March – the month that welcomes Spring – is here! Before we get into Spring, let’s talk about what was accomplished in this last month.

Flowers By BHG

A large portion of this month has even spent preparing for our Flowers by BHG subscription. We have planted so many flower varieties and still have plenty more to go! In the high tunnel we have planted our ProCut Sunflowers and Marigolds are reappearing from seeds dropped from last year. We will allow most of those to grow while those that are in the walkways will be relocated to more suitable locations.

Our in ground beds have been topped off with Tulips, Gladiolus, and Lilies. Our Daffodils are already gracing us with their beauty as they, along with the Periwinkle, are the first flowers to bloom on the farm. Still to be planted (in succession) are Calendula, Aster, and Zinnia. Fillers such as Basil and Snapdragons are already growing nicely. This season will have the largest variety yet and we cannot wait to begin arranging stunning bouquets! We still have slots open for new subscribers. Sign up closes April 1st!

Planting

Last month we informed you that we planned to plant fennel and kohlrabi the month of February. Unfortunately that was not accomplished. Those items have been moved to this month’s planting. We did however get to plant two rows of carrots in the high tunnel. Both of which are showing signs of life and doing well.

February is usually the month that we plant our potatoes. Somehow though we did manage to order them with the wrong shipping date! They won’t be here until sometime this month. We’re a little disappointed by this however given all we had going on this month I highly doubt that we would have had the time to get them in the ground anyway! So they also get moved to the March planting schedule.

So what did we actually plant the month of February? We did manage to get green onions, Asian greens, radishes, and carrots planted. We hope all of these to be ready to harvest by next month for our first farmers market appearance at 2 The Olive Fruit April 30th. There will be various vendors and lots of home grown goodness along with music! It is bound to be a good time! Watch out for the details on our Instagram and Facebook pages.

We also started many trays of plants to install in the high tunnel and into raised beds. Among these are our herbs of which we are very excited about! We finally had success starting Thyme, Sage, & Garlic Chives from seed. These will get raised beds just for them as they are perennials in our area and we look forward to having them established once and for all on the farm! We have also been blessed to get a few Lavender and Culantro seeds to germinate! We are hopeful that they will continue to grow for us.

As we mentioned in our Hoopty Transformation video, we are also growing several new Jalapeno varieties this year that will be great for our salsas we plan to make this year.

We again over did it with the tomato plants! We of course planted the ones we know we needed for sustainability but we also added a few new ones that we are excited to grow. Among these are the Pink Fang, Gezahnte, and Orange Accordion – all from Baker Creek! As you can see from the photos in the links, these are beautiful heirloom tomatoes. We hope that they grow well here at Bain Home Gardens!

Harvests

We have been harvesting our Purple Cauliflower throughout the month. It definitely brings us great joy to be able to finally grow this beautiful crop after several years of trying. Carrots & Lettuce were harvested from the high tunnel as well. Due to how quickly the temperatures are changing on us we will not plant anymore Lettuce in Hoopty till the Fall. However we will be planting in our raised beds once more before Summer heat sets in.

The month of March we hope to begin harvesting our Pink Celery, Brussels Sprouts, and radishes.

The High Tunnel

The majority of the month of February was spent working on Hoopty! Out with the old and in with the new! So far we have applied our own home grown compost to 3 rows of 13 and have covered with ground cover. These three rows will house our tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and cucumbers. We still have more of our compost to move into the high tunnel but will need to supplement ours with an outside source to complete Spring planting in the high tunnel.

Each year we struggle with having a strong enough of a support for our cucumbers and tomatoes. This year we are not playing! We decided to go ahead and install a more permeant solution – cattle panel trellis. This week we plant to install the t-posts to attach our cattle panel trellises to. This should make the job of harvesting and pruning less strenuous. As Mr. Bain Home Gardener would say, ” I can get jiggy with that!”

MICROgreens by BHG

Our microgreen subscription is again open for new subscribers! We love these tiny powerhouse greens! Like all of our produce, our microgreens are Certified Naturally Grown. This year we celebrating microgreens week with our friends over at CNG! Why not ?! As a part of our celebration, we are offering those who sign up this week (through March 6th) one free week of microgreens with your order!

The Animals

It really hurts to even type these words. However we said we would share with you the good and THE BAD so here it is. We are very sad to say that we had a sentinel event on the farm in which all of our Lionhead rabbits were killed. Kimba, Nala, and the guy who started it all , Simba have all been laid to rest. I know that these type of things will happen when dealing with farm animals but my heart is so broken. I cried like a baby upon discovery of this event. Of my rabbits Gizmo (Holland Lop New Zealand) and Misty Blue (Standard Rex/Single Mane Lionhead) are the only two survivors. I will begin to rebuild my flock but only after certain precautions (such as a completely enclosed electric area for additional protection from predators) are completed. This of course derails the plans we had for breeding but that is really the least of our current concerns. If you are however among those that were looking to adopt a kit from the Lionhead family then we apologize for that delay. We will also mention that Thai’s rabbits were thankfully unaffected and she will continue her breeding schedule as planned.

While the rabbits have decreased in number our chicken flock is growing. We have adopted another rooster who we appropriately named Oogly. We have also added 3 new girls Trixie, Blue, and Summer. For the latest news with them feel free to check our our Flock Update which will be posted on our YouTube channel later this week. Zig’s flock is doing great in fact all the girls are now laying – even the youngest – Noisy! Kong’s flock is also doing well as some of them have almost fully recovered from molting.

We are happy to report that we are certifying our chicken flock as Certified Naturally Grown. They are fed USDA Certified feed along with organic produce from the farm. They really are spoiled and that is just fine by us!

YouTube

This month was a weird month for videos. Between our video editing app malfunctioning and upgrading devices, serveral videos we had planned to upload were not uploaded. We have started getting these up and will be uploading more over the next few days! We appreciate your patience and support while we work through these issues.

This Week’s Listings

We are so happy to offer for the very first time Wheatgrass! We grow this as a part of our MICROgreens by BHG line. The best way to ingest this super food is by extracting the juice. The simplest way to do this is by using a wheat grass juicer. If you do not have one here are some other techniques you can use. We will be utilizing some of these as well until our extractor comes in the mail.

This week we continue to offer Leaf Broccoli, Kale varieties, Collards, Red Giant Mustards, and Rosemary. We are also adding a few orders of the Winter Salad blend back to stock. We have also added our tender garlic tops which we have been using ourselves for seasoning – SO TASTY!

With all this home grown goodness it may be hard to decide just WHAT TO GET! Then let us help. By ordering our Greens Box or the Farm Sampler Basket you get a nice variety of our Certified Naturally Grown produce!

Well guys that is it in a nutshell! Till next time…