Planting

Just started our first outdoor planting. Yesterday we popped in some Fava beans and today we'll do peas and some of the hardiest spring greens and probably a bed of radishes. It's still pretty cold out and maybe a little early but probably OK. If it fails we'll just do it over. Most of our fields are still a little too wet to do do much work in but we have a couple of drier areas we concentrate on this time of year.

Also experimenting with planting a spring cover crop mulched with hay on a really wet area that my fall cover crop failed on. It's way to wet to till so I think we'll broadcast seed and simply cover the area with some spoiled hay and see what happens. Hopefully it'll germ and grow quickly and we'll mow it, disc it in and plant out that field in June. At worst we'll be adding organic matter to the soil. Looks like crap now though, at least the hay will make it pretty. Interestingly, I've never done spring cover cropping before and am interested to see how it will work. Thanks Blue Fox Farm for the idea.

Still working on the new hoop house at our new site. We'll have it up by the end of next week and begin tilling the area to prep it for planting. Time is running short. We've got about 60 days to get beds prepped and ready for tomato transplants. That's not long as the sod takes a long time to decompose. It'll be a little rough the first year but doable.

As soon as the hoophouse is up, fencing begins. It'll take us a couple of weeks and then we'll be up and running on this new section. We're putting in fruit trees in shortly and prepping the new field for a mid-summer planting. This is where our fall and over winter crops are going so We have a little time to get it nice. Regardless, we have our work cut out for us. The lazy days of winter are gone.

That'll do for now. Take care.

Farmer John