What did you worry about today? I can tell you what's been on the minds of farmers across southwestern Michigan today and what's going to rouse them from bed in the middle of the night tonight. A potential freeze. Earlier in the day, the weather service was predicting temperatures for our area as low as 28 degrees Fahrenheit. Diane, John, and I abandoned our plans for the day to drag big, filmy sheets of row cover fabric out of the shed to drape over our plants in order to protect them from such an extreme drop in temperatures. The wind did not make this an easy task, but we got it done:
I think we've protected our plants as well as we can, but other farmers around the area will be setting their alarm clocks for the middle of the night tonight to check temperatures and turn on wind machines and sprinkler systems if necessary to try to protect their crops from the cold.
Weather will be a factor in what we do on the farm this week as well. If the lake field is dry enough to till tomorrow morning and my Dad can get on it with a tractor and multivator, we'll start making beds down there Monday afternoon with the hope of getting onions, broccoli, lettuce, and early tomatoes planted yet this week. John is also planning to bring grafting supplies with him, so if we can't get on the ground right away, we might spend some time grafting. I'd also like to give you a little time to care for the bed you planted in the hoophouse. And there's always that quackgrass to pull!
