week 1: "on your knees!"

We've just finished our first official work week on Chanticleer Gardens, and both Sean and I have zero regrets coming here.  Each morning we wake up at 6:30, step out of our camper to gorgeous 60 degree weather, and headed up to the house for breakfast.  The usual work schedule seems to be 7:30-12, then lunch until 12:45ish, then back to work until 2 or 2:30.  We get two days off a week, which we're looking forward to tomorrow.  This week had a general flow of working a couple of hours in the greenhouse right away in the morning (before it starts to get too warm), and then tackle weeding elsewhere, harvesting, or some other miscellaneous maintenance project.

Week 1 projects

Weeding, weeding, and more weeding
Ken and Susan haven't had much help in the past couple of months, so a lot of the greenhouse plots and the gardens have gotten out of hand.  Crabgrass and Morning Glories are the two biggest enemies.  As Susan says, we have to put in time "on your knees!".  (Laura Winholt, if you're reading this, I've had plenty of opportunity to practice my hip hinging)

Greenhouse: Before

Greenhouse: After

We're just about finished with weeding the greenhouse.  This was a big priority because many of the tomatoes needed to be harvested, but all of the walking paths around them were inundated with tall grasses.  Orange cherry tomatoes and julienne tomatoes served as "encouragement snacks" along the way.  You can see that we also added some trellises for the cucumbers to climb upon.

soon-to-be stone garden

I don't have a "before" photo of this one, but this stone garden was covered in tall grasses as well.  We cleared out almost everything, and next week we'll plan out what will be planted.  This is very close to the house, so it would be nice to have some herbs and lettuce for quick grabbing.

welcome garden

Again, no "before" photo.  This is a small flower area right outside of their flower room.  Yes, they have a flower room.  This area was in need of some love too, especially since customers and friends walk in and out of this space often.


Food Harvesting

So many blueberries!  Ken and Susan have about a dozen blueberry bushes, and a handful of them were extremely prolific.  We spent a whole afternoon just picking.  Sean's hat kept getting stuck in the netting, but other than that, it was a very enjoyable task.  The only major downside is that the blueberries experienced a fruit fly infestation.  The flies lay their eggs inside the blueberries, and then the larva hatches and eats from the inside out.  When we opened up some of the softer berries, we could actually see the larvae squirming around inside.  Needless to say, we didn't snack on many of them.  Since Ken and Susan don't sell any of their food, it's no big deal.   They freeze the berries and use them throughout the winter.  Ken says he doesn't mind the extra protein.

Paisley in her usual supervising role

Ken sharing some thoughtful insight, I'm sure

Potato harvesting is essentially digging for treasure.  It was my favorite task this week by far.  Not pictured are two other varieties (red and purple), but this gold variety is Susan's favorite.  She claims they taste like butter.  I look forward to smothering some of their grass-fed butter all over these "butter potatoes".  Ken said this year wasn't as productive as previous years and he's not sure why.

These were the only "big harvests" of the week, but plenty of harvesting happens day-to-day for lunches and dinner.  We eat their garden fresh tomatoes, summer squash, broccoli, green beans, and bell peppers.  There's really no shortage of fresh produce at Chanticleer, which makes me a happy lady.

Flower picking
This week Susan provided flowers to a large wedding, so she used our help to "clip and strip" both wild and planted flowers on their property.  We started off on Wednesday by taking a walk around their property to clip the numerous wildflowers that have self-seeded on their land (Black-eyed Susan, Queen Anne's Lace, Goldenrod, Tansy...)

except the hydrangeas, these are all wildflowers

The next day we went to the greenhouses and gardens to clip the rest of the flowers.  The goal was the clip the longest stem possible, and then strip the stem of any leaves.  The stripping ensures that the plant doesn't waste energy on the leaves, which preserves the flower itself better over the following days.  I only snapped a few photos of them before we clipped.

strawflower

I forget what this is called...

Tiger Lily

Once we clipped to Susan's liking, she started arranging them in her flower room, and I peeked in from time to time to see her progress.  Susan is good friends with the woman who owns the local flower shop, and she also used Susan's flower room as her workspace to prepare for FIVE weddings this weekend.  So, there were a lot of flowers in that room.  So much beauty everywhere!

the flower room

I took a stab at arranging to brighten up the camper

Other garden maintenance

We added a simple string barrier around the flower beds to keep some of the taller plants from falling on the walking path.  Ken mows the walkways, and it was annoying for him to pull aside all the drooping flowers as he worked.  It should be a great deal easier for him now.

Squash bugs

two squash bug eggs

Pest control!  "Squash bugs" eat the leaves of summer squash plants and can end up destroying the crop.  Ken pointed this out and told us to check on the leaves whenever we think about it.  We kill the bugs and scrape the eggs off the leaves.  Not the nicest task, but I'll take this to having pesticides in my food any day.

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After we finish work for the day, our afternoons are free to swim in the pond, take a hike around their property, do yoga in their upstairs studio (gorgeous), read on the porch, or go explore the nearby parks.  One night after dinner, Susan took us to the local creamery for ice cream.  They have 12 dairy cows which get milked every morning, and then the ice cream parlor is open 12-8 daily.  Definitely the best ice cream I've ever had... dangerous... 

Things didn't go exactly to plan with our camper.  Ken helped to set up our electrical hook-up, but accidentally gave the camper too high of voltage and it roasted our inverter.  So we don't have electricity in there until we get the inverter replaced.  Not a big deal, since we are rarely in it other than to sleep.  I enjoy Ken and Susan's porch so much that I spend most of my time there. 

Paisley is settling in quite nicely.  Ken is super relaxed and is fine with her following us around all day.  So she spends her days romping around the farm, sunbathing, and getting the occasional frisbee session in between tasks.  If only we could teach her to pull weeds....  Ken and Susan have an older dog named Raven, who is very protective of his food bowl (I understand).  So they've gotten in a few fights when Paisley tried to walk in his area.  But when they're outside of the house together they get along very well.  They also have two cats, "Artemis" and "Happy Birthday".  You didn't misread that -- their granddaughter named her.  We call her "HB".  I can't find her right now, so pictures will come later.  She's part maine coon and is super pretty.

Raven

Artemis

We only left the farm once this week and that was to visit Pawtuckaway State Park.  That's the park I worked at in 2015 as Interpretive Ranger, so I was very eager to get back.  A quick visit to my dear friend Clare at the main office was in order, and then we wandered around the boulder field.  

boulder trail 

group shots are hard