Bare feet

Broccoli Raab with penne pasta

I have several photos to show readers of the progress made in the garden so far this year. Today we had a light shower in the morning after which I went out to do some weeding. I noticed that there were a lot of weeds coming up around the fava beans and in some of the other areas. I thought weeding might be hard but with ground moist I made quick work of it.

I had gone out in my bare feet and I think that this might become a habit. There have been some complaints of me tramping in dirt on my shoes. Therefore no shoes I think would make clean up easier. In any case the damp soil and coolness of garden felt great and although I don't usually go out bare foot that often I think they would toughen up pretty quickly. Then when I am done a splash of water from the tap will clean off the dirt and make for a cleaner home. Many cultures do not wear shoes inside since it is cleaner not to and foot washing before coming in has been part of getting ready to come inside since Biblical times so I think I will try it.

Tasks done today
1) have started the soaking of the mushroom block so that I can try growing a new bloom; it will need to soak for 24 hours in rain water so I will set it up tomorrow.

2) The strawberries are blooming both in the pot and in the bed.

3) Red potatoes coming up in the trench I dug. As they grow I will fill in the trench and this will give move stem for the potato to grow on.

3) I have been eating arugula ( The English call it Rocket and I like the sound of the name) almost every day. The sharp peppery taste with a slight bitter after taste is not to everyone's liking However, splashed with vinegar and topped with some Parmesan cheese it is a great salad. Little bunches of this go for a pretty penny. If you had smell on your blog then you could smell the peppery aroma.


4)Major planting over the next week. Not all fear of frost is over for another ten days yet but I think it is time to start.

Arbors and Seedlings

When Patrick was here recently we started to build an arbor to hold up climbing things like peas, pole beans and maybe cucumbers. We did not get as far along on the project so Marci and I finished off the construction this weekend. There were a number of changes in the plan that we had to make to get the arbor together. If you look closely there are some places that are not square but overall it looks good and will hold up the climbers that we have this year.

I also am planning to visit Florida next month and I will will try to get a cutting from a muscadine vine that had it origin at least a 100 years ago on the Bailey's homestead.


Spring is coming and in the next 2 weeks the risk of a frost is likely to pass. The seedlings seem to be growing well and the tomatoes have a second set of true leaves and it looks like I will need to put the grow lights up higher to accommodate the growth of plants. In the next few weeks the ground will be warm enough for all of these plants to go outside.

Cherry Trees

This post is about two things.
The first thing is that there are faux fruit trees blooming everywhere. The Bradford Pears have been blooming, and the Japanese Cherry trees have just in the last two days opened their flowers. There are Crab Apples and a number of other trees and bushes that once were fruit and are now only ornamental. I suppose the reason for ornamental trees is that you get the beautiful flowers but no fruit. I suppose some think that the fruit is messy and you have to nurture the fruit and eat it. Some people seem to think that this is an inconvenient thing to have to do. I would purpose that if we have fruit trees then we should have the flowers, the trees and ultimately the fruit! I hope to some day have only real fruit trees so that I can fully enjoy them. I have blueberry bushes, a fig tree, strawberries and I have attempted to have raspberries. Some day I will have a full range of fruit bushes and trees.

The next thing is an interesting thing about my faux cherry trees. My house is around 50 years old. I would guess from the size of the Japanese cherries that we used to have that they had been planted around the time the house was built. When we moved here 5 years ago the trees were in very bad shape. They had split and were rotting from the inside. I have had both cut down now. The first was broken up pretty bad when we had to put in new septic lines so we had it cut down. The second one had pretty much broken in two and fallen on the ground. However, we still have two cherry trees. The one closer to the house had a shoot that had come from the root stock and now I have a fifty foot cherry tree but no fruit. The other tree in the front of the house had sent up several suckers from the trunk and I carefully selected one and cut all the others back. I think that this one will be a pretty, low branching Japanese cherry from the size and shape so far, while the other is a wild cherry. Alas though, I still will have no cherry fruit.

Fava, Broccoli Raab more Mushrooms

It is unusually cool this spring. I don't think that we have had such cool weather since I have been gardening here in Alabama. It is a little hard to believe that our latest frost is almost always before April 1st and yet it was 35 degrees this morning. It is said to be frost free by April 15th. For the last few years I have had great starts on plants by this time of year. I am little worried that it will warm up and some of the spring cool weather crops won't have time to make.

I do have some things to show for my effort. Another big batch of mushrooms from the block and I paired them with some great broccoli raab, both cooked with a nice omelet.



I have some fava beans coming up and the sugar snaps.

Delicious Mushrooms

I harvested some of the mushrooms and within minutes we were sauteing them in butter and eating them. It was amazing -they were so firm and fresh and wonderful flavor! I will have another batch later this weekend and then it will probably be time to put the block through another cycle.

We also had some wonderful whipped sweet potatoes made with the potato leftover from the giant sweet potato I had brought up from storage, because we had only used about half for the 4 cups I needed for the sweet potato pies earlier in the week. Also, learned that the extra pie should have been stored in the refrigerator...


I have been redoing my strawberry patch. It can easily get overgrown. I dug up the crowns and divided them. I planted what I could use and had a good grocery bag full of crowns so I gave them to an urban farmer friend for her own strawberry patch.

Other things that have been going on:
Starting planting pots of squash, eggplant, cucumbers and melons.
Transplanting chard and lettuce to the garden
Planting a second crop of fava beans, lettuce and other spring crops. I will put some more sugar snap peas out this weekend.

Mushrooms, Pea Shoots and More

Today the weather is still cool but no rain today. The Suburban Farmer has several projects in progress to report on.

First the Mushroom block is doing much better this time around and it can be really amazing how quickly the mushrooms can grow. These have appeared and are almost ready to eat in just 7 days. I will have to look for a good recipe to try these in.

Secondly the tomato seedlings are progressing nicely and have 2 true leaves on most of the plants. I would like to have them be about twice this size before it will be time to go outside.

Thirdly here are some beautiful flowers. I think that these are some two tone daffodils. I thought I had planted narcissus here but those spring flowers would have already come and go by now.

Finally here are some pictures of the sugar snap peas that are all coming up and few more days we will see them climb up the trellis.

A Busy Day

Finally the weather is a little more garden friendly. Although this last week is still cold, with many inches of rain there have been a few warm days. I will catalog the progress.

1) Sugar snap peas are all now appearing and and are about an inch out of the ground all around the pea frame after 2 weeks in the dirt
2) Cabbage, spinach and lettuce appear to be successfully transplanted.
3) Lettuce, beets, fava beans are starting to come up.
4) Red potatoes are in the ground in the one area that was dry enough to work
5) Eggplant seeds, after 14 days, are emerging in the seed pots.
6) The mushroom block that only made one mushroom last time has many baby mushroom that are now coming out
7) Strawberry bed had been thinned and mulched

Over the next week I will be working later but with the extra hour of light, the new farmer and the dry weather that is forecast I think we will get greens in the ground and will start potting squash, melon and other warm weather crops that can not go into till about April 15th, which is when the last frost date will pass and the ground will be warm enough to for things to grow.