This week on the farm!

With the first hint of spring on the farm, we are back in our blogging saddle!

This week blew in like a lion, melting the snow and heating up the toasty greenhouse for the little baby seedlings. Geese streamed over and checked out the still frozen pond for home sites, Beulah was overwhelmed by all the aromas from the warming ground, and we farmers were thrilled to have our hands back in the dirt (well, the potting soil at least).

Matt had a lot of fun moving the top heavy giant ice cubes of potting soil through the narrow greenhouse door. Beulah supervised the process, of course, in between spats of chasing the Robin Mafia out of the yard. (The robins earned their name last year by destroying all the other birds’ nest to earn farm yard dominance.)

By mid-week, warm weather blasted over the farm, and partially ripped off the high tunnel cover. Fortunately, it was warm and sunny enough that the plastic became stretchy over the day, and we were able to balance on the precarious ladder (ladders and mud don’t cooperate well) and pull it tight enough to refasten it. Thank goodness for sunshine!

The sun worked its magic inside the high tunnel as well. We had spinach and kale at Saturday’s market (thank you everyone who came out), and the soil is warm enough we are planting some greens for our early May markets this week! We will also be at the Spruce Ridge Market from 10 to 1 on Saturday, April 6th with greens and storage veggies.

In the heated greenhouse, we’ve started flowers, herbs, onions, leeks, scallions, shallots, spinach, and more! Seeds are bursting out of the ground fast.

But the real truth of farming this week is that it’s our last chance to fine tune our crop numbers and figure out what’s going where. Thanks to the new field high tunnel, we have a bit of extra space this year, which will let us play with new crops, and do more cover cropping to build better soils (and grow more delicious vegetables). But it also meant that this was my view on one of those gorgeous sunny days!

Happy spring to everyone! We hope to see you at the market, or as part of the CSA (shares are still available at hartwoodfarm.com/sign-up