There is an old wives tale about planting potatoes on Good Friday. I couldn’t find much info on why this started… seems like a strange thing, since Good Friday is not on the same day each year. It’s not even close. In MN, Good Friday weather might be nice or we might have a bunch of snow. Last year, we had a bunch of snow. This year, it was kind of nice here, 30 to 40 degrees. We got the planting spots tilled and were ready to plant – much earlier than we have in the past. The first picture is 7 rows of radishes!

This handy little planter has different size wheels to plant the seeds and cover them up. I admit I was skeptical at first. My husband saw this and thought it would be great for our little farm. I didn’t think it was necessary. Maybe part of me longed for the days when my boys were little and would use a ruler to plant peas. They’d carefully lay the ruler in the dirt and space them 2” apart (learning to count by 2’s). I’ll admit though, usually by the end of the planting, we’d both be kind of tired and impatient. At that time, our garden was 24×24. The boys and the garden have both grown. Time to speed up the planting process! This worked well, saved our backs, and planted radish seeds in a fraction of the time it normally would. We shouldn’t need to thin them as much either, since the seeds are spaced as they should be.

Our potatoes weren’t planted on Good Friday, but the very next day. 6 rows of potatoes went in on Saturday. We’ve been married almost 25 years and I don’t think we’ve ever planted potatoes. We’ve planted sweet potatoes, but not “regular” potatoes. 2 rows of russet, 2 rows of red, and 2 rows of golden/Yukon were planted this year. We’ll see how it goes. We should have potatoes for the Farmer’s Market this year. My husband is busy getting the other seeds organized, tomatoes and cucumbers started inside, and planning out our garden layout. Our asparagus and rhubarb will soon be up, the raspberries are starting to bud, and the ground is ready for seeds. Our farm name is Frueh Market (our last name is pronounced “free” even though it doesn’t look like it should be). We are expanding and learning each year. This year will look different from what we anticipated, but it will still be good.

3 days ago, we planted, and today it snows! Weather in MN is unpredictable. The weather here has been much like our feelings on the “stay at home” order. It’s sunny one minute, look out again and it’s snowing. Wait a few minutes and it’s clear again. Yesterday we had snow that looked like Dip n Dots. We know the snow won’t last much longer, but we are yearning for green grass and warm weather. Our birds are confused about what season it should be, but hold on birdies, this weekend will be 30 degrees warmer! We are yearning to be with friends and family, to be back to normal, even though it won’t look the same.

I’m wishing you peace on your journey of enough. Hold onto hope of brighter days ahead and take a deep breath. You are loved.