The Flicker Haven Farm Files-And So Goes The Hoe...

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In true spring fashion, my workload is increasing around the farm. Not that I don't have a million things to do all the time, but here lately I have been in full homestead gardener mode.

Something that makes that mode a bit more challenging to maintain is that I also have some super busy offspring to herd as well. For the last two days I have been attending my son's district track meet along with blogging, Listnerding, and farming. It's been a trip.

The good thing is that my kiddo's district meets have been at our school, so it's only a short three mile drive up the hill to his competition.

And he did so well! I am so proud of my baby gorilla for making the varsity track team his freshman year. He is a pretty dedicated guy, and he PR'd in shotput, so some pretty big smiles all the way around. He threw that 12 pound ball of brass just shy of 40 feet.

Speaking of throwing things, I threw all of my landscaping fabric out of the well house yesterday. Probably didn't utilize as much technique or finesse as my son, but hey, I did get it all out without breaking anything, so that was a win in my mind.

One of the secrets to my gardening success is the several hundred feet of industrial greenhouse floor covering a dear friend gave me years ago. Apparently commercial greenhouses where he lived just throw the stuff away after a few years, but let me tell you, I have been using the stuff for weed suppression and heat sinking purposes for the last at least 8 years or so with great success. The pumpkins, cucumbers, winter squash, summer squash, peppers, and tomatoes love that barrier!

We live in a very challenging microclimate for warm weather crops, so to have something that traps a bit of heat and suppresses weeds has been invaluable. I also use the fabric to keep weeds from over taking future growing areas because let me tell you, when it gets over 70F here, the weeds can literally be seen growing. It's insane!!

So my first order of business, after fertilizing the garlic, was to spread the landscape fabric out.

However, I first gave my developing garlic a good feeding. One of my favorite soil amendments, besides our glorious farm made compost, is Neptune's Harvest Fish And Kelp Emulsion. I absolutely adore the stuff. In the past I even wrote an ode of adoration for that stinky substance. Our soil, while well-drained and relatively rock free, also has like zero nutrients. No selenium, magnesium, calcium, phosphorous, the list goes on....

After years of cover cropping and judicious compost application, the soil in my garden has some glorious body to it and will grow most anything well, but an application of the fruit de mer does wonders for my plants overall vibe.

Plus I want garlic bulbs the size of baseballs, so as it is bulb development time (our garlic is finished growing in July here in North Idaho), I am going to hit my beautiful, developing bulbs with some emulsion over the next few weeks.

I also need to get off my duff and make some garlic scape pesto too, as the scapes of my hardneck varieties are looking mighty fine for such a thing. Maybe this coming week...

After garlic care, I went on to spreading the fabric. It's not really a hard job, especially as I have had a lot of practice at it, and faster than you can say, DOGCAT get out from underneath there!, I had the fabric all spread out and secured.

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Then it was time to get hoeing.

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This year I was kind to myself, as I spent most of the first quarter of this year with Long Covid, and only put in a couple hundred row feet of potatoes. They have to be hilled at least two times, and it helps if I keep the soil loose and weed free with regard to future hilling.

So, I, my stirrup hoe, and a really eclectic and upbeat playlist, bebopped our way through a pretty large chunk of weed removal. I so wish all garden cultivars grew in the manner of weeds. I also know I am not the first gardener to think this, nor will I be the last, but holy carpet of invaders!

Once that job was finished, I took a little breather and checked on the progress of the cold weather crops and the hops. Ooh, that rhymed!

The hops are really starting to emerge. I am so, so excited to see just how tall they get! I am hoping for 30 feet, so yes, they got a dose of fish emulsion too!

My volunteer collards are starting to look super tasty, like so tasty that I think a bowl of broth stewed collards might be in my future, maybe with some tasty Udon noodles....yum...

The snow peas have erupted from the soil which made me squee a bit, because in a month or so that means I will be out there snacking on them while I mulch stuff and putter about, and the little baby radishes and their green butterfly wings put me in an even better state of anticipatory happiness, because I will be eating those spicy little bulbs even sooner!

My last plant check was the volunteer lettuce that presented itself in one of my pathways. I adore lettuce of all types, especially red lettuce, and the color of my volunteer lettuce doesn't disappoint. Just look at that burgundy shade of gorgeousness on the tips of those leaves!

After baling out, scrubbing, and re-filling the horse trough and the duck pool, I wandered into the house to get cleaned up for the track meet. Each day right now is filled with the fantastic industrious of spring growth explosion. All that's missing in my part of the world is a little bit of warmth. It has been a very cool and wet spring here, but if I know anything about North Idaho is that it is a land of extremes. It probably won't be long until I am out in the garden in shorts and sweating at like 6AM. Yee haw!!

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And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's super thankful it doesn't smell like fish and kelp emulsion iPhone. The text divider image was made in Canva.

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