April 1st and we got about 6 inches of snow. No fooling! At least we didn't get the foot of snow like they predicted. It's melting quickly so we didn’t have to clean off the greenhouses or plow the driveway..AGAIN!
We’ve been writing a lot about the chickens recently, and while they are fun for us because they are new, we figured we should also write a bit about the other goings on on the farm that are vegetable related as the vegetables are where it’s at for us.
We’ve been seeding like mad in the greenhouse. Almost all of the early spring seeds have been sown for transplant. To give you some perspective on just how much seeding takes place, we thought it would be interesting to give you some statistics..so here goes.
- Almost 105,000 seeds are started in the greenhouse.
- From these seeds started in the greenhouse, we’ll plant about 87,000 plants into the field.
- We direct seed (meaning the seed goes right in the ground) about 195,000 seeds.
- We plant on over 68,000 feet, or close to 13 miles of vegetables.
When you look at it like that, it’s no wonder we invested in a water wheel transplanter to make our lives a bit easier this year. A water wheel transplanter is an implement that attaches to the back of the tractor. There are wheels with spikes on them at set intervals that punch a hole in the ground and fill the hole with water. Behind the wheels are seats for people to sit on. The people then stick a transplant into the water hole to plant the plant.
Here is a picture of one like ours. Can’t wait to use it this year.
In a couple of weeks we'll be direct seeding peas and carrots, transplanting beets, kale, and collard greens. So the snow better melt fast as we have a lot of work todo.
