Organic Certification & cold weather

Growing organically is the way we learned to farm. We grew up on a farm that was certified organic and many of the farms of our friends are certified organic as well as the places we have worked at.

A week and a half ago we had our organic certification inspection with the Yolo County Agriculture Department. We walked around the farm for a bit and the when over our paperwork and he asked us some questions. Yesterday, we received certificate which was very exciting news to receive.

We were very lucky as the certification did not take long, partly because the land we are farming has been certified organic for at least the past decade, We did have a little hiccup with confirming that some of our seed was untreated but we were able to talk to the seed companies and confirm it was untreated.

Right after we planted last week a cold front came in and that included a day or two where it dropped under freezing. The consecutive days of cold were not well liked by the brassicas we just planted but they are starting to show signs of recovering.

The cabbage we planted at the beginning of February weathered the cold well as did the lettuce planted at that time.

Our second direct seeding succession from a couple weeks ago is germinating and we have already planted the third succession of the direct seeded crops.

In the greenhouse we have all the spring crops as well as tomatoes and eggplants that are growing nicely and peppers that are just germinating. The summer crops are loving the sunny warm days in the greenhouse and having a lot of growth.