First full day of Spring!

Today is the first full day of Spring and I got my first little harvest from the garden! 

Microgreens thinned from the arugula and lettuce under the quick hoops (Baker Creek Seeds) and Egyptian onions (bulbs that I won last year from Anna and Mark at The Walden Effect):

Those went on our salad for lunch, and then more onions for a quiche for dinner:

Recipe adapted from "Spring Quiche Trio" in Simply In Season

Crust:

2 cups shredded sweet potato

1 cup shredded turnip

3 tablespoons coconut oil

Mix together and press into a 9 inch pie plate. Bake at 425F for 15 minutes.

Add 1/2 cup shredded cheese to bottom of crust (raw colby cheese)

Brown 1/2 lb ground sausage in a skillet, then add the follow veggies to saute:

1 cup chopped broccoli

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped green onion (from the garden!)

Saute for 5-10 minutes and then add 2 cups chopped fresh spinach (from Breezy Hill Farm!), cook until the spinach is wilted

Mix in a bowl:

4 eggs (from Penny and Sugar)

1/2 cup milk (fresh local milk)

1/4 teaspoon salt

Add the sausage/veggie mixture to the crust, then pour the egg mixture on top. Sprinkle another 1/2 cup cheese on top and bake at 425F for 15 minutes, then reduce to 350F and bake for another 25-30 minutes or until browned. Yum!

I'll leave you with some pictures of Jonathan and the Legos he got for his 4th birthday this week...it's been a long time but dad still enjoys playing with Legos too ;)

Quick Hoops

Here I am again after a long absence! I've been doing plenty of farming and homesteading, I've just been too busy to blog about it.

I used some Christmas money to buy row cover material and quick hoop supports from Gardener's Supply Company. We've had a very mild winter, and I decided to try several different experiments with the quick hoops. The first tunnel I set up on January 1st! After reading The Winter Harvest Handbook by Eliot Coleman I decided to try planting ahead of the freeze in the hopes that the seeds would germinate extra-early under the hoops. I planted a test-plot of 10 different cool season veggies. Here's the tunnel 7 weeks later:

And here are my little arugula and corn salad (mache) seedlings:

I've had a couple problems with this tunnel. I took off the plastic cover on a warm day and forgot to put it back on before it snowed, and 4 inches of snow makes the row cover material sag quite a bit! I also am going to think about getting some PVC pipe to make the supports instead of the fiberglass supports I bought from Gardeners Supply. They work well except under the snow load.

My 2nd tunnel I set up on February 2nd:

I transplanted some 4-week-old broccoli, kale, and cabbage plants on February 2nd, and most of them are still alive, although  not really thriving. We did have some temps in the mid teens after this, and part of the tunnel also collapsed under another 4 inch snow. I'll have to see how these are doing in a couple months, but I probably put them out just a little too early.

That's all for now. Thanks for visiting!

This post has been entered in the Garden Life link up at No Ordinary Homestead - check it out!

And I've also linked up to the Homestead Barn Hop!