Where's the sunshine?

OK, enough with the RAIN! Our greens barely grew this week - we have much less to take to the market tomorrow than we've had the last two weeks. With no sunshine, things just aren't growing like we would wish them to.

We're hoping the rain holds off during the market at Morgantown tomorrow morning. Markets in the cold rain are downright miserable.

In other news, Charles was able to trod through the mud and transplant some onions this week, along with some Swiss chard, spinach, and lots of lettuce. We still have some plastic mulch to lay, but we have to wait until the fields dry out.

Please help us by praying for some sunshine! (And warmer weather!)

Morgantown Farmers Market Farm Fun Day this Saturday May 10

Saturday May 10 will be a super-fun day for families who attend the Morgantown Farmers Market.

We're having a Fun Farm Day, where we'll have contests, trivia, and good old-fashioned fun at the market! Lots of giveaways for kids, and balloons, and prizes will be available.

Visit the market between 8:30 am and noon at the corner of Fayette and Spruce Streets in Morgantown, West Virginia.

And by the way, we'll have lots of veggies for sale as well! Come get spinach, two kinds of kale, Swiss chard, and more! Plus other vendors will have tomatoes, herbs, plants, crafts, and jellies.

We hope to see you there!

Planting Has Begun!

We got a couple rows of cabbage, cauliflower, and the like planted in the patch along Rt. 219 on Friday evening. If you drive by while we're transplanting, you'll think we're just sitting in the field, but we're actually moving, very slowly! The tractor has a "creeper" gear, so it can go down to as slow as 0.1 miles per hour.

It goes that slow so we can plant behind the tractor. After the wheel pokes a hole and dumps some water in it, we have to shove the root-ball of the plant into the hole, and squeeze some of the mud around the roots to get the plants started nicely. So when you see someone riding behind the tractor, with their feet up, know they are actually planting furiously, not just sitting back having a joy ride!

Strawberries are Planted!

Last weekend we were able to get all our strawberries transplanted into the ground. Yay!

Why rejoice? For several reasons.

We had the strawberries potted up into cell trays, sitting in between the strawberry rows in the high tunnel. That means we had to water them once or twice a day, depending on how hot it got! It means we had no room to walk between the strawberry rows.

It also means that when a vole or mole started tunneling under the plant trays, and started eating the strawberry plants, we had not recourse!

So, after the trays were out of the tunnel and on their way to being planted, one of the voles/moles was eradicated (we'll spare the gory details). Not sure how many more there are, but hopefully not many!

The strawberries are looking good in the field. Now if we can just keep the deer and other wild creatures from finding them...

Making Progress with Planting and Mulching

Over the weekend Charles was able to lay a bunch of the plastic mulch for our plants to be transplanted into soon. Then it started to rain, so that gave him a day or two in the greenhouse to get more plants ready to be transplanted!

Thank goodness for the pretty days we can get out in the field, and thank goodness for the rainy days that force us to get into the greenhouse and get more seeds in trays. Sometimes if it's sunny for too many days in a row, we get behind in our greenhouse work. And vice versa when it's rainy, we get behind in our field work.

Such is the life of a farmer, though, we're at the mercy of the weather - big time! Who needs a one-armed bandit when you have mother nature to gamble with?

Charles, the Mulch-Laying Man!

Charles worked at laying plastic mulch pretty much all day. When you lay a couple miles of it each year, it takes a little time.

The process goes like this: After plowing and working down the soil, you till the beds so the soil is nice and soft. Then you lay the plastic with the raised bed mulch-laying machine (ours if partly homemade by Charles, partly store-bought). Voila, nice, ready-to-plant-in, raised beds!

We hope tomorrow we'll have most of the day to lay more plastic before the rain comes. It was nice having some warm, sunny days to work outside.

But,

Sunny, warm days cause the greenhouse and tunnel temperatures to skyrocket. So you have to water them more often to keep the poor little plants moist. Running back and forth from the farm (where the tunnels are) to the house (where the greenhouse is) takes some time.

Hopefully mother nature will cooperate on a regular basis and let us get our work done.

More progress on the planting front

Well, we got some peas transplanted out into the patch by Rt. 219. You'll see them as you drive by, they're in the left-most row (closest to the driveway).

Charles drove the stakes and ran some string through the stakes first, then set them out by hand. He carefully put the plants on the prevailing wind side of the stakes and string, so the wind would blow the pea plants onto the string, the peas would grab onto the string with their tendrils, and all would be well.

Well.

Of course, the wind blows one way in that field 90% of the time. The day Charles was putting the peas out, the wind decided to switch. So rather than blowing the peas onto the climbing string, the wind blew the peas over away from the string. So much for good planning.

But nature is pretty good at correcting herself. So some of the peas have recovered and found the strings. Others will find their way soon. All will be well, and we'll have delicious sugar snap peas in about 5 weeks.

Let's hope the cold weather the forecasters are calling for next week doesn't last long!