Winter distribution starts this next week – pretty exciting, at least here at the farm there is excitement. One of the stressful parts of the Winter season is not being able to accurately predict how fast things will get ready to go out. The lettuce for the first session was planted November 10th, all because last year it wasn’t very large by the time the season rolls around. Keep in mind, the varieties selected for winter are tolerant of low light and cool temperatures. The challenge is that tolerant doesn’t mean that the crops will thrive, and definitely does not mean that the crops will follow the seed envelope guideline of say “56 days.” Nope. Not happening.
All that to say, this isn’t the first winter season – it is just the first winter garden season that has been expanded past 4 or 5 members. There are eight of you this year, and it looks like a good season if you like your greens! Roughly speaking, at this time there are 45 different plantings in the queue – all of which will show up over the combination of the winter and green seasons. Sowing happens about ever four weeks, with an emphasis hereto now of cool season crops. Next week the slow ripening plants such as Tomatoes, Peppers, Cucumbers and Eggplant get sown. Onions were actually started 2/1 and 2/2 – the big bulb onions like Walla Walla take 120 days from emergence to be ready, although once sprouted they are pretty cold tolerant.
February is an extremely interesting month – it can be 50F or it can be 12F. The greenhouse is set up such that there is about a 10F “warmer” effect – 12F is always a bit scary. There are 6 trays of cold-tolerant plants that are now out of the propagation benches on the wall shelves – with the intent to set them out next time there is some sunshine. The Kale is especially looking great – there should be some in your boxes in about 2-3 weeks.
Logistically, the real purpose of this post is to alert Winter members and verify contact. There is a note on the FB group and FB LLC sites to the effect that it is happening… In theory the members all know:
- Farm Call Saturday 10-12; Text if you need to shift, that is no problem.
- If you haven’t paid, you can do it then – $25/week, 8 weeks.
- There will be an email sent about this time next week with a heads up of what is ready to go.
- Text for immediate response, FB message for not in a hurry, Email if you really aren’t in a hurry.
Let’s do this!
