Sunny weather and an extra day
It certainly has felt like a completely different season this past week compared to the rainy weeks before.
The days in the mid-60s with lots of sun has been so enjoyable, especially Saturday where Central Park was filled with people enjoying the market and great weather.
When the wind has been calm it is perfect to be outside and just soak in these nice days that feel like it is early April.
As the temperatures warm up there gets to be more to do on the farm with everything growing faster and more plants needing to go into the ground. We get one extra day of growing this year as it is a leap year which will make a minuscule difference in how everything grows.
This week we seeded our planting of leeks for the fall, it takes a long time for the leeks to grow and we have to start them now so they will be ready. We will likely plant them in the field in May and then tend to them all summer before beginning to harvest the delicious leeks in October.
Speaking of leeks we are nearing the end of this season’s crop and only have a few more weeks at most of them at market. We will have another allium, green garlic, for the next couple of months.
We are continuing to seed new successions of lettuce in the greenhouse as well as tomatoes. The ones already in the greenhouse have been loving the recent weather and are growing fast.
The combination of sunny and windy weather has made it so that we can get the tractor into the field. We have been taking advantage of that to finish prepping all the area we need for this weeks direct seeding and transplanting along with the ones for next week since there is rain coming.
There is lots of broccoli, cabbage and lettuce ready to plant this week. We’ll also be direct seeding crops like arugula, radishes, turnips, bok choy and beets.
The first plantings of these crops are germinating in the field but we need to continually plant them all spring so that there is harvest all spring.
We have even started to get ready for tomato planting which is about 3-4 weeks away by mowing down the cover crop. Last year we were unable to mow down the cover crop until right before we planted so the residue didn’t have much time to decompose in the soil. In the next couple weeks we will add compost to the area and then finish preparing the beds.
This year we are trying to be ahead on prepping areas we need to plant whenever possible as it is never ideal if you are making them at the last minute. Sometime we have to do it at the last minute but not every time.
The sunny weather is giving way to some rain this weekend and next week. This weekend’s rain is not forecasted to be that much, less than an inch over the course of three days which won’t keep us out of the field for too long.
Next week’s forecasted rain is expected to be a little bit more but the rainfall varies so much by location.
In addition to the sunny weather we have been enjoying all the blooming trees on the farm and in the area. Almonds are mainly what is blooming while a few peaches are just starting.
