Gearing Up Again

This odd thing happens at the end of every growing season:  we furiously gather the bounty, then sprint inside and peel, slice, freeze, boil, and can until we pass out in our food-stained aprons all over the living room.  Really.  This is what canning days look like.  They always end with two or more of us lounging/napping/staring-stunned-into-the-distance. 

And then this happens...nothing.

Clean-up?  Like, clean off all the beds and prepare for spring? 

I am worked.  No way.  Or in the case of last fall, "there's a crazy man living with us and we all are therefore running around all crazy."

Not this year. 

Not going to happen.  We have decided to get serious - not only about producing - but about making this space produce enough for us all within the next year or two. 

That and crazy people aren't welcome here any more. 

Well, the good crazy ones are fine, it's those bad crazy that you have to watch for.  Good crazy would mean we couldn't live here either!

New things happening this year:

1.  A ton of ground will be rototilled and then planted in green manure (legumes this year - calorie crop next year).  The largest space will be the "alley easement" that is basically a long driveway along one side of our lot.
2.  Another large-ish piece will be tilled and planted with potatoes.  I am really interested in what the soil here looks like - it's been our compost heap (not a well-managed region) for two years.  It is now moving up in the world, it's going to be soil.
3.  There is a strip of ground between our sidewalk and the street.  Not much going on there, so we're going to till it up too and plant stuff.  It's 4' x 120' I'm pretty sure.  Hopefully it'll be a lot of stuff, but it's going to have to be some kind of "stuff" that likes crummy soil and wind....bet that's a long list.  It will get better with use though, and may very well just be planted in green manure also.  Clover's nice...hmm.
4.  We will have both children running around wild and helping us this year.  I am really excited about this!  They both are very good about plants, barring a few incidents, and really love to see things grow.  Between the two of them though, we may not have many tomatoes actually making it in the house.  There are much worse things to worry about though : )  Besides, they're much, much cuter than tomato worms.

We cleaned up around the cold frame yesterday, and Rick and Thomas built all the panels for it (we are getting good too - these are much better than last years).  I will post photos once the snow we got today melts a bit.