This Week on the Farm 3/14
It has been a busy two weeks on the farm. Tyler is back full time, which means we can get a lot more done in a day, which is awesome since there is a lot to do. Our germination greenhouse is full. The onions look fantastic, especially now that they have been fertilized twice. The scallions are looking great, too. The leeks are just starting to germinate and so is the parsley.
It is really nice to see the parsley starting. All of the other plants that have started are spiky, but the parsley adds texture to the greenhouse. Spring is almost here. Kay has a few daffodils that are starting to poke through the soil.
Sadly we had another five to six inches of snow last week. It was perfect packing snow, so we built a temporary garden helper that became Wash’s good friend.
Last Wednesday Tyler and I spent the day in the car. We went to Viroqua to meet with MOSA. MOSA stands for Midwest Organic Services Association and they are one of the agencies that certifies farms as organic. We are filling out the paperwork to be certified as “In Transition” and had a lot of questions to ask them to make sure that we were filling out all of the paperwork correctly. It was really helpful to meet with someone and get all of our questions answered. All of the paperwork seems less daunting now that we talked to someone about it all.
Last Thursday we went to Stoughton and bought a two row tobacco planter. Don’t worry, we will not be using it to plant tobacco! The set up is perfect for planting vegetable plugs. Last year we planted everything we started in the greenhouse with a one row planter. Since we are expanding this year and a two row planter allows for more even spacing between rows, we decided to upgrade to the two row planter. This means that we can have four people riding on the planter at one time to feed the fingers that place the plugs in the ground. I am excited to use this new planter. The previous owner attached bars to increase the storage space so we can carry more flats with us out into the field, which means less time driving back to the greenhouse to pick up plants.
Friday we ran errands. They took forever! But I do have new work boots:)
Monday we spent the day turning the hoophouse into a greenhouse. We added a heater and an exhaust fan. Tyler is working on wiring the house so that we can plug our new germination flat in. 
Our new germination flat was made by taking a 4×8 section of insulation and adding two heat tapes. We can then put newly seeded flats on top of this and the heat tapes will keep the soil warm and conducive to germination for a lot of veggie species. We can fit a lot more trays on the germination flat, which will help since tomorrow I am going to be planting Brussels sprouts.
We are going to a garden club meeting tonight in Rio. We agreed to be on the Garden Tour this summer and we are going to go get more information about what we need to do to get ready.