The first snowfall is always stunning, but it sure caught us off guard. A few outdoor projects still remain unfinished buried in the November snow. The 16 degree dip was even more concerning this week because it’s too cold for most of our cold hardy tunnel crops. I checked the tunnel crops in the morning and sure enough, frozen! But so far, they all look to have recovered fine. The double frost covers and unfrozen earth beneath them helped raise the temperature to a more tolerable freeze.
We have to closely monitor the snowfall to make sure the tunnels get brushed off if it starts accumulating quickly so that it doesn't stretch or tear the plastic.
The weather is always unpredictable, I’m sure farmers have faced this dilemma through all of human history. Growing a large amount of diversity is one way to mitigate against natures occasional snaps. So even if we did have a failure of greens, we would still have a heaping pile of storage root crops for the market and our kitchen.
This year as well as last year, we decided to store our storage root crops dirty and unwashed. We do this because they store better this way. If you wash them before storage, you may wash off delicate parts of the vegetable skin that help protect it. This turns into one of our current challenges for the winter season, washing vegetables in the barn even when it gets really cold. Besides keeping fingers warm, keeping our outdoor water lines from freezing is the real trick. We have a heated room hooked up to the well room that we can pull out a water hose from inside the pole building. As we move forward with the farm, this is one area of the operation that we will continue to assess how to make more comfortable and efficient.
Mini romaines harvested for this Saturday!
Washing and bagging greens and root crops.
Speaking of extra special root crops, we are happy to say that this week we will be bringing parsnips to the Koepsel’s market this Saturday. Since harvesting them, we have let them sit in our cold walk in cooler for more than 2 weeks now. The cold temperature sweetens them up, in fact, traditionally you would harvest them as soon as the ground thaws in the spring!
We're bringing the vegetables to Koepsels farm market on Hwy 57 on Saturday: 9am-4pm.
Friday: 9am-4pm and Sunday: 9am-3pm we will only be selling dried flower wreaths at Koepsels.
Beautiful dried flower wreaths, swags, and bouquets.
All real flowers, true colors and will last for a year or more in your home.