May 10th 2018

Farm News May 10:

Bees arrived at our farm earlier this week.  Our neighbors down the hill proposed the idea of keeping bees with us this winter and we readily agreed.  They used to keep bees at a previous property, and now find theirs too wooded.  We are eager to have the bees around, without the burden of needing to master the art of beekeeping.  It seems like a beneficial relationship many farms/beekeepers enjoy.  Things are slowly blooming in fast succession now, daffodils, tulips, violets, pear trees…  There is a steady hum of activity near the hives during the daylight hours, and I have seen the bees tending to the violets around the greenhouse. 

Early tomatoes went into the greenhouse on Friday morning of last week, they were starting to get too big for their trays in the seedhouse.  Another row of heirloom tomatoes and cherries will join them in a few days.  We are going to try trellising tomatoes and cucumbers in the greenhouse using “tomahooks” this year instead of stakes.  We strung fencing wire along the rafters of the tunnel and each plant will grow vertically along a string attached to its own tomahook that hangs on the wire.  We have been watching a lot of YouTube videos about trellising, talked to a few friends about it, and are excited to try something new. 

The first of the snap peas are up, and a second planting went in yesterday morning.  The health and quantity of a pea harvest depends heavily on cool soil temperatures during seed germination, so we were anxious to get them in the ground before it warms up. 

Our field was tilled by a pretty large tractor this year for the first time.  Up until now we have been relying on our walk behind tiller, but our garden space has really outpaced what the walk behind can reasonably keep up with, and we had a fair amount of new ground turned under, which is a pretty jarring experience to do by hand.  It was amazing what the tractor accomplished in just a few hours.  It was also exciting to see the difference in soil texture and quality in the areas that we have worked before versus the new plot.  We are now totally occupied by prepping beds and planting, more later….

Kyle and Natalie

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