Busy busy busy... and it keeps freezing.

This field will see our first transplants of head lettuce any day now, and later our first plantings of tomatoes, peppers, sweet potatoes, and melons!

What a weird, weird, spring.  It's not unseasonable to have frosts in mid-April here.  It's normal.  We figure May 15th an average last frost date.  But it IS unseasonable to not rain for literally weeks on end.  The fields are dry as a bone and even the big dairies, who usually aren't into the flats until early summer, have plowed up and prepared ground.  This dry weather bought us the opportunity to fill in the bare spots where Irene drowned our clover cover crop down below.  We rely on the leguminous clover, which has the unusual ability to capture nitrogen from the air and make it available to the following crop (with some help from a friendly soil bacteria), for natural fertilizer.  It also has really aggressive roots, which break up and aerate the subsoil, an important part of bringing this abused field back to health.  The hurricane drowned some of the freshly seeded clover, though, leaving bare spots where we needed it most.  It was great to have the field dry enough to work those bare spots and reseed the clover.  But then it didn't rain.  And didn't rain.  And didn't rain. As vegetable growers, we're set up to irrigate the veggies when we need to--dry is better than wet!--but we're NOT set up to irrigate random patches out in the middle of a field in late March.  So now I don't know if the new clover will even germinate.  C'est la vie.

Clover aside, things are going swell.  All of our upper fields are bedded up, our mulch is laid for the hot weather crops, and we've started seeding and transplanting.  Our first 4 sections down below are almost ready to go--we might get them finished out this afternoon--and while we still haven't figured out the right bed-forming system with the resources at hand, we're getting a lot closer.  After a week of coy "chance of rain" from our friends at NOAA we finally gave up and set up the irrigation earlier this week.  Then yesterday I went out and drained all the lines and the gun, and hauled the pump back up so it wouldn't freeze as we had another 30 degree night.  It takes a pretty hard freeze to break a cast-iron pump, but especially given how this spring is going, I'm not taking any chances.  It's a funny routine to get into, though.

Peas and drained irrigation lines this morning. Peas are pretty hardy, but I was still nervous when I woke up this morning and saw a thick layer of frost on the truck. Fortunately these little guys seem fine! The dryness and low temperatures have kept the oat and pea residue from breaking down as quickly as normal, leaving the fields looking like we scattered straw everywhere.

It's always tempting to jump ahead of yourself in the greenhouse when spring is early, but it's a big risk to take--plants don't like to be stuck in their little transplant cells longer than necessary, and if the weather turns cold again (like now!) you're faced with the hard choice of turning them loose to the frost, or holding them inside as they get depressed and unhappy in their confined homes.  We're faced with the added challenge of being somewhat new to market growing--we're confident we'll have great crops for the CSA, because we've worked within that framework for a while, but we don't have that much experience aiming for a marketable field crop in early May.  So we decided to take the middle path, pulling some plantings a little earlier, but leaving most things as planned.  Every time I read about someone's first crop of carrots up in the field I get antsy (our were just sown), but then when I'm out getting all wet draining irrigation lines in anticipation of another freeze, I'm glad our little tomatoes are safe and sound in their trays.

Cara's been doing a great job in the greenhouse, even though I never remember to duck in there and take photos. This is from a couple weeks ago; these lettuces are ready to get planted today... if we trust the weather a little!

In other news, we had a "History Walk" organized by ASA  and lead by our friend Jim from across the river.  Dressed in proper 18th century garb, Jim lead a bunch of visitors (including some new CSA members) on a walk around the farm, explaining its significance during the Revolutionary War. 

In different other news, we made one of our big purchases for the season:  The world's smallest traveling irrigation gun! 

Cara with our tiny traveler. This was supposed to be one of those pictures where Cara kneels in her boots and it makes her look really short and the thing next to her look huge. Did it work?

This thing will make our irrigation much more efficient, which means we're more likely to get it done on time instead of waiting "just one more day".  I had to spend a day in the van to go get it, but even with the diesel factored in we got a great deal.  Basically you park that round gizmo at one end of the field, and drag a tricycle with a big sprinkler on it to the other end of the field, unspooling the heavy plastic hose as you go.  When the pump turns on, the reel slowly retracts, automatically watering the whole field.  We'd planned on buying a larger one than this in 2 years (along with a larger pump and heavier irrigation lines to handle the increased pressure), but we decided to buy this little guy as a stop-gap.  It's able to run off our existing pump and lines for now (at least down below--up above we're still using the tripod) which means we can put off the upgrade a little while.  Also, we can spread out the costly pump/traveler/lines upgrade over a few years, because a stronger pump could push more water through this little reel with only the addition of a fatter nozzle.  The downside of this tiny guy is it takes FOREVER to run, but it's unattended the whole time.  We're excited!

That's it for now.  We do still have a few CSA shares available for our Ballston Spa distribution if you haven't joined yet!  Don't be late!!!