Dampened expectations; growing hopes

It’s been a few days since I’ve been able to sit down and write about what we have been doing. When the weather is right you have to take advantage and that means a lot of working and not a lot of talking about it. So here is an update on the extra details and then I will get to some plants. We trimmed some of our neighbor’s overhanging branches to create more direct sun in the yard. We are hoping that give our tomatoes and peppers a little extra encouragement. We also know that having a good suburban farm means having a nice suburban house. Last weekend we removed our worn out carpet to expose beautiful oak wood floors. The best part of all of that is guilt free dirt tracking into the house. There is nothing that a broom and mop can’t fix. We are really happy with the way our household is developing and we are really grateful to Carl, John, and Noni and their efforts to make our place better.
But there are plants to talk about! I have always been an anxious planter. Around the end of February I pray that there is no more frost when I plant peas and kale. I ignore the seed packets that tell me to wait until April to plant. Inevitably, I always am disappointed. This year was going to be different. This year we purchased start trays and planted in the warmth of our kitchen. The warmer house and natural light from the window made it seem that we would be much more likely to be successful. We had spinach, swiss chard, artichoke, and bok choy all up in a few days. By the beginning of the next week we had some tomatoes up as well as peppers. We were afraid that we wouldn’t have space for all of the successful plants we had growing in our kitchen. Then all disappointment broke loose. The lack of light and heat took it’s toll on the starts. We were lucky to salvage some kale and lettuce that was able to survive the dark and cold. By the end of the second week they had all dampened off. We replanted after every start once it was evident that everything dampened off. Again, we were excited and again plants came up, and again they died in a week. So we gave up.
Well, we didn’t really give up. We went to Home Depot and Drake’s Seven Dees and picked up eight different varieties of tomatoes, a bunch of peppers and an artichoke. All the tomatoes we are growing are heirloom varieties. We got everything from pineapple and black krim to pear and yellow stripy. Our hope is to have a huge variety of tomato flavors by the heat of summer. I also put all the start trays outside and planted some quinoa and sunflower that should be up in a few days AND SURVIVE! I can’t wait to see all the plants in our garden spot.
Soon I will write more about our birds. Our duck flock got a little bigger today and Carly has spent a little bit of time trying to imprint as mother hen of the flock. It is unbelievably cute and a had-to-be-there kind of moment. So much more to come.

We had one lonely pepper that decided not to die. I wonder if it will make it. If it does it will be the only pepper survivor out of about 60 seeds. Suburban farmers? More like suburban novices.