Monday, April 25, 2011

Here comes some sun!




What a great day it was on Thursday to amend the soil, til and plant! The baby lettuce and spinach starts were happy to be taken out of their tightly seeded homes and put into the earth they so deserved! Their seedy cousins followed suit behind them, carefully tossed into neat rows and patted down. Then came along some broccoli toddlers who cheerfully accepted their new home on the same day! The walla walla and white onion starts balked a bit, as they were so used to entwining their roots among each other, they managed to be somewhat separated and regrouped into a more suitable medium to show what they are made of. Other veggies directly seeded this day was additional spinach, carrots, beets and greens mixes.
Yes it was a great relief to have enough dry days in a row to get these starts in the ground so they can work their yummy magic for the early part of the harvest season. The strawberries are a bit cautious still, and this farmer needs to wait just a little bit longer before fertilizing them for juicy berries. There has been some frosty mornings we don't want to push them too far out of dormancy before the soil is warm enough to coax them into flowering for berries.



I observed quite a few volunteer broccoli raab, cilantro and a few other hardy plants that will give us a second early season of tasty salad fixins. It is always a surprise as to which hardy plants survived the coldest of winters and come back to visit in the spring. The garlic is still going just as nicely as a few leeks wanted to hang around for year two. The sugar snap peas are showing themselves as well. Lets cross our fingers the rains stop for more planting sooner rather than later!