Strawberry Picking at Greig Farm

 One of the wonderful things about living in the Hudson Valley is all the local farms, some of which offer seasonal "pick your own" days when fruits and vegetables are ripe.  This weekend we headed out to Greig Farm in Red Hook, New York to pick strawberries and asparagus. Warm sun, no humidity, and a spring breeze made perfect conditions in the late afternoon for some family fun.  Thanks to my ambitious daughter, we picked $30 worth of produce.  We ate strawberries until our bellies ached and our fingers were stained, and then froze the rest.  The asparagus will make a yummy side dish sauteed with some fresh chicken tonight.  Perhaps we will pick some spinach from our own garden to make a salad too.

Breaking Ground: Planting a (tiny) Farm

So I had these grandiose ideas about a lush garden with a hundred different vegetables grown from seed in boxes I made myself from salvaged wood.  Meanwhile, I wasn't able to start planting until a few days ago (it's June....). It went something like this: 
Day 1: Hack at the clay-laden ground for hours with probably the wrong tool to loosen the roots of the grass growing in my landlord-approved 10'x10' garden plot while my 3 year old daughter clings to my legs in fear for her life from bugs that will undoubtedly "get her".
Day 2: Repeat events of Day 1 in 90 degree heat + humidity. Drag the hose out to the garden and soak it. Call ASPCA hotline and "donate" $65 to find out what to do when a black snake bites my dog. Try to convince my daughter that bugs are a necessary part of the beautiful environment we live in and that gnats will not do her in. 
Day 3: Forget the notion of "double digging"--there is no way to get past all the rocks and clay down to the depth of 24".  I scatter some store bought organic compost (my homemade stuff won't be ready until later in the season), settle for raised beds that look more like mole hills and get a few plants in the ground.Yell at my dog to back away from another snake. The dog, by the way, who likes to dig in all the wrong places was no help whatsoever in digging the garden.
Day 4:  Quit and take some muscle relaxers. 
Day 5: Put a few more plants and seeds in the ground before it starts to pour rain. Sit on the porch in the rocking chair and watch the thunderstorm.  Ahhhhh....

I managed to plant tomatoes, red peppers, green peppers, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, swiss chard, basil, cilantro, parsley, chives, echinacea, calendula, tri-color beans, and sugar snap peas (to be grown on hopefully what will become a bean tipi).  I used bamboo poles lashed together to form the tipi and a bunch more as stakes for the tomatoes.  They are ridiculously tall for tomato stakes, but I'll save sawing them down to a reasonable size for another day.  The rocks I removed from the soil form a nice edge for the plot since I haven't decided on what type of fencing I will need yet. I used pine bark pieces on top of newspaper to form a T shaped path through the center and along the one edge. Not quite the vision I had for my first garden in this new home, but I am happy to have just gotten started.