Week 4 at Harvest of Joy Farm LLC

Weather forecast: Monday, high of 65 degrees F, mostly sunny; Tuesday, high of 58 degrees, 80% chance of rain.

Well, the story of this spring seems to be wet and cold. Eight inches of rain fell last Thursday onto ground that was already saturated with moisture. So not only did the ground not dry out any since you were out last week, it's significantly wetter than it was last Monday and Tuesday. We are a full week behind in our planting plans and I can't imagine that we'll be able to get anything into the ground until the end of this week at the latest, but there's not much we can do about that! At this point it looks like we may have to delay our CSA harvest season until the first week in June and try to run it later into the fall instead. And that's assuming that things are going to dry up and warm up after this week. If this weather keeps up into the first part of May, I'm not sure what we'll do.

But we'll do something. This may seem like a crisis, but this sort of challenge is a normal part of farming. Last year area farmers contended with an unseasonably warm spring, followed by several hard freezes and then the worst drought we'd seen in years. We make extensive and detailed plans, but have to be prepared to change them at a moment's notice depending on the growing conditions of the year.

I'd hoped you'd be helping us work up beds and put seeds and plants in the ground this week, but it's far to wet for that. Instead, we'll focus on grass control around the perimeter of our smaller growing areas. Our biggest challenge is a grass called quack grass, which spreads itself by underground runners. Every year they try to sneak under our fences and into the rich garden soil and every spring we dig, pull, and smother them. I actually find pulling quack grass somewhat cathartic and I wrote a post on the farm blog last March in which I muse about pulling quack, foraging for wild edibles, and the state of organic agriculture. You can read it here: March Meditation.

We may also do some seeding of lettuces in plug flats and apple grafting, especially on Tuesday when we've got that 80% chance of rain. Please come both days prepared to get muddy.

Garlic plants poking through the snow Saturday morning