Fluky Weather Continues

I was out for a few days. Looks like things dried up a bit but then by mid day yesterday it was raining again. I did get a little field work done. Not as much as I would have liked. I really need to get peas and fava's in the ground! Oh well, Things will come around soon I hope. Until then, it's greenhouse work. Lots of trays being sown right now. It's filling up fast and we are just squeezing things in where ever they will fit. That translates into lots of potting on and transplanting. Thats a whole other issue. Very soon the first sown brassicas and tomatoes will be potted up into 4" pots. That means your taking one tray and turning it into three or four and sometimes even five trays. As we are cramped for space now, we'll be even more cramped for space when that process begins. Timing is key. Fall behind in this process and your starts get root bound and become stunted. As the weather gets nicer, many things can start to get transplanted. For example, right now here are about 50 trays of lettuce ready to go out. The weather's been so crappy I'm just holding them a bit longer before they go. There are another 50 a couple weeks behind that and so on and so on. We transplant all of our lettuce even in the summer. It just works better when we have a little control over the germination conditions. Anyway, you get the picture. Get it up, grow it till it it's ready, put it out, first cut in aout 30 days. Simple right? Usually, but you never know for sure.

We'll be working up a few beds for transplanting lettuce into today. These were rough shaped with the tractor a while back when we had a dry spell. We should be able to rake out the weeds and let them set for a few days before planting. As we rake we'll bring up more weed seed to the surface that will quickly germinate. If we wait a week or so we can come back with the flame weeder and knock out that first flush, then transplant. It works well.

So those are things in my imediate world. It's going to be hopping around here real soon. We have alot to do to get ready. Soon we'll be starting summer squash and cukes!

I'll try and post some new photos this week.

Take care,

Farmer John