Eye candy from the greenhouse

Farm apprentice Sophie comes to Weir River with an impressive skill set, including some awesome photography skills. She brought her camera into the greenhouse yesterday for some closeup shots of our seedings, which I have to share with you--

green cabbage 

chard forest

red lettuce

red cabbage

Sophie and I spent the last few chilly days building a bunch more greenhouse tables to fit our ever-growing family of veggie babies--carpentry skills are another talent Sophie can add to her collection. We have more table-building lined up for tomorrow and this weekend and then it's out into the field next week to do some seeding and maybe transplanting some onions!

New faces around here

We have several new members of our farm family! Lambing has started in the barnyard and we have four new fuzzy baby lambs. These are Shamrock's babies--healthy, happy, and beginning to explore the world. If you'd like to meet them, we're having an event on April 25th--Earth Day with the Animals from 10am - 2pm--when you can get up close and hang out with all our new lambs.

Up in the veggie fields, we have another new face, farm apprentice Sophie, who comes to Weir River from Sweet Georgia Peas in Vermont. She's been seeding and seeding and seeding in the greenhouse, but we took a break this week to mulch our garlic crop with straw. The straw will help keep down the weeds this summer and add some extra organic matter to the soil as well.

And we couldn't resist shooting some video of the baby lambs. This is Sophie, holding one of the as-yet-unnamed new lambs. Our 4-H'ers will have the honor of naming all the babies soon!

Spring is springing on the farm

Lots of signs of spring popped up this week with the warmer weather. We spotted the first snowdrops of the year growing along the river bank, which is swollen with all the rain we got last weekend.

first snowdrops of spring

Inside the greenhouse, our work over the last month seeding millions of tiny seeds is coming to life! We have a tiny onion forest and some baby lettuces showing strong color.

baby red lettuce

mini onion forest!

And most exciting of all, one of our farm apprentices started this week. Sophie's been working steadily in the greenhouse seeding even MORE flats, as well as around the farm doing the odd jobs of spring cleanup that need doing at various corners of the farm. I'll introduce Sophie properly next week, along with some other new friends on the farm.

Feeding our fields

Earlier this week I spent two days spreading compost on our fields in preparation for the crops that will grow there this year. Farmer Ed and the livestock crew have been building our compost pile over the last year using manure from our livestock, leaves, and some veggie scraps and debris from last year's crops. The compost that results is rich in nutrients to feed our soils and in turn our crops this year. Also rich in organic matter, compost helps build the soil's ability to hold water--something we desperately need in our generally sandy, dry fields.

Spreading compost is a pretty noisy affair requiring two tractors and a clunking, clanking compost spreader. I use the first tractor to scoop bucketfuls of compost into the bed of the spreader, then switch tractors and pull the spreader, now riding low on its tires, out to the field and start cranking it out over the future beds of onions and squashes. Farmer Ed jumped on the tractor so I could make a quick video to show you how the compost spreader works:

It doesn't look like much, but that compost spreader saves dozens of hours of back-breaking work shoveling compost out onto the fields by hand. I was thanking the tractor gods this week for inventing such a wonderful machine.

First!!!

Cucumbers are the first to germinate this year! They popped their heads up overnight and were waiting for me in the greenhouse this morning. They'll double in size over the next 2-3 days. Plants are amazing!!

Grow, seedlings, grow!

First seeding of season is done!

Volunteers Gavin and Ben helped out seeding flats of bunching onions, salad mix, and cucumbers. By next week I should have pictures of cute baby seedlings to show you.

Go, little veggies, go!

Spring Cleaning the Greenhouse

With the (slightly) warmer temperatures expected this week, I'm excited to start working in the greenhouse putting seeds to soil.

A few weeks ago we took some shovels and some ice breaking tools and hacked away at the iced-up snow drifts that had accumulated along with sides after the many snowstorms this winter. It took several passes as we were trying to be very careful not to nick the greenhouse plastic with our shovels and picks. Eventually we cleared away enough snow to be able to roll up the sides and let the frigid winter air in. Exposing the interior of the greenhouse to extremely cold temps helps reduce any bacterial or fungal bad guys surviving in there. As we practice organic methods, preventing disease in the first place is always preferable to fighting it once it's established in our crops.

On a sunny day last week we did some preliminary cleaning and disinfecting and today I took a leaf blower in to 'sweep' out all the dirt and debris that's blown in from having the sides open.
Tomorrow I'll be back in there with the power washer to wash down the sides, then more disinfecting, and finally, by the end of the week we'll have lots of tiny onion and leek seeds tucked into their trays and starting their long journey towards the hot summer sun of July, when they'll be growing vigorously and loving life.