I am not behind on writing, but I am behind on posting – oops. Week 39 was March 16 through March 22nd. Here’s what I got done:

Food Production

I installed the new cold frame that I had constructed over the winter, filled it with composted horse manure, and transplanted my lettuce and arugula seedlings. This is the first of what will be several cold frames, my eventual plan is to have them lining the exterior of my fenced-in garden.

My sweet potatoes from Week 33 are finally starting to put out slips. It will be several more weeks (if not longer) before they are ready to be transplanted, at which point we will plant them in large grow bags in the greenhouse for a head start before dragging them outside after the last frost. Despite knowing that producing slips was time-consuming, I still underestimated how long it would take. Next year, I will start the process soon after New Year’s Day.

I also did another boil and produced 3.75 pints of syrup. Unfortunately, I am going to lose my last ~20 gallons of sap due to weather – I’m out of fridge space, and the weather outside is getting too warm to keep the sap cool. My job prevents me from daily boils to catch up. While I’m frustrated with the waste and my partial-failure, I now know better how to better approach this process next year.

Aesthetic Utility

I spent some time cleaning out a couple of the landscaping beds. It’s better to wait longer for the sake of the pollinators, but I have a lot of landscaping beds and I know they are going to get away from me, so I decided to start small. As this is my first Spring on the property, I am watching carefully as plants emerge. I have noticed a severe lack of daffodils, but I can’t remedy this problem until next winter.

I also have been chipping away at Manure Mountain – an absurdly large pile of horse manure that built up when the snowpack was too high for navigation. Even with the Gator, this is a slow process – the manure is very heavy, so every shovelful is a challenge. I’ll be glad not to see the Mountain anymore, but it will be a couple of weeks before I’ve completed the project.

Moving Forward

I think it’s finally safe to say that my first winter of homesteading is behind me. I really need to sit down and reflect on all I’ve learned; glimpses slip through in these posts, but there are substantial changes that I need to make to my future plans based on this winter’s insights, and the gravity of that won’t be evident until I’ve thought it all through.

There are a lot of garden plans in the works, as well as plans to expand the orchard – although my fruit tree order is now two weeks behind schedule, so I am at the mercy of Stark Brothers for that one (🙄).

The peepers are peeping!

KC

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