Our irrigation water is officially ON, which means we're suddenly planting all the things! We spent Wednesday transplanting cabbages, cauliflower and broccoli. They're getting settled into their new space and looking good.
We finished planting the greenhouses over the weekend. We had a few open beds that we filled with with shishito peppers, eggplant, cucumbers and more cherry tomatoes! And, the first round of tomatoes are ready for a pruning and trellis... we plan to tackle that next week.
We have this lovely bed of overwintered collards that are blooming and attracting so many beneficials. We were supposed to pull these plants out months ago but I'm glad we procrastinated and let them flower because now they are truly buzzing with life!
Mike spent some time earlier in the week prepping the beds for beets, carrots, rutabaga and winter squash. It took a couple years of making adjustments but I think we have the bed shaper dialed! Mmmmm, the soil in this block feels great and I'm excited to seed beets early next week!
In the fall, after we harvest crops, we normally incorporate the crop residue and then pull the grain drill through the field and seed a cover crop to protect the soil during the winter months. Last season, the only two blocks of cover crop that germinated in the Fall were the ones seeded in early September. We were able to irrigate these blocks once or twice and they enjoyed the last rain storm we had in mid-September. We rely on rainfall to get most of the cover crop up, and last fall that just didn't happen. We're excited these two blocks of triticale and vetch survived the winter, and the last incredibly dry 8 months. They're getting a touch of irrigation now and we plan to crimp them with a roller crimper soon! Stay tuned!
Snow Peas! Oh my. We have a bed of snow peas in the high tunnel and they are out of control. I need to spend some time today directing them back towards their trellis as one side of the bed is just reaching to the west and trying to take over a tomato bed, which is NOT ok. It looks like they have been enjoying the warm spring temps as I snacked on the first snow peas of the season yesterday... two weeks earlier than normal? Hmmm...
OK. I should head outside and open the greenhouses. We're looking forward to seeing all of our wonderful CSA Members in less than 2 weeks!
Have a wonderful weekend!