Spring update

So much has happened in the past 2.5 weeks! Look at the leaves on our hazels!

The different varieties are leafing out at different times, but the good news is that so far none have died on us. Tonda di Giffoni (pictured above) is the earliest - she is our Italian principesa.

We have installed most of the irrigation system for the hazels: 1/2 inch plastic tubing with two 1-gallon/hour emitters per tree.

Kevin Burgess tilled our garden, and made beds 3-4 ft wide with a special home-made attachment on his tractor.

We put up a 4-ft high woven wire fence to keep out rabbits, neighborhood dogs, etc... David dug a trench all the way around to bury the bottom of the fence 3-4 inches.

Joanie's gate! She sure classed up the garden. Thanks, Mom!

These lush and verdant thickets are our soil block trays, 6 weeks after planting. Huge thanks to friends Hollis and Jay Wild, who watered them several times a day in their greenhouse!

We planted broccoli, brussels sprouts, red and green cabbage, and pak choi - just stuck their soil blocks into compost pockets in the bed - zero transplant shock. They're mostly planted at 12-inch spacing, to correspond to the slits in our drip tape. We're excited about drip irrigation, because it's the most water-efficient method out there. Seeds were also sown in the past week: peas, carrots, radishes, turnips, parsnips, rutabaga, beets. And we planted a pound of onion sets. Of course all of this should have happened three weeks ago.

And finally, the strawberries! David was skeptical, but I bought 200 bare-root plants from Fedco: Earliglow, Sparkle, Jewel, and Seascape. It's hard to kill strawberries. These were left in the box for a couple of weeks while we waited for tilling weather. Now look at them!