The calendar says it’s time for us to start another market season and winter’s death grip on spring appears to be having it’s fingers pried off one by one, Punxsutawney Phil and Sir Walter Wally were right on with this forecast.  We are doing our best to ignore the fact that it is much colder than usual and continue to plant on schedule including the first tomatoes into the sliding tunnels today! It has been an interesting winter and while we have done quite a lot, the amazingly cold and sometimes very wet conditions have kept us inside more than normal and we feel very fat and sluggish coming out into spring.

Over the next few weeks I will give you more details of our winter adventures but the highlights include trips to Texas, Tennessee (twice), Pennsylvania, and last weekend to Georgia.  Last weekends now almost annual trip (for me) to the Georgia Organics conference was even better because I finally convinced Betsy to go with me which is the reason we were not at market last weekend for our traditional start.  There were a number of events surrounding the conference that were also enticing to Betsy, several Slow Food related things and we both were interested in a full day workshop on farm transition.  Farmer friends of ours hosted this all day session as they have just begun the process of transitioning their farm to a younger farmer.  While we are not quite yet ready to go there, we do need to begin thinking about what we will do with this place in the end so we are very interested in how it is working for others around the country.  As usual I also gave several workshops during the conference and the conference wrapped up with a grand banquet for 1200, held under a huge tent, capped by a keynote talk by Michael Pollan of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” fame.

Here on the farm our 28th growing season is beginning to happen at a much more rapid pace.  The staff started last week so now there is no excuse to stay in the house for another cup of coffee.  Cov is back for his third year and we are very happy for that.  New this year is Glenn who has made several stops at other farms over the past few years and is seriously looking at farming as a career after getting a non agricultural degree at UNC, a perfect fit here at PF.  So far we have moved the hoops for the Big Tops, slid the little tunnels to their summer positions (where the tomatoes are being planted right now) and planted a bunch of lettuce and flowers.  We are on schedule as far as planting and seeding goes, but the cool soil temperatures are holding things back, with some crops not happy at all.  We already had to replant the first outdoor Japanese turnips and the first planting of Sugar Snap Peas looks really bad.  On the bright side the beets, carrots and others have come up really well.  As soon as it dries out after this rain, we will need to begin cultivating like crazy.