Winter to Spring

Toes toasting in front of fire

Well, here I sit on May first in front of the wood stove... this weather is just not right. I think back so fondly to mid-March when it was so sunny, warm, and dry. Alas, it's too early in the season to start complaining about the weather, so...

Happy May everyone! This blog has had a long hiatus since the last posting, but the advent of spring brings all kinds of bloggable topics. This past winter was eventful, but relaxing too. We had lots of time for all our favorite things: sleeping, reading, eating. We had visits from family and friends including Chris' sister from England, and Tammara's brother from St. Louis and sister from Austin.

Chris and Tammara at Playa El Tunco, El Salvador

We also had time for what has become nearly a winter tradition for us - travels to Central America. This year we went to Guatemala and El Salvador. This completes our check list for visiting all the countries of Central America - not that we were really counting.

Martin cultivating in lettuce tunnel

The farm season got off to a real jump start this year. With virtually no snow melt and little precipitation in late winter, our fields dried out earlier than any other of our 13 previous farm seasons. This allowed us to plow, till, and spread compost over all the fields by the end of March. Early plantings got in the ground on time, and we are off to a great start.

 It was actually so dry that I had to set up the irrigation in April, something I've never had to do before. As luck would have it, after spending a whole day setting everything up, the pump would not work. So for several days I had to revert to watering all the crops with a very long garden hose. Finally, I took the whole pump apart....to find the innards jam packed with hickory nuts! I guess those squirrels were busy last fall filling the intake hose with provisions. We eventually got everything put back together and working- just about the time it started to rain.

Drilling shiitake log

With it too wet to plant, we have kept busy with other projects. We harvested, drilled and inoculated about sixty new shiitake mushroom logs. We do a new batch every spring. It takes a year for the spawn to colonize the log and be ready to produce mushrooms, so what we prepared this year won't be ready until the 2013 season.

Sealing in spawn with melted bees wax

Seedling waiting for transplanting

We've been quite busy in the greenhouses, getting lots of plants started. With the rains delaying the transplanting for two weeks now - the main greenhouse is bursting at the seams. This week we put up our temporary tunnel to start hardening the plants off, as well as, to make room for this weeks seedings.

Salad beds ready to be cut

We are gearing up for our first market of the season this Saturday, May 5. One big change for us this year is that we will not be attending the Wednesday markets. We have debated this issue for a long time. We are constantly trying to find the right balance between time, size and sanity to make the farm a sustainable venture, both financially and personally. Not attending Wednesdays will give us an extra day to do field work on the farm, as well as, giving us more product to sell on Saturdays. We hope this does not inconvenience to many of our dedicated customers and apologize if it does.

We will once again be offering our Minglewood CSA Dollars option at our stand. This allows you to buy shares which are used as credit for any items sold at our stand. Shares range from $100 to $500 and save you from 10 to 20% off the regular prices. Be share to ask us for details at the market.

We are looking forward to a great season. Hope to see you at market.