Ohiofarmgirl's Adventures in The Good Land is largely a fish out of water tale about how I eventually found my footing on a small farm in an Amish town. We are a mostly organic, somewhat self sufficient, sustainable farm in Ohio. There's action and adventure and I'll always tell you the truth about farming.


Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Peonies popping and planting notes

Things are really popping around here! Just look at these peonies!


And aren't these cabbages just lovely?


Planting is in high gear around here. If I don't get some of these notes down then I'll never remember what I planted where.
The comfrey in the upper garden.

On Saturday 5/12 just before our big beautiful rain I planted out most of the front hillside - there are still two sections left. One needs to be re-tilled after I took up the clover and the other needs the clover taken off. I'll plant sunflowers in both of these spots and the clover will probably re-grow to keep out the weeds.

Across the top two sections along the fence line I planted BOSS (black oil sunflower seeds) under planted with white clover. I also included a random smattering of Grey Stripe (mammoth) sunflower.


The next section was several rows of broom corn (sorghum), blue hopi corn, and a multicolored ornamental corn.

The rest of the newly tilled sections were planted in alfalfa.


Below the oat sections on the lower part of the hill I planted Georgia Jet sweet potatoes with a short row of BOSS behind. Next were one and a half rows of Cannellini beans. A half a row of Walla Walla sweet onions and one row of Tenderette beans were planted last week. I checked the Tenderette beans and they were already popping up!

Then it rained the whole next day and watered everything in beautifully!

Tuesday the 15th I worked on the East Hillside Gardens. In addition to the broccoli, cabbages, and tomatoes on the south side and the blue hopi corn and orange sunflowers on the north side.... I planted some sweet bell peppers and some roma tomato plants.


In the West Hillside Garden I started with more broom corn, then yellow sunflower and a few orange ones. On the other side I planted 4 rows of Roma beans.

Then I started re-fencing the square garden. This is always the last place to be planted because of the shallow topsoil and the bad drainage. I'm working to build up raised beds to combat both of these problems. I ran the new fence parallel to the turkey house almost to the trench leaving the gravel as a path. I need to add some structure to this garden as its currently a big unplanned mess.

The fence is to keep the chickens and dogs out. Several of the rooster have started bringing their hen harems to the front yard, which has to stop. Some of the hens have already dug up some of my seeds!

We'll have beautiful weather all this week so I'll get the rest of the beds in shape and planted as well. Then all there will be to do is sit around and watch everything grow. Ha! Like there's ever time to just sit around... oh well.. I can dream, can't I?

Happy Wednesday and happy planting everyone!


6 comments:

Vanessa said...

Gorgeous peony, they are my favorite!

Chai Chai said...

Wow, look at those fingernails! Not a speck of dirt or a single callous. How did you get a hand model to help you with this post!

David said...

I love the peony - my hedge is about to pop. All those planting look wonderful.

Are you getting any pigz this year?

Ohiofarmgirl said...

Vanessa - I've been waiting several years for these to finally take off! They are just stunning!

CC - I assure you, no hand models were abused in the making of this blog post

Hey Dave! I wish I had a whole hedge of them - I'm working on it. Pigz will be coming in about a month I believe.....

Mr. H. said...

Nice cabbage, I just planted mine out last night...hope they will be as big as yours soon. That broom corn looks and sounds interesting.

Shaolin said...

where did you get your peonies?

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