Greenhouse Craziness

After 2 solid months in the greenhouses, we have begun to feel like we don't even have a farm - we're just greenhouse workers! Today, however, we finished the last potting up of our offerings for Gardener's Supply Company and Four Seasons Garden Center - a major turning point in our season, where our energy shifts from the greenhouse work to field work. That's not to say the greenhouse work is not fun - it offers a nice flow to the early season. We spend our time seeding, potting-up, hardening off the plants in a cold frame, and then transplanting them to the field. It's always nice to look at our carefully constructed seeding plans, and realize that because we've followed the plan all along, we actually have the correct number of plants at the right time.

The field hasn't been completely neglected, as you can see from previous posts, it feels like we really haven't spent much time out there for an entire week. We also had our first farmers' market this past weekend! We had fantastic weather, plenty of happy customers, and we got to share our amazing microgreens, broccoli raab, and some of those greenhouse-grown plants with everyone! What a great first market! We're officially off to a great market season!

To drag on a theme, we've also been trying to get off a little early at the farm so that we can go home and garden. Yep. We've tilled up our backyard and are planting a giant herb garden. We've had far too many occasions where we've forgotten herbs at the farm and are faced with an herb-less meal, or (gasp!) buying herbs from the store rather than driving all the way back to the farm! We've probably gone overboard, but it's fun and it's a great way for us to use up all sorts of composted microgreens soil that we've been storing at the farm for a year, old straw for mulching our beach-like sandy soil, and yet another chance to over-engineer an irrigation system. Our neighbors look on with interest and offer to take photos of the progress. It appears that we can't get enough of digging in the dirt!
This week we're working on laying landscape fabric in our constant efforts to find ways to beat the weeds. We'll be using the fabric for long-term crops. Also, we will be transplanting brassicas, chard and artichokes. We'll mow down our cover crops and mow down the dandelions (now that we've harvested enough for dandelion wine!). Salud!