Ups and Downs and Ups of Early Spring...

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Well, it's not really early spring anymore, but since it was so cold late into April, it still feels pretty early!  Last week was our last semi-quiet week on the farm, and now we are in full steam mode until the fourth of July.  So far in the field, we have peas, lettuce, spinach, beets, carrots, chard, kale, collards, cabbage, broccoli, radishes, turnips, and tons of greens in the ground.  Waiting their turn in the greenhouse and garage are potatoes, onions, leeks, scallions, shallots, and tons more lettuce, broccoli, and all sorts of greens.  Whew... you can get tired just thinking of it all!  Fortunately, the weather, while a bit dry, is certainly pleasant enough to be working in! Matt laying down anchors for row cover.  Last year we had terrible flea beetle issues in our brassicas, so this year everything's going under row cover!

The finished field... this cover will keep off the bugs and provide a few degrees of cold protection.

The big challenge we faced this week is that the 4 acres of pasture and aisles we so carefully seeded completely failed to germinate, which is weird and quite frustrating.  All the areas in the field that should be coming in nice and green are sad and brown-looking.  This led us to a big rush to track down seed to replant these areas and means we are going to be extra busy during an already busy week.  Let's keep our fingers crossed the seed we are replanting has better luck and we get some rain in the next few weeks so these grasses can get a good start!

Some of the rye that did germinate... it's doing well (and is 4" higher already!).

This also means our chickens won't be grazing inside the electric fence, but will be out in the larger pastures, which gives them a shade less protection than we planned for, so we are working out how to do a bit more fortification.  Fortunately, the hens have really settled into being good outside birds and are grazing and digging up a storm.  We've kept them in the yard to acclimatize these first few weeks, but they are making the big trip out to the back field tomorrow!

The ladies have overcome their initial fear of the sky, sun, and grass, and are loving life now.  More eggs come each day!

Greenhouse seeding is coming along well--we have some pictures below of some of the process.  As of this weekend, the greenhouse was over half empty, but we've repopulated it pretty quickly with more eggplant and peppers, tomatoes, and early fall plantings of leeks, chard, and kale!

Our almost empty greenhouse Sunday.

This afternoon's project--seed 60 flats!  (Mission accomplished!)

Maryellen repotting peppers into larger containers

Carefully lifting by the leaves...

Starting to plant apples!  We are putting in a few trees each year and slowly building towards an orchard.  Look for apples in those 2018 CSA boxes! :)

We had a midnight visitor... anyone recognize the bite marks?  We almost think it was a bunny standing on their hind legs...