Rolling Dibbler

This is one of the most useful tools we have on the farm. It's called a rolling dibbler and we found the plans at
High Mowing Seeds in their newsletter archives. It creates little dimples precisely spaced in a planting bed. We then put a plant or bulb in each dibble, every other one, every other row, etc., depending on how we want to space that particular planting. It saves time and also places plants evenly spaced which gives each plant the same amount of growing space.

Onward with spring

I finished weaving a batch of really lovely light grey wool rugs today. The yarn, from Cotswold sheep, is a naturally variegated mixture of greys from nearly white through light grey to occasional bits of really dark grey. Here and there are little bits of light to medium brown. It is the lovliest stuff. The rugs are woven on a cotton warp in a color the company calls linen which is a sort of taupe brown. It goes just perfectly with the bits of brown coloration in this wool. The rugs are so pretty. I'll post a picture when I have the fringes tied and they've been washed and hung on the line.

Joel got all the current batch of onion plants in the ground, 4 40" beds of 4 rows each. Lot of onions to be. And then he planted 6 flats of leeks in the greenhouse. I planted a flat of carnations. This is the way things are this time of year. We plant, I weave, I knit. We stand in the sun when it comes out and soak it in. The cats lie in sunny patches and sleep and I want to emulate them.

This evening I am going to print out labels and put them on 2 dozen felted hats. I finally got them all run through the washing machine. Bit by bit my stock for this summer's sales is accumulating.

Onion Plants

We got the first shipment of onion plants today, Ailsa Craigs and Red Burgermasters. We are also waiting for our WallaWalla plants. We grow onions from plants, sets, and seeds depending on the type and the availability. We have found that the kind of onions that grow as overwintered types which develop bulbs in response to long days are best purchased as plants that have been overwintered elsewhere. We grown our winter storage varieties which are short day onions, forming bulbs as the days shorten with the approach if fall, as sets and start various heirloom types such as the cipollinis, and the long red of Tropea, from seeds.

Last year was the first time we grew Ailsa Craigs. These are a very large, absolutely delicious sweet onion developed in Scotland and named after a Scottish hill. We had never grown such big onions. In fact I won a blue ribbon at the San Juan County Fair in the largest vegetable section with as 2 1/2 pound onion and Best Of Show for 5 beautiful Ailsa Craigs.

First lamb, first seeds in the ground

When we went out to check on the sheep this morning there was our first lamb of the year, a little grey and black part Cotswold ram lamb. He was on his feet and nursing with no problem. We just have a few sheep, this little guy makes 11, and only two ewes that we expect to lamb. Our ram is a colored Cotswold and the rest of the flock crosses between Cotswolds and Waldron mutt sheep, combinations of the breeds that have been brought over here for year, Suffolks, Romneys, Lincoln, and who knows what else.

And the first seeds are in the ground in the new hoophouse. Joel is experiemting with early plantings of greens under cover so there are lots of short rows of a lot of different things, spinach, bok choy, several varieties of Asian greens, arugula and cilantro. We'll see what happens. Hopefully we have greens earlier than ever before for market.