It’s been our usual volatile foothill spring, getting below freezing last week, and now in the upper 80’s.  It’s enough to drive me a little bit nutty.  I’m following some sage gardeners’ advice and not planting out my peppers and tomatoes until mid-May, but it’s hard to believe it’s not summer in this heat.

Billy’s mom Linda has been visiting from Minnesota, and it’s been nice to have another hand.  We’ve put her to work raking beds and picking rock…. A bit of a change from her normal city life.

This first year of farming has been full of learning, and I’m trying to take in all the lessons and write them down so I can remember for next year…. They seem unforgettable to me at the moment, but I know time can change things.

Number one lesson for me right now is not to fertilize starts in the direct sun.  My cool weather starts were looking beautiful, and almost ready to be planted out.  I decided to give them some liquid fertilizer, and came back to find all the cotyledons burned to a crisp.  It pretty much did in the Red Russian Kale, but the rest seem to have pulled through.  It wasn’t that I gave them too much nitrogen, but that the nitorgen in the droplets on the leaves burned as the sun hit them.  It’s such a devastating thing to think you’re going to provide nutrition, and then actually make things worse.