Today was in the high 80's and very very muggy.... it felt amazing but odd! I was fortunate to be outside aaalllll day, amazing. I started out the morning by harvesting what will probably be the final ramp harvest of the spring. All of the leaves are starting to wilt and die down, all good things must come to an end (or do they? I have frozen ramps, ramp pickles, compound butter, and pesto to last the year!).
After this I headed home and Dan and I made a hearty and delicious local breakfast that consisted of multi-grain pancakes with frozen blueberries (I cheated and used a bulk mix that's available from Whole Grain Milling Company, all ingredients are grown and milled on-site in Welcome, MN), scrambled eggs, and Maple Syrup that I made from our backyard maple trees (it's sooooo delicious, more on that process another time:).
Then it was time for some serious gardening! I spent the entire day constructing 5 raised beds and cleaning up the yard. Dan took a break from his studies (finals week for his first year of Law School, ugh, I feel very very sorry for him) and drove with me to the county compost yard where we dropped off several bags full of leaves and then shoveled our pick-up full of free compost. In fact, the wood for our raised beds was scavenged, the cardboard I placed at the bottom of the beds (to suppress weeds and it will compost and eventually become a part of the soil) was free, and the compost was free... it's a lot of hard-work but is well worth the price tag for all of the vegetables we'll be getting out of them this season!
Then it was time for some serious gardening! I spent the entire day constructing 5 raised beds and cleaning up the yard. Dan took a break from his studies (finals week for his first year of Law School, ugh, I feel very very sorry for him) and drove with me to the county compost yard where we dropped off several bags full of leaves and then shoveled our pick-up full of free compost. In fact, the wood for our raised beds was scavenged, the cardboard I placed at the bottom of the beds (to suppress weeds and it will compost and eventually become a part of the soil) was free, and the compost was free... it's a lot of hard-work but is well worth the price tag for all of the vegetables we'll be getting out of them this season!