Two Feet in the Dirt

The hot weather continued this week, with temperatures over 80 degrees on Tuesday, meaning the hoop house was up in the 90s! Warm springs sound like a good thing, with plants grower faster and getting ready for harvest sooner. The peas are about twice as tall as they were at this time last year! But in fact I find this type of weather at this time of year pretty trying. Spring is already the busiest time on the farm for us. The majority of what we grow is planted sometime between mid-March and mid-May, meaning that we are putting in an unprecedented number of seeds and seedlings along with trying to keep on top of all the other tasks. Add hot weather to the mix and that means more weeding (as the weeds are growing faster, too), more watering in an effort to keep the cool-season crops happy, and more stressed-out transplants, as they try to adjust to both life in the ground and to temperatures that they usually don’t need to deal with at this time of year. So basically an extra-warm spring means a lot more of us running around trying to keep the plants happy!

Fortunately, it looks like we’re supposed to get some cooler, rainy weather today and Friday and another lovely Saturday for the Burke market. We’ll be bringing more of both the lettuce and radishes that were so popular last week, so make sure to stop by and pick some up. We’ll also be bringing green garlic, a new crop this year. This immature form of garlic looks like a cross between a scallion and a leek and is a great way to get the taste of fresh garlic at a time of year when the full-sized garlic heads are not yet available.

Check out our full harvest list below and we’ll see you on Saturday!

Farmers Katie & Mike

This week at the market:

• Lettuce salad mix
• Arugula
• Baby Kale
• “The Works” salad mix
• Spinach
• Radishes
• Lettuce heads
• Bok Choi
• Green garlic