CSA Shares Now Available

Hey all,

I wanted to let you all know that I am now offering CSA shares for the 2012 season. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. The idea is that community members help pay the up front annual cost of seeding and planting on a particular farm, and in exchange they receive a portion of the harvest.

It's an old tradition that is catching on like wildfire as people turn away from long haul conventional farm products in favor of locally produced small or specialty farm foods.But it does require effort by both consumer and farmer to make it work.

CSA "shares" are sold early in the year, usually January, before seeding starts. This gives the farmer much needed capital early in the season when costs are highest. Harvest will then begin probably late April or May, depending on what the farm is growing, and last well into Fall or early Winter.

For more information please follow the CSA link at the top of the page. I am only offering 25 shares to start (these can be divided into half shares) so please do not hesitate to jump on the veggie wagon. I will be growing a wide assortment of produce, and will also be offering bread and egg shares.

Summer happenings

Well Summer is waning, slowly, and we are now starting planting for Fall. I read today that we will have an extended warm period in the Southeast, followed by abnormally cool temps, so this is going to create some problems with crops that need 2-3 months of coolish Fall weather. I am planning on going through seeds tomorrow to restrategize my game.

At the moment I am harvesting the last of my Summer produce, concord grapes. I have 3 vines, 2 white concord and one purple. The white started fruiting last year, and doubled the harvest to a little over 3 bushels this year. The purple took a bit longer to sweeten, almost a month. Not sure if that's normal, but it was an entire year behind the others in production, so could just be variety.

Aren't they pretty to look at? Interesting factoid: The grey powdery coating on grapes is yeast. This is the natural yeast responsible for fermenting wine. It is also a good yeast for making a true sourdough starter. Just throw a couple of grapes into your starter for a couple of days, then remove them. Et VOILA!

On another note, for those who have been following her story, I have finally found a permanent home for Pardon. I have made a new friend who owns a small private dairy, and she has agreed to take Pardon into her herd. We are working this week to get Pardon ready to ship. I still have to get a halter on her, but other than that I think she will be a neat addition to their farm. Please wish her well in her new adventure. We will miss her, but she will only be 10 minutes away if we want to go visit. :)

Spring into Summer

Tomatoes (trees being used as stakes) and cocozelle squash

Well so much for a mild Spring. Trying to garden in this heat is so tough, especially for the tomatoes. We have days on end with hot weather, and then we get a rainstorm. The next day you can pretty much bet you'll have evidence of blight and at the very least cracking tomatoes. That's one reason I am such a fan of Fall planting.

White Concord seeded grapes

But, I am managing to get quite a bit of produce, including peas, beans, squash, blueberries, grapes, strawberries, potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes of all types and sizes, and eventually I'll have lemon cucumbers.

I'm not sure if we'll get any wild blackberries that are worth anything. They are really late, and are just sitting there not turning. I suspect if they do turn, they will be quite bitter. Bummer, because we are loaded with blackberry vines. Same with my raspberries.  :(

Pea trellis

I wanted to show you an updated pic of my pea trellis. This was my experiment for making a trellis that wasn't visually obtrusive, and had an organic look.

To do this I cut a bunch of small trees and large limbs to use, which worked well, but I had to secure them against the intense winds we have on our hill.

Looks kinda pretty though I think. But the main thing is it really gave much better support to the peas, and it's biodegradable.

I should get at least one more growing season out of these before they degrade, maybe more.

My blueberries look pretty good. I have about 10 bushes, still very small, but I am hoping they will take off this year since I only put them in the ground last Spring.

Blueberries so close to turning!

My fig trees, which a friend gave to me, I thought had died from all the ice and snow. But this last week I finally discovered new growth. Yeah! I love figs, and I think this is an old Celeste variety. Unfortunately it will be at least 2 years before they begin fruiting.

This year I am having real problems with aphids and thrips and a whole host of other pests. I am waiting for my frogs to start helping me out, but the polliwogs are taking forever to develop.

But I told you I'd update the blog with pics of the frog pond once it was finished. I decided to wait until the day lilies bloomed, which they started doing this week.

In the first pic you can see yellow water iris, which are done blooming for the year, mixed in with some spanish flag (shorter grass) that has yet to bloom.

In the water I have floating water iris that look like lily pads, and the small little plants floating on the surface are duck weed. Great frog, fish, and chicken food. There's also about a 1000 poliwogs, so hopefully my little garden helpers will be free to start helping soon!

Here is another view of the pond with some of the daylilies blooming. I lined the top and sides of the pond with about 2 tons of rock I pulled up the hill out of the pasture. I have a small log that I use as an escape for any critters that might fall in. But the frogs love it and use it when the are serenading.

The far end is where I have the water iris and the spanish flag. Most of the floating plants congregate around these, which has created a little baby frog nursery since the frogs and toads seem to prefer laying their eggs there.

That's it for now. It is June so I know I have to start thinking about planting for late Summer/early Fall. Amazing how quickly it sneaks up on you!

Pardon me, Pet Please...

For those of you lucky enough to have spent any time around a cow you know how cool they can be. "Pardon" is our young heifer whom we rescued last Thanksgiving, and over the last few months we have had a grand time trying to tame her and teach her how to be a "pet" cow.

This morning my dad snapped this pic of Pardon getting her morning rubs (yes that's me in my barn clothes. Don't laugh). I love that she loves getting loves. :)

I thank God every day for Pardon. She has been such a blessing to our family (and my garden), and I am so grateful that He let us be the people to rescue her.

She has been a real calming force over my horses, she provides great manure for my garden, and has given our friends and family all something to talk about and fawn over.

Everyone should know what it's like to pet a cow.

Beeutiful Pollinators are Back!

I was very excited today not only to see that the pollinator activity had finally started in my garden, but excited that I was able to get some pretty pics of these busy guys/gals in action.

Most of the activity at the moment is focused around the collards that have bloomed. The bright lemon yellow flowers are attracting other pollinators as well, like fly bees, and lots of little pollinators that are too small and fast to get good pics of.

Another thing I noticed is the bees seemed a little frantic. None of them were doing their typical "lazy summer days" flower-to-flower visit behavior.

They were zipping from one flower to the next like they had a curfew, and they were all fighting with one another. I suspect that a very cold, icy/snowy winter, which is atypical for our area in Georgia, has taken a toll on the local population, and they are frantically trying to catch up now that it has warmed up and the flowers are finally blooming.

Something else interesting I noticed is that there seemed to be two different types of honey bee, or at least differently marked. Maybe someone with some bee knowledge can tell me if color variation is normal, or if these little guys are different types.

The one above is lighter in color, and doesn't have the black markings the one below does. Their legs and thorax seem different as well.

The bee below seems more "chiseled" or angular than the one above, who has an overall softer appearance. Hard to tell from this pic since the bee below is at a different angle in general.

Any ideas?

Eye Popping Spring!

As a transplant from the West Coast to Georgia back in 2001, I had a lot to learn about gardening in the South, which is a totally different world than gardening out West. Down here the weather is obviously a lot more humid during the Spring and Summer, and cold and usually quite dry during the Winter. In California, there isn't any real seasonal change. The temperature is fairly constant all year.

Unfortunately this means a fairly lackluster, constant landscape. Brown trees, brown grass, rocks, boring when that's all you've seen your whole life. So living here in Georgia has been a real treat. The high humidity and cold Winter allow for a wide diversity of plants, most of which are extremely lush, including the weeds.

One of my favorite weeds is Wisteria. This extremely hardy weed can be trained to grow as a tree, but prefers to climb as a vine. Even though it can be destructive (it will break apart stone, cement, rock, anything it can get it's tendrils into) it is one of the most spectacular spring flowers to announce the arrival of warmer weather.

Even better, Wisteria has a sweet scent that purely identifies it as a Southern glory. I planted my Wisteria vine about 6 years ago along a dilapidated old chain link fence. Next to it I planted honeysuckle and Confederate Jasmine, another glorious Southern jewel.

Every year I pray that March isn't too harsh, because tough weather just beats Wisteria to death, and a hard wind, which we get a lot up on our hill, will knock all the blossoms off in a single storm.

This year we were lucky. Not only did March cooperate, but we had a hot early Spring which forced the Jasmine to bloom a little early. It is a rare treat to see both of these neighboring beauties blooming together so prolifically. In fact I've never seen the Jasmine so full. It's almost top heavy for the fence. I can't help but just stare at the colors together, the bright canary yellow of the Jasmine contrasted with it's color compliment purple.

But best of all is the smell of the Jasmine. The scent is so strong that guests must think we have a sweet old Grandmother hidden away somewhere in the garden. It's almost overwhelming, but it's so pleasant you just want to wrap yourself up in it.

What a glorious place to live!

So Amazing!

God is definitely the ultimate time keeper! I am continually amazed at how well His system works. Down here in the South we judge planting time by lots of different methods, but one of the best known and celebrated is the blooming of the Dogwood trees. In Atlanta we have the annual Dogwood Festival to kick off the season.

Today for me was just another nod to the Man Upstairs for letting me see how effective His plan is for planting and harvesting. I have a young Dogwood tree I planted about 5 years ago out in front of the house, and I have been waiting with baited breath for the little guy to blossom this year, because it's just loaded with blossoms.

And behold, last night the buds began to open. Now this in and of itself is very cool, since somehow the tree knew not to blossom even though we just went through an Indian Summer this past February that caused a lot of other plants to bloom and pollinate prematurely.

But what amazed me today was the realization that many of the garden seeds I planted as long as a month ago all popped their heads through the soil today, all on cue, all on the same day the Dogwood blossomed. Very cool!

Geez... Farming is Hard Work!

Hey everyone, just posting an update for the first real planting week. The weather has been soooo incredible. Today I had a hard time concentrating on gardening. But I had to keep focused, otherwise it's real easy to suddenly find yourself late in the season with empty beds.

So my first project today was to get the rest of my potatoes in the new beds we made this winter. The potatoes I planted today were a Yukon Gold variety.

One thing I do that I don't think a lot of people do is soak the seed potatoes in a sulfur/pyrethrin solution before planting. This helps to prevent scab and fungal infections as well as insect damage.

The neat thing about taters is they can grow in beds that aren't done composting, which is the case with all of my beds I will be using for the potatoes. Here you can see the soil is still largely manure and straw combined with compost and sand and lots of char.

I buried the potatoes in a trench about 8 inches deep, and covered them with 4-6 inches of soil. Once the shoots appear and have several leaves, I'll fill in the rest of the ditch. This is called "hilling" and is important to make sure the potatoes don't grow out of the mound.

My next project was to work on the frog pond. I bought a pond liner, built up the sides and put a drain in using a cinder block covered with screen. I planted lilies all around the pond and set water plants in the shallow end. I also put a small log in the water for animals to use for escaping in case they fall in.

I then moved about a ton of rock from the pasture and surrounding woods and lined the top of the pond and the downhill side to prevent erosion. I still have to put the wood chips down, but I got tired by the time I had put down the weed block around the outside. I'll upload a pic when it's done, but I think it looks pretty good already. What do you think?

The lilies are gorgeous. They are a mix of yellows and peaches and orange. I also have turks cap lillies interplanted. These with the yellow Iris of the pond plants should be stunning. Once these are done blooming, the floating water iris will produce small beautiful purple flowers. The frogs owe me...

The last project was easier. I have been pondering how I was going to set up my pea trellises. I came across a website that showed a simple and attractive solution.

I cut branches and small trees to about 7 feet in height, and simply stuck them in the ground in the pea bed. I will have to anchor them with twine and stakes to prevent them from falling over in high winds, which we get a lot through this particular area of the property, but once the peas grow up the trees and branches it is going to be quite lovely.

The thing I like about this solution is the organic look. It looks like we have small fruit trees in the garden while bare, and will look totally natural once the vines cover the branches. It also takes up less room than a traditional trellis.

The bonus is that once they are all used up they can go right into the compost pile.

OK, that's it for now. I'm bushed!

Tater Tots

Photo by Scott Bauer

Tomorrow is potato day. For those of you who haven't grown potatoes at home, you don't know what you're missing. It is so easy, and so much fun to go out an hour or two before dinner and sneak a few new potatoes right out of a hill and roast them with a sprig of fresh Rosemary from the herb garden. Yum!

I grew red potatoes last year, and we had so many we couldn't eat them all. In fact the sprouted seed potatoes in the image below are the remnants of last year's harvest. This year I plan to can whatever I don't sell at the farmers markets.

However, selling at the markets is something I am planning for in regard to my taters. In addition to the red potatoes from last year, I am planting Yukon and Russet potatoes. I plan to sell some of the red and Yukons as early potatoes, and the remainder plus all of the Russets as storage potatoes.

So in order to prepare, I had to cut each seed potato into pieces containing no more than 3 eyes. Ideally each piece only has 1-2 eyes. More than 3 eyes, and your overall harvest apparently is reduced. So it's a little bit of a trick to leave enough of the potato to feed the buds until they sprout and root once they are planted.

It's also important to let the potatoes dry out and form a callous over the cut. This prevents the seed piece from rotting once it's planted. So that's what I did all afternoon yesterday. By the time I was done cutting pieces, I had more than 400 "tots." That's gonna be a lot of taters!

These are the Russets. I got a little ahead of myself in cutting these. I should have waited for them to have sprouted more, but I want to get them planted this week, so I went ahead and prepped them. Most do have sprouts, although they aren't as prolific yet as my red seeds from last year.

When planting potatoes, dig a trench at least 8 inches deep, and cover the seed piece with the best eyes/sprouts facing up. When the green growth is 8 inches tall, or within 3 weeks, cover all but the top few inches of greenery with more soil.

This should leave you a small green potato top above ground level. All your potatoes will grow in between the seed piece and the soil level. Make sure you keep "hilling" or adding dirt, straw, or compost to keep new potatoes from breaking through the surface and being exposed to light.

For new potatoes harvest at least 60 days after planting, or when potatoes are the size you want. For storage potatoes wait 2 weeks after the vines/bush totally die back. Harvest carefully, especially new potatoes, as they will bruise and injure more easily than the storage potatoes that were properly cured before harvest.

Make sure potato beds have lots of organic matter and compost. I am planting mine in my newest beds, which aren't quite ready yet for other crops. That's the nice thing about potatoes, you can grow them in just about anything, including beds that aren't ideal.These beds have a lot of straw and manure, and were built over the winter. My only concern is that some of the beds may compost and create too much heat, so with those I will reduce the mound and add finished soil to the trenches when I plant. I don't want to bake the potatoes before I harvest!

So Far So Good!

Well I have been busily planting since my last post, and today took an even bigger risk and planted squash. If we get any wet cold weather, I may lose it, but it's easy enough to replant if that happens. If not I am ahead of the game.

Today was very productive. I planted summer squash, cucumbers, pumpkin, ginger, and a ton of tomatoes. I don't generally plant hybrids, but after last season's disaster with blight and blossom rot (everyone in this area struggled with tomatoes last year) followed by a sudden heat wave, I thought I would add some hybrid tomatoes to the mix, planted far enough away from my heirlooms to keep them pure.

With the hybrid tomatoes, I planted the seeds in the bare spots in my over wintered beds. These beds contain a mix of escarole, endive, onions, leeks, arugula and collards. I am hoping that the tomatoes will come up quickly enough to shade some of these winter marvels to slow bolting.

I did the same thing with the greens last Fall, and I am seeing now my planning is paying off. In one of my beds I have spinach interplanted with collards.

Now the collards are growing faster than the spinach, and providing partial shade to the spinach, which prefers cooler temps. Spinach will bolt and get bitter quickly if it's too warm.

I am also thrilled to see my onions doing so well. These guys are planted down the center of my bed, which last fall contained lettuces and mesclun mix. Now I have cabbages and turnips coming up on either side. Onions are a great companion for almost any veggie except things you want to stay sweet tasting.

My beans haven't come up yet, but it's only been a week. My peas are coming up though. I planted Alaska and sugar snap peas. The high sugar content makes these guys tolerant to frost. I will replant the same type again this summer for my Fall harvest.

Next to my peas are more collards. They look different than they did in the Fall. Last Fall they were big and lanky, with enormous leaves. This Spring they are more compact and appear almost to be heading, although this variety is non-heading, a result I suspect of the cold winter.

The taste is quite excellent. The leaves are a bit less smooth than they were in the Fall, and are a bit sturdier. My arugula did the same thing, and both I think are quite improved in taste and texture, even if the leaves are smaller. A few of the collards in this bed are bolting, which is a mixed blessing. I want the seed of these hardy little buggers, but I hate the thought of not having collards again until Fall.

One of the greatest blessings about this lifestyle is I get to work outside and watch everything that happens. I get to listen to the birds, watch the Sandhill Cranes fly north (I can't believe the numbers I've seen this year!) and I get to watch my horses and the cow do what they do. And sometimes they watch me as I bend on sit and scrape and rake and pull and plant and water and spray. It's a glorious life! I am so thankful for the opportunity God has given me to experience the joy of tending His garden.

Going out on a limb

Well, I may be wrong about an early Spring. I am looking at long range forecasts through early March, and it looks like the current trend will stay, at least through then.

So I have decided today to go out and plant frost tolerant plants, direct seeding. I will be putting out tons of Alaska peas, onions to fill in the spots where some of my fall planted onions got eaten by bunnies, leeks, watercress, carrots, and I am going to start my eggplants and some potato seeds inside. I've never started potatoes from actual seeds before, so this should be interesting.

I am hoping that we don't get any more freezing weather, which we shouldn't, but we will of course get plenty of frost, so I will reevaluate on March first what the forecast looks like, and maybe start planting early. I have a lot of seed that's getting older that needs to get planted out anyway, so I may start with those seeds, overseeding a bit just to be sure I get germination.

In trying to decide between transplanting and direct seeding, I have always started seed inside in early spring, and know how those seedlings fare. So this year I thought I'd try direct seeding outside while it's still cool. Germination will be lower, but the quality of the surviving plants will be much higher than transplanted seedlings, and they will produce better.

Keeping my fingers crossed. Lots of new experiments happening this year!

I don't believe Phil

OK, Phil says an early Spring. For some reason I am reluctant to believe him. Perhaps that's because last year he told us a late Spring, but we actually had excellent planting weather more than 2 weeks before our average last frost date.

Yellow Granex Onions

This year he says early Spring, but as I'm typing this it's pouring ice and sleet and snow outside, with no warming trend anywhere in sight. I'm ready to start planting, the birds are singing, and I've seen the cranes flying North, but I don't see a lot of other signs that Spring really is near.

Despite my reservations, there are still a lot of chores to do to get ready. I have been working like a dog trying to get 10 new beds ready to receive potatoes, sweet potatoes and squash. I also spent the last few days cleaning up older beds and taking stock of what veggies have made it through the pretty brutal Winter.

I was so pleased to find that most of my collards and onions had survived, even the itty bitty sprouts that I seeded last October are hanging in there. I can't believe that they have survived temps down near zero with no apparent damage. I plan to allow a few go to seed in the Spring.

I planted bunching onions, American Flag leeks, and Yellow Granex sweet onions. The only problems I've really had is that bunnies have gotten in and are mowing off the tops. They should be fine if I can figure out how to keep the rarebits at bay.

Georgia Collards

I am also very impressed with my Georgia collards. This is the first year I have grown collards, and they were unbelievably productive and sweet all through the first snow. Since then they've just been hanging on, not doing much but making small rosettes. I suspect they're just biding their time waiting for better weather. I'm hoping I get at least a few weeks of greens from them before they bolt, but I definitely want the seeds from these guys as well.

Grand Rapids leaf lettuce

One of the most important aspects of sustainable living and gardening is seed saving, something I have been rather lax about over the past couple of years. But it's so important that any plants that thrive and produce in your soil, you save. Even if you plant a hundred of one particular type, and only one or two survive drought, flood, cold, heat, pests, etc., for whatever reason that one specimen has the genetic potential to thrive in your particular growing conditions.

That's God working through the process of "survival of the fittest" evolution, something you can see occur in a single generation in your garden. Those specimens that can't adapt get eliminated and do not pass on their genetics to any future generations.

I had good luck this year with my lettuces. I had planted about 1000 head of leaf varieties, and my survivors today are Red Sails, Redina, Freckles, and Grand Rapids, all varieties designed to tolerate cold temps. They did not survive unscathed, most of their outer leaves got burnt, but they are already producing new rosettes.

Chinese Tatsoi

One of my most amazing survivalists was a single head of chinese Tatsoi, a beautiful chinese cabbage that can be used like spinach, eaten raw in salads, or stir fried. I'm not sure if it will self pollinate, so I will plant a couple more next to it this Spring just to be sure I get viable seed.

Roquette (Rocket) Arugula

Other survivors were all of my spinach, escarole and curly endive, my red russian kale, and of course that old work horse of winter gardens, arugula. If you haven't grown and enjoyed arugula, you are really missing out. While we did have some die back, the new leaves are smaller and a little tougher than the foliage they produced in the Fall, and the flavor is excellent.

So even though it looks like we will have a couple more months of cold wet weather, I can't help but notice those giddy feelings of excitement when I start thinking about the glorious weather ahead and all the fun I'm going to have sitting out in my garden planting, weeding, listening to the birds and watching the horses and the cow enjoying the first grass of the year out in the pasture. It's gonna be a great year, if it ever gets here!

Gardens bring us together

Even though Spring is still out of reach, at least the snow and ice have melted, and we've had a couple of days where at least the sun was out, even if it didn't get much above freezing. And of course we're supposed to get more snow tomorrow night.

So I am trying to cram as much prep time in as possible. Today I dug 2 more potato beds, charred several other beds, and weeded and worked the over wintered beds, checking on my winter veggies. that was a bit disappointing.

My veggies have struggled all Winter against ice and snow, only to succumb now to what appears to be a single hungry bunny. I scared him up out of my bok choi bed a couple of weeks ago, but apparently I wasn't scary enough to keep him away, and he's been busily keeping my greens nicely trimmed of any new growth. (sigh...)

But even with the dismal outlook for any fresh greens this Spring, there are little glimmers of hope. My Russian Kale and baby Collards are hanging tough, and their wilted frozen leaves have given us an opportunity to make a new friend.

"Pardon" our rescued Simbrah calf has discovered that we aren't as scary as she thought we were. We've been working on getting her used to us being around her, and trying to get her to come when she's called. Every time she moves toward us and comes within a foot or so, she gets a yummy green leaf.

Even though that part's going well, as you can see in the pic,  I haven't really been able to touch her without her backing away in fear. But today we had a breakthrough. She came up to me and was begging me to go pick her some greens. She sniffed my hands, gave me lots of licks, and for the first time didn't bolt away.

Of course I obliged, and for the first time I was able to sneak in a few pets on her muzzle while she nibbled. It was great to see her so relaxed. Finally! Never underestimate the power of green!

Spring, Oh Spring, where art Thou?

Well so much for the "warm dry winter" that our local forecaster predicted. After 5 days we are still buried under 6-7 inches of solid ice. The fate of my winter veggies seems bleak at this point, but they had made it through all of the other freezes we have had over the past 2 months, so maybe we'll have some luck. Ice is supposed to protect plants by insulating them from wind chill and moisture, so we'll just have to wait and see.

The ice has been a real problem for us. The horses won't go outside, and they are all getting cabin fever. The dog and the cat hate going out because they slide down the hill. The ice is so thick they can't break through to walk safely. Today even the horses were having a hard time breaking through the ice when I forced them out into the paddocks. The cracking under hoof was pretty scary!

The huge amount of snow (huge for Georgia anyway) has allowed us some fun. Mom and I built a snowman on the driveway. He's pretty cute. Freaked the dog. We've had the snowman about 4 days now and the dog is still growling at him when we walk by.

Goldie is a golden/chow/some sort of hunting breed mix. Total mutt. But his greatest joy is the snow. He gets so excited when he knows there's fresh snow on the ground, and he gets me up early in the morning to go out and play. It's like kids at Christmas.

But the ice has been a problem for him, and isn't any fun to play on. He can't make snowballs or roll in it, and his tongue sticks to it in the early morning. Lucky for him there was a little patch of snow on the porch where he usually likes to lay in the sun that was still mostly fluffy snow. We got some great pics of my little snow bunny all curled up in his snow nest. Pure paradise! Makes me think he has husky or malamute in him somewhere back a ways.

It's been an interesting Winter in other ways as well. We rescued a cow that showed up on our property. She had a lasso around her neck and what I thought were rodeo tags on her sides, so I assumed she had escaped from an arena during a local event.

Long story short, she was a slaughter animal that escaped from the man who had bought her. It took us a week to catch her, and by the time we got her she was thin and dehydrated and just pitiful.

But we got her on Thanksgiving day, and so decided to call her "Pardon." She is adorable, and she has a perfect little cross on her right cheek. It took us 2 weeks to figure out how to corral her so we could get the rope off her neck. Our first few attempts were a disaster.

She's doing well now, recovering from a couple of common illnesses that cattle get from the "cow pound," and learning how to be a "pet" cow. Considering she's never had any positive interaction with humans, and in fact has had a pretty rough go of it so far, her recovery has been dramatic. She's playful and inquisitive, she's not terribly afraid of us anymore, and in fact she comes up to sniff our hands looking for treats, and stalls up on command every night.

I know this isn't really a gardening post, but she will be helping us with our compost production, so technically that counts, right?

OK, back to the garden blog.