Winter is slowly creeping our way and you would think work would be winding down on THF. Not when Ron is in charge. He has all sorts of projects in mind and plans to pull Jo and me into them. We have continued to be surprised by the Shiitakes popping up.
While we have two small patches of “wild” ramps already going, Ron wants to grow lots more.
For those of you who don’t know what ramps are, they are wild leeks but look like scallions and are used like mild garlic. We picked some in the spring and tried making pesto out of them. It wasn’t bad but we obviously have some more experimenting to do. Once the buds turned to seed, Ron had me sew up some bags out of tulle so he could catch the seeds. I ran up a dozen or so and used embroidery thread as the string to tie them off. He was most pleased with them. Out to THF he went with them and slipped them over all the seed heads he could find. Several weeks later we checked on the bags and found that birds had apparently pulled all the strings out.
Guess they wanted to add some color to their nests. The one in front on left is the only one with string still remaining. Ron must have tied that one tighter.
He got his order of ramp seeds in and counted them out into groups of 100. He fashioned his own little packets for them. He is such a creative guy. Though Jo has a totally different sets of words for him.
The three of us headed out the to Tiny House Farm to plant the seeds. Easy enough task. Just raked back the fallen leaves, scratched up the ground, scattered seeds and then covered them back up with the leaves. The red flags are to help us find them next spring. We hope.
The 
While we have blue cohosh growing wild on the far end of our property, Ron decided that we should grow black cohosh too. His plan is to grow and hopefully sell forest products and herbs could be a big part of that.
He built 2 foot square boxes and bought top soil and compost so we could plant seeds and see what happens. With the change in weather; bringing us lots of rain Ron was no longer able to drive his Transit onto THF. Could not risk getting stuck. I can just picture the tow truck driver’s face as he came to rescue us. Though that would make a great blog post. Now he had to walk in, get the wheeler and trailer and drive them up to the road so we could load everything up. Once again, I am so glad that he talked me into buying that 4 wheeler. (but don’t tell him I said that).
Luckily Jo had the day off so not only was she a huge help hauling things, but she took some pictures of me working on the Farm. First we raked back the leaves and positioned the beds. A mixture of soil and compost were put in each one and then we sprinkled one packet of seeds into each of 3 of the beds. I patted them down into the soil.
Then we covered them up with leaves. Now all we can do is wait for next spring to see how well they grow. It will be several years before we have a viable crop. With every new venture Ron keeps reminding me that we are on a 10 year plan. It is a good thing I have lots of patience and love for my crazy guy.
