Countdown to Harvest

Harvest? Whoa there Nelly! I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, but I couldn’t help thinking about the soon-to-be fruits of my labor while I was busy prepping our plots. We’ll start to see pumpkins that are ready to harvest in as little as 90-100 days! That means that some of the Jack-Be-Little pumpkins will be ready by the second week of August, which is perfect since we’ll be starting on our business’s fall projects.

All of this talk about the future made me realize that I often forget to enjoy the present moment, especially when I feel like I only have a certain amount of time to get something done, but my “looking to the future” is justified as delayed planting has been a huge problem for most of the Midwest, especially the corn farmers who have only planted a 1/4 of the corn crops so far. Despite the cold and wet weather putting a damper on my gardening, I promised myself that going forward, I’m going to savor every gardening day, even the humid / 90+ degree days.

The day Mar-Duke farm opened (Friday, May 6th) was also the day Mary and I were to get a quadrant of our amalgams removed, so of course we were stuck in traffic during rush hour while twenty cubic yards of compost sit waiting to be spread and the threat of rain imminent. Thanks to President Grant and handful of eager basketball players at McCollum Park (as well as Mary and my mom), I was able to get the compost spread in just over two hours. I also had enough time to add my soil amendments (dried blood, gypsum and sulfur).

Saturday was spent tilling, planting seeds and transplanting starters. The entire process took about 6 hours and left Mary and I with dozens of aches and pains to complain about for the next few days. Nevertheless, the hard part is done and the fun part begins! Check out the virtual tour of our garden!

Mar-Duke Farm – Downers Grove, IL in USA