The potatoes are in. 600+ pounds of Yukon Golds, Norlands reds, Russett Burbanks, and two fingerling varieties. Every seed potato is carefully cut into pieces – each with at least one eye, set on racks in a protected hoop building until the cut side is callused over, then carefully placed one foot apart in 275 foot rows. Because we now have a furrower attachment for the three point hitch on the little Ford 8N tractor, this job is so much easier than previous years when every long row was marked and dug by hand. This year all the potatoes were planted in two ½ day stints.
The onion plants also arrived by delivery truck and in one day all 6500 plants plus a few hundred more cippolinis we started from seed were standing in formation in the field.
The sugar snap peas and shell peas have also been seeded in the field.
And while our fields are all plowed, disked and ready for final prep and planting, we have been holding off a bit because of all these at or below freezing nights – just last night another HARD frost – 28.0 on our thermometer – way too cold for anything but onions and peas. Hopefully this is the last winter hurrah because our greenhouses are full to bursting with transplants all all kinds.
On Thursday, we built another greenhouse. Constructed of locally sawed second grade lumber and our stock panel design, it is the best looking house yet – and nearly filled already with basil, kohlrabi and flower seedlings.
Two of our intern yurts are also up – and Kristin and Dale – have begun working their summer schedules of three and four days per week at the farm.
Because of holding off on field planting, we’ve been able to get a lot of ongoing farm chores accomplished – like mucking out the laying chicken pen, re-configuring and fencing the goats and soon we’ll begin re-assembling the children’s playground donated by our church – as a playground for our goat kids. It will be great fun watching them race up and down on the different levels.
Speaking of goats, we are now milking five – Didja, Mamba, Mantra, Mezzo and Stormy. They are all also feeding their kids – twins for all except Didja and Mezzo with singles. We bring in about a gallon or a bit more of milk into the house every morning – to drink and make a variety of soft cheeses like chevre, feta, cheddared curds, and fromage blanc. Someday, we hope to build a small dairy and offer goat products?????? Dreams, dreams, dreams.
We are looking forward to a really busy week – lots of planting in the field – all the early radishes, turnips, greens, lettuces etc, as well as more seeding in the germination house of watermelons and cantaloupe. And we need to build two more housing structures for the next farm apprentice/interns who will arrive mid May.
So….. back to work………………….
Robin and Gigi