Last week, we began planting in the first of our two big new hoop houses. By the end of Saturday's workday, that puppy was FULL. That's 6 rows, each 120' long for a total of 720 planted row feet if I did my math right. 2 rows of summer squash, 2 rows of cucumbers, 2 rows of tomatoes, and some 50' of basil. That's also over 14 varieties of veggies now under cover, and we're already casting our eyes upon hoop house number two, planning our planting schemes soon, soon.
Our greenhouse is also bursting at the seams. We seeded the second round of eggplants and peppers, first round of melons, fourth round of lettuce, and potted up tomatoes.
And in the field, there's more arugula, cilantro, radishes, turnips, dill and more! We also transplanted outdoors kohlrabi and parsley and lettuce.
Wow! Busy week. But I guess that's the norm around here. It was the first week I've felt overwhelmed quite a bit this season, but luckily, we had an unexpected infulx of volunteers on Wednesday afternoon and they helped us bang out some direct seeding, weeding and mulching, sifting of soil mix, and lettuce transplanting, not to mention weeding the potato rows--an amazing un-hoped-for bonus! I LOVE volunteers!
And speaking of loving volunteers, we had an AMAZING weekend workday on Saturday. Over 12 people came out! I was hoping for 8 max, and we topped that. We planted 3 rows in the hoop house, weeded and thinned carrots (a task that would have taken Patrick and I like, 2 days, to do) AND got the blueberries weeded and mulched and the blackberries weeded. WOW! Have I said yet how much I love volunteers? Because I do. We offered some homemade brunch in thanks -- vegan biscuits and soysauge gravy and farm-fresh greens! Yum! Just wonderful! Universe, I am so grateful.
Showing posts with label carrots. Show all posts
Showing posts with label carrots. Show all posts
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
Planting, Snow, Planting
March 5, 2010
Let's see . . . we finished the steel frames of both our hoop houses last week. Had to bring in a couple of fellas to help us out seein' as I can't lift anything right now and Patrick wasn't at full speed either. Jeeze. But it was a beautiful day, and two sparkly new sets of hoops now stand in our upper field, ready to be covered in plastic. Which we were going to do last Saturday, but you know, a piece of plastic 120' x 28' sure does seem very kite-like when the wind kicks up. We could have gone airborne if we had tried, but the breeze dissuaded us, so no plastic as of yet.
Monday was beautiful. Gorgeous, sunny day. I got out on the tractor and tilled in the cover crops for the areas I want to plant in April. It takes about 4 weeks for that green matter to decompose, so I'm thinking a month in advance. That's farming for ya.
Tuesday it snowed. Again. In March. Weird. But we were prepared to work indoors, and so we did. We seeded tatsoi, tomatoes, and parsley. We cut potatoes to get them ready to plant this week. Second time this year that we've seeded on a snow day. Our greenhouse is packed.
Wednesday was another beautiful day. Snow sandwich. We pulled the last of the carrots to make way for potatoes. We've probably got 200+ lbs of carrots in storage now, ready to sell. We can finally retire the processing table for a month before pulling it back out again.
Thursday we seeded summer squash and cucumbers. This week is the first week of seeding summery stuff. So soon? Guess so. The greenhouse is officially overflowing, with 4" pots of summery stuff sitting on the floor, waiting to germinate.
Friday we planted potatoes--3 kinds, over 300 feet. I love potatoes. Yukon golds, red pontiacs, kennebecs. Ummmm . . . potatoes. And we planted more carrots. Roots roots!
That's it for the update for now. Tomorrow we attempt the plastic application again. Fingers crossed for no wind . . .
Let's see . . . we finished the steel frames of both our hoop houses last week. Had to bring in a couple of fellas to help us out seein' as I can't lift anything right now and Patrick wasn't at full speed either. Jeeze. But it was a beautiful day, and two sparkly new sets of hoops now stand in our upper field, ready to be covered in plastic. Which we were going to do last Saturday, but you know, a piece of plastic 120' x 28' sure does seem very kite-like when the wind kicks up. We could have gone airborne if we had tried, but the breeze dissuaded us, so no plastic as of yet.
Monday was beautiful. Gorgeous, sunny day. I got out on the tractor and tilled in the cover crops for the areas I want to plant in April. It takes about 4 weeks for that green matter to decompose, so I'm thinking a month in advance. That's farming for ya.
Tuesday it snowed. Again. In March. Weird. But we were prepared to work indoors, and so we did. We seeded tatsoi, tomatoes, and parsley. We cut potatoes to get them ready to plant this week. Second time this year that we've seeded on a snow day. Our greenhouse is packed.
Wednesday was another beautiful day. Snow sandwich. We pulled the last of the carrots to make way for potatoes. We've probably got 200+ lbs of carrots in storage now, ready to sell. We can finally retire the processing table for a month before pulling it back out again.
Thursday we seeded summer squash and cucumbers. This week is the first week of seeding summery stuff. So soon? Guess so. The greenhouse is officially overflowing, with 4" pots of summery stuff sitting on the floor, waiting to germinate.
Friday we planted potatoes--3 kinds, over 300 feet. I love potatoes. Yukon golds, red pontiacs, kennebecs. Ummmm . . . potatoes. And we planted more carrots. Roots roots!
That's it for the update for now. Tomorrow we attempt the plastic application again. Fingers crossed for no wind . . .
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Plants, GA Organics, & Two Farmers Feeling Poorly
February 24, 2010
A week+ later, there's lots of news to report:
In the land of plants and planting . . .
--the kale and chard have germinated in the greenhouse
--lettuce has been seeded into soil blocks
--carrots got direct seeded into the hoop house
--beets and broccoli raab got direct seeded outside, under row fabric as of today
In the land of Georgia Organics being in town last weekend . . .
--we made over 100 carrot cake muffins for the farm tour
--and speaking of farm tours, ours went GREAT--we had two buses come by, about 40 people per bus, and we had a wonderful time taking them around the farm and talking about our operations. Or maybe I should say I had a wonderful time talking because I sure did a lot of it. Really, getting a farmer to talk about a farm is like getting a grandma to talk about her grandkids. You have to say "whoa" to get us to stop. But yeah, it went well. Got a lot of positive feedback from the tour participants. Apparently, they think we're doing a good job around here. Always nice to hear that.
--our carrots and our sweet potatoes appeared in the Farmer's Feast dinner
--excellent educational sessions were soaked up by us farmers
--we hosted the afterparty "Afterglow" at our house and they rocked it till the early morning
More recently . . .
Both Patrick and I are "under the weather." Apparently, it's an old sailor's phrase about going below deck to rest up when you're ill, which both of us are and are doing, but for different reasons. Patrick has a nasty head cold, while I, on the other hand, fell off my trapeze in class last week and landed on my head, which is a spinal no-no. FYI, if you ever damage your spine (whiplash, bad fall, etc.) you should immediately ice it, take lots of Ibuprofen, and call your chiropracter so s/he can put your body back like it should be. Otherwise, believe me when I say it is not a pretty sight or a pretty experience. I was jacked up like the hunchback of Notre Dame and finally relented and called in the doctor after I could no longer sleep laying down. Yikes. It's amazing how far denial of injury can go. So yeah. God bless the spine adjusters of the world and the magic of their skillfully applied knowledge and techniques. And god bless my skillful healer in particular.
All that to say that two under the weather farmers is much worse than one. One can still pick up work and organize the labor and get things done. Two is just pitiful. Yesterday, we were processing 150 lbs of carrots and each of us was stopping every 10 minutes to sit down, stretch, breathe, or otherwise pull it together to keep going until the all the "absolutely necessary" tasks were done. Pitiful. We didn't even equal one whole well person. When only one is sick, he or she can feel okay taking a break to rest up because there's the other providing support, but heck, when both are down, both have to limp it along because one ailing person just can't do it all. We've call in the troops for support to build hoop house #2 on Friday. I hope we're both feeling better by then.
A week+ later, there's lots of news to report:
In the land of plants and planting . . .
--the kale and chard have germinated in the greenhouse
--lettuce has been seeded into soil blocks
--carrots got direct seeded into the hoop house
--beets and broccoli raab got direct seeded outside, under row fabric as of today
In the land of Georgia Organics being in town last weekend . . .
--we made over 100 carrot cake muffins for the farm tour
--and speaking of farm tours, ours went GREAT--we had two buses come by, about 40 people per bus, and we had a wonderful time taking them around the farm and talking about our operations. Or maybe I should say I had a wonderful time talking because I sure did a lot of it. Really, getting a farmer to talk about a farm is like getting a grandma to talk about her grandkids. You have to say "whoa" to get us to stop. But yeah, it went well. Got a lot of positive feedback from the tour participants. Apparently, they think we're doing a good job around here. Always nice to hear that.
--our carrots and our sweet potatoes appeared in the Farmer's Feast dinner
--excellent educational sessions were soaked up by us farmers
--we hosted the afterparty "Afterglow" at our house and they rocked it till the early morning
More recently . . .
Both Patrick and I are "under the weather." Apparently, it's an old sailor's phrase about going below deck to rest up when you're ill, which both of us are and are doing, but for different reasons. Patrick has a nasty head cold, while I, on the other hand, fell off my trapeze in class last week and landed on my head, which is a spinal no-no. FYI, if you ever damage your spine (whiplash, bad fall, etc.) you should immediately ice it, take lots of Ibuprofen, and call your chiropracter so s/he can put your body back like it should be. Otherwise, believe me when I say it is not a pretty sight or a pretty experience. I was jacked up like the hunchback of Notre Dame and finally relented and called in the doctor after I could no longer sleep laying down. Yikes. It's amazing how far denial of injury can go. So yeah. God bless the spine adjusters of the world and the magic of their skillfully applied knowledge and techniques. And god bless my skillful healer in particular.
All that to say that two under the weather farmers is much worse than one. One can still pick up work and organize the labor and get things done. Two is just pitiful. Yesterday, we were processing 150 lbs of carrots and each of us was stopping every 10 minutes to sit down, stretch, breathe, or otherwise pull it together to keep going until the all the "absolutely necessary" tasks were done. Pitiful. We didn't even equal one whole well person. When only one is sick, he or she can feel okay taking a break to rest up because there's the other providing support, but heck, when both are down, both have to limp it along because one ailing person just can't do it all. We've call in the troops for support to build hoop house #2 on Friday. I hope we're both feeling better by then.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Frozen Earth, Frozen Carrots
January 7, 2010
A new learning experience: when the ground itself freezes, the things in it also freeze. Okay, so it seems like a no-brainer and perhaps it is, but the idea and the practical implication are just now coming together for me. My carrots are frozen. Actually, it's mostly just the exposed tops, perhaps an inch down, but that inch drastically reduces their marketability. Thankfully, I have a somewhat forgiving market, but this may be a bit of a costly education in paying attention to severe weather. Now my carrots are covered, albeit late, and I'm making a note in my crop folder, "when the temperatures dip into the 20's, cover the carrots!" Who knew that the earth itself would freeze a few inches deep at that temperature? I didn't. But it has been damp, and it is cold, so there you go. A couple of years ago, I would have kicked myself pretty hard for making this mistake; now I simply realize that mistakes are oftentimes how you learn, and the bigger the mistake, the more firmly the lesson sticks. Ah, well. So it goes. January. You'd think with the light returning and the days getting longer now that the heat would follow suit, but this is the coldest it's been all winter. Days and days of 20's and 40's. Yikes.
A new learning experience: when the ground itself freezes, the things in it also freeze. Okay, so it seems like a no-brainer and perhaps it is, but the idea and the practical implication are just now coming together for me. My carrots are frozen. Actually, it's mostly just the exposed tops, perhaps an inch down, but that inch drastically reduces their marketability. Thankfully, I have a somewhat forgiving market, but this may be a bit of a costly education in paying attention to severe weather. Now my carrots are covered, albeit late, and I'm making a note in my crop folder, "when the temperatures dip into the 20's, cover the carrots!" Who knew that the earth itself would freeze a few inches deep at that temperature? I didn't. But it has been damp, and it is cold, so there you go. A couple of years ago, I would have kicked myself pretty hard for making this mistake; now I simply realize that mistakes are oftentimes how you learn, and the bigger the mistake, the more firmly the lesson sticks. Ah, well. So it goes. January. You'd think with the light returning and the days getting longer now that the heat would follow suit, but this is the coldest it's been all winter. Days and days of 20's and 40's. Yikes.
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