Birthdays
On the farm this past week we celebrated my birthday, my brother's birthday and the birth date of my brand new nephew (John "Jack" Rutherfoord Thornton is a happy, healthy beautiful addition to the family!). It was also a birthday of sorts for our broccoli, cauliflower, kale, swiss chard, and scallions. All of whom were introduced to the great outdoors last week!
Wednesday we grabbed the short window of clear weather before the rains to make four 150' beds covered with plastic mulch (this helps keep plants warm in the early spring and is a great method for weed control). I was very impressed with our new mulch layer. It lays a smaller 36" bed, but it is light and easy to maneuver on our uneven land.
I managed to get all of the plants in on Saturday, but it wasn't without a few hiccups.. Because we had to rush the process to make the beds before the rains, and because the ground was still a bit wet from all of the snow, the beds were not perfectly tilled and it was harder than expected to get the plants in the ground. I also am still learning the ins-and-outs of drip tape irrigation. It is an amazing tool (keeping plants moist and happy with an hour of watering a day!) but it takes some adjustment and experimentation (at least on our land) to figure out the right location and number of lines of drip necessary to cover all the plants in the bed.
But for now at least, everybody is thriving (plants and humans alike) and there will be fresh veggies on your table soon! I can't believe our first farm stands are only two weeks away!!! Amazing to realize that we have made it this far already. I hope to see you at Community School on Tuesday, April 7th or at Sweet Donkey on Thursday April 9th. We will have fresh Spinach, Lettuce, Bok Choi and other goodies ready for you!
Interested in a regular reminder about the farm stands? Try signing up for our FarmFan App - we'll send you a weekly text message with a reminder about the stand and information about what we're going to have available that week. Let me know what you think, this is a new tool for us so we're just testing it out, but I think it could be pretty neat.