This Week on the Farm 3/11
2017 is off to a great start. Our large greenhouse is full of annual flower seedlings and our onions are up and going strong. We have fired up the retail greenhouse to make room for all of our seedlings and by next week we may be starting to up pot some of our flower seedlings. The germination chamber is a balmy 80 degrees F, which is a blast to go in during these cold, cold days.
We have been able to keep up with our greenhouse seeding schedule thank to our friend Drew who has come out to the farm multiple times these last few weeks to help out. Tyler is finally back working full time here on the farm which means we will be able to get a lot more accomplished. His parents (the snow birds) will also be coming home in the next couple of weeks so that will help out immensely.
We have made the down payment on the Kult Kress finger weeder that we mentioned last summer. It should ship sometime in mid-April. I am very excited to see it in action and I am hopeful that it will help reduce the amount of hoeing and hand weeding that we have to do each summer. Both Tyler and I want to continue farming for the long haul, but physically we can’t keep farming in such a labor intensive way. We have made it a priority to mechanize as much as possible so that we don’t wreck our bodies.
With all of the warm weather the garlic has started to peak through the mulch that we spread last fall. It remains to be seen whether or not it will survive this next round of cold weather. Thankfully it is not up too much and garlic is a fairly hardy plant. The strawberries are also starting to green up a little bit. We have ordered enough new strawberry plants to plant about half an acre. It is time to start a new bed and we are going to move it closer to the retail greenhouse. Next year we will have pick your own strawberries available at the same time as our retail greenhouse is open. That will hopefully draw more people out to the farm, and it will be easier for people to get to the strawberry patch since it will be closer to the road.
Tomorrow is our big marketing day at the Monona Terrace for the FairShare CSA Coalition’s Open House. This will be our fifth year tabling at the Open House and we always have a lot of fun. We have several other events planed for 2017 as well. We will have a lunch and learn at Goodwill NCW on March 29 and we will be at the East and Northeast Madison YMCA’s on May 6th for their Kid’s Day.
If you are desperate to see green things growing, feel free to stop out and check out our greenhouse. Just call ahead to make sure someone can show you around. We love visitors!