In weather terms

Being outside in this unusual weather makes every day special.  There is never a dull day in paradise. Activities vary with the weather. When it is sunny and hot, there is haying, swimming and lots of weeding to do. When it is cold and rainy, there is mulching, green house work, planting and less watering of the garden. Either way, the weather and the time of year determines the types of projects around the garden. For the past two weeks a lot of things have been happening around the garden. The rows among the beds have almost all being redone. I decided to dig out the paths and put that soil with the old wood chips onto the beds and then spread the new wood chips.  This way, I saved myself from some extra weeding.




I have harvested radishes though they were a little bit woody and hard to chew because it was really hot during the spring. I have been collecting sugar snap peas as well, and so far we have collected a pound and 6 ounces.  We have also been eating kale.
I acquired free tomato plants and so I decided to start a new bed in the garden. I first layered the bottom of  the new bed with rotted wood from two old trees, then I added a layer of unfinished compost, then a layer of dried comfrey leaves (a multivitamin for plants) and then another layer of regular dirt.  I waited 5 days before I planted the tomatoes in that new bed.  So far, the tomatoes are doing great and the next step is to trellis them. I would like to build some sort of a monkey bar so that I may string the tomatoes up.  I have yet to find the perfect way to trellis them.
This week I also picked up garlic scapes, which are the flower shoots of the garlic plant. You want to pick those when they curl to prevent the plant from wasting energy on the flower and instead put that energy into a bigger bulb.
I have sown a huge bed of carrots where the strawberry bed was. I decided to have a smaller strawberry bed since the chipmunks are eating all the berries and I have not found a way to prevent that from happening.
I planted potatoes two weeks ago in two beds. Last year voles ate a lot of our biggest potatoes because I sowed them in a newly made bed that had very loose soil. This year, the voles ate a lot of the flower bulbs that I planted in the flower garden because the soil was again loose. The lesson is: don't plant root crops in loose soil.
We have seen a lot of snapping turtle activity were we live. Two weeks ago I took photos of one on the side of the road.  Later that week, we found a snapping turtle nest that I believe was raided by a raccoon because the eggs were broken and had some yellow coloring on the inside. Also, snapping turtle eggs don't hatch until September.  This week, there was a snapping turtle crossing our driveway, we took some photos and gave him/her a piece of cabbage.
The onions are doing better than last year when I tried to start them from seed. I used onion sets and sowed them in the sunniest spot in the garden.  This week I spread the goat manure from the pen around each plant.  I also water them a lot and the garlic too.
At night, we have seen Luna moths and my first Polyphemus moth.  Its wings were pale orange brown with eye spots and about 4 inches across.
Being outside is the best and everyone should enjoy every sunny or stormy day. Again, there are projects for every day here at the homestead.  What I am looking forward the most is preserving the food we grow. Some examples are: dehydrating herbs and kale, canning tomato sauce, curing garlic, shallots and onions and storing root and squash crops.

Red Winged Black bird near a swamp