It's finally happened! Spring Equinox is here. This past week our bodies were "talking to us" telling us, okay maybe shouting a little, that it's time to gear up and kick it into high gear. If you've looked around and noticed the trees, the length of the grass, the blossoms all around town, you may also have gotten the internal message recently. Perhaps you've gone out and started your garden prep or seeded your summer dreams. For us, it means we start waking up earlier and going inside later. I joked with a friend recently that part of me is saying "Let's GO!" and the other part of me is beseeching "Let go"! (as in, I'm not quite ready).
Our Spring prep at Sunbow this year means deciding which crops will be dry farmed (no irrigation) and which crops will be babied in our hoop houses and watered with the Winter/Spring rain we've saved up in our rain catchment system.
At our Philomath location it means going into the propagation house every day to move our seedlings into watering trays, opening the doors, turning on the fans to ensure good ventilation. This location proved to be tricky this winter, it was more wet in certain areas than we had expected so we'll be keeping a close eye on precipitation levels to make good informed decisions about when we can start transplanting into those fields. After a year of farming this plot of land, we are really excited to apply what we learned.
We are excited to start expanding the list of offerings as the plants hit their growth spurts but we did have some set backs this winter. Normally we would have new potatoes by April/May but due to wind damage on two of our hoop houses, we have not been able to plant our early potato crop this year. The good news is that we tilled part of our front field this past week and we'll be planting our first potato crop as soon as the rain allows.
The best thing about Spring is all of the promise it holds. This is the first year we've been able to hire help for this part of the season which means we're getting more done on a more reasonable time table. It also means we get to dream bigger about all of the things we'll be able to do this year.