steps. First, gather all your newspaper or even junk mail soak them in water. I soaked mine in a cooler. Then, I just lay them in the ground no digging at all after I just keep piling on top with different organic matter. Your leaves, grass clippings, kitcthen scrap, egg shell, fish scraps, coffee grinds. After I saw the outcome of my summer garden I believe on lasagna gardening now. Check them out..


I read that book years ago, and I love the concept.  We've been working on applying it in the hoophouse the past couple weeks.  First, we finished clearing out the dead tomato plants.  Surprisingly, a few of the plants in the middle row were still alive, a couple of them even had new shoots growing up from the roots.  I didn't like having to pull them out, but I knew they wouldn't survive the extreme cold on the way.  Then, Danny and the boys layered on the compost and manure they emptied out of the chicken coop.  This week, I put on a new layer of junk mail and newspapers, then I started covering the walkways with cardboard.  When the weather permits again, we will layer on the big pile of leaves we collected in the fall.

It's great to be getting a head start for the spring!  This time last year, we didn't even have the hoophouse finished.

I need more room!

I'm out of space for transplanting tomatoes. Grandma came and helped me transplant tomatoes a couple more afternoons this week. We got a lot accomplished, but we had to stop because we're out of room under the grow lights.

All the transplants are growing nicely and I should have quite a few ready to take to the market on April 10th. It will be the final winter market for the season.

It shouldn't be too long until I have more space to work with. Danny worked hard today getting the gardens ready to move the onions and kale and lettuce out from under the grow lights and into the garden. He got part of gardens #1 & #2 tilled and the raised rows ready to plant. He also got all of garden #5 tilled and hilled, ready to start planting potatoes and onions.

Our seed potatoes are ready to be picked up tomorrow. We ordered several different varieties through the Missouri Organic Society this year and they've finally arrived.

Enough for now, the timer just beeped, I have 3 loaves of my Honey Oatmeal Bread ready to take out of the oven. Mmmmm.....mmmm.......it smells wonderful!

Federal agent on the farm!

Yesterday, we had our first visit from the USDA Farm Service Agency. Actually, it was a very nice, friendly, helpful and informative representative of the agency here in Franklin County. She is helping us in our efforts to expand production capabilities on our farm. Our goal is to set up a rather large hoophouse that will allow us to extend the growing season on both ends.

We recently got to check out a friends' hoophouse nearby, and it got us excited about the prospect of getting one ourselves.

Time will tell.

Planning time is here!

Planning time is upon us! We can't put it off any longer. Our break is over. We've been pouring over seed catalogs and taking stock of our seeds on hand. My brain hurts from trying to decide on what kinds of veges we want to plant this year. Even more difficult is deciding on which varieties of each kind of vegetable we want to try. The choices are overwhelming.

We are very pleased with the ever increasing number of heirloom varieties available. More companies are contacting us with their varieties of heirlooms than ever before.

If you would like to influence our final decisions, please let us know what you are interested in us growing for the market. Were there any varieties you particularly liked that we had last year? Any we didn't have that you were looking for?

Please feel free to leave a comment on here. Or, we have a new way for you to stay in contact with us. We are now on Facebook. Zachary set up the account recently and convinced me that it's the way to reach more of our customers. It's all new to me, but I'll give it a try.

I'm looking forward to hearing your input. We'll be putting in our seed orders over the next couple of weeks.

Okay, our winter break is over!

Time to get back to work! Not that we ever really slowed down, we just got busier making improvements to our house and concentrating on schoolwork with the boys.

Now we're back, thinking and planning for the upcoming growing season. Danny made improvements to my seed starting area in the basement this weekend. I now have running water in the basement with a hose to water all the little seedlings we're about to start. No more hauling water down the stairs, or bribing the boys to help me. (ha,ha) He also put in a new fluorescent light above my work area and generally cleaned up and got my work area organized.

This evening we've been going through our seeds, sorting, taking inventory, trying to decide what we still need to order... so much to do to get started again.

Recently we got the test results back from our soil samples from the different garden areas. Now it's time to start adding the recommended organic amendments. Overall there's not much that needs to be done, all the organic matter we've been adding the last few years has really paid off. It's just the newer beds that need a little extra help.

Time to dream about it now!