Week 8 at Harvest of Joy Farm LLC

Weather forecast: Highs in the 80s, 50-60% chance of rain.

Not long ago you were hearing me talk about all of the problems we were having due to too much rain. Well, now things have swung a bit in the opposite direction as we've got seeds and plants in the ground which could really use a drink. Diane, John, and I have been hauling bucketfuls of water out of the lake to sprinkle on the tomato, broccoli, lettuce, and onion plants we planted last week and I can tell you that that much hand-watering is getting old fast! We don't want to start up the irrigation system until we've got a few more of our lake garden beds planted, since if we soak the unplanted beds, we'll have to halt our planting for a day or two until they dry out again.

I'm happy to have rain in the forecast this week, since nothing can take the place of a good thunderstorm for getting seeds germinated and plants growing. But we've got lots of plants and seeds I'd like to have in the ground before the rains come and so we'll be making a big push to get those in on Monday morning and early afternoon. A generous neighbor donated a heaping truckload of composted horse manure to us over the weekend, so we'll be spreading it on the beds, working it in, laying paper mulch, and planting more tomatoes and our earliest beans. I may also ask some of you to start mulching the plants we've already got in the ground with hay. This will help retain soil moisture so that we don't have to water as often and also protect and feed those soil microbes we keep talking about.

Bring rain gear if you've got it. We'll work outdoors in a light sprinkle if we have to, though a thunderstorm may drive us inside to soil block winter squash.

I finally updated the farm blog with a new post this weekend. If you'd like to check it out, here's a link: Harvest of Joy Farm Spring Slideshow

Week 3 at Harvest of Joy Farm LLC

Weather forecast: Monday, 70% chance of rain, high of 58 degrees F; Tuesday, mostly sunny, high of 53 degrees F.

Well, folks, you are certainly getting a taste of one of the most challenging aspects of farming life--the weather! For the third Monday in a row rain and chilly temps are predicted. And it sounds like the wet, cold weather is going to follow us through most of the week. If it doesn't warm and dry up soon, this weather is going to make it very challenging for us to get our spring crops in the ground in time to begin our scheduled CSA harvests at the end of May.

If it's not actually raining while you're out here, I may have you help us lay cardboard sheets around the perimeter of a couple of our growing areas as a quack grass control measure. (Since we don't use herbicides, we have to rely on physical means to keep weeds out of our growing beds.) If it is raining, however, I think we'll work inside the hoophouse. We got the new plastic put on this afternoon, so it will give us some shelter. I've reserved one bed for you to play with, so you can practice using my favorite tool of all time, the broadfork, to work it up. You'll probably want to work in some compost and fertilizer and then you can decide what you want to plant.

We've got a small amount of soil-blocking to do this week (broccoli), so if any of you want a little more practice with the soil-blocker, you can work on that as well.

See you all soon!