It’s officially spring! And we’re gearing up for the busy planting season here on the homestead.

Seedlings and Planting

Seed starting has been a saga this year.

I was very diligent, and started several seeds that take a while to germinate (i.e., peppers, parsley, basil) at the end of January. I sanitized the trays, used fresh seed-starting soil, and put them under the grow lights. Cool. Check that off my to-do list.

Fast forward about three days later. I walk into my house and get a powerful whiff of cat urine. (If you’ve never dealt with cat pee, good on you – it’s one of the hardest smells to remove from carpet, and it stinks.) But where was it coming from? Surely not the litterbox. I walked into the room with the seed starts, where the stench was the most powerful, and actually found our cat squatting on top of the seed tray and peeing right on the soil.

Extra nitrogen, right? Wrong. Burned the soil and the seeds beyond hope, and polluted the water for the whole danged tray. She’d clearly done it more than once, too. Needless to say, I was apoplectic a touch annoyed. I started every seed over about two weeks later, plus most of my other seedlings for the season.

Fast forward to now. We secured a sheet (we lovingly call it the Zion Curtain) over the whole seed starting shelf, and while she managed to pee once more, I caught it in time to flush out the water, replace the damaged soil, and tighten the sheet more securely over the setup. Since then, we’ve had the seeds pictured above growing just fine.

This cat.

Perennials and Foraging

In better news, our perennial herbs and flowers are coming back, hooray! Pictured are chives (which are now twice the size in the picture), daffodils (which have blossomed since), and tarragon sprouts. Our blueberry bush is also returning, as well as the peach tree, pictured at the top of the post, with busy bees flying from flower to flower. Ahhhh, springtime.

Blackberries

The blackberries are returning! We added a new trellis row and transplanted some of the more robust canes that had started to grow between or outside of the rows. (Yes, I know I tell you in my Blackberry Growing Guide to do this in the fall, but in my defense, I didn’t feel like doing it then.)

Now, most of the transplants have leaves poking out (yay) with only two that are definitely dead (boo), so I’ll try to remove those and transplant a couple more before they really start to blossom. If it works, great! If it doesn’t, then I’ve successfully moved more canes out of the way to get to the healthy ones. I win either way.

Chickens

Yes, we lost four chickens in the last year, but our little flock of four has been thriving otherwise. And, much to our delight, all four (including Marsala, who is at least five years old) are still laying! Never have I ever been so happy to have chickens, not just for the eggs in these trying times, but for the help in the garden.

I’m amending our soil in the veggie plot, as my tests this year show it is grossly depleted of basically every nutrient (save the plots that grew beans – yay beans, yay nitrogen!). The chickens help me with this one by scratching up the weeds and literally pooping all over the plots (yay, nitrogen!).

And I still want a rooster. And more chickens. Call me.

Otherwise

We’re doing our thing over here, and prepping for spring planting in a month or so! The temperatures have been wild – nearly 80 one day, and blustery and freezing the next – but pretty regular March weather for us.

Over the years we’ve been here, our plans for the property have come, or are on their way, to fruition, and it’s been satisfying and beautiful to see the changes happen every year, to make this place more of a home we love to live in, and to invite friends and family to stay and enjoy.

As we learn what works, we’ve brainstormed some larger shifts in our production and how we want our homestead to operate, which I’m excited about, and will share once we’ve figured out more details.

Until then, happy homesteading, come see me at my markets and classes, and merry spring!