We started our first seeds in our little hoop house the 2nd week of March. We have had a rollercoaster of weather for the past couple of months as we prepare for the season.
The planting schedule is set, we have the seeds, and supplies have arrived. Now, we need the weather to cooperate with our plans. We have had a tremendous amount of rain on the farm over the past few months. We are doing our best to stay on schedule with field preparation. It looks like we have finally made it past the coldest nights of early spring. During this time, we are starting our plants and working on general farm clean-up and structure maintenance on all of our hoop houses and high tunnels. The cover crops that were planted in the fall last season must be turned into the soil, which adds organic matter and feeds the soil microbiome.
Did you know that we start all of our own transplants?
How we do it on our farm: We are required to use products and seeds approved for organic production. Our potting mix is purchased from Vermont Compost Company through a local supplier. Seeds are started by hand. We choose the cell size based on how long the plants will stay in the trays, how we will plant them in the field, and if they will be repotted to larger pots. Our seed starting space is limited to our 16×30 hoop house. The trays that seeds are started in are warmed with heat mats and covered with humidity domes to ensure even and quick germination. The hoophouse is also heated with a propane radiant heater at night and sometimes during the day on cloudy days. We can generally keep it heated 10 degrees above the outside temperature. In the first month, we only use the heat mats. The trays are covered at night with humidity domes, and the shelves are covered with plastic to help retain the heat. We try not to use the propane heater until it is necessary, when the plants are off the heat mats, to reduce our energy consumption. We must run the heater at night if the temperatures are below 50.
Trays on heatmats, humidity domes, and nightly plastic covering during the first cold month
Growing in the seedling house now: summer squash, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, broccoli, red cabbage, swiss chard, lettuce, bok choy, parsley, tomatillo, onions, scallions, shallots, kale, basil, cauliflower, pac choy, and tatsoi. We will share more information about the varieties in upcoming newsletters.
Getting a High Tunnel ready for those gorgeous tomato plants
This tunnel had a cover crop growing over the winter. It gets cut and worked into the soil. This helps improve soil structure by adding organic matter and weed suppression. The soil is tilled by hand. A landscape fabric is fastened into place. This helps with weed suppression and soil moisture retention. It is now ready for plants. We will hand-plant into the holes. This High Tunnel is 30′ x 96′ (2,880sqft)
High Tunnel Construction
We are finally completing the high tunnel we started last summer. The weather has not been very cooperative this early part of the year. We have worked in snow, rain and very warm sunny days. We completed the structure last fall and decided to wait until warmer weather to finish the endwalls and get the plastic on. The big day where weather is very important is when the plastic goes on. We need at least 5 people to be sure to get the large piece centered. There must me NO wind on this day. Luckily, all of the kids came back for a birthday celebration, and the weather was agreeable to finally get the plastic on. We are now finishing up the doors and vents.
The end walls are large sheets of polycarbonate and connecting framing that needs to be cut to size. The next step is to get the plastic over the top. It is a large roll that is folded. It is rolled out and tennis balls are attached with rope to aid in pulling the large sheet over top of the steel structure. Everyone pulls a rope together to pull it over straight and fight any little breezes. Once centered we quickly fasten each corner. Then each side is locked in place with wiggle wire in a track. Then the top is locked in. The final step of the plastic installation is the roll up sides. A long pipe is attached to the plastic and it is rolled under around the pipe. Ropes are then attached to eye hooks to hold the sides in when the wind blows. Once all of this is completed the sliding doors and vents can be installed. This is the step we are working on now. We hope to have this done in the next few non-rainy days.
Organic Inspection:
Our farm is Certified Organic. We have been certified organic since the start of our farm in 2005. We are certified organic by NOFA-NY Certified Organic, LLC. Our farm is inspected each year. We had our inspection early this year. We reviewed all of our documentation, like seed orders, products used, planting records, sales records, and harvest records. The inspector also inspects our farm fields and structures where our crops are grown. They try to visit at different times of the year. This was our first inspection this early in the season. It was snowing and cold!
Weather
We have had enough storms this spring at the farm. Most of them went by your house, too. Sunny and warm one day, then hail, snow. It has been a roller coaster. We are looking forward to when it stabilizes a bit in the next week or so.
We can’t wait to see you all in June!
Your Farmers,
Joely & Joe
