This Week on the Farm 3/5
Well I am a little late getting this post up on the website. We have been pretty busy and I have felt a little under the weather, so the blog post got pushed off until now. It is snowing heavily here on the farm, but in the greenhouses the first signs of spring have emerged. The onions, shallots, and first planting of scallions have all popped. It is wonderful to walk into a warm environment and see green things growing!
Last week we planted leeks, celery, celeriac, and more cipollini onions. Cipollini onions were the best discovery we made last year. They taste fantastic, are adorable, and handled the early part of the drought much better than the rest of our onions. We added a red variety this year, so I am really looking forward to eating them the end of June. We are growing celeriac again this year. We attempted to grow it our first year as a CSA, but like celery, it needs a steady supply of water, so it did not do very well. With our improved irrigation system it should do well this year.
This past year we got a lot of compliments on our celery. People were surprised at how flavorful it was compared to what you find in the grocery store. Although the stems were much smaller than the celery on ‘roids you find in the grocery store, it sure did pack a punch! We loved it so much and wanted to be able to put it in the boxes later in the season once the stems are larger that we actually tripled the amount of seed that we ordered this season. But don’t worry, you won’t be overwhelmed by celery!
Tyler finished construction on our very own vacuum seeder. Unlike the commercially available versions which run for over $700, our version was free. We used scrap materials we had around the farm. Right now it is calibrated for a 200 cell plug tray and will seed all of our Brassicaceae crops, except our napa cabbages which we are planting into larger cell trays. I am looking forward to using it in the coming weeks! It should save us a lot of time.
We will be at the FairShare CSA Open House at the Monona Terrace in Madison this Sunday, March 10 from 1PM-4PM. Come stop by our table and see our sweet display!