It's a New Day!

Welcome to our blog.  It's a new day in the Hill Country of Texas but we need rain!  I've started this blog to track our farming (or maybe a should say gardening since we're small).  The first year was a success, I fed neighbors, co-workers and friends besides myself and learned a little about freezing and canning.  It's such a joy that I want to do more.  So, I've recently started an expansion of the gardening area.

Last year, I built 4 raised beds and successfully harvested beans, peas, okra, onions, yellow squash, slicing cucumbers and lots and lots of tomatoes, especially heirloom red and yellow pear tomatoes.  Here it is in all it's glory:

And here's one day's harvest:

The expansion will not be raised so I've spent the last 6 weeks digging out the rocks (limestone and flintrock) down to a depth of 6 inches.  I started here:

There's a dry creek bed (an "arroyo") on the property that is surrounded by all kinds of oak trees and is therefore loaded with what I lovingly refer to as "compost in the making."  So far I've added 9 20-lb. bags of this compost to the new area as well as a pickup bed load of horse manure (can you see the difference?)

The locals refer to our dirt as gumbo...it's black clay which has to be augmented and supplemented in a big way in order to make it workable.  I've got 2 compost piles made from wooden pallets and these supplied more than enough compost for last year's beds.  I'm going to have to keep them working in a big way this year in order to have enough for both gardening areas.  So bear with me as I work to make the new area ready for spring. 

The raised beds have beets, mesclun mix, spinach, kale, and brussel sprouts for harvesting over the winter.  Just today I picked a gallon of mesclun, and a quart each of spinach and kale which I am taking to my friends in Austin who have a wonderful new restaurant on East 11th Street...I can't remember the name but it's a Mexican Bistro with a full service bar.  Hopefully they'll be able to incorporate my harvest into their menu...sharing the harvest is the best part of the work involved!