Finally Spring!

This was one of our dinners last week—rapini sautéed with garlic and scrambled eggs. Both in great abundance in March.

THIS WEEK’S SUBSCRIBER MENU:
• Rapini
• Spring Onions
• Green Garlic
• Miners’ Lettuce (use fresh, in place of lettuce)
• Fresh Eggs

Click on the links above for information and recipes about these crops.

COMING SOON: Kale, Pea Shoots, Green Garlic, Baby Leeks, Parsely, Chervil, and much more!

It may be April Fools’ Day, but our Spring Season starts this week! It’s supposed to have been the wettest March in history, and yet we’ve still been able to get several plantings done outside. I’ve been pushier than in the past—call it old age, or call it spring fever. But we’ve got our first planting of peas and favas in the ground at least a month earlier than last year, as well as a decent planting of greens. The greenhouses are all planted: carrots, turnips, salad mix, beet greens, spinach, and herbs. And we’ve got our transplant greenhouse full o’ flats. It’s a good feeling.

The first week of Spring is often a tricky one, because we have an abundance of a couple things and many other things are not quite ready. So we balance the need to harvest those first few crops with the justification to have everyone come all the way to the farm to pick up their allotment. The rapini needs to be harvested, the eggs need to be used because we are over-run with them at the moment. (12 dozen a day and no market have a way of making them pile up!) Sadly, other things that we had hoped would be ready are not quite yet—but they will be soon, and by the time the outdoor crops have finished, the indoor greens and roots will be ready. Fear not! You will be full of greens soon enough!

Just because we’ve been able to work up a bit of ground and plant doesn’t mean it’s not muddy around here. We may be tired of slogging around in rubber boots, but the animals are sick of being ankle deep in mud, but our pasture areas are still too short to let them out without destroying them, so it’s better to keep them in the “sacrifice” area. They will be so pleased to be free when the time comes! The chickens are the only critters we are able to move around, because it’s easier to put up a temporary fence, and they aren’t as hard on the ground—we can put them where old crops used to be for a quick fertility boost. This is even handier with mobile henhouses.

What do you do with a leaky trailer? You turn it into a hen house! Fixtures removed, cupboards converted to nest boxes, and plenty of roost space. Room for 160 hens, and it’s easy to move around the farm.