Broke back bunnies

Chores are never boring. For instance, I can always count on the animals to keep me busy or entertained. The other day I walked in on two bunnies going at it. I was a little concerned that they were brother and sister. Not to worry I was told, they were two males. Ahhhh, I see. Aside from the cowboy bunny action, the baby bunnies are out of their little kit (nest) and are pretty darn adorable. They fit in the palm of my hand and they super soft. Lady the goat follows us around in the barn while we feed out the hay, jumping in the piles of hay or making friends with the steers. Never a dull moment.

Even with all that snow, it felt like spring on Thursday. Not because of the temperature, but because we fired up the greenhouse and started the first round of seedlings. Lise (assistant gardener) demonstrated the process. First she emptied a bag of the blackest earth that had a slight oniony smell to it. Then she formed the dirt into a doughnut ring and sprinkled a tablespoon of mycorrhizal fungi powder mixture (this makes nutrients in the soil more readily available to the plant) and then we dumped 3/4 cup of azotite ( a mineral mix). Then in the center a generous amount of water was dumped and we mixed the soil with the water so that it was damp but not soaked. We filled several trays (that contained 128 spots) with the soil mixture.

We seeded onions, parsley, celeriac, leeks and green onions. Most of the individual spots received three seeds. After filling the trays we placed our fancy tongue depressor labels with the date, name of plant and variety, and gave then gave the tray a good watering. The set-up is pretty ingenious. There is a flexible hose that snakes around the table and the trays rest on top of it. This basically transfers heat to the roots of the plants, instead of heating the air in the greenhouse, which saves money. The plan is to seed once a week for the next several weeks. We will be checking the trays everyday and watering when necessary. It was nice to get my hands in some dirt.