I'm looking out towards the neighbor’s frosty field this morning. The sun is up and the field shimmers like glitter, before the frost melts away. The ample amounts of sunshine and warm temps have been lovely the last couple weeks and are starting to give me a bit of Spring Fever. I have to keep reminding myself it's only February. I'm curious to see when Winter will return, as we're hoping for more snow (lots of snow!) between now and May.
In the meantime, we are slowly and steadily preparing ourselves for the growing season ahead. The propagation house is getting a clean up and reset today so it’s ready to house our seedlings in the coming weeks.
One of the moveable tunnels was seeded with alliums (onions/leeks) plus a mixed bed of greens for the farm in mid-January. I’m happy to report the alliums and greens are UP and looking really good. Every morning, I now head out to uncover these plants as they’re tucked under a layer of row cover (aka a farm blanket) each evening to protect from frost, and then uncovered during the day so they get max sunlight and good ventilation.
Later this week we’ll be prepping beds in the other moveable tunnel to make way for the first carrot seeding of 2020! We like to have carrots early for our CSA Community, and try to get them seeded in February/early March in our of our tunnels. If all goes well, they’ll be ready for harvest in June.
And after plenty of procrastination… I finally did our seed inventory during a couple overcast and freezing cold days earlier this month. Seed inventory at our farm involves me covering our entire living room floor with all the bags and packets of seed remaining from previous years. Then, I create a simple excel sheet and enter what we have instock. Once we have this information, we can proceed with our seed orders. I think the folks who put together the beautiful seed catalogs/tempting descriptions know all my weaknesses. I lack restraint and want to order everything, from the unique cabbages and cucumbers, to the flashy tomato varieties. Sometimes I wish I had a large trial farm, where I could spend years just trying the many varieties that catch my interest in the depths of winter. Which of course sounds dreamy doesn’t it, but is not necessarily the best idea on our production farm. So, to keep me from adding too many random seeds to our orders, I make sure to have Mike involved before I hit the PLACE ORDER button. We go over all the new varieties in my various carts. Most of my random ideas get vetoed BUT a few make the cut because it’s important for us to trial a couple new things each year and make sure we’re growing the best for our customers.
Our seed orders are now arriving in the mail, boxes and envelopes packed full of seeds. The many seeds that will fill our hearts with excitement and our fields with produce to feed YOU!
Seeds are small and oh so powerful. It is always amazing to me, what a collection of seeds can turn into in the fields, with the right amount of sunshine, irrigation and nurturing from the farmers, the soil life and the many beneficial insects that spend time here at the farm.
Sending out a BIG THANK YOU to our wonderful CSA Community! Thank you for trusting us to be your farmers and to grow your produce this season! We put our hearts, minds and bodies into this work and we’re excited to share the harvests with you.
If you haven’t joined the 2020 CSA yet, hop on over to our Summer CSA Page to learn more and sign up TODAY!
Always Learning - I think that’s the name of the game in the world of agriculture and it’s one of our main attractions to this work. We are constantly learning from other farmers, making observations in our fields and sharing what we're experiencing from week to week, season to season. We will never have it ‘all figured out'. And I’d say question anybody who acts like they do.
Nature has so much to teach us... but only if we let ourselves slow down, observe, research and learn. And with that… I should probably put on my boots and head outside.
Enjoy this beautiful day! Hope to see you all very soon. xoxo