The Past Few Weeks Here at Ramsey Farms

It's been so gratifyingly busy here the past few weeks! Farmhand Chris works from sun up until sundown most days and everyone has been pulling more than their own weight with various chores both indoors and outdoors.

Here's our current planted list:

January 23, 2015: Planted Ruby Lane potato seeds (30) in “Creekside” bed

February 14, 2015: Onions: sweet yellow south & white – Front Garden

March 3-4, 2015: Beets, Potatoes (white & red), Broccoli, carrots, celery, leaf lettuce (210), head lettuce (2 varieties), radishes (3 varieties) – Front Garden

March 8 - 11, 2015: Field Garden- Beets (2 varieties-176 total), Leeks, Kale, Sweet Yellow & White Onions, Sweet Peas (245), Turnips

March 29, 2015: cucumbers (2 varieties) – Front Garden

***Everything planted before April is already up & growing!***

***We've been eating bunches of fresh, crispy radishes!***

April 3-9, 2015: Hot peppers: jalapenos, Chili, Anaheim. Mild peppers: pimento, sweet banana, California Wonder. Cucumbers (2 varieties), yellow crookneck squash, dark green zucchini, beefsteak tomatoes, roma tomatoes, golden sweet corn – Front Garden
Field Garden - bush beans

My herb garden is growing chocolate mint, lavender, cilantro, dill, chamomile, pineapple sage, and maybe more but I think that's all that's up and growing! We've been using all of those but the chamomile already. The pineapple sage was a perfect addition to a salsa I made last week!

I took the aloe plants outside last week. The next day we had a huge thunderstorm complete with large hail and damaging winds. Ugh. Several pots were broken (including a special one from my mom) and there were broken aloe arms. I've since repotted the plants that were damaged or had their pots broken. Some of the poor aloes look like Frankenstein plants because I put the broken aloe arms into soil mixture

The hot, direct sun also gave the aloes a pale (puke green) look. I think this happens every spring when I move the over-wintered plants out of doors. Yet it scares me every time! I moved all the aloes to the shade of a big oak tree at the edge of the yard. Keep your fingers crossed that all the aloe plants improve in health and appearance! Luckily, the two largest and oldest aloe plants are too heavy for me to move by myself and are still in the house!