Whew - this is a lot like work

In addition to the potatoes, I single-handedly planted 2 rosemary plants, 3 St. John's Wort, 2 salad burnett, 1 rhubarb, 6 chives, 6 blueberry bushes, and a hops vine. These all went into the new bed that curves around the south side of the house. Many of these plants came out of the nursery we set up last fall - looks like many of our starts made it and almost everything over-wintered well.

 

Where was Husband? Tinkering with the electric fence, which so far seems to be keeping the deer at bay.

 

I say potato...

We decided to use Ruth Stout's method: toss the seed potatoes on the ground and cover with a foot or so of hay. Easy, with the added advantage of being able to just lift up the plant, take few small potatoes and put it back down in the hay to keep growing. No digging now and no digging later.

Does it work? We have no idea, we've never tried it this way. We can't hold Ruth accountable, either, I'm sure she's passed away by now.

We put in two varieties: Yukon Gold and Yellow Finn. The hay was from last fall, and it's good and rotten.

 

Spring

Spring comes late to Hardrock Ranch, but it does come. That's not to say you can leave your warm jacket and mud boots behind.

 

A red flowering currant:

 

Lots-o-daffodils:



The pond is full:

 

Progress report

We got all but 50 or so of the 370 plants in the ground. We'll save the rest for a day when it's not snowing. In the meantime, they'll be fine - we popped them into our ever-expanding nursery.

 

Electric fence installation is already being refined. Improvements include bigger wire, more insulation and more grounding, hopefully resulting in more zap.

 

Another interior project

Never one to shy away from a challenge, Mark immediately begins clever design and construction of shoe and clothing storage.

What a difference (why didn't I take a "before" picture?). Well done, clever husband.

 

Planting Day

Hey, nobody showed up for planting day. Shocking. Well, that's fine. You're still invited to the summer parties...we didn't really need your help anyway. See - all 370 plants are in the back of the pickup, and it didn't even fill it up:

After only an hour of hard labor, we had popped over 130 plants (50 roses, 22 tall oregon grape, 20 red flowering currant, 10 serviceberry, 12 salal, 10 evergreen huckleberry, 10 twinberry and 4 indian plum) into the first bed:

Then it was time for lunch and a nap.

 

 

Living quarters at Hardrock Ranch

We are planning to sell our 2,800+ square foot beautiful house on Bainbridge Island and move into the 1,500 square foot trailer at Hardrock Ranch (which is already plenty full of stuff).

Why? Well, because that's what's here.

How? Good question. We started by building these shelves last weekend. Hopefully, that will help us get organized in the paperwork and book department. Mark will need to come up with a few more clever ideas to solve the next problems: storage space for my clothes, shoes, yarn, fabric and paper.