Today was rained out. Too wet to do fieldwork. A few hours of heavy clouds and on-and-off rain followed by brief periods of semi-blue skies, followed by more clouds and rain. The free irrigation is excellent, as I’ve already started to water in new seedings in the field. But—there’s almost always a “but”—a lot of cloudy weather, not enough sunlight, slows things down. A week of mainly clouds, which is what the forecast predicts right now, means noticeably slower germination and growth. It’s not complaining, it’s just observing the balance between sunlight, water and temperature, hoping for the right mix for the vegetables that’s pretty hard to come by!
Weather
A day in the sun
I’ve been hardening off trays of seedlings over the last few days, a few at a time, taking them out from the under the lights. Today, they were all outdoors, some for their first taste of the sun. It’s a manual routine, walking back and forth from the light racks with one or two trays at time, then bringing them back in in the early evening. I like it: a clear, simple, straightforward task, and the most important thing to do when you’re doing it. This is also exactly the type of routine that’s perfect for automation, or at least, optimization.
To grow a fair bit more than this year, I would put seedlings out in an unheated greenhouse where they’d stay until transplanting. That brings more convenience and efficiency, and also a few extra concerns. Voles tend to burrow in and munch on greens, so checking the perimeter becomes a thing to do. Daytime temperature in the greenhouse shoots up to 40°C+ (104°F+) on a sunny day, so ventilation is a must. When you open the doors in the day, you have to close them at night against cold and critters, and open them again early the next day. If the forecast is for freezing overnight, row cover placed in the evening and removed in the morning can handle a few degrees below (in a more extreme cold situation, a portable heater fired up in the middle of the night might be necessary).
Then there’s the new super-high winds that started happening around here within the last five years or so, there’s extra concern about the whole greenhouse staying up—mostly not in your control, but you still think about it with every weather warning!
Nothing wrong with scaling up and improving efficiency, while every step to bigger has its complications!
Grass, thistle, puddles, mud
This is a piece of ground you’d usually step around and not give a second thought to…unless you wanted to grow things in it right away! A good part of the field is dried out enough to work, but there are low spots where the ground is still saturated with water, all dense, squishy mud and all-day puddles. The weeds don’t mind, this is home! Thistle pops up. Clumps of grass aren’t a problem, when you don’t let them take hold. Unless there’s a lot of rain, a few more days and it’ll be good…
Buds on the trees
The birds and the bees and the buds on the trees… Gazing around the grey outdoors on this drizzly day. I know little about the ways of trees, so I’m not sure whether the buds are early, or late, or just when they’re supposed to be. What I do know is…there they are!
Grass is greener
Yep, the grass is definitely getting greener! It’s the planetary order of things, formerly known as seasons… In the back of my mind, I have this cartoon thought-picture of massive gears slowly turning, an unstoppable, unyielding world machine. That’s what operates above the surface noise of our crazy day-to-day weather. It’s the Earth orbiting, the Sun’s angle changing to bring more or less light and heat, the totality of plants, insects, animals, fungi, bacteria, all of it intertwined, adjusting and adapting to the conditions as best as they can. One big moving picture that we’re part of but overall don’t in the least bit control. Some things are in our control, and others are not. Kind of soothing when you lean into it!
Rain snow storm
Yesterday’s special weather advisory about a bunch of rain turning into a bunch of snow left us with this 7 a.m. scene. Wet, mushy ground covered by heavy, wet snow. Neither rain nor snow were particularly intense, just…wet. It won’t last long.
Hauling water
The seedling room is in a fully modern building with all the modern conveniences like electricity, heating, ample insulation and screened windows well-positioned for a bug-free cross-breeze and lots of natural light. The only thing missing is a handy supply of running water. Drilling for a new well located nearby ended in failure after a couple days of exploration produced only an expensive dry hole. So, until the gutter-fed rain barrels are turned over in warmer weather—overnight freezing of collected rainwater could crack them—I bring over water for the seedlings in 18 liter jugs filled from another well in a building not too far away. Simple systems and the rituals of spring!