Tomato Time

As summer rolls in and winter fades away, the garden takes center stage in our farm life. Raised beds to fill, plots to till, and most importantly plants to plant. Once the seeds are in, winter finally feels like it's over. And when green leaves pop up, summer begins to feel just around the corner.

Last weekend, we spent the finest hours of the day outside, moving raised beds to their new home (closer to the house), wheelbarrowing manure from here to there, and the best part of all- sinking our hands into cool dirt and patting into place the tomato plants in the hopes of nurturing them into tall, strong plants bearing large, juicy fruit. 

Our compost is mostly just hay and horse poo, but thrown in underneath the manure in our raised beds is a thick layer of unusable mohair from shearing earlier in the week, kitchen scraps, and old paper sacks that were taking up too much space, hopefully providing our plants with the nutrition they need to grow strong and sturdy.

Aw, just look at those neers.

As the days go on, the garden and raised beds fill up. We have growing: corn, okra, squash, pumpkins, sunflowers, cucumbers, peas, spinach, carrots, turnips, beets, potatoes, tomatoes, salad, peppers, eggplants, onions, and a handful of herbs. We try to provide for ourselves as much as we can, depending very little upon stores.

Something we discovered with our garden last year was to not overdo it. We had so many plants so close together that it was overwhelming. Squash plants tangled across the walkway so that we couldn't walk around or get to the food. All 108 tomato plants ripened at the same time with thousands of fruits so that it was impossible for us to make use of them all. This year, we decided to learn our lesson, and have dramatically decrease our plant count. We have only 8 tomatoes.

As summer comes closer and closer, work keeps piling on. So much needs to be done. But we know that as work increases, so do the profits- the delicious food and the warm satisfaction and contentment that we know we are doing good, honest work.