April finally spring is here...

Hey!

I am thrilled to join Tend and share with you my urban farming experience.

My husband, Dan, and I live in a row house in Philadelphia and have a pretty big backyard for the city.
We've been keeping chickens for about 3 years.
After this long and cold winter I was ready for the spring. This winter I was growing another kind of plant, my newborn Chloe Rose. She is 3 and a half months old. I am happy to finally get some time outside in the backyard. Dan cleaned up a little and we are looking at damages from the cold we had. We lost a rosemary bush!  This year is exciting I am adding some fruit trees to my collection, I have been dreaming of an orchard but in the city...

freckled hen farm spring beginnings

oh, it feels so good to be back at tend for another season! i just love this space. the knowledge & experience our contributors bring to this project inspires me every single week! i hope you'll visit our contributors page to learn a bit more about our new gardeners in this space. they're amazing women.

as for freckled hen farm, we're moving right on along. we're thankful for shorter winters here in the south. at the first sign of spring, you'll find us planting our sugar snaps & salad greens. once the hot summers hit, we're ready to move up north. as for now, we're content to just soak up the warm spring days.

we did have a hard freeze a couple of nights ago. we covered our flowers with bed sheets (except for the hydrangeas... oops! will those make a comeback, friends?). we also used covering for our broccoli, cabbage & kale. 

we have yet to make our first harvest, but it will happen soon. i am antsy for a nourishing kale salad.

 this farm is such a gift & we're grateful for every single day to dig our hands into the soil. i cannot wait to share what we learn as we settle into this land.

- natalie

a bit of spring

after all that snow and endless winter (it is snowing again now, ahem), we had a few glorious spring days this past weekend and i did not squander that time. saturday afternoon, we held our annual community garden spring clean up. even though there wasn't much to clean up (we usually use this time to weed the paths between plots and, well, there just aren't any weeds yet!), it was great to be outside and reconnect with my gardening neighbors. one of the new gardeners even gifted me some of his excess kale starts when i mentioned that i never got around to starting my kale seeds indoors. i wrote a few years ago (a very long post) about why i love community gardening so much and continue to participate even though i now have enough space at my home for my gardens.

monday evening, i began clearing off the leaf mulch blankets that had been keeping my gardens warm and protected from the cold and snow over the winter. since i knew there was more cold weather in the forecast for this week, i didn't get very far, but it felt good to get my hands in the dirt. i also prepared one of my raised beds for planting by adding about 10 gallons of homemade compost and turning the soil. i got those kale starts right in the ground (although, some hungry squirrel seems to have been snacking on the leaves this week!).

even though spring is still just beginning here, i'm so glad i snagged the chance to get my hands dirty and be outside. such a necessary reprieve from this very long winter. hope you all get some planting or at least time outside this weekend!

Inching Ahead

We're inching ahead here in Zone 4b after Friday's minor accumulation of sleet and wet snow. I'm happy to have this little lungwort in my front herb bed because it's always the first plant to flower after the crocuses.

It's lovely to see the daffodils and hyacinths (pictured here) poking up from the soil. Promises of yellow and pink to come.

The birds are a little more active. Robins are abundant as are the red-winged blackbirds. I couldn't resist this tiny feather caught on a blade of grass.

My husband built us a small cold frame using materials that we had in our garage--a few pallets and an old window. We decided to take advantage of the spring sunshine and let our leek and brassica seedlings enjoy a little extra warmth.

It's a little tricky, though. We've never used a cold frame before. Today we came home from work to find that the seedlings were a little too warm even with the window propped open slightly. So, we've brought them back in for now to baby them just a little more before we try the cold frame again. Natalie and others who use cold frames, do you have any tips for me? We were hoping to use it to help our seedlings grow bigger and stronger.

We went down to our large field garden this afternoon to see if the soil was ready for planting. Alas, it was too wet. The peas and poppies will have to wait a little longer.