on-farm progress

I work mondays, wednesdays and fridays, with the occasional saturday thrown in for good measure.

but I was off of work last friday and this monday while out of town, and upon returning on wednesday I discovered that things had carried on without me quite well: the farm was awash with verdant green and everything seemed to put on a few inches--weeds included, of course.

here are the most exciting things:

the strawberries which I'd transplanted and moved to a mound encircling the garden had gobs of green berries growing on each plant. better yet, some of them were a glowing shiny red, ready to be eaten (which they promptly were, by me).

the asparagus had not been picked by the family, so the three 25' long rows had very thick and very tall stalks every few inches. pounds and pounds of tender asparagus. I ate a lot of those, too. I almost prefer them raw.

the spinach which I'd seeded last fall were now going to seed themselves, while those that I planted as seedlings this spring were leafing out beautifully.

the rows of leeks, throughout which I also seeded a few varieties of carrots, were completely overrun with the seeds of the grass I'd painstakingly removed from that area. can anyone tell me what kind of grass this is? all of the photos on NCSU's turf grass website look about the same--this is the sort which has incredibly tough roots which grow along the ground and then root in, forming a dense network of roots and shoots which after just a few weeks establishes itself as an intractable carpet. the only way to remove it thoroughly (for each piece must come out or it will quickly re-establish itself) that I have found so far is to drive a sharp hand spade down and across the soil, breaking some of the roots and making openings in the mat of grass wide enough to allow a hand to grip and tug at the roots. as you can imagine, this takes a very long time and puts a lot of wear and tear on the fingers and wrist. I have cuts from thorns on my fingers which never get a chance to heal due to the grit and rip this process entails--and I can't find my best pair of gloves, which fit closely to the skin and allow one's fingers to function almost as well as they do when bare. oh well.

yesterday I spent a few hours uprooting the newly sprouted grass seeds while trying to avoid the carrot shoots. today I will reseed.

one last bit of nice news, for good measure: the crimson clover I'd seeded last fall in a bed in dire need of  more OM & N, which for most of the winter sat as a fuzzy pale mat, is now tall and bobbing around with deep red fuzzy flowers. I pulled up a few and found the roots sporting a good number of nodules. beautiful. I love it when things work out--and I can't wait to crimp those suckers and retire their bodies to the soil.