This week on the farm we harvested spring vegetables and herbs including baby kale, scallions, arugula, lettuce, and rhubarb to name a few. Challenging weather conditions with high winds and driving rain reminded us of how essential the greenhouses can be! Neoprene gloves helped insulate our fingers from the ice rain while we harvested out the salad mix.
Gardening tip: To protect tomato and pepper seedlings from late frosts, simply cover them with a floating row cover (winter weight) available at Portland Nursery. If the seedlings are in containers just bring them inside at night. When a hard frost is in the forecast, irrigate the evening before.
The layer chicks stayed cozy under their brooding lights in the insulated chicken coop. They seem to enjoy their certified organic chick feed and orchard grass bedding. They are quite frisky at ten days old, but they still need to be protected from predators like the red fox and barred owl. As soon as they have developed their flying feathers we will put them out on pasture to eat bugs and grubs, some of which are beneficials & some not. It’s all about keeping the farm in balance. Mocha and Toro (the Jersey cow and Irish Dexter bull) are chowing down on the spring grasses and their winter coats continue to protect them from the icy winds.
The beneficial herbs we’ve planted are starting to come up! They include marigolds, nasturtium, yarrow, sage, and Carraway thyme. The seed potatoes have started sprouting and we will plant them over the next few weeks. We store them in the farm house to keep them from freezing at night. It’s funny having four hundred pounds of potatoes in the living room!
Coming soon: weaner piglets! Stay tuned…….
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Check out some of the pics we put on Facebook of the storm!
Check out the pictures we have of the storm on Facebook