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at last!  Sunshine!!

1/19/2015

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A bit of free space in the big greenhouse after cleaning up a bed of spent lettuce.  Let's plant it!  It needs to be something with a quick turnaround time, since I try to get Sungold cherry tomato starts set out in here by March.  What would you like?  red radishes? scallions? turnips? kohlrabi?

Another 4+ inches of rain yesterday (might have been more, my rain gauge only goes up to 4 inches).  Provided we don't need a canoe to get out to your vegetables or build lifeboats for the chickens, we're back in business this week.  It always takes some extra work, but with a little extra care, most of our crops made it through the brutal cold, ice, and flooding over the last two weeks.  Some warmer weather and abundant sunshine is just what's direly needed this week, for both your food and farmers!
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Watermelon radishes (I think you can see here why they're called as such) are another type of winter storage radish that fares much better through cold mucky January than red radishes do.  These have some bite, but are a bit crisper and sweeter than the Black Spanish radishes, and so better suited for raw preparations than the recommended sautee of Spanish radishes.  None of our radishes will come with green leafy tops at this point (frozen out), but the roots are sweet, solid, and crunchy.

Some broccoli coming out of the greenhouse this week; I'm sure you all could eat more, but it's all I had the space for.  The rest of the romanesco happily made it through the last few weeks' nasty weather, though it took a double layer of row covers plus a length of extra plastic sheeting we happened to have hanging around to nurse it through - yay!  Still loads of celery, arugula, and spinach available.  Eggs are still limited to one dozen per order, though the ladies are slowly ramping up their production as the days get longer.  I am out of mixed baby lettuce this week, but should have some bibb, romaine, and red leaf lettuce heads available in a week or two to help mix up your winter salad plates a bit.

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Miss Karen B - because I know you're going to ask...the carrots are getting darn close....hopefully as soon as I can get in there without sinking up to my hips in mud!
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ice-skating rink to open by wednesday

1/12/2015

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We've had almost four inches of rain here so far today, with much more on the way.  The fields are flooded again; I almost lost my boots in the mud trying to check on the field crops this afternoon.  The forecast is calling for freezing rain Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.  We got pummeled with a thunderstorm earlier today - as old folklore tales would have it, winter thunderstorms are a sure bet you'll see snow within the next ten days.  Just about all of our crops took quite a beating last week when we got down to 10-15 degrees over several nights.  It looks like the daytime high temperatures are barely going to get above the freezing mark over the next three days, which makes harvesting nearly impossible (winter crops can take a lot of cold, but cannot be pulled or cut when they are actually frozen, or they turn to compost within a few hours).  The sun may not make an appearance again until the weekend, which coupled with 30-degree temperatures, means no new growth on any of the plants.

I like to be able to say we can harvest 52 weeks out of the year.  We can, but sometimes it just makes more sense to let it go for the week: let the crops rest and recover a bit, let the water slowly drain away instead of mucking around out there churning it all into concrete.  Let the temperatures do what they will, and not kill ourselves trying to harvest everything in the 45 minutes out of the day it actually climbs above 32 degrees.  There will be no deliveries or pick-up at any of our locations this week.

That doesn't mean it's a week off for us entirely.  I spent most of the day today filling up flat after flat with soil and seeds for your spring crops.  There's still a lot of planning, prepping, and organization that needs to be done for the busy seasons ahead.  And I suppose if I get really bored, I could start working on my taxes...or I could sauce up the freezer full of tomatoes I tucked away last summer.  The latter option definitely sounds more appealing.

So barring any would-be thunderstorm-induced blizzards, we'll be back at it next week.  Stay warm and dry, and hope you all have a good week.
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