May first, 5:24 in the morning. The birds are chirping madly outside despite the wind and rain. Like the birds, I have already been “madly” at work for the past couple of hours because as spring springs it rarely feels like there is enough time to get everything done to prepare for the main event, which is summer.

Farm work this time of year is a combination of everything I didn’t finish last season (mostly some field cleanup that never happened), all the seeding, potting up and, and greenhouse building and setup that needs to happen now, plus fertilization and field planning for what is going to be planted in the next couple of weeks. Mostly it is looking at what are priorities and then working my way down the list. It is exciting, and it is exhausting. 

There were so many things that I meant to write up for the blog in the past five weeks but as everyday passed there was another thing to write about. So, the things that have happened are: built a germination chamber for early seed starting, started all the solanaceae crops (peppers, tomatoes, eggplants), artichokes, early brassicas, onions, cucumbers, parsley, flowers, and I just seeded a new to me crop yesterday, jicama. I finished building my new greenhouse. The footprint is the same size as my old greenhouse, thirty feet by ninety-four feet, but I think it is slightly taller. So far so good, as in it is working reliably as a greenhouse and it has held up to the spring storms. I also set up a new irrigation system that runs water from the domestic water supply to the greenhouse and field.

Things that I need to be working on now are finishing the electrification of the BCS tractor, repair and re-cover the old greenhouse, get the electric deer fence up and running (they are already causing damage in the old strawberry field and will soon be eating carrots and other crops), fix some hydraulic lines on my main tractor (and other maintenance on it), fertilize the fields, till the fields and make beds for strawberries that will probably go in starting May 11 if the forecast doesn’t change too much.

And we are off and running.