The image at the left is an early summer salad I concocted in past years, with home grown snap peas, mulberries, and mesclun greens. It makes me very anxious for the start of the 2024 growing season, as I sit at my desk in early March staring out the window at the driving rain.

I hope to get out into the green house and get annuals started shortly. As in past years, we will plant all of our typical garden favorites. We are able to supply most of our family’s personal produce needs throughout the year by what we grow in our family garden. We eat fresh during the growing season and then can, freeze, and root-cellar the rest for the winter months.

 In addition to our usual crops, we are planning lots of new and exciting activities and crops this year at Noel Farms and I can't wait for the games to begin.... New for the coming year are: 

• Home-raised turkeys for the Thanksgiving table. I have raised chickens and geese for a number of years, but turkeys will be a new experience. 

• A U-pick pumpkin patch planned for Fall 2024 

• More crafting and wreath making supplies including locally raised bottle gourds, statice and strawflowers for your dried flower arrangements, wild grapevine wreath blanks, and much more 

• Planting baby honeyberry bushes and Paw Paw trees. Both will take several years to bear fruit and the Paw Paw trees are a big experiment. They are not typically grown in southeastern Wisconsin, but are supposedly hardy in our Zone 5 climate. These so-called "Indiana Bananas" are a native tree species, resistant to most pests, and a great favorite of wildlife. They are also a delicacy typically only available at local farmers markets because of their perishable nature. So, stay tuned for whether the Paw Paw seedlings make it through their first year on the farm. I will report back in a future blog post. 

Of course the success of all of the above is dependent on the fickles of temperature, rain, insects, and everything else Mother Nature can throw at me. So, stay tuned for updates as the season progresses. 

Signing off for now,

Smiley