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The barren garden has suddenly sprung to life and is choked with tomatoes. Five lettuce seedlings out of the twenty I brought up from our apartment in Brooklyn survived and yielded exactly two salads. Mustard and arugula are bolted and gone, replanted with lola rosso and butterhead. It seems what these gardens needed more than compost (they needed that too) was patience.

Whether we can translate anything we’ve learned (what have we learned?) into a plot 100 times the size of these test gardens remains to be seen. I’ve been spending a lot of time staring at our fate:

When we closed on the farm in December, I envisioned a field full of ripening tomatoes and feathery lettuces by this time of year. Instead we have one large overgrown meadow and two small patches of scrappy peas and overgrown sunflowers. I knew getting things planted would be more work than I could anticipate, and I guess I was right. So here are the things I’d like to do before next spring so that we have everything in order for next year’s planting:

• get soil tested
• mow and dig under the meadow (so the overgrowth this year can fertilize the soil over winter)
• dig in fenceposts for deer fencing
• repair electric fence around the pasture
• clean out the barn
• propagate apples
• fix well pump in pasture and set up irrigation system
• learn something about planting

Are we forgetting anything? Want to help?

Not much to report on the garden front after this trip. Kale, mustard, and arugula are all growing well; sunflowers are frighteningly large; tomatoes and peas are coming along. Still no sign of chard, and our lettuce seems to be fattening the slugs alone.

We did discover a couple of blackberry bushes in the yard this visit, though.