Almost May

Today we made our first field plantings, one bed each of spinach, peas and fava beans. (That would be 300 rowfeet, 200 and 200, respectively.) We're looking forward to planting some mesclun, broccoli raab and radishes tomorrow. With all of the warm weather we've had recently, the fields have dried out nicely and it's been hard to keep myself from planting everything. We're still getting nights in the 20's, however, and it's important not to let freakishly warm weather fool you. So what have I been doing with these beautiful days? Working the greenhouse, of course. Today I finished potting up all of our heirloom and cherry tomatoes from the slot trays in which they're started into larger 2" soil blocks. This will give them some fresh soil to chew on and some more room to grow. In a couple of weeks, I'll pot them up again into 4" pots. I recently finished doing to our first planting of determinate tomatoes, which should be ready to go out into the field in a couple of weeks (with lots of protection, of course). The eggplant pictured in the previous post was potted up about a month ago and -- around 6" tall -- is ready for the 4" pot treatment itself. In addition to the tomatoes, I've seeded lettuce, chicory, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, pac choi, napa cabbage, Swiss chard and basil in the greenhouse.

And garlic! I completely forgot to mention that I unmulched our garlic a few weeks ago; all 1800 row feet. That's around 3600 potential heads of garlic. So, unlike last year, we'll have plenty of garlic.

On another note, we're happy to report that the state recently approved our kitchen for bread production. So our bread is official and legal and all that now. We'll be taking it to farmers markets as soon as they start up, which is ... this week! Our first market in Orono is on the 2rd and Waterville begins on the following Thursday, the 7th.

That it's for now. Stay tuned, though, for some info about a farm party we want to have in May.

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Signs of Spring

Even with a blast of arctic air and two feet of snow still on the ground, it's hard to deny that spring is upon us. Crocuses have poked up along the south side of our house, it's light until after 7pm, the wood shed if empty, and 8-12" ruts have returned to our driveway.

We've also been furiously seeding veggies. To date, we've seeded onions, shallots, leeks, peppers, eggplants, artichokes, cardoons (new for us this year), some tomatoes, herbs (rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, chives, lovage), parsley, celery, celeriac and ... I guess that's it for now.

More info and pictures inside the full post...


To keep us from heating our hoophouse for a little while (even just a week or two could save several hundred dollars worth of propane) we're keeping all of our seedlings in our walk-in cooler until they germinate. Of course, it's not cooling; we have a very small electic heater that keeps the temp between 70 and 80 degrees and there are banks of fluorescent lights to keep the tiny seedlings from getting all stretched out as they search for light. An added bonus which we hadn't anticipated is that the plants are germinating much quicker with the moister, warmer, more consistent conditions. Last year it took three weeks for our peppers to come up, and many never even made it. This year, it took less than a week and every single one of them came up at the same time!

An eggplant just after germination.

Lovage seeds.

Graham enjoys hanging out in the hoophouse with me. He gets very very messy.

We also moved our chicks outside. They adjusted quite well to the cold.

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Spring's Coming Soon, Right?

As we look out the window at an inch of fresh snow atop the 2-3 feet of snow we already have, it's really reassuring to know that we're going to be starting some seedlings next week. We can barely see out of kitchen window:
and there are snow banks over 6 feet tall around here. Our plow guy actually got stuck and had to bring a gigantic payloader over to dig us all out.

Over the weekend, though, we'll be cleaning out our walk-in cooler so that we can set it up as a "grow" or "germination room". You could even call it a "germ lab". Because it's so well insulated, we'll be able to heat that room really efficiently. We'll put the seedlings on heat mats to help them germinate quickly and we'll have lots of flourescent lights so that the plants won't get all stretched out (aka "leggy") as they search for light. Our goal with this is to keep us from heating our hoophouse for as long as possible. The hoophouse isn't insulated (like, at all) but we have to heat it to keep the plants growing well. Even if we only use the cooler for a couple of weeks, we'll save a lot on fuel costs. That's the plan, at least.

The first things we'll start with will be things like onions, celery and peppers. This is all very exciting for us. As much as we love winter and eating seasonally, we're starting to craze some greenery. We'll post some pictures once we get things set up.

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Potting Up

One of the numerous tasks we have every spring, "potting up" -- or moving various seedlings from small pots, trays or cells into larger pots or cells -- is done for a number of reasons: it gives the plants fresh soil (and, thus, nutrients) to use; it gives them more room, so they can grow larger while staying stout and sturdy and it lets us make more efficient use of potting mix and our precious greenhouse space because we can germinate many hundreds of plants in very compact trays and select only the best to spread out later into larger, roomier trays. It's a very easy task, but one that takes a lot of time.

In the pictures below, you'll see that we're using soil blocks, which are just that: little blocks of soil. We germinate seeds in tiny 3/4" blocks, which we later separate and plug into the larger 2" blocks. Not only is it very geometrically satisfying, but it fulfills the strong urge to play with building blocks that we are so rarely able to express as adults.

We finished potting up last week, with the bulk of it happening two weeks ago. These pictures were taken just after the plants were potted up and -- though I have no pictures to prove it -- the plants are already unrecognizably larger.

A big tray of celery seedlings. Note the little blocks fitting into the bigger blocks.


A close-up of the Celery.


Peppers


A whole bench filled with tomatoes, peppers, celery, celeriac and parsley seedlings.
(The plants in back are being watched for some friends. They, apparently, got an earlier start than we did.)

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Early Spring Transplants

We grow many things from transplant. Instead of planting seeds directly into the garden, we plant them in special trays in our hoophouse. After several weeks (sometimes several months!), we take the small plants and set them into the garden. In exchange for more work to get them ready, care for them and to plant them, we can get earlier crops that are easier to weed.

Late last week, we set out our first transplants of the season. Among other things, we planted head lettuce, endive, pac choi, chinese cabbage, cauliflower, kohlrabi, broccoli, kale, collard greens, swiss chard, beets and globe artichokes.

Seedling of Napa Cabbage

Globe Artichoke seedling

A seedling of lettuce. This variety has the poetic name: "Hyper Red Rumpled Waved"

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