|
May has been on the wet side but in the last few days, many gardens have been tilled and planted. Plant sales have been brisk and we have moved out quite a few tomato plants in the past 2 weekends. We still have a very good selection and we have only sold out of one variety so far. A rough estimate is we still have over 800 plants available. Best sellers this year are Black Mountain Pink, Vinson Watts, Kentucky Beefsteak, Old German and Hillbilly. I also have some small seedlings just now getting transplanted so these will be ready mid June and we will have plants available until the end of June this year. We have drawn plant buyers from as far away as Dayton and Washington Courthouse this year.
As we predicted, we had a very late frost this spring. I talked to several people that had frost on the mornings of May 16 and May 18. We planted Aunt Mary's sweet corn on May 8 and side dressed fertilizer last week just before the rains. On May 26 we planted 19 different types of pole beans and still have about 12 more pole bean varieties to get planted. Sometime in June we will plant our bush beans. Getting planted out into the beds this week are the balance of tomato plants, pepper plants, eggplants, tomatillos along with direct sowing okra, cucumbers and winter squash. Overall we are getting planted on a timely manner this year. Barn renovations are continuing. One original corner post had slid off it's original stacked rock footing over the past 100 years. This post was raised over 12", the bottom trimmed off, new concrete footing installed and the post reset. Additional load bearing posts and new girts are being installed. A new sliding door and entry door are also being installed on the greenhouse facing end. Local 1" thick rough sawn oak siding will be installed to finish off this end of the barn's exterior. We added two new pieces of equipment this spring. We upgraded our worn out, light weight 56" Caroni tiller to a King Kutter II 72" tiller and what a huge difference. This piece is much better built and made here in Ohio. We also upgraded our 1950's five foot "bush hog" to a new six foot Frontier RC2072 rotary cutter. Both pieces should be a lifetime purchase. |