This week on the farm we began spring planting! Oregon Sugar Pod II spring peas are in and protected from the birds with Agribon floating row cover. (The ravens & black cap chickadees love pea seed). The garden soil has dried out a bit making it possible to lightly cultivate our compost beds so next week we should be able to plant fava beans and bell beans. We also got an entire pallet of organic Black Gold potting soil so we can start seedlings in the greenhouse next week. We’ll start experimenting with making some of our own potting soil next season.
Even though it’s been gusty from the east wind, the sun has made the work much easier this week. We were able to continue our spring cleaning and finish the interviews for our summer internships.
We checked the honey bees and it looks like they didn’t make it from the difficult winter 
. But the good news is that our supplier will be able to provide us with nukes starting in April. The yellow jacket wasps robbed the hives so badly in the fall that they weren’t strong enough to cope with the week of Arctic weather we had back in December. We’ve discovered a great method for removing yellow jackets- stay tuned….
The livestock are doing well enjoying the sunny weather, although the sheep could really use a shearing! It’s actually kinda fun shearing them because they have beautiful wool. The breed is called Romney and their wool is perfect for rugs and heavy duty work clothes. It’s amazing how much lanolin is in the wool- we always have moisturized hands after collecting it!
The cattle are happy with the spring grasses so they’re not too annoyed we haven’t finished their new pasture fence yet! I’ll admit, the spring clean-up list is pretty long so some things are taking a little while to complete.
Check out this week’s recipe: Thai pork fried rice. We love to use lots of garlic with the pork because we’ve noticed that grass fed, pastured pork tends to have a wild flavor much like venison or elk. (It’s from the chlorophyl in the pasture grass they eat). Garlic helps to tone down the “gamey” flavor, so we marinade with it and use it in spicy dishes like the Thai pork fried rice.
Greenhouse vegetables to be harvested soon are: kale, scallions, pac choi, & arugula.
