Spring planting updates

then...

We got our first plants of the spring into the ground in mid-March! Things like broccoli, kale, collard greens, cabbage, lettuce, scallions, and napa cabbage. It's exciting to think about all the new veggies we'll get to start eating soon. We're lucky with our high tunnels to have some variety during the winter, but it's still a limited game.

And here's that same field about a month later! Amazing what some warm, sunny days can do.

and now!

Some of the other early spring plantings that kept us busy early on were potatoes and onions. These crops take a long time to grow so we need to get them in the ground early.

For potatoes, we are lucky to get some assistance from the tractor. Mike drives down the field creating big furrows in the soil which will each become a bed of potatoes. Then we walk down each row and toss in the seed potatoes every foot or so. Finally, Mike comes back with the tractor and pushes the soil back over the furrow and the potatoes so they are safe and secure and can start growing. The plants have fully popped out of the ground and are filling out nicely. Soon we'll start seeing little white and purple flowers!

bushy potatoes as far as the eye can see

Onions require a bit more work on the part of the team. The tractor makes the beds, but after that we need to do the rest. We use a tool called a "dibbler" to roll down the bed and mark the holes. Then we individually place each little onion plant, each somewhere between the size of a toothpick and a straw. They're small! We put one plant per hole and make sure there is some soil filled in so the baby plants don't blow away.

a close-up on the onions

onions all the way down

And then we wait! We'll start harvesting the potatoes in July and the onions in June. We plant a lot of potatoes so that we can store big quantities in our coolers for throughout the fall and into the winter. Our Winter CSA members know this well, our storage crops like potatoes, turnips, beets, and carrots make up a good portion of our Winter CSA shares. The onions we do our best to distribute and sell while still fresh. We've tried in years past to cure and store them, but just haven't had good success. They need to get dried out in a quick and careful manner otherwise they tend to rot, so we've decided to just enjoy our onions fresh.

We planted our high tunnels full of summer crops over the past two weeks! Tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers are rapidly growing in there and we can't wait to eat all that summer flavor! We're also making beds outside for the first summer plantings of those same things, tomatoes, peppers, and more. We unroll big bales of hay into the walking paths to impede weed growth there. Once the plants get big and luscious, it gets really challenging to get in between the rows with weeding tools so it's nice to prepare them this way ahead of time.

super strong and vibrantly green tomato plants!

peppers galore!

We have one more week yet before the Summer CSA begins and we can't wait! Lately we've finally gotten some rain after a long dry spell so the plants are happy.

Thanks for reading and if you haven't signed up for a CSA share yet, do it now! Head to our store on GrownBy and check out our options: https://grownby.app/farms/one-acre-farm-tgc/shop/csa/ioitqzzfIZ30ZK36abpW