Winter light
Mid-January, 5pm and still light out. This is the view to the west, with the big barn just out of frame to the left, looking past the loafing barn yard to the second, 11-acre pasture—the 9-acre field where the market … Read the rest
night
The incredible shrinking harvest!
The Friday harvest is shrinking. This is the second to last of the year, and the last for CSA members, and we’re down to mainly root veggies. Some of the last cabbage planting has firmed up, and we’re picking them … Read the rest
Night work
In the fall, post-harvest work doesn’t necessarily end when the sun goes down (it’s dark by about 7:30pm right now). Actually, this year the fall Friday harvest has gone great, with Lynn, Libby and usually Michelle knocking things off in … Read the rest
Finally, frost!
Overnight, the first real killing frost finally hit. A couple of nights it had gotten close, touching some plants in the field, but this was the real deal. At 8am, the lower end of the garden was still in the … Read the rest
Frost is pretty when…
The days have warmed up now, mostly around 60-70°F (15-20°C), but the nights are unusually cold, dropping sometimes to freezing or a few degrees above. Frost burning off in the early morning sun is pretty when you don’t have anything … Read the rest
My old friend the min-max thermometer
Clearing a path to the hoophouse today, I turned the corner and noticed the original min-max thermometer. I don’t usually. It was one of the first bits of gear acquired in Year 1, when the reality of FROST in the … Read the rest
Getting started
Started the first seeds of the year today: lettuce and arugula. At night, the grow racks remind me of a lab experiment, with the plugsheets in trays, carefully labelled and sheathed in plastic under the intense white light (fluorescents up … Read the rest