See How We've Grown!

It's late spring, and we've started our early harvest season. The gardens have really come to life. We spend so much time working in the gardens, sometime it's easy to forget what they used to look like. So, a little reminder! I'm really looking forward to seeing how the gardens will grow and change in the coming months.

Mary's garden.

Winona garden.

Perry garden.

Karla's garden.

Erin's garden.

Gates family garden.

In the News - Westword blog

Lori Midson is a food writer from Westword. She sat at the table next to me during the first Highland MiMa (Micro Market), and is going to be covering the market throughout the summer for Westword. 

Check out her first story by clicking this link:

http://blogs.westword.com/cafesociety/2009/05/mima_may_very_well_be_the_miniest_farmers_market_in_the_world.php

The First Market

On Thursday we participated in our first Farmer's Market - the Highland MiMa.  It's a small, ultra-local community market, held on the patio of our neighborhood coffee joint Generous Servings. 

We had a great time at the market and were surprised to get such a large response from the community on our first day. We had a nice array of salad greens - 6 kinds of lettuce, spinach, arugula, wild rocket, garden cress, pepper cress, spicy micro greens, and mint. I found it is pretty tough to keep the greens from wilting, so I chatted with the wonderful Kipp Nash from Community Roots in Boulder, and he gave me some ideas to use next week. 

We've got Brian's photos in a slideshow - please click the link below to view!

www.eatwhereulive.com/HG-Photos-MiMa1/HG-MiMa-5-14-09.html

Homecoming!

On Sunday we brought home our two new "kids" - Dasha and Peaberry. They are both female Nigerian Dwarf goats. Dasha (the brown goat) is 7 months old, and Peaberry (the blonde goat) is 2 months old.

The goats have settled very nicely in their new home, and enjoy spending time with Lucy, the cats, and the chickens (in addition to their new Mom and Dad). We're still putting the finishing touches on the barnyard, like adding hooks to the fenceposts for the feed buckets.

You can click the link below to view our slideshow of our little goats. It will take a minute to load!

www.eatwhereulive.com/Goats/Photos/Goats-5-3-09.html

Building the Barnyard

The week before the goats were due to arrive home we spent the morning building the fencing for our little city barnyard.

Our cedar fenceposts - set in concrete the day before.

Our barnyard-to-be.

A peek inside the greenhouse.

Baby tomatoes.

Anne working on the trench for the fencing. We buried the fence a foot underground to help protect against predators.

Going deep with the posthole digger.

Judy digging under the gate.

Tom.

Keith working to reinforce the perimeter fence.

Chad working on the trench.

Bringing in the fencing.

Can you see Lucy in the background?

We have just a few feet of perimeter fence that are over sod instead of concrete. Keith is cementing bricks under the fence.

A "Lucy break."

Pulling the fencing taut.

Setting it in the trench. We had to work around a number of pipes and wires.

Measuring - gotta make sure it's a foot deep! 

Refilling the trench.

Last bit of the fence.

Surveying a job well done!

The crew.