February rain keeps us out of the field

Since last Tuesday when we had a big day of planting on the farm we have not done much work on the farm outside of harvesting.

The rains kept us out of the field at the end of last week other than harvesting for the farmers market and doing some pruning and spreading compost on the trees we have.

The last few days have been consistently raining with just over two inches of rain soaked into the farm. That is over 160,000 gallons of water infiltrating into the soil from just this rain.

It is a great sight to see there be no puddling of water on the farm as it all is going deep into the soil quickly and replenishing the aquifer we use to water in the summer.

During this time we have been getting a lot of cleaning up done in the barn to prepare for how busy it will be once the farm dries out so we can transplant, direct seed and prepare areas.

There are always little bits and pieces that get forgotten that we can repurpose or get rid of and things we kept just in case we needed them and we haven’t used them in a couple of years.

We were able to get a little citrus harvest done over the weekend for an order Monday but won’t be picking anymore until Friday as citrus should be dry when picked.

This rain brings the rainfall for the season to just over 15 inches and it the first significant rain since the first week of January.

Having all that sunny and dry weather after the earlier rain led to all the grasses and cover crops growing taller earlier that they need to be mowed now but we can’t until the soil dries out.

For the large amount of seedlings we got planted last week it feels like the greenhouse is even more full. A number of the tables are filled with tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and onions that will be in here for a while as the spring veggies grow quickly before we transplant them.

After these next couple of days of cold weather with the night potentially being in the low-30s we will be putting some of the spring veggie transplants outside to adjust to the environment in preparation for them being planted soon.

They may have to wait another week as there is forecasted rain early next week in large enough quantities that would delay when we can plant.

Another reason we need to get the spring seedlings out of the greenhouse is we are running out of room and have a big seeding week next week including the leeks which will be in there growing for close to three months.

The tomatoes we seeded in January and potted up last week take up more space in the larger cells and we are seeding a lot more tomatoes for both properties we are growing them on this week and next.

Fortunately the seeding in the greenhouse will start to slow down a little bit after next week with it mostly being lettuce and summer crops that stay in the greenhouse for fewer days like melons and cucumbers.

This year we are starting a lot more melons in the greenhouse to improve their germination that has been less than ideal when we have been direct seeding.

It adds another step to the process but hopefully also adds a lot more melons we are able to harvest.