The guys help out

Scott, Anna's husband on the left (they live at the farm) and Andrew, one of Lisa's sons, on the right "power" through some spring farm chores.

Scott is smoothing out the hump in the middle of the field that resulted from the direction the field needed to be plowed this year.

Andrew brought down his own LARGE lawn mower to mow between all the rows of berries and trees in the orchard. So much easier for us to get around without all the tall grass/weeds to wade through.

A few purple sprouting broccoli made it through the winter. Very tasty right out in the field.

Scott making progress.

Andrew makes progress too. He has to fight off some of the berry canes.

Florencio has planted a few  of the different cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage in this bed where onions grew last year. Crop rotation is important when gardening.

Several of the different types of lettuce we are seeding this year. Notice the different days to harvest at the beginning of each one's description. 52 days, 56 days, 33 days... That many days from planting to harvest if all goes well. Even though we plant about 100 seeds of lettuce, not all will mature at the same time. Trying to map out lettuce growing for 20 harvest boxes for the season could be a math assignment. 

Likzy, Andrew's wife, helped plant our new selection of dahlias into these black pots.

The kiddos don't seem to drive as safely as their dad does in the background.

Last year's dahlias in the big pots are coming up. They spent the winter in the greenhouse. Fall of 2013 we left the dahlias outside in their pots and many of them froze and died over the winter. We had to start over last year.  

These petunias didn't have a very good germination rate.

Lisa plants up some hanging baskets starting with trailing lobelia. 

We plant onions and shallots about 50 seeds per 4 inch pot. Then lightly cover them with our soilless germination  mix.

Emma just arrived home from kindergarten. Thanks for joining us in the greenhouse!

Melon day. Cantaloupe, honeydew, several kinds and colors of watermelon are being seeded today.

Our newest family member gets a kiss from his 2nd cousin, Angie.  

A few greenhouse cucumbers for the cuc lovers to snack on.

A tad bit bright out here, don't you think???

Lisa is transplanting some Chinese Lanterns from their 50 cell pack flat to 4 inch pots. Their roots really will like all the new room.

 Some peony buds have ants crawling on them. Some don't.

Lupine is starting to bloom.

Sweet William is a biennial. We planted it from seed last spring (2014) and it grew its foliage last year. This year it will bloom and then die. Life cycle completes in two years. A plant's goal in life is to re-seed. This type of plant takes two years. Annuals do all of this in one season and die. Perennials are long lived and may drop seeds every year.

The dogwoods by the driveway are brilliant.

These are underneath and haven't opened completely.

One of the clematis at the farm is opening up, too.

That's all for now. More to come, soon!