What's Happening at Ramsey Farms

I love it when a brand new tiny seedling unfolds and pops forth from the soil! THAT is exciting! This is my baby broccoli seedling that popped up just four days after seeding it. The next picture is just three or four days later! We’re using our own potting soil mix of sandy soil, compost, manure, and mushroom compost to start some seeds indoors this year to get a head start on the garden.

Spring is in just 25 days and there is a lot of new growth to celebrate!

Beefsteak Tomato Seedlings Unfolding from the Soil

The ginger continues to grow and appears to be quite healthy. The photos below show it over a ten-day period. I hope to transplant this ginger to the new herb garden next to the Satchi tea plant.

The garlic and potatoes were planted in late December and late January respectively. (Click the links below to see my earlier posts on these!)

• http://ramseyfarms.blogspot.com/2016/01/59-days-until-spring.html
• http://ramseyfarms.blogspot.com/2016/01/garlic-first-glimpse-of-our-2016-garden.html
• http://ramseyfarms.blogspot.com/2016/02/whats-happening-at-ramsey-farms-37-days.html

The English garden peas have been planted along with their trellis system. Farmer Chris supplemented the field garden with dolomitic limestone in addition to the compost and manure to decrease the acidity of the soil in the upper field and boost magnesium.

We made a super bowl feast (even though we didn’t watch the big game)! Homemade crescent rolls made perfect pigs-n-a-blanket, artichoke cheese dip, and fried chicken topped that weekend’s menu of junk food!

Spring symbolizes birth, life, renewal and hope. All things have been scrubbed clean by the cold bareness of winter and now are reborn and fresh and happy. Forget about new year's resolutions! What are your Spring promises to yourself? How do you give yourself a Spring cleaning or a reboot? As we enter this time of renewal, consider your life. Are you living the life you dream of or stuck in somebody else's dream? 

Cheers,
Ramsey

Cacti & Aloe (30 Days & Counting!)

There are only 30 more shopping days until Spring!

During the first week – likely the first day – of Spring, I plan to do a little cactus and aloe repotting and surgeries! There will be a bunch of cacti and aloe babies available come Spring! My cactuses are older cuttings from cacti my mom grew that were cuttings from her mother’s cactuses and she even recalls this same type of cactus in pots at her grandmother’s house (my GREAT grandmother – who would have been 126 years old on February 9!) It thrills me that there is that kind of legacy connected to these plants, isn’t that amazing?! 

My three cacti are all approximately 3 to 4 feet tall and all need some of their extra arms removed for stability – those are the babies! Those cure for 7 days then you plant the arms and voila! Baby cacti. It is a cactus miracle. In addition, I want to get the primary cactuses into larger more permanent pots. In NC and GA these favored plants go outside in the spring and summer and are moved indoors before the first frost. 

Without going to count them all, I think I have 20 pots of aloe vera. (Is that excessive?) I love them. (Is it wrong to love a plant?) They, like the cactuses to which they are related, are like members of my family! Most of my aloes are descendants of my mom’s original aloe collection plus I inherited most of her aloe plants (and super cool pots) when she moved. When we moved from NC to GA, I was saddened to realize we left a slew of plants and pots on the back porch. Some of which I was able to adopt out by cajoling my friends go by the old house and “steal” the forgotten plants from the porch.

All the aloes need attention this spring. The big three plants that I lovingly refer to as the mama,  grandmamma, and big mama plants need to have the older longer stem severed and their younger inner portion of the plant repotted. Most of the aloe pots have several pup plants that grew from the root buds under the soil. These can be gently removed and potted by themselves for a brand new little aloe plant! 

We use aloe straight from the leaf to heal burns, scrapes, minor boo boos. Fillet open a leaf and lay the gel side onto your face under your eyes and you can almost instantly see and feel it tighten up the bags and other skin on your face. It gives you a younger fresher glow! I also peel the leaf (including the yellow layer inside the skin of the leaf – it has a stinky bitter odor and taste and is reported to have laxative qualities. I stay away from that.) Anyway pare the green leaf off the clear gel and run it through the blender to liquefy the aloe gel. We use it in our homemade body wash and soaps for added natural moisturizing and skin healing properties. Read here for more information on aloe vera.

Check out other articles on this blog on aloe:

• DIY Bath & Body Products
• Aloe Surgeries 2014

Are you living your best life? This is YOUR life and the only person in charge of it is YOU. The only person who can make changes to your life is YOU. Take charge of your life today!

Cheers,
Ramsey

What's Happening at Ramsey Farms?! (37 Days & Counting)

You know that I am absolutely wildly in love with Spring. (The season, not a person!) Spring is only 37 days away and there is a lot to do in preparation!

The pieces I cut from my grocery store ginger that I purchased before Thanksgiving sprouted and has grown a beautiful 12” tall plant. I cannot wait to transplant this perennial into my new herb garden and harvest fresh ginger root when I need it! You harvest pieces of the rhizome when you need it, and leave the rest of the plant to continue growing! It will be a nonstop supply of fresh ginger! YUM! I use it in cooking and hot teas. Ginger is one of my all time favorite aromatic herbs.

Below is an image of our design for the herb garden I did using our garden planning software. At the very end of January, I started parsley, chamomile, lavender and lemon balm seeds indoors. These will all (hopefully) grow big, strong and beautiful and get transplanted into the herb garden later this spring and growing season. 

We also started the beefsteak and roma tomatoes, several varieties of mild and hot peppers and broccoli in our homemade potting soil mixture in our greenhouse. Well the greenhouse is a rack next to the kitchen windows, but you know – same thing. Our six-year-old son also decided to plant a peach pit he had washed, dried and saved several months ago. (You know what they say about the peach not falling far from the tree? This kid so wants to be a farmer when he grows up!)

Outside in the garden, Farmer Chris is prepping and working hard. He added eight new rows to the front garden. He planted the garlic at the end of December then the early potatoes went to ground on the last day of January.

We also got our soil analysis results this week! (Woooo! Such exciting times are these!!!! Did I mention that Spring is 37 days away?!? YES I AM YELLING!) I love the science behind farming. I’ve been doing calculations and organic fertilizer research. The field garden soil show a moderate acidity which it did not in 2015. Overall, phosphorus, Calcium, Magnesium and pH levels all dropped while potassium and zinc increased. 

The soil needs amending to produce a healthy yield. Farmer Chris has been enriching the soil all along with compost, mulched leaves, ground egg shells, fish emulsion and our “green manure” cover crop, crimson clover is still growing. We’ve also incorporated organic fertilizer to this old weathered soil. This year we still need to bolster the potassium and magnesium. These nutrients along with nitrogen leach very quickly from sandy soil and need more frequent replacement. We will also incorporate dolomitic limestone into the field garden to neutralize the acidity and boost magnesium. We will use Epsom salts in the front garden for a little spritz of magnesium needed there.

Did I mention I am so ready for spring?!?! What’s your favorite part of spring? How do you celebrate this glorious new season? What are you going to grow this year? Leave your comments.