This has been such a busy week! Good thing we are stuck at home I don’t know how I would have fit in “normal life” Haha. Actually it probably wouldn’t have been much different considering this “quarantine time” isn’t much different than normal for us.
Do you ever have a day where you just go go go and you feel like you have done a crazy amount of stuff …. then at bed time you think back on what you accomplished and it just feels like nothing?! Well at least for me, those days are usually because what I did was a lot of prep work for a project or several of them that are coming up. That was pretty much the story of this week for me!
Since it was a cool, rainy kinda blah week it ended up a good one for doing lots of running around! Since time is precious I do try to keep running around to rainy days where I can’t as easily work outside or just wouldn’t want to 
but since I take the baby with me I try to not be out in yucky weather!
So Tuesday I went an hour to Home Depot to get some lumber and other supplies for upcoming building projects. Then I went another half an hour to pick up some rabbit cages! I got 3 cages with 7 spaces. I think 1 cage may get used for quail for a little while. We shall see!
Then I drove an hour south to a physical therapy appointment and finally went to purchase some soil. Since we are taking our property from forest to garden we will be planting in around stumps, weeds, and whatever. In order to not deal with too terribly much weedy headache we are going to lay down cardboard and newspapers etc then put soil, compost and mulch on top for planting in. This will help us get control as well as build up the soil for gardening purposes. SO … we bought about 6 tons 
thankfully we got an excellent deal 
I spent Wednesday making trip after trip getting loads of soil and unloading 
Joe built a stand for 1 of the rabbit cages so that got that set up as well!
Thursday I drove 2hrs south to a rabbit breeder that breeds Flemish giants. I picked up an incredibly sweet doe and a cute buck. They are young still so we won’t be breeding for a few more months. This gives us time though to build relationships and trust with them so they will be ok with us picking them up,being so bug its important that they trust us so the dont get hurt being moved around, touching babies etc. On our homestead the rule with breeding livestock … the breeders get names and don’t get eaten. So we are working on names 
We ordered a dozen hens that have just begun laying so they will be coming soon.
I got an order of fruit trees in, 2 peach, 2 pear, 2 plum and 2 walnut. I can’t wait to get them planted!
Saturday was all about finishing clearing out the area the fruit trees are going and then burning it off to help reduce some of what we dont want coming up. The area looks SO different! Now to finish details of planning the layout so I know for sure where to plant what!
Somewhere along the way, I forget what day, I planted another 9 varieties of tomatoes…. I MAY have slightly gone overboard on tomatoes …. I might have 27 different ones Haha! I have to double check but I believe 25 of them are heirloom which is my excuse for getting so many! Also because they are so fun and colorful …. imagine purple and yellow salsa! Or green and orange! A whole rainbow of cherry and grape sizes. Some white tomato sauce or soup?! I think you get the idea! There will definitely be lots more sharing about these through the summer! Of the 3 varieties I planted previously 1 was definitely not an heirloom and none of them have come up yet, but like the peas they were older seeds 
Saturday evening before calling it quits for the day I decided to try planting some seeds directly into the bags of soil we bought.
The first bag I cut 6-8 slits across the width of the bag and 10 rows. I planted 1-2 radish seeds per hole then at then near the end the bag had been torn so I poked in 10-12 spinach seeds.
The second bag I cut a big X and broad casted a salad mix then put the flaps left from the x back down and a rock where the points meet to help keep moisture in while the seeds germinate.
The 3rd bag I planted kale on each end, then Chinese cabbage in the next row at each end then in X’s laid out similar to how I did the radishes I planted beets except in 2 holes which I and planted a red onion seed under each side of the x. I’ll be using these as green onions so not much space is needed.
Most of these all are ready for harvest is 30-45 days except the kale and Chinese cabbage however I want the kale as a baby green and want the Chinese cabbage young, I believe the timing will work out well all around! With exception of the Chinese cabbage, I’ll be using greens from the rest for salads by simply removing 1-2 leaves a day from each. This should be a great way to have an early mini garden producing while waiting for the actual garden to be ready as well as waiting for final frost date to pass! I have the bags placed on our cement well casing so it works as a mini “mass heater” holding heat from the sun into the evening. This is somewhat of an experiment, I’ve read it works well .. so, I’ll keep you posted! If it does I would think it could be easily adapted to indoors on a shelf by a window or with grow lights!
A few updates on things in process…
The white Strawberries are starting to come up!
The first of the tomatoes are coming finally!
The Ameraucana eggs have about 9 days left until hatching and when I candles them a few days ago it looks like all are doing good!! I’ll be rechecking tonight or tomorrow.
With mostly nice weather this coming week I hope to get lots accomplished! Unfortunately black flies have come out but they aren’t biting yet. I’m extremely allergic so please pray I can get enough done outdoors before they start!
I know I have seen a number of friends getting projects done, seeds planted or seedlings transplanted, fruit trees and bushes going in for a few …. what do you have in the works?! We would love to hear about it!
