Seeing much more green on the farm
The farm has been covered in green all winter long but after the recent rains and sunny days there is a lusciousness that was not there previously.
The plants and unfortunately the weeds are showing how much they love the weather with the darker green color and the rapid growth they are having.
After some cold spells in January with frost on the plants in the morning making them look sad, the plants look very happy all day long taking in all the sunlight while their roots go deeper and pull in the water.
That means there is a lot of growth happening and mowing for us to do to knock back the weeds and mow down the overwintered veggies that have been harvested but are going to flower now.
After the rain and letting the water infiltrate further down into the soil it has made the top few inches that we work up when preparing much nicer and easier to direct seed into.
Last week’s direct seeding had to be pushed back to this week because the soil was too wet. Fortunately it doesn’t make much of a difference as the days are getting longer and warmer so everything will grow quicker.
We are seeing many of the first crops we direct seed start to germinate and as they have more leaves they will photosynthesize even quicker.
Today and tomorrow we will be doing a lot of planting with there being some forecasted rain for Sunday and late next week. We are getting another round of lettuce in the ground along with more brassicas.
Additionally we are going to be planting the potatoes. They have been waiting in the barn for almost two weeks asking to be planted and finally the area is dry enough to prep and plant them.
The greenhouse is practically overflowing even though we have begun transplanting some of the what was in there. This week we seeded more tomatoes and lettuce plus the leeks.
The greenhouse will stay full for the next couple of months as we continue to plant our spring crops and summer crops and more successions are planted in the greenhouse.
Just two weekends ago we finished harvesting the leeks we seeded in February of 2024 and now we are seeding the next round which hopefully we will be harvesting from until February of 2026.
Leeks are a crop that takes a lot of time to germinate and grow into a size that we can transplant. They are able to tolerate the heat of the summer and then in the winter will remain good even when the weather is not.
The new seeding of tomatoes means we now have three successions in the greenhouse. This planting has the most number of varieties in it with eight varieties of cherry tomatoes and seven varieties of heirlooms.
The first planting we potted up until larger cells and have really started to grow in the last week while the second succession is much smaller but growing really well. The first tomatoes took the first week in their new cells for their roots to grow and now the plants are visibly growing every day.
In three weeks we will be planting the first tomatoes as long as the weather allows us to. They will be covered with a row cover to be able to tolerate a cold spell that we could potentially have.
Once the nights stay above 50 degrees they will off to the races and suddenly there will be tomatoes on the plants.
