Two Feet in the Dirt

As frequently happens in the weeks surrounding our final spring frost date, the weather has been all over the place recently. Two Tuesdays ago, we had lows dipping to about 40 degrees, followed by a Sunday and Monday with temperatures up near 90! Because of the cold snap, I held off on putting most of our summer transplants into the ground until the end of last week, but now the fields are full of peppers, eggplant, tomato, cucumber, and zucchini plants and the first beans are pushing up through the ground.

With temperatures up to summer-like levels, we decided it was time to put the shade cloth onto the hoop house. In the summer, we divide our hoop house between heat-loving and cool-season crops. As a result, we cover half of the hoop house with a shade clothes, which cuts the light being let in by up to 50%, therefore keeping that half of the hoop house cooler and more in line with the temperatures and sunlight that cooler-season crops prefer. While peppers, tomatoes, and beans are growing like crazy on the un-shaded side, carrots and beets will soon fill the other section.

Even as the summer crops are beginning to dominate the farm, we are still in the midst of the spring bounty. The snap peas started putting out a few flowers last week and now the plants are covered in white blooms, the precursor of the peas themselves, so keep an eye out for this tasty spring treat in the coming weeks! 

Check out our full harvest list below and we’ll see you at the markets this weekend.

Farmers Katie & Mike

This week at the market:

• Salad mix
• Arugula
• Baby kale
• Spring onions
• Kohlrabi
• Radishes
• Lettuce heads
• Green garlic
• Hakurei turnips
• Kale
• Collard greens
• Rainbow chard
• Baby carrots