Farm Happenings

Weather: Windy. On Sunday morning at four, I woke up to check on temperatures. Outside of the transplant house, nine feet off the ground, the thermostat registered 26 degrees (!), but the tomatoes inside of the unheated greenhouses were doing just fine, so I went back to bed. By Tuesday afternoon at four, we were sweating in 80-degree plus temperatures under a hot May sun. The wind blew the whole time.

What We Did: Transplanted onions, onions, onions, celeriac, and parsley. Put more tomatoes in the greenhouses. Repaired some black plastic mulch that Chris laid last week, which had blown out in the high winds. Seeded carrots, salad greens, and beets.

Observations from the Field: The cover crop of barley and peas that we seeded all over the farm this spring looks great. The earliest seedings are about 12 inches tall now. I pulled out some peas this morning, and was pleased to see the root nodules on the peas formed by the rhizobium bacteria that fix atmospheric nitrogen into a form that can be used by plants. I love to see the soft pink coloration on the knobby growths that indicates a truly healthy bacterial colony.