An unusual absence of snow in this early look at the field. The end of the compost pile poking into the photo is color-coordinated with the spring browns of all the dead vegetation. Center and right, a good amount of the market garden area is pretilled—clear and near set to go. In the mid distance, the little greenhouse is still standing, while the big guy is still bare, having had its plastic savagely ripped open by unusually high winds. That white object is a round bale of straw, sheathed in protective plastic, ready to use as mulch. It’s the broad canvas for another new growing season!
Spring
Turkey vulture on patrol
A turkey vulture lazily circling way up, looking for dead flesh. I’m not entirely sure of my bird ID, but pretty sure. These guys circle all the time, barely moving their wings. I used to happily imagine they were some kind of hawk, on patrol over the vegetable patch, the clear, weeded rows a perfect background for spotting rabbits, maybe even zeroing in on seedling-munching field mice and voles. It was a pleasant thought bubble, burst when I eventually looked into it. The overall boxy shape, the fingered wingtip feathers, the patient gliding loops with little flapping, all seemed to say, “Vulture! Turkey vulture!”
Cutting greens
Harvesting salad greens: bin, harvest knife, hands. This has never been one of my favorite things to do—doubled over one 50′ bed after another. A while back, we made a seat on wheels that straddled the bed so you could sit, pushing yourself back with your feet. It worked pretty well, but it became one extra thing to lug around and faded out of service. The greens—lettuces, arugula, mustard, mizuna, other brassicas—at this time are maybe the best of the season, growing before full summer heat. In the background, the goldenrod, native residents of the field, are thriving, towering over all the crops. I don’t think of them as weeds, because they don’t
It’s a snake eats toad world
Spring is here, the air is mild, birds are madly chirping, and the intricate interplay of life at ground level is back in full swing. Exhibit A: a snake eating a toad! It takes a long while, could be hours, for the toad to get swallowed alive and eventually die by suffocation. Seems extremely unpleasant for the toad, but in Nature’s grand scheme of things, a snake has got to eat like the rest of us! We humans do the same with oysters, minus the big swallowing challenge.
Greenhouse lettuce, growing
After a couple of early spring weeks in the greenhouse, transplanted lettuces and totally uninvited weeds are all doing exceptionally well! The sun climbs and the growing picks up speed…
It’s white again
Overnight snow turned our muddy browns of spring back to white, and after a spell of welcome warmth, it’s cold days and freezing nights again for most of the next week or two, if forecasts turn out to be right. Waiting for the field to dry out enough to work, which in recent erratic-weather years has been anywhere from early April to late May, makes it hard to plan things in general, but this is not unexpected, it’s just what it is. And spring weather has been known to suddenly and dramatically change from one day to the next. Surprise!
Transplanting: tiny sections
Transplanting lettuce into the unheated greenhouse, filling it out in small sections to work around wetter areas. The seedlings, waiting for drier conditions, stayed a couple of weeks longer in trays than ideal—now they’re a little floppy and stretched, but I’m confident they’ll figure it out. This first spring, seeing how the ground dries in the new hoophouse is part of the learning curve. Tiny farming!