Spring is here!
I am a much happier person this week. Yesterday was a perfect, bright, beautiful spring day. I planted our second succession of lettuce and spinach in the hoop house, we were able to get started on the latest building project, and I delivered our first bouquet of the season.
Flowers!
The bouquet was for Sweet Donkey Coffee. As you may have noticed, we're quite into each other these days! They have been an awesome new partner and I love how excited they get about fresh produce. Dustin's (the owner) favorite flower is the daffodil. It's the shop's one year anniversary so I brought them our first bouquet of daffodils to bring a little spring into the celebration. They are also having a party on Friday at the coffee shop and I will be there with some treats to usher in the spring - please come join us!
Building..
The new building project is reshaping the old milk room in to our new wash station! It will include a 10' x 10' cold room to store vegetables before market. It gets pretty hot around these parts, so the cooler is essential. It will ensure our produce stays fresh and it will give us more flexibility to plan harvests efficiently.
I'm excited to get the walls painted, bring in our new stainless steal tables for washing and packing, and set up the station for a long and (hopefully!) successful harvest season.
Learning
The succession planting is an ongoing learning experience. The lettuce seedlings grew faster this time (more light, more nutrients in the new potting soil) so they are already as big as the ones we planted two weeks ago. I think they may well be ready at the same time. Next time I'm going to give the lettuce only 3 weeks in the greenhouse instead of 4, I think this will help even out the plantings.
For the direct seeding (arugula, spicy greens, etc) we created an awesome rake innovation to help me make better, straighter, more uniform rows. This was a fun process and a reminder that with a little creativity there are always things we can do to improve the process.
Honestly though, the biggest difference is the temperature. I believe (all fingers crossed) that we are finally done with single digit nights. So, while I remain worried about when (if ever!) my poor outdoor fields will dry out enough to work, I am happy. Spring is springing!
