Memorial Day, May 26

A big thank you to Anthony's brother, Neil, who came down last week from a Yankee metropolis to enlighten us with an excellent lecture on how to improve our trifold brochure. There will be significant improvements, the least of which will be using a different type font than Comic Sans. (Neil threw us in "type jail" for an entire week for using it.)

We've replanted the corn and it's started to come up again. The crows pulled up the first crop of baby plants and ate the kernels.

There's going to be a bumper crop of blackberries this year, judging from the amount of flowering canes along the creek. Can't wait!

The tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, and summer squash have all been transplanted. The summer squash is just about to start bearing. There's not much that slows them down (except squash vine borer, mildews, or beetles, and I've treated for those pests), so dust off your stir fry and caserole recipes.

I'm starting a second crop of all these, and still planting other vegetables and herbs every week. Still a bit slow on the start from such a cool April, but we'll be harvesting all these before too long.

This week, I'll be setting out the drip irrigation pumped from Forest Creek. I'm looking foward to that advantage over hand watering, and hope the pump doesn't give us any trouble. (that reminds me, I need to change the oil and clean the air filter.)

Market News:
1. This Thursday I'll be at the Flat Rock Market (the 29th).

2. Next week, look for us at Raymonds Garden Center on Kanuga Road in Hendersonville on Monday June 2nd, from 3:30-5:30. They've got a large variety of quality plants there, so save some time to look around!

3. As many of you know, the Tryon market has moved to Thursdays this year. They've also changed locations and are now in the parking lot next to the Japanese restaurant. I plan to go to the first market there next week (June 5th), so I won't be in Flat Rock next week. I haven't decided long-term just yet which market to do this year, but I'll let you all know when I decide. It is not an easy choice.

See you soon!
-Mollie

May 10

I'm still here! My computer has crashed, so unfortunately I've had limited time amidst the already busy planting season to keep updates going. Here's what's going on now, though:

Still trying to get as much in the ground as possible. For those of you who haven't seen our place, the picture shows the garden, with some of the area still in cover crops, waiting for beans and transplants like tomatoes, eggplants, and such that I'm hoping to all get into the ground this week. I've got a number of summer squash and zuchinni transplants as well, so it won't be long before I'll start having these items again. Also, my large-leaf and genovese basil is looking good, and will be ready to harvest before long.

My neighbor Tony and I are teaming up a bit this year. If you figure the linear feet of row we put in at his place on Wednesday, turns out we planted about a quarter mile of winter squashes of all types: butternut, hubbard, kuri, kabocha, delicata, among others. It'll be August before those are ready, but there'll be plenty to go around! He and Mert, the draft horse, came over to our place afterward to plant a few easy (for them) rows of sweet corn and okra. It sure was a big help, and so much faster than trying it myself with a hoe. It's amazing to think what a step up horse-power is.

See you at Flat Rock on Thursday! Also, tentatively, I'm hoping to start the market at Raymonds on the first Monday of June, which would be June 2nd. I'll keep you posted.

Stay tuned!
-Mollie