A very rainy week!

We penciled in mid-March as the time to transplant our first tomatoes of 2023 just like many other farmers in the area knowing it could be a few days off either way.

We didn’t realize we would have such a cold and rainy winter that we need around a week or more for the soil to dry out so we can prep for our tomato planting.

In the last week we have gotten over five inches of rain including 2.75 inches last Thursday and over two inches yesterday.

Fortunately our tomatoes are growing a little slower this year so they are just starting to be ready and should do well in the greenhouse for another week or two. We know some farms that are worried about losing some of their tomatoes before they are able to transplant them.

After last Thursday’s rainfall where all that rain came in 12 hours the fields got saturated so the most recent rain is leading to a little bit of flooding.

Fortunately it started to clear up in the afternoon and was windy which will help the soil dry out quicker so that we will be able to get the tractor in prep the fields.

With the muddy fields we have it has been a week of staying out of the fields as much as possible. We are able to harvest for the markets but are not doing any other work in the field.

All the office we can do is being done because we know that once we are able to get back into the field and the temperatures rise there will be a lot of work to do all over the farm at once.

In the greenhouse we seeded more lettuce and our second planting of basil. The tables in the greenhouse are almost full again with lots of trays wanting to get transplanted but just waiting on the rain to stop to do so.

For all of our spring veggies, except lettuce, that we transplant have already been seeded and are growing in the greenhouse. With lettuce we have two more plantings to seed.

All of our onions, leeks and shallots we seeded at the end of January are growing really well and soon we will cut off the top of them to encourage more bulb growth when we plant them.

The alliums that are out in the field are growing really well although the onions are slightly behind where we thought they would be but they should grow rapidly once the days become warmer.