What a strange “Spring” so far. I put Spring in quotes because I feel we went from Winter to Summer with little to no Spring in between. But before I get into that, here are a few announcements.
We are still short of selling out this season. Please keep spreading the word! Last week we had a few referrals join so I know it works. Thank you for sending people our way!
We are still selling add-on shares. If you eat fruit, cheese, eggs, meat, salmon, ice cream, or drink coffee please consider buying these from us! Help support small, sustainable family farms! Plus they taste delicious.
Thank you to those who came out to help plant potatoes! We didn’t have a huge crowd but they were enthusiastic. We got it all done by four o’clock and every family went home with a dozen delicious eggs from our free-range chickens!
Farm News
This season is unique, just like all the others. Typically we start planting in the field by the third week of April. One year we were able to plant the last week of March but that was the only time. This year we had 16″ of snow on April 15th. We still had snow banks on May 2nd. Our first plants weren’t in the ground until the week of April 30th. Quite the late start.
More interesting to me though is the lack of cold weather since the end of April. Typically we do not plant frost sensitive plants outside until May 15th or so depending on the forecast. We have in the past transplanted the tomatoes as late as May 20th only to have an unforecasted frost a day or two later. This caused us to either scramble to cover them up or do nothing and hope for the best. Typically from the first day of transplanting to the last day of frost there are quite a few frosty nights in between. The plants we first transplant are frost tolerant. But even then when they go from the warmth of the greenhouse to the cold of outside they can get shocked which delays their growth. We do acclimatize them over a week or two by moving them from a heated indoor space to an unheated indoor space to finally an outdoor space but even with this process they can get shocked by the frost.
Which brings us back to how unusual this “Spring” is. Since we started planting in the field there have been no nights below the 40s. Not even close to having a frost. Most nights have stayed in the 50s or above. And the long range forecast has no nights in the 30s, one night at 40 degrees and the rest far higher. Yes it is a long range forecast and its accuracy is suspect but it is quite unusual to not have any frosts at all in May. If the forecast holds that would be the case. And all us farmers will be kicking ourselves for not transplanting our tomatoes sooner. On the other hand, if we wait and there is a frost we will once again say “Waddaya expect. This is Minnesota!”
Either way I am grateful for the current weather we are having. Enough dry days to get the plants planted with a few wet days to water them in. Even with the late start this could be our best season ever (or not…)
As always, send in your questions, comments, suggestions and potential new members!