Rain. We needed it and now we have had it for the last 3 days, but who is complaining. Forget the market today but tomorrow we go to market with our fresh corn, potatoes,peppers, & green beans. By the end of the week we will have melons. Our CSA brochures and Homestead Dream Maker brochures should go to print this week. We are planting for our extended fall and winter garden: cabbage, melons, tomatoes, broccoli, cauli, eggplant, leeks, peppers and more. Everything will be started in trays- even the huge variety of lettuce. Everything except carrots and kolrahbi Anybody interested in extended gardening must read Elliot Coleman's books. They are excellent. A good seed source is from Johnny's seeds; their quality is excellent and they are generous with info and advise for the seasoned and aspiring gardener. Can't wait to taste those french melons.
Succession planting and hoop tunnels will extend our market garden and pulverize our grocery bill .
My Market Gardening article will be published in the July/August edition of Rural Heritage. More articles are in the making. This is fun.

Seed order from Johnnys seed for this fall accomplished. Garden is doing well. Praying for rain. 60% chance today and tonight. Planted cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, cleery, cukes, tomatoes in trays to transplant for fall garden. We will operate a CSA from September until May.
We will start digging the pond in a few weeks in the smaller creek bed. Great area, shaded, wet will hold water well and be essential for irrigation. Cleaned out the spring now we have to rebuild the walls-great supplemental water.
We have been accepted for the certified naturally grown status. Our farm will have to be inspected then we are official.
Lots to do. Salves to make and CSA and Homestead Dream Makers brochures to distribute. This should be posted on HerbandPlow.com, too.

We have been doing the farmers markets this week and enjoyed meeting the friendly people. We are also working on our CSA brochure for the fall/winter 2011 season. Also in the make is the brochure for our homesteading projects. We are offering services to build a self sufficient home and prepare individual homesteads for self sufficient living whether it be capturing their spring, designing their gardens or building their house, wood sheds, barns, etc. Included in this post are some pics of our new post and beam and the market garden.

Hurry Up and Wait and then Hurry.....

That seems to be how gardening is: Hurry up and wait and then hurry....
We are in the thick of the season. We harvest about 20 pounds of spring lettuce a week. We wish we had planted more. We sell it for $5.50 a pound. We have also been selling new potatoes, green beans, squash and beets. We are informally starting a CSA- hope to create a nice community market for that.
We are having fun meeting new folks through the market garden. We put a produce sign out at the end of the driveway yesterday, and sold a bunch of beets and green beans and best of all met a new neighbor. We like this area more and more.
Tomorrow we go to the Farmers Market in Knoxville with beets, gr. beans, lettuce, sprouts, potatoes, squash and cukes.
We will go for our kitchen certification also. Who knows what we will come up with . Lots of ideas rolling around.
Still have small things to finish on the house and Ron has a remodeling job- not good timing but thankful anyways.
We are continuing to work on our website: HerbandPlow as a homesteading educational site. Big on ideas little on time.

Right after we moved into the house, we drove over to see our daughter, Sarah who is 6 months pregnant. She looks great and is so excited. Then we drove down to Charleston, SC to see my 88 year-old mother. She is amazingly spry and can keep up on a 1 1/2 mile walk with no problem. Enjoyed the beach and surf, too.

We have moved in to our new home. Still a few odds and ends to finish. The garden is flourishing. Preparing for insect and fungus problem by having Gardens Alive Shield-All and rotenone/pyrethium on hand.

We are selling about 10 pounds of spring lettuce a week. New potatoes, greens, beets, onions and yellow squash are coming on, too.
Our article in Rural Heritage was in the May/June addition. I am working on another now for Rural, Market Gardening and signed a contract with BackHome Magazine for my article, Finding a Usable Piece of Land. I am not sure when it will be published.

Going after the weeds systematically every day makes it much easier. If we weed something everyday, we are not overwhelmed with huge weed patches and the garden is so beautiful.

I heard about using this sea-90 on the garden about 2 years ago. I thought the man was a little touched because he told me I could buy a bag of this salt from Lowes for 8.00. Turns out he was right and now I can't find it at Lowes. Excellent and economical fertilizer, fungacide and more.. Check the link: http://www.seaagri.com/order.html $2.00 to fertilize an acre- not bad. Also walnut hulls are good for the garden too. Let them compost on your garden over the winter and then till them in.

Joy soap/ tobasco sauce is working. Potatoes look great so does the cabbage. We are weary. Should be able to move in this week. 2nd coat of poly on the floors, one more to go.