Despite the cold snap productivity has been at a high! Brush and some trees that had fallen over the winter has been cut down and cleared from the irrigation ditches at the corn field. Fergie, our loverly tractor, has two new batteries and is back to purring like a diesel dinosaur! Rar! And a big thanks to our friend, Nicole, for braving the chilly weather to help transplant the spinach and kale. Unfortunately we found that the kale is not as hardy as we thought, and with the light freeze the following evening we lost most of the kale :( This loss was with the protection of a frost cloth. Oops.
Our strawberries starts from Sakuma Bros have been rooting in the greenhouse and will be ready to plant outside soon. Also, our seed order from Mountain Valley has arrived! It's like X-mas in the spring. We will continue prepping the tomato and pepper area along with adding three more grow boxes for carrots, beets, and potatoes! Oh yes, spring is here!!
Nicole happily planting kale.
Obviously we're still learning. We're also very lucky to have friends and family helping us along the way! Tomorrow our friend and fellow farmer, Will, will be helping Charlie assess the corn field and potentially fixing the plow implement for the tractor. We're hoping to plow, disc and plant our first crop of corn by April 15th (weather depending). A crop this early is typically called a gamble crop. Most, but not all, folks know we get freezes up to Mother's day. If we don't get a freeze we hope to have one of the first crops of sweet sweet corn available for market in the area.
A strategy we'll be experimenting with is planting a type of legume with the corn called Hairy Vetch. The vetch is a thick, low-growing, carpet-esque cover crop that is high in nitrogen, which corn loves! Because of its density, vetch also makes a great weed suppressant. We're hoping this practice keeps the need for herbicides out of the picture!
We'd definitely recommend doing a Google search on cover crop planting. There are a ton of ways to use them to your advantage in any type of farming. We'll update with how we implement them in our own practice.
For more information, check out these Links.
