What’s been going on!

Spring definitely sprang this week!  It is always amazing how in a day or two it goes from winter gray to all things green.  Of course days of temperatures in the high 80’s doesn’t hurt, other than the sweating brows of the folks in the field.  I hope we can slip back to more of my temperature range of the 60’s and 70’s, not quite ready to go to air conditioning weather.

While we are still pumping to fill the upper pond before the trees fully leaf out and start to suck all the water out of the ground, the weekly rains have been just about perfect for planting.  In years past we used to pace around waiting for it to dry out enough so we could rush out and poke some plants in the ground before the next rain came, three days was all we needed to be able to till and sometimes that was difficult to get.

Spring planting now is all about watching the forecast so we can time our big planting days just before the rains arrive that way we don’t have to water the plants in or set up irrigation.  It is all just a delay tactic as we will eventually have to set up irrigation on everything as soon as the temperatures consistently hit the 80’s.  It is a familiar dance now of cultivating out the newly germinated weeds as soon as the soil dries out enough, maybe picking up the bigger rocks now exposed by the rain and then preparing the next beds for planting.

Yesterday we planted lisianthus, the first zinnias, second round of sunflowers and the last succession of spinach and radishes.  Cool season crops giving way to warm season ones.  Next week is tomato preparation week, have to get the last bits of the Big Top reconstruction done so we can pull the plastic over and begin bed prep and trellis building.  Hold on here it comes!

Pictures of the Week

Shrubs blooming, trees leafing out, lettuce glistening after the rain

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What’s been going on?

Well it looks as if the honeymoon is about over. This fantastic run of 70 degree weather and the near perfect spring run up to summer looks to be ending this weekend, had to happen sooner or later. We have been searching our now not so nimble brains to remember when we ever had such a marvelous spring in the 30 years we have been farming and can’t. You know we usually have crazy swings up and down in temperature and rainfall from March to May which wreaks havoc on the cool season crops like lettuce and, if too cool, the same to the nascent warm season crops struggling to believe it will actually ever get warm. We vaguely recall one six or seven years ago that had a smooth rise in temperatures but was irregular in precipitation so I will have to find that stone I etch important things on and scratch Spring 2011 on it.

The warmer weather coming next week will be just in time to sweeten up the blueberries which are hanging heavy on the bushes. We have been trying to get in and get the field all mowed up so the picking conditions will be comfortable, the regular rains have made the grass very happy and the broken tractor mower has not helped. Finally got the mower fixed yesterday so we are trying to get caught up on some really overgrown areas. Fortunately Betsy’s riding lawnmower has kept our heads above the grass so far. She reports that as she has been mowing by the blueberries that she has had to stop a few times to eat the first ripe ones!

Now that the peppers are all in the ground we are into the busy but steady season on farm chores. Tying up and suckering all the tomatoes, trellising flowers, taking out the earliest of the spring crops to make way for later season ones, cultivating and weeding when the soil gets dry enough to do so. This is the time of year that between harvesting and all the rest we feel really good if we can just barely keep up, we feel OK if a few things slip past us for awhile. We are teetering between really good and OK.

Picture of the Week

If we lived in the Salinas Valley (the nations salad bowl) it would look like this everyday. Spring giving way to summer.

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