22 March is shockingly early for the first (measly) asparagus harvest, don’t you think?
The girl barges in through the back door Wednesday afternoon and announces “It sure is quiet out there!” That morning’s trip with the dogcrate full of roosters guaranteed that the regular sounds of backyard bucolia have returned here.
My call to the butcher’s wife brought the usual guffaw from her. “SEVEN roosters? You ARE a softie, honey.”
Jellybean and some of his wimmin. What you can’t see is his torn-up wattle, poor thing. Now he’s back to being #2 Rooster.
Er, not really. The seven in question were late-summer chicks too small for the Thanksgiving turkey trip to the butcher in question. We endured their presence until we just couldn’t (“we” includes the harassed hens and of course the now bloody and pissed-off Mary Ellen and Jellybean) any longer. And since one guy was keen to “sleep” in the huge blue spruce which shades the henyard…well, let’s just say an early spring’s open windows and one obnoxious night bird are not exactly compatible. It’ll buy you a trip to freezer camp, dude.
I envy those of you who are actively eating down the contents of your freezers. I am somehow unable to ever see the bottom of a freezer (understandably, not a bad problem to have), what with the seasonal binges like a rooster harvest. Things simply get replaced.
The new greenhouse: I had planned on harvesting these greens by the end of April, not March…
One thing not easily stored is the lettuces. My best-laid plans of harvesting one older-lettuce-filled greenhouse and then moving on to the next baby-lettuce-filled greenhouse are crappy plans indeed with daily lows beating average highs here. Three solid weeks of temperatures in the 70s/80s mean that the 100s experienced in the greenhouses are not good for anything currently in there…including the 100 cells seeded with tomatoes. Sigh. Time to reboot, clean out, reseed. Weather, you know, just happens. My plans would’ve been perfect in a normal year.
The routine on Sunday and Thursday nights: gather ye CSA bags as ye may…
But what are we going to eat in May? I wonder! Better start seeding lettuce rows for the fickle world outside.
The nightly haul: leeks, lettuces (Amish Deer Tongue and red romaine), atop bolting collards, asparagus and onions…with herbs.
