Spring

If you name your blog "Bluegrass and Blueberries", you better write a post when you have a blueberry filled day!

Yesterday morning I attended a "Women and Farming" meeting and potluck in Nashville. There were several women farmers in attendance, as well as many who worked or volunteered on others' farms. I became aware of the esteem that comes with the farmer label. I watched women say I'm not a farmer in the same way nurses explain they aren't doctors.Thank you for the compliment but I didn't go to school quite that long...

Am I a farmer? Maybe to your average urban Joe I am, but in a group of women farmers, am I a farmer? I'm in a funny middle ground where I have more than a garden but not quite a farm. And then, I figured it out. I garden and raise chickens on a farm. I live in an old farmhouse. I have an old barn and several outbuildings. My property is farmland. However, I am not operating a farm. I don't sell my produce or even donate it to a food bank, but this might change.


After the Women and Farming meeting, I drove home to my garden farm. I fertilized and pruned my blueberries with Hollytone. Hollytone is a gentle organic fertilizer that works well with blueberries. It's marketed as an evergreen fertilizer.

There is nothing more relaxing than pruning. It satisfies my itch to be busy and pick at something, while letting my mind and legs stay mostly stationary. I basked in the warm sun as I straddled each plant and examined them for dead branches. I also pruned my finger in the process, but the digit is still attached, so all is well.


Today, I got busier. It was 75 degrees and sunny and my schedule was clear.  I fertilized my berries with cottonseed meal. Cotton seed meal provides nitrogen while lowering the pH of the soil. Berries like a slightly acidic soil.

Then, I finished tilling my new main garden plot. We tilled it last fall and planted tillage radishes and clover for a cover crop. The soil looks great.

Earlier in the week, I made a garden plan. I'm doing some companion planting this year, so planning was necessary. Because I am doing everything in a big blob I decided to make walk ways. I took the tractor and got several piles of old wood chips. Then Mike took over and delivered several more piles of wood chips while I spread them. I covered the wood chip paths with bits of chicken poop filled hay. When my paths erode they will become fertile planting ground. I also pitchforked the wood chip mulch around the perimeter of the garden. I'm going to plant Marigolds and Wormwood in the perimeter to ward off pests.

The eight pound chicken herder. She has no idea they are twice her size. 

The wood chips were full of bugs, so I persuaded the chickens to come and eat the pests up. They happily obliged. Have you ever watched a chicken scratch around a pile of hay or dirt? It's so funny. Essentially they are using their feet to look around in the way that we would use our hands. 

In the center I planted my first installment of the season. I alternated sugar snap peas, early alaska beans and cilantro for a companion (I forgot to get Kale, so I'll get it in later). In the middle of my pea square I planted lettuces, arugula and Spinach. My hope is that when the peas get tall, they'll provide a little shade for my cold preferring greens. The chickens tried to eat my seeds so I put the chicken herder after them. 

The X is my walking path.


And those little tasks took all day.