Garden in March, Eastern NC, Zone 7b

March 7, 2016

Here is our first harvest of 2016:She joins the rest of the girls, who now outnumber the boys! 🙂 (# 1, 2, 6, and 7)

There are joys and challenges of having a newborn in any season. I can’t take her out in the garden to sit in the bouncy seat while I work like I would a spring, summer, or fall baby. However, it’s winter — I’m not spending much time in the garden anyway 🙂 So it works out.

Here is a look at what the garden looked like last month versus what it looks like currently…

Garden at the beginning of February:Garden at the beginning of March:At first glance, you will see:

1. A LOT of tarp has been ripped up and recovered with new mulch.
2. The hoops are uncovered (though they are still covered with fencing to keep the deer away).
3. The bushes and trees have been pruned.

If you look a bit closer, you will see:

Many of my broccoli plants died BUT…A few sprouting broccoli survived and…There are some small cabbages that did not rot and have not yet been eaten.

You will also see we have some spinach that survived the winter, mostly uncovered…And some carrots as well! This past month, I have been pruning…Planting seeds in my milk jug greenhouses… (I have planted all of my cool weather seeds and most of my warm weather seeds. I need to make a few more greenhouses to plant more tomato seeds.)Planting asparagus crowns (no pic) and I just started planting potatoes this week. I planted 50lbs last year. This year, I will plant 60 or 70lbs. I planted the early season potatoes first…Purple Viking, Purple Majesty, and Mountain Rose (5lbs each) were planted here and then covered with 8 inches of mulch.

The TO DO list for the rest of March is:

• Finish planting potatoes
• Finish planting seeds in the greenhouse
• Plant peas, spinach and possibly some other cool-weather crops like lettuce, and root vegetables
• Plan out and expand the chicken run so we can cut back on our feed bill

What are your plans for March? Are you planting yet? Happy Gardening!

I will leave you with another spring bulb that has bloomed already 🙂(Crocus)

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Harvest Monday

March 30, 2015

Harvesting about a dozen eggs each day from our 16 chickens (2yo). Our overwintered kale does not taste very good so we are not harvesting anymore. We are just waiting for kale blossoms – our favorite!

A couple of hens have gone broody. We are letting them sit on some eggs but we are not getting our hopes up. Our roosters are only a year old so they are still perfecting their technique 😉

It has been interesting to see what a week of nice weather does to spring bulbs. I uncovered them more at the beginning of the week and the smaller ones have responded beautifully.

You can see in this next picture, the bulbs on the left came through the mulch while the ones on the right were blooming under the mulch (the white flowers on the right is supposed to be blue).And again, in the center of the picture below, a dwarf iris attempted to bloom under the mulch before I pulled it back. Even some crocuses (yellow in the center) were blooming under the mulch). The daffodils were fun to watch. More bloomed each day this week.

Monday:Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday, after a rain. Seeing what other people’s spring bulbs look like, I think I am going to move these bulbs in the fall. They are just not getting enough sun, being on the north side of the woods. What do you think? Should I move them this fall? Leave them another year? This is my first year growing bulbs so I am pretty much clueless.

Lastly, some more strawberries are popping through the mulch. It is fun to see things come back to life!What is going on in your garden? Check out what others are up to at Daphne’s Dandelions.

I am looking forward to posting the ‘Beginning of April’ post later this week, seeing how much things have changed in a month!