Move em' on out

This week marks the transistion into our selling season. We set up our market stand in town on Tuesday for the first time this season. We had radishes, scallions, kale, braising greens, spinach, eggs and a few seed potatoes as well as plant starts. It's a good PR move if nothing else and we were able to pick up a couple CSA members. It's a great feeling to kick off a difficult year with early market sales. Our tactics paid off. This was the first of many forays into town to pedal our wares. We are trying to show up again today. we have a big day so I'm not sure if we'll pull it off or not.

Finally we have plenty of bed space available and we have been transplanting just about everyday. Onions are in as well as the first broccoli, lettuce, and lots of other misc. green leafies.
Peas are mostly up. We did have some germination problems on one variety so I'll be re sowing those beds. The favas are really looking good. We have a new bed of radishes just coming on and the carrots, turnips and beets are all up and looking good. Those will all have a second sowing here in a few days. Things are growing slow with the cool temps but they are growing!

I'm a little nervous that we have not sown in about ten days. We have just been too busy doing all of the other things that need to be done. Those skips have a way of catching up and leaving mini gaps in production. We have harvest and deliveries to make today and the weather looks promising for town sales so we'll push for that. We can sow tomorrow, both indoors and out, but mostly in for one important reason. Our outdoor beds were just prepped this week. If I can let them set for a few days the first flush of weeds will germinate and we can hit them with the flame weeder prior to transplanting or sowing. This makes a big difference in our cultivation schedule, which is often our biggest challenge area. The key with flame weeding is timing. I missed being able to flame our new beets by just one day yesterday. They were just emerging. The prior day when I looked there was no sign of germination. So now we'll have to do it manually which eats up time.

This is also a very busy time for potting up starts. Broccoli, tomatoes, gailan and cauiliflower mostly. Some of those could go right into the field strai9ght from the cell trays in a good year. With the weather we've been having we'll take the insurance of keeping them in the greenhouse for as long as possible. The weather WILL get better! Looks like we'll be normal again around the 21st.

Irrgation is underway. Sorting and dragging drip tape. Yeah! :0( my least favorite thing to do.

We still have CSA memberships. Lots of teaser calls. People saying they are singning up and not following through. Come on folks, We need you now.

That's where its at for this week. Take care.

John