Spring has Sprung!

Or so it seems here in my little corner of Texas.  The sun has been shining for more than a week.  The flowers are blooming, others coming up promising blooms soon.

 

But, there is always a but!  But, the calendar tells me it is not spring yet, in fact only March 1st.  We all know in Texas it can nearly snow on Easter – many a year we have foregone our cute Easter clothes in place of warm winter ones for that Sunday service. 

So, what to do?  Do we press on?  Or do we hold back?

(the conundrum of life if you will, wouldn’t you say?)

It is our first year here on the {becoming} farm!  I can hardly contain my excitement about anything here!  We have never had more than a quarter acre – unless you count Tennessee, when one of us was constantly deployed and the garden never watered itself and eventually withered.  It is our first time to have space and sun, and great soil, and all of this! So how do I hold back and exhibit caution?

Well, I am not sure.

(These sweet young plants are eager to get into the ground and spread their roots)

 

 

But instead of rushing out to plant to my hearts content, I am planning.  Right now I am looking at a curriculum for a Junior Master Gardener program!  Oh my!!  It is amazing!  I think I am going to head it up through our 4H group.  Yesterday I bumped into a couple we know from our veggie co-op and they are master gardeners – and they told me all about this curriculum and I know they would help me along the way!

At the same time I am trying to figure out science for next year.  At first I thought we would go back and do Zoology 1 (since we jumped to #3 because my friend lent it to us) – but then I realized that Apologia has a Botany book – and so I think we are going to do that (and a friend is going to lend us that book too!! ).

 

Exploring Creation With Botany (Young Explorers)

So spring is on my brain.  It is everywhere I look!  My chickens are happy too  - they love the green under their feet and eventually in their tummies!  They talk to me every time I go out – and they are fussing with each other less, now that they are busy making dust baths and eating yummy green stuff!  I am sure these chicks are happy – I sure wish they would lay an egg though!!

(Hard to tell, but this row is full of seeds, 1 down 11 to go)

We did plant some yesterday – we put in seeds for Sugar Snap Peas, Spinach, Swiss Chard and Lettuce.  Today we will plant another row – have not decided which yet. 

And we have our potatoes drying out – we will plant them Thursday I think.  I learned from my “Master-Gardener Friends” to powder them with sulfur to keep the gophers from eating them.  So cool! 

 

 

So I rushed out and bought a bag – and they sold bulk seeds at that feed store too – and so we grabbed some mustard green seeds.  Man, we are going to have a lot of food if this garden does even decent!

 

Finally, my sweet boy (P) found a pumpkin in our compost that had sprouted all its seeds, when his brother hit the pumpkin with a stick, he found the inside growing and rushed to plant it.  So we have the guts f 2 pumpkins flourishing in our garden right now.  I did split one yesterday a bit to 4 spots instead of just 1.  He wants to check those pumpkins several times a day, he wants to constantly water them – he is so proud!  It is so fun to watch this.  I know it is not the right time to plant these, but when they decide on their own to sprout, what can you do?

 

Well, off to get veggies from our co-op and consult a bit more with my gardener friends.  Then, more seeds into the ground!