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April

April 05 2010

It’s the mud season. The snow is gone, the creeks are engorged, and the grass is easing into green even as it seems to float above a sheet of water like an idle air hockey puck. It’s hard to find any patch of workable soil, but we’ve tilled what we can and are mucking around in the rest trying to find something productive to do with it: drain it, mostly.

The next few weeks will be busy. We need to harden off seedlings that have been growing in spa-like conditions indoors; we need to clear and till up a new half-acre of field for planting squashes and melons; we need to set up a new greenhouse to get our tomatoes roaring along; and we need to build a duck hutch. Ducks will be our first venture in animal husbandry, discounting the dog and cat. We love ducks, and ducks love to eat the pest we hate the most: slugs.

Fall-planted garlic coming up now!

Hard-neck garlic, planted last fall

We’ve got a few cold-hardy things in the ground–peas, some lettuces, radishes–and the garlic we planted last year is coming up strong. It shouldn’t be long before we’re bringing down our first coolers of spring greens.