Some things to accomplish...

I had planned to include all of this with my meal plans post on Sunday, but ended up being rushed for time and so cut that post very short. So here we go with the rest of the details I didn't include... :)

This is a very busy time for many people with all the spring chores to do outside. We have over five and a half acres, so we definitely have our work cut out for us, just in managing the three and a half acres that we try to keep maintained... picking up sticks, mowing, etc. Not to mention the huge veggie garden I've had planned for this season. Kevin has been tilling up the new garden area - its out back beyond the fence by the orchard rather than right up by the house this year. And I've been planting lots of veggies over the last month... peas, spinach, yukina savoy, lettuce, potatoes, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, carrots, pac choi, dill, parsley... I think that's the list so far anyway... though I think I'm missing something. This week and weekend I'll be planting the majority of the rest of our seeds, so I've got my work cut out for me right there. I'm sure I'll still be planting next week and the following weekend, too, just because it is such a large area.

I'm also dedicating some areas for berry patches this year. We had raspberries in our yard when we moved in, but they're not in the ideal location, so I'm moving them into a patch back near the orchard. I also received some raspberry transplants from someone I work with, so those are there, too. I also have made a blackberry patch with two Darrow blackberry bushes we picked up at the local nursery. I'll be focusing on cleaning up the orchard this summer, too. I know its not the best time to prune, but I'm not counting on any edible fruits this year anyway, so I'm going to do some MAJOR pruning of the apple and pear trees... top them off and thin them way out. They're just way too big to be manageable right now. I want to maintain them organically and I just don't think I'll get them under control until I do some major pruning. This will be a summer-long project, though, since we have so many fruit trees already.

We're also considering having some major excavation work done in our front yard. We need to do it, just aren't sure yet on the timing. We have some standing water issues that need to be fixed, so we're going to hire someone to bring in dirt and re-grade our yard to address some of the drainage issues. We'll either do this in the next two weeks, or we'll wait till fall, we just haven't completely decided on that yet. I'd like to get it done now so that we can get the landscaping started in the front. We've finally figured out what we want to do in front and what we want to plant. If we're going to do this now, though, we will need to cut down the crabapple tree in the front yard and rent a stump grinder to get rid of the six stumps in the front. I'll be looking into that this week.

So anyway, that is just a short glimpse of some of the things happening at our place this spring. We'll see what we accomplish in the next couple of weeks... :)