A warm spring day...

It's hard to believe that it snowed earlier this week, but for now we will bask in the warm sunlight of spring. Jonathan and Christina have finished laying out the beds in both greenhouses and have been busy getting plants in the ground. The beautiful order of Eliot Coleman's farm layout is starting to be seen.

Propagation Station

Jonathan improved our seedling's world with these rails close to the
ground (the ground stays warmer at night than tables do) that have
complete drainage for the trays and a 5% tilt toward the sun (which
actually makes the sun's rays equal to 300 miles south.

Emerging Peas...

Each one of these blocks has 4 pea seeds in it. We will not thin them like most gardeners do, but will let all four grow. These were planted on March 31st.

Compost

We are fortunate to have an OMRI certified compost supplier in the
state. This is about 3 tons of the black gold that we will spread on
our seed beds right before planting or transplanting. We are in the

process of making our own compost from grasses on the farm, but it
will take two years before it is ready to use.

In the ground...

With some help from Amy (a friend who took time away from her Master's thesis in Organic Agriculture) we set out our first transplants of Kale in the coldhouse. Since we didn't have the tool mentioned in the previous post, we used the old fashioned string method.

Don't look for what you want...

There is no picture with this post, because we don't have what we need at this time. We are laying out the planting patterns in order to transplant the soil blocks into the beds, but even at this early stage we have five different transplant patterns... and almost 6,000 square feet of greenhouses to plant. Since there is no pre-made pattern makers, we will have to make our own. We'll look around the farm and figure something out. That's why I always say... "Don't look for what you want. Look for what will do what you want." - David