Spring!

Spring is here. We're all happy about that here. The weather has turned a little wetter but the days have still been pretty sunny. It's amazing to see how fast things are growing now. Especially in the greenhouses. You can tell a noticable difference sometimes just overnight. We'll be having the first of the french breakfast radishes next week. They are inetrcropped with onions that we sowed in the fall and overwintered. The shelling peas are coming along nicely too. With those we have cilantro and chervil intersown. There is also four beds of Asian greens that are just coming on and just in time. We terminated the beds in one of the other greenhouses that we had been harvesting our overwintered lettuce from just as the new crop was coming on. Timing is tricky this time of year. We are OK for now but a gap in greens is imminent. We just transplanted new lettuce starts indoors but are mostly waiting on outdoor greens next. They are up and have just had there first cultivation but are out at least another 30 days. I could speed them up if I covered them with remay but as most of you already know, we stopped using floating row covers a couple years back. I get a lot of curious responses from other growers on that one. I just don't believe in using all of that pertroleum based product that winds up in the land fill at some point. We do just fine without it. It does work though. I also hate chasing it down wind the wind blows it off the beds!

We've been transplanting outside beds also. Mostly with salad green stuff. Swiss Chard, Salad Kale, Bok Choi etc. We have some nice broccoli that is going out today. I'm going to heavily mulch it with hay to protect it from the elements. We just put in the first round of potatoes. Just a couplle of 200 ft beds. It's early for potatoes but we are doing a little different program than normal. We are growing them in hay mulch. We did'nt even bury them. Just plopped them onto the ground and covered them with about eight inches of hay. Main crop will go in later like mid june after we open up some more ground. Not new ground, but they'll go in one of our plots after the peas and favas come out. Speaking of favas (my favorite veg) We just planted about 40 lbs of seed in our very worst soil. I'm hoping its and edible cover crop situation. I simply broadcast the seed and tilled it in. I'll undersow it with vetch after they get established. Hopefully we can just cruise through the plot and harvest.

Outdoor sowing continues as we see fit. We have alot of stuff in the ground already. Peas and Favas are up on our other sites. Just planted turnips and more greens yesterday. It' time for more rads too.

Soon we will start potting up tomatoes. They are looking healthy, just putting on their first true leaves. I have most of them under lights right now. We have several thousand started, I'l do one more sowing just because I'm a belt and suspenders kinda guy. Peppers and tomatillos are up and doing well as are the eggplant. These are all heat lovers and need a little extra love. I covered them last night (with remay) just in case it got really cold. We lost a bunch of stuff last year on a very cold night. It lokks like it did'nt get that cold though. Frost but not too hard.

Space will be an issue frome here on. Hopefully we can just crank it all out and stay on top of it all. Weather may set us back if I can't get into the field to make beds. It's looking good so far though. Really good!

That's what's happening here.

Keep well,

John