2008 Overview

Hello All,

2008 was a busy time for us on the farm. In March we purchased the property while there was still snow on the ground. In fact it was one of the worst winters Maine has seen in almost 100 years. We got a total of over 200 inches of snow and it didn't all melt until the middle of May, and even then there was still snow in the tree lines.

Since we have a fairly short growing season on an average year up here, no more than a 100 days or so, last year was a difficult year to start a new garden. We had no time to till our half acre garden plot and wait for the weeds to rear their ugly heads and till again. So we turned over our grassy plot, took out the chucks of sod, made rows and got to planting.

Needless to say it wasn't long before the grass and weeds began to take over. But in true greenhorn style we weren"t going to let the weeds win. By the end of the season we were weeding with a weed whip and a lawn mower but we salvaged our garden and had enough produce to freeze and can for the winter. On a happy note if we had done the garden right we probably wouldn't of had anything to show for it. We got a lot of rain in the spring and a lot more in the summer and most people's gardens out here got hit with blight, but thanks to all our weedy competition our veggies didn"t suffer a bit. We harvested lettuce, peas, green beans, potatoes, carrots, turnip, zucchini, summer squash, tomatoes, beets, onions, and one acorn squash.

Ahh.. the acorn squash. Chalk that up to another greenhorn mistake. Up here when growing winter squash one must pinch off the flowers on the vine to get them to produce fruit faster before the killing frost gets them sometime during August. I didn't know this but there's always 2009 to try try again. Anyways, we were able to sell a small amount of tomatoes and beets, and all in all I was pleased with our experience as first time gardeners. It can only get better from here.

We also planted our apple orchard in spring and have yet to wait out the winter to see which of our 48 two year old trees have survived. In Jan. of 2009 we experienced one of the coldest days in Maine's history 53 degrees below zero.... That's without the windchill. We had a good ground cover of snow by that time so God willing our trees are okay. We shall see this spring around May.

We've done quite a bit of remodling to our 1890's farm house. New kitchen, added a second bath, all new pergo floors( we have a season here in maine that comes before spring called mud), and new carpet in the bedrooms. So as I said before 2008 was a busy year. We look forward to the Spring of 2009 and hope you will check back often... I'm sure we'll be doing lost of things wrong and we should be able to give everyone a good laugh.