Thursday, March 6, 2008

Transplanting Begins

Today we begin transplanting the first of many flat trays into the fields. First off will be spinach and chinese broccoli. These will be covered by by low hoop cloches. Something I rarely do. I gave up on floting row covers of "remay" about three years ago. I just hated using all of that non recycleable oil based product and frankly find it to be a huge pain in the butt to deal with. It does work but I am still able to grow high quality early vegetables without it and my life is easier. Plus I don't carry the guilt of throwing the stuff away.

The cloches we are using today are built 100% from recycled material that I already had on the farm. I did not have to make a single purchase and am turning junk into something useful Now that makes sense in my world!

Getting transplants in the ground is always symbolic of success and new beginnings. It's insta-gratification. The big thing is it will open up some space for us to sow another 50 flats or so. Probably lettuce?

With exception of the peas and favas, all of the outdoor beds I sowed direct in mid February have all germinated. The weather has given us a real brak here. It's allowed me to work all but the wettest areas of the fields and has put us way ahead of where we were last year. I'll be working on ground prep and sow another round of outdoor greens this weekend.

CSA? Pretty lackluster couple of weeks. Trying not to get too discouraged. It's gonna be a rocky month. Fortunately we are making deliveries and we'll start seing a little flow come in here soon. I'll have to spend more time off the farm working so progress is going to slow down.

Allright, Time to work.

Keep it real,

John

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

6:23 a.m....what did you sleep in??!!
Got my little seeds planted in my greenhouse this weekend...nothing like your operation. How do you find time to write?
M

Farmer John said...

haha, good one. I like writing early am. No ones up to bug me.
j