April showers...

Another week begins...with more rain! We keep on telling ourselves that the rain is a good thing, as it gives us at least an extra hour in the day when we don't need to be watering plants. It does, however, make working outside rather chilly and damp. The couple days of sun we've had in the past week have been a welcome relief, that's for certain. We've been busy planting at the farm, rain or shine. More onions are in, as are parsley, chives, strawberries and horseradish.

From left to right: chives, curly parsley, flat leaf parsley, and two rows of strawberries under mini hoops

We've also been taking advantage of the rainy days and working inside, seeding tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and kohlrabi. Some of the tomatoes we seeded a month ago are thinking it's June and time to go in the ground! Once the hoop house is up this coming weekend we can give them their wish. They'll be happy to be out of their pots. Speaking of the hoop house, it was delivered today! We spent the morning moving all the parts to the back of the property where we'll be building. It was an exhausting morning, and we were very thankful for the tractor!

Using the tractor to carry the bows back to where the hoop house will be built. It was a tight squeeze down the two-track!

-Shannon

Hoop House Build

We're scheduled to build our hoop house on April 30th. With the help of Selma, we will be building all day at the farm and will hopefully have the hoop finished by the end of the work day. Anyone is welcome to come and help out for all or part of the day. Meals will be provided. For more information, check the link to the build on our events calendar on the right side of the page. If you have any questions about the event, email Joannee or leave a comment to this post. Go here to sign up for the build.

Moving right along

Things have been moving right along on the farm this week. We have been planting our broccoli, cabbage, onion and chard transplants at Tuthill Farms and are all caught up with our transplant schedule out there!

At the Stone Coop site we have had just as much activity. Electricity and water are set up now so we can water the transplants we planted into the u-pick area last week. More compost has been delivered, and we're starting to spread it into the field. We're also nearly sold out of Summer CSA Shares, so if you've been waiting to get one, now is the time to do so! 

Trenching for the water lines

-Shannon

Working on the u-pick area and our first compost delivery.

A break from the frigid temperatures (mostly) last week was a good motivator for us to continue work on the u-pick area. We finished cutting down the three trees in the space and used the trunks to build raised beds for annuals such as tomatoes, basil, kale, chard, beans and peas. It is very exciting to see the space taking shape with each day that we work on it.

We also received some black gold from Tuthill Farms last week! Brian came with a partial load of compost and delivered it in our field. The majority of this load will be used to ammend the soil in the u-pick area. Once the frost laws are off the roads, we can start getting larger loads delivered to the farm.

This week is our first week of planting outside. I'm in Oregon visiting friends from my college days this week. It makes me a bit jealous of their climate here, as the flowers and trees are blooming already, and the farmers markets have an abundance of greens, beets, radishes and turnips. Though there's plenty to be done before May when our markets open, I can't wait to start harvesting our first crops.


-Shannon