Rainsoaked plants and soil

In 2023 January was the rainy month and this year February has been the rainiest month, so far.

The opportunities at this time of the year to get into the field are never guaranteed so when we have an opportunity to plant we have to take advantage of it if we have plants that are ready to be transplanted or direct seeded.

It was so great to get everything planted that we could, including potatoes, since we won’t be able to plant for the next few days after the recent rain.

The farm got over 2.5 inches of rain in this past rainstorm. There is not much standing water but the soil is definitely muddy preventing us from direct seeding or using the tractor in the field.

The sun looks to be reappearing for the next week along with some winds which will help dry out the top of the soil while the rest of the water infiltrates into the ground.

Many other farms were still waiting for the soil to dry out from the rainstorm a few weeks ago when this rain came pushing it off further. Hopefully these sunny days allow everyone to plant all the transplants that are ready before they go bad.

We are just under a month from when we are hoping to transplant the first tomatoes. They are looking very good in the greenhouse and have been growing a lot recently as the develop more leaves.

There is still cover crop where the tomatoes are going to go and lots of other places on the farm so when we are able to get the tractor in the field next lots of mowing will take place.

Once mowed the cover crop will need a little time to decompose into the soil while we prep it so that there isn’t lots of debris on top of the soil when the transplanting or direct seeding needs to take place.

A few weeks ago we were able to seed some crops directly in the field before the first rainstorm. Now the radishes, beets, bok choy, turnips and arugula have germinated and are starting to grow.

It is hard to know how long each of them will take to be ready to be harvested since its very weather dependent at this time of the year. The bigger the plants get the quicker they will grow so all this rain combined with this forecasted sunny weather could make them grow faster than expected.