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| Garlic is looking good! |
Weather has monopolized the forefront of my thoughts this
week. I am probably the first farmer ever to be vexed by this particular
concern. I spent the beginning of the week in July and the middle of the
week in January and the end of the week back in April. In spite of the
curve balls coming our way from the weather we are slowly but surely catching
up on field work. With a lot of work and a lot of luck next week will
include planting potatoes and preparing for the big onion planting push.
One advantage of the wacky weather is that we have been
forced to go to the one place where we can control the climate. Our
greenhouse seeding is actually ahead of schedule as a result. We are
moving seedlings out to the cold frames as quickly as possible but it is
beginning to look like weekend hours at the DMV: lines of fennel, scallions and
napa cabbage impatiently waiting for their chance at the front of the queue.
Cold frames aren't the most comfortable place for our transplants so we
are hoping to get them in the ground soon.
Our strawberries, snug under their blanket of mulch came
through the winter just fine. Even our
experimental beds of fall planted berries look pretty good in spite of a spat
of rodent related vandalism. We have
high hopes that this new technique will drastically cut down on strawberry
maintenance and free up much needed field space through the spring and early
summer. Garlic has also begun to push up
through the mulch and it looks fantastic.
Many of you have been curious about the long caterpillar tunnel in our
underhill field. We experimented with
fall planting onions last season for the purpose of extra early onions this
year. Although there is some chance that these
onions will bolt and go to seed rather than bulbing up, the first part of the
experiment was a success. I’m hoping
that fall planting techniques such as these will help to balance out the
planting delays caused by extra cold and wet springs like the one we’ve been
having.
