Spring has Arrived!
Spring has arrived! Not necessarily with a bang but it has arrived and while the longer days and warmer temps gently remind us of spring's arrival we still are keenly aware of winter's strong hold on us! Our mountains are still snow covered and are receiving fresh snow everytime it rains in the valley. Our nights are still dipping down to freezing so that means no crops are ready to go out in the gardens yet. But our greenhouse is full and getting fuller everyday. It's just too hard to be out there watering the tiny plants and not seed another tray of veggies! We will end up with more than we can plant this year for sure but we'll have some of those starts for sale or we'll share with our farmer friends!
The advantage of this slower start to the planting season is it has offered us the opportunity to do some projects we normally wouldn't be doing this time of year. This past weekend, we hired a crew of the local FFA kids, who are trying to raise money for a leadership camp this summer, to come and clean out some of our gardens and help up lay down new landscape fabric on our walk paths in one of the gardens. This was a project on our list for the last couple of years, but it always falls to the bottom of the list once planting begins. So there is an advantage to a cooler spring!
The fruit trees have all been pruned and are starting to slowly bud out. The crop fields have had manure spread and have been tilled. The onions have been planted...all 1500 plants! Although, we still have onion sets to put in too! The sweet peas have been planted, the raspberry canes cleaned out and thinned, the lettuce bed is prepped and ready for seed this week. So as you can see, we are ready to roll once Mother Nature decides she's ready!
Meanwhile, you'll continue to find us hanging out in our tropical feeling greenhouse, seeding more trays and dreaming of the best harvest ever!