We’re in full spring mode here on the farm which means we are finishing up our infrastructure projects before the harvest and weeding season begins. Over the past couple of weeks we’ve planted our potato beds out, transplanted kohlrabi, lettuces, and storage onions. We’ve seeded more carrot beds, spinach beds, radish and turnip beds that are now germinating! It was quite the windy week here on the peninsula and we had a small hail storm that didn’t cause any damage on our farm. The frost covers and insect netting protected our new transplants from wind and hail. We don’t know how we’d do this job without them! The covers also help to keep the soil moist when we have a lot of wind because the wind will dry out the top layers of soil very fast which is bad when things are trying to germinate.
We also finished our nursery just in time! The tomatoes were quickly out growing the space allotted for them and we potted up our broccoli plants to give them more time to grow in a protected environment. The nursery has a hose line that makes it so fast to water, it’s a game changer. The tables on the right side have heaters beneath keeping the heat loving crops at a minimum of 55℉ at night. The nursery will soon be looking empty as tomorrow is planting day. Tyler’s brother Zachary is coming to give us some extra hands. Both tunnels will be planted out in tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers and everyone is looking very healthy (grafted tomatoes included)! Summer squash, winter squash, dahlias, and swiss chard will get planted this weekend as well. All this and our first farmers market of the year on Sunday has us very excited for the season. We’ll be bringing the last harvest of spinach from the tunnel, super sweet baby carrots that over-wintered in the tunnels and herbal teas from our friends farm at Sacred Blossom where Tyler worked a couple of summers. We’ll also bring the last of our dried flower wreaths to market if the weather is cooperative.
The coop area has been a major eyesore for us over the last year and we finally had some time and a plan for how to fix it up. The main reason we needed to do something about the chicken coop was because we had drainage issues with water running off the roof and forming ruts inside the tunnels, sometimes taking our soil with it if the rain was heavy enough. So we learned how to install vinyl gutters and picked up pieces from the Habitat Restore for about $15. We had to buy a few additional pieces and our new rain barrel. Now the rain goes into the rain barrel and the overflow goes into a ditch with a pipe that goes down the side of the tunnel and into the grass at the other end. The chicken yard is now fenced in half and we have a cover crop germinating as we speak so that the chickens will have a mini pasture. Needless to say this area is looking better already and when we get our berm planted out with flowers and some vining flowers growing on the fence it’s going to be a spot we’ll take breaks in.
Before
After
Please visit us at the farmers market this weekend May 15 and next, we’re happy to meet all of our CSA members in person since we won’t really get to interact at the drop off locations.
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