This has been a very trying spring. Yes, it is a cold spring. and yes, everything is late! We are moving forward finally on getting some plants in the ground, while also dodging the raindrops and hopefully the last of the snow storms. We have planted almost a full acre this week of carrots, onions, kale, lettuce, beets, arugula, salad mix, radishes, and raddichio. Next week should have a nice stretch of warm sunny weather, so we have potatoes, more onions, and lettuce lined up on deck for the transplanter. And then we are starting to plow up some of last year’s pasture land for the tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash that will go in at some point when we are a little less nervous about frost. One of our challenges here, especially in the spring, is juggling tractor use. The same big John Deere 5085 tractor does all of our plowing, much of our bed preparation, and all of our transplanting, so we like to try to keep it busy when we can to avoid getting backed up. But the transplanter requires three or four people to run (almost our whole early spring crew, especially this week since we have one on vacation), and the tillage can only happen when the soil is dry enough to work. That leads to a lot of juggling of priorities and looking at the weather forecast over and over again to try to actuate the crystal ball function.
In other news, here’s a cool thing (maybe cool only to the farm nerds amongst you?) We have struggled with different strategies for our low tunnels (little mini-greenhouses that warm things up out in the field, and have mostly given up on finding something that can stand up to our heavy New England winds. But here is one more trial attempt at a new design. If we are lucky, it will not only stand up to the wind, it will also bring one row of asparagus on a week or two earlier (even non-nerds can appreciate asparagus!
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And news item number three:
This spring’s piglets have arrived! Cuteness abounds.
