The first replication of cool weather crops has emerged. Broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, cabbage and swiss chard. Planted 3/14 it took them about 5 days to emerge. We’re off and running.

We need to assemble shelving in the greenhouse so we can move the cool crops out doors once they get some legs to make room for further replications and warmer weather crops which won’t emerge without warm temperatures that can be maintained in the basement at this time. The shelving has to get finished this week.

The end of the week will mark 7 weeks until planting of crops that won’t tolerate frost so tomatoes and peppers will get started Saturday in the basement on top of a heating mat under florescent lighting. This works well if you can get enough light on them to keep them from getting “leggy”. It is also important to not over water without a good source of air movement or you’ll end up with severe “damping off”.

Also on the agenda for the weekend or upcoming week is hilling for spuds. The Super A is back together and I need to remove the plow and mount the cultivators and install my disk hillers in place of sweeps. Once I get a few hills made I can plant my first potatoes and get them covered. We are growing Red Pontiac and Yukon Gold this year. We’ll be offering new potatoes as well as fully mature later in the sesaon. As with everything else we’ll be practicing successive planting so that we can have a good variety through-out the growing season.

This is also a good time to discuss our CSA program. A program where, for a set fee, you are guaranteed a quantity of a sampling of everything we have to offer through-out the growing season. We’ll begin in June with early crops and as the season progresses more variety will be available. Our goal is to offer a good quantity and variety and not overload our customers with one or two items. We also want to work with our customer base and be able to offer CSA shareholders what they like to consume the most. So if you are a sweet corn lover you can opt for more sweet corn rather than say green beans if they are not your favorite item. So please if this is something that interests you feel free to contact us. Our goal is your satisfaction and we hope to offer more than you expect for what we are asking.

J.A.Root