March 2026 Update

Posted on March 29, 2026 by Dave @ HappyAcres

As usual, I have been busy this March with seed starting activities. So far I have started seeds for the brassicas, petunias, parsley, eggplant, tomatoes and peppers. Next up in the lineup will be the cucumbers and squashes. It keeps me busy with watering duties, and I am looking forward to getting some of them in the ground and containers next month.

brassica seedlings

I’ve been harvesting greens from the greenhouse and vegetable garden. About half of our collards survived the winter and I have been cutting leaves from them for our use. I got a nice haul a couple of weeks ago, almost three pounds of them.

Nancy Malone Wheat Purple collard plant

harvest of collard greens

I’m also cutting lettuce as needed from the greenhouse. I brought in two large heads of Bergam’s Green leaf lettuce, along with other varieties as well.

Bergam’s Green lettuce

mixed lettuce from greenhouse

The Bergam’s Green went into a wilted lettuce salad we had for dinner one night, which is always a favorite of mine.

wilted lettuce salad

I’ve been cutting the kale in the greenhouse as needed for soups and such. It’s a mix of curly types including Winterbor, Starbor and Scarlet. I used this batch to go in some bean and farro soup I cooked up. The kale does quite well in the winter greenhouse, and it is nice to have available this time of year when harvests are sparse.

curly kale

bean and farro soup with kale

And I’ve been busy baking bread as needed. I ground up some heirloom Turkey Red wheat berries to go in a loaf of sourdough bread and a batch of hamburger buns I made recently. It’s a tasty wheat for baking into breads, and I also used it to make a batch of dinner rolls recently.

Turkey Red sourdough bread

Moomie’s burger buns

We have a lot of early flowers blooming, and I will share pics of them in a later post. I hope you have enjoyed this update, and I’ll be back soon with more happenings from Happy Acres!

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February 2026 Update

Posted on February 28, 2026 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It has been a quiet month here when it comes to gardening. The weather was cold and snowy early in the month, and harvesting was minimal. I was able to cut some curly kale from the greenhouse, which was a mix of Scarlet and Starbor. It has held up well in the cold, and usually does well for me in the winter greenhouse. I lost some of the lettuce I had planted in there, but over a dozen plants survived and should give us leaves in a week or so.

curly kale

I used the kale and one of our Purple sweet potatoes from storage to make kale and sweet potato hash one night for a side dish. I cooked it in my ancient cast iron skillet that is well-seasoned from years of use!

kale and sweet potato hash

Earlier in the month I cooked up some ‘fried’ collard greens from the last of the leaves I cut back in January. I sliced the greens into fine shreds and cooked them in olive oil, and seasoned with a bit of salt. The leaves are so flavorful they don’t need more than that to suit my taste buds.

fried collards

It has been a busy month at the bird feeders. The big Pileated Woodpeckers have been frequent visitors, and I spied one sitting on the ground one day. It flew up to our fence for a bit before flying off, giving me a show for sure.

Pileated Woodpecker on ground

woodpecker on fence

I have been busy with seed starting activities, and I will have more on that soon. I hope you have enjoyed this update, and I’ll be back soon with more happenings from Happy Acres!

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Let the Seed Starting Begin – Again

Posted on February 2, 2026 by Dave @ HappyAcres

Once again it’s time to begin starting seeds for the garden. This time of year I start all of my seeds indoors using fluorescent lights setup in our basement. It’s way too cold out in the greenhouse, and this year I had to wade through the snow to even get in the greenhouse and bring some potting supplies indoors. Note to self – plan ahead next year! That said, it is unusual for us to have this much snow hang around. The cold is normal, but not the snow.

starting seeds

I start most of my seeds either in individual 3.5″ plastic pots or in plug flats. For a starting medium I use either a potting mix made for seed starting, or else an organic potting soil that is fine-textured without a lot of big, rough pieces in it. I prefer to use a seed starting mix without added fertilizer so I can add my own as needed. Once the seedlings are a couple of weeks old I will use a weak fish and seaweed fertilizer like Neptune’s Harvest to give them a little food. I like the seaweed fertilizers because they are unlikely to burn the tender seedlings, especially if they are mixed at half or less the recommended strength.

128, 72 and 50 cell plug flats

This week I am sowing seeds for parsley, the container eggplant varieties I grow, and a few of the hot peppers I plan to grow in containers. Next I will start seeds for greens like arugula and pac choi, tatsoi, mizuna and other mild mustard greens. Near the end of February I will start seeds for broccoli, cabbage and kohlrabi. You can find my general timeline in my Seed Starting and Planting Schedule.

I hope you have enjoyed this update, and I’ll be back soon with more happenings!

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January 2026 Update

Posted on January 30, 2026 by Dave @ HappyAcres

This month we have gone from one extreme to the other. We left behind the cold to visit Maui mid-month. We had a lovely time there, enjoying the warm weather and sampling foods we got from local farmer’s markets and restaurants. One of my favorite markets is held three times every week at the Queen Kaʻahumanu Center mall. There are usually eight to ten vendors there who have just about all the fresh produce you need, plus other items like baked good as well.

farmer’s market at mall

We typically eat our breakfast and evening meals at the condo where we stay, and those meals feature the local produce. One night we enjoyed a meal of roasted eggplant, okra, baby bananas and pineapple along with macadamia nut crusted mahi-mahi. Everything was local including the fish. We love eating local food whenever and wherever we go, and Maui is a great place to do it.

dinner with local goodies

We also ate salads on several occasions, and they featured local goodies including lettuce, carrots, cucumber, radish, jicama, macadamia nuts, sunflower shoots and goat cheese. We got the sourdough breads from a local bakery, and I made crostini or croutons to go with the salads.

salad for dinner

One highlight of our trip was a tour of a pineapple farm located on the slope of Mt. Haleakalā . It was an informative tour, and we came back with three Maui Gold pineapples to enjoy while we were there. The production of the pineapples is very labor intensive, with much done by hand. There were fields with pineapples in all stages of production, from newly set out, to flowering, and on to harvest stage. We also got to taste one right out in the field. You can’t get any more fresh than that!

pineapple field

pineapples sizing up

pineapple flower

When we returned it was bitterly cold and a few days later we got a big snowfall. I had harvested a few things before the trip, including lettuce from the greenhouse.

winter lettuce

And before the snow came, I made a large cutting of the heirloom collard greens I have growing in the vegetable garden. The leaves have been frosted on and frozen, and are tender and sweet tasting. We have enjoyed eating these for several meals and have a few more left.

assorted collard greens

The snow was a bit less than forecasted, about eight inches in our area though nearby places got over a foot. It was a dry, fluffy snow that blew about and drifted in places, and my wife and I stayed in for as few days until the roads improved and it was safe to venture out.

January snow

Next up on my agenda will be seed starting activities as well as garden planning. I hope you have enjoyed this update, and I’ll be back soon with more happenings from Happy Acres!

 

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Looking Back On 2025 – By The Month

Posted on January 3, 2026 by Dave @ HappyAcres

Today I thought I would recap some of what I did in 2025, in a month by month format. It was a busy year, with a lot happening both in the garden and outside it. My wife and I spent some time in January someplace sunny and warm: on the island of Maui in Hawaii. We visited Iao Valley one morning to see the sights and do a little hiking. The weather was cool and fellow hikers were willing to snap our pic for us. We also visited several of the Maui farmer’s markets, including the Upcountry Market where we got lots of local goodies and saw a lovely double rainbow as we were leaving.

waterfall at Iao Valley

overlook at Iao Needle

double rainbow at farmer’s market

Back home in February, we had snow. It wasn’t enough to have to shovel, but enough to make the roads slippery. It didn’t bother the lettuce in the greenhouse though, and I was able to keep us supplied for our salads.

February snow

snowy lettuce harvest

In March we saw the first of the daffodils blooming, they are always a welcome sight, signaling that spring is near.

early daffodils

In April we had our first brood of baby bluebirds in the PVC nest box. There were five in all, and they all fledged successfully. We also got our first asparagus spear – another welcome sight indeed! We wasted no time in making Asparagus Mimosa once we had enough spears harvested.

baby bluebirds

first asparagus of 2025

Asparagus Mimosa

The month of May saw me staying busy tending to all my seedlings in the greenhouse. I wound up using a lot of my spare plants for replanting, due to our wet weather in spring.

plants on greenhouse shelf

In June the perennial flowers were blooming nicely, including favorites like purple spiderwort. The container eggplants were blooming also and giving us our first taste of eggplant.

spiderwort

Fairy Tale and Gretel eggplant

July saw the last of the berry crop. The raspberries did surprisingly well, while the black berries and blueberries were less impressive. We had plenty of berries for fresh eating though and they were appreciated for sure.

blackberries and raspberries

In August it turned hot, and the warm-season veggies responded by giving us pepper, eggplant and the last of the greenhouse cucumbers.

August harvest

hot pepper mix

In September we went to Maine for a little vacation getaway. We ate a lot of lobster and other fish dishes while we were there, and visited a couple of iconic and often-viewed lighthouses.

Owls Head lighthouse

Portland Head Lighthouse

In October our fall planting of greens like kale and collards were beginning to size up. A little frost makes the leaves even sweeter, and we had plenty to eat for some time to come.

Yellow Cabbage collard plant

In November I got several big harvests of collard greens, and a big haul of persimmons.

heirloom collard greens

Nikita’s Gift persimmons

December saw a lot of activity at our bird feeders, including frequent visits from the bluebirds and a Pileated Woodpecker. We also enjoyed plenty of greens from the lettuce for our salads.

bluebirds at the feeder

Pileated Woodpecker

lettuce from the greenhouse

I hope you have enjoyed this look back on 2025. I want to thank all of the folks who come here and read my blog, and I want to wish everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year!

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