Two Feet in the Dirt

I’m a schedule person and I can’t imagine running a farm any other way. I sit down at the beginning of every week and plan out each work day hour by hour. But I can say pretty confidently that there is barely a week that goes by when something doesn’t throw the schedule out of whack! Farming is nothing if not unpredictable. Things happen all the time that force us to adjust and think on our feet and you never know what it’s going to be.  Our most recent (and one of our cutest) changes of plans was the discovery of a juvenile rabbit that had made it’s home on...

I’ve been mentioning how up and down the weather has been over the past few months. Things like garlic (which has been in the ground since last autumn) are ahead of where they usually are given the warm winter. Other crops, especially those that were planted in April, are behind because of our unusually cold late April and early May. A perfect example of this is the potatoes (pictured above). Potatoes are one of the few crops that are not planted from seeds or seedlings. Rather, we put actually pieces of potatoes (like those you eat) in the ground. You may have noticed the “eyes” on potatoes you’ve had at...

It’s been a strange spring in terms of weather. We started out with an exceptionally warm February and early March. Our first crops seeded in the hoop house germinated in about half the time we usually expect at that point in the season. However, the weather cooled off significantly in the last few weeks. Usually, we are beginning to plant summer crops this week, but with nighttime temperatures forecast to be in the 30s at the end of this week and into next week, it looks like we’ll be holding off until things warm up a little. This can be a hassle as the transplants are quite big and ready...