Just before the first harvest boxes

Lisa trims spinach with Mt. Hood in the background. The Sylvanberries are blooming like crazy on the row behind her.

My dear friend, Mary, with the wide brimmed hat, chats with my niece in law, Stephanie. The colorful tall lupine spires sway in the breeze. A beautiful day at The Farm.

Stephanie keeps one eye and ear on her little one sitting at the child's picnic table.

She crashed a few minutes before as she was toddling on the gravel road. Bumped her forehead, but picked herself up and kept going. Tough kiddo!

Niece Anna (who lives at The Farm) and her sister in law, Stephanie, marvel over some of the very early harvest today. 

Cucumbers they picked from the greenhouse plants. 

Asparagus needs to be picked regularly or it will turn into asparagus ferns.

Colorful Swiss Chard. So tender this time of year.

Mary seeds broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and sunflowers today. One seed per cell in these 50 cell flats. She is good at this!

Gravel gets delivered for The Farm.

Sylvanberries are blooming like crazy. Each flower has the potential to turn into a berry. Hopefully there will be enough pollinators in the area for all these flowers. It was a hard winter on our bee hives.

A decorative allium sparkles in the sunlight. So many little flowers make up the beautiful ball-like flower.

A pink peony catches the sunlight.

Painted daisies look happy.

Some stems bend more than others. Sweet peas will be climbing up the weathered wall in the background sometime soon.

Tilling in the evening sun next to the third and fourth plantings of broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. Drip tape is in place under each row.

Florencio drives the tractor as it rolls out drip tape under the plastic mulch and then buries the edges under the soil. The black plastic will increase the warmth of the soil for watermelons, cantaloupes, zucchini, yellow crookneck, patty pan squash and cucumbers. 

Here are the four rows of red plastic mulch. Tomatoes produce better with sunlight reflecting off of the color red. Our 31 varieties of tomatoes will be planted here.

The contraption on the back of the tractor is quite ingenious. It does everything except automatically drive in a straight line. It does roll out drip tape, dig trenches to bury the plastic on both sides, and then covers up both sides. All at one time. 

The many colors of Swiss Chard. Orange.

Magenta.

Yellow.

White cauliflower peaks out from its protective leaves.

Purple Sicily cauliflower. The white little stripe was from a little leaf hiding the cauliflower from light. You might see the little leaf standing upright.

The first cabbage.

Broccoli is actually a lot of tiny flower buds. If they open they will be yellow and are also edible. They are wonderful in salads. And yes, they also taste like a mild broccoli.

After the middle and largest head of broccoli has been cut, many will produce side shoots like these.

Two colors of kale are loving this weather.

  

Peas the rabbit hasn't found, yet.

A different variety of peas.

Purple blooming peas, a third variety. 

Radishes push their way upward.

Cilantro going to seed. The flowers turn into the seeds which are called coriander. They look like little round basketballs.

Additional broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage starts are planted outside the raised beds. The earliest ones need to be planted in the raised beds due to the excess moisture in the late winter, early spring soil.

Colorful lettuce. Some have smooth leaves, some are bumpy, they catch more salad dressing :)

Celery is growing, too.

A beautiful, tender bed of Swiss Chard. 

Red beets are putting on size. They should be just right for the first harvest boxes.

Two kinds of spinach.

The Sylvan berries are turning from flowers to green berries. It looks like we should have a pretty good harvest.

A view down the row.

The Waldo berries are a later maturing berry. They are mostly still in flower stage.

There are advantages to opening up new ground for additional space like we did here for the onions. But the disadvantage, all those weeds seeds that have been turned up are now enjoying life. Lots of hand weeding to do.

Between the posts are different types of radishes.

Florencio and our Dad discovered a different use for a clam gun. Digging holes through the plastic without cutting the drip tape underneath. Tomatoes will be planted here tomorrow (May 21st).

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Florencio's son looks on this evening as the sun is starting to set. Some days are long on The Farm.

Last year we planted one SINGLE row of strawberries along the left side of these beds. They have grown and spread tremendously.

When picking up harvest boxes, there is parking right where this photo was taken. Boxes will be picked up in the blue roofed, potting shed. Some of the lavender and rosemary plants in the foreground didn't survive this past winter. Multiple days of very cold weather did them in. On the other hand, the peonies are happily blooming.