Spring farm update

At this time last year, the feet of snow had just melted, the fields were soaked, and we had a spring stream running through our farm. We had not gotten in the ground yet, days were still bitter cold, and we were desperately burning a gigantic burn pile right smack in the middle of our garden. We both had cases of poison ivy from clearing brush along our fence line, our soil sample was being analyzed in a lab, and we were just becoming familiar with seeding.

This is quite a different year. Seneca Ray is doing a good job distracting us, but the farm must go on.

Jason has been sowing flats of seeds, he's been preparing beds in our upper huerta, and Nick has been broadforking beds in our lower huerta. We checked on the mushroom logs in the pine fields and they are so dry from a lack of snow cover this year, no sign of mushroom life just yet. I wonder if it even got cold enough this winter. We'll see in April when we shock some logs to test our experiment. Our garlic is shooting up and I'm checking with experienced farmers to see if this is ok for the plants. The pastures are bone dry and crackling under our feet as we walk the land. We see the start to our rain catchment system, feeling badly for not getting the roof on in time, but laughing a little since there was never any snow or rain to catch. There's still more double-digging to do, 6 beds worth, but we've got two months to get them ready for our tomatoes which will be transplanted out end of May.

More updates to come, as the work slowly goes on.