Weekend tasks..

Saturday was beautiful... We were working by 8 and managed to get quite a bit done. I was playing with our transplants in the basement, and starting more seeds. When I did that hubby was discing and tilling. When he was ready we hilled the rows we needed. We were waiting for rain and needed to move fast! Our hiller is a little lite to work well, so I get to stand on the back of it as we lay hills to help make better hills!

We got about 1000 feet of hills done and then started planting! The forecast was saying it could rain at any time and the sky looked like it! So first we used our new Jang Seeder to put in some turnips, beets, radishes, green onions, and other pretty frost tolerant crops, aiming for the May 31rst farmers market. Oh, and our new seeder works like a dream! We only got 1/2 ounce of one of the turnip seeds as it was so expensive, I expected to be able to do 25 - 30 feet of row with it. But we set up the seeder for turnips and changed the gearing to put them down at about 2" apart, and I got 150 feet in and still have about half my seed left! The seeder was worth the $500+ it cost!

After we got all the seeds in that we really needed to we sighed in relief, because the rest could be done in light rain... So we started transplanting our onion starts. We got all 1800 onions in the ground! Then came the slightly harder work of putting the leeks in (the onions just go in an inch, the leeks go in so only an inch of the leafs are above ground so 3-4 inches deep). We got about 1000 leeks in before the sky opened up around 5:30. But that was OK as we were going to a friends surprise 50th birthday party and needed to shower and get there by 7:45. So it was a pretty long day, but we got a huge amount done.

On Sunday it was rainy most of the day, so we stayed inside did some bookkeeping stuff, ran some errands, did research on asparagus (which we need to order soon!) and played with our transplants and starts (go another 700 plants started and transplanted that many on to bigger containers.)

There is still so much to do, but we are making progress. This week we will hope for it to be sunny for most of it (looking good) and work on our hoop house while hoping we can put in more hills on Friday or Saturday... We have 800 feet of potatoes coming this week we hope...

And the best news of all, even though we were bent over planting onions for hundreds and hundreds of feet we did not wake up sore as we were expecting!

This weeks big purchases include the post hole digger, a potato plow, and the bees (if they come.) It feels good to not be behind in late April...

Spring is here!

It is SO beautiful this evening! I got home and hubby was on the tractor, a sure sign of spring on the farm. After I changed I went to say "Hi!" and marvel at how well the ground was turning over...

We are so blessed to have good soil here, at our old farm we fought with a high water table and heavy clay. The two together mean MUD! At the old house there is still water in the yard, here we plowed today, and tomorrow will till...

Granted, it was not dry enough to turn everything, but we got enough turned to give us a good start at the early spring crops (remember it is still spring!) so if the weather holds (18% chance of rain in next 24 hours) we will be able to start some turnips, radishes, and spinach in the ground. We have 1800 onion starts and 1800 leek starts which need to go in as well, and we have a few hundred beet starts ready to go in a week or so (a new experiment.) We also have Chinese cabbage, regular cabbage, lettuce, and a few other starts which will be ready to go in within a week or two...

We have a market to stock on May 31 (first CSA pickup is mid-June) and right now the only thing in the ground is Kale! We will start this years season as we ended last years, with LOTS of Kale! :)

Our hoophouse is here, but putting it up needs to wait, when you can turn the soil, that takes priority! In any case we have thousands of starts under grow lights in our basement. I need to remind myself, they always seem to grow slow at first, but they have 4-5 weeks before we'd even consider transplanting peppers, eggplant, or tomatoes. Our average last frost day may be early may, but that means that half the years see later frosts... So we will wait for the relative safety of late May, with the assurance of a warm 10 day forecast...

The season is going! Wish us luck, and good weather.

1588 pounds...

Our hoophouse shipped yesterday! We should see it on Monday morning, all 1588 pounds of it, which we are responsible for offloading from the truck. One pallet alone is 1,200 pounds! So we paid a little more so they will send a truck with a lift gate to help us unload it. They are also sending it in a stubby truck, so hopefully it can get up our driveway...

It will be good to have, as soon as we get it set up. I have hundrends of lettuce, cauliflower, and cabbage starts in my basement which would be fine in a less heated space... The tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and basil still need a little more heat... It did come with a propane heater, but we will need to wait and see if we actually need to set that up this year, it may be late enough we don't have to...