April showers bring...more April showers

April has been warm and wet. Not exactly ideal conditions but farmers rarely get ideal conditions. That said, we have still been able to plant most of what needs to be in the ground. The ground isn't as dry as we like so planting conditions aren't ideal. Damp ground means our tiller makes a lot of mud balls and our garden seeder doesn't work as well in mud balls. It works best in soil that's light and fluffy but that you don't sink down more than an inch when you step on it. 

Fun fact that you might not know: we don't plant everything all at once. On our farm we plant roughly every two weeks from early April through mid-June! Different types of produce fair differently in spring weather. Things like potatoes and peas can be planted as soon as the ground can be worked. Other things like melons and beans require warmer conditions - a late spring frost would kill these plants. 

Have a look at the photos below that capture some of the planting progress:

Nice day for some farming!

This is our tiller tractor with loader. The loader has been immensely useful around the farm. The machine attached to the back is our tiller which we use to prepare our soil for planting.

Lara is working on re-potting tomatoes in this picture. Our transplants have grown too large for their pots so we move them to larger pots since it's too early to plant them outdoors.

Onion planting

In this picture is our simple onion planing setup. The stake with the string we use to measure out our rows and helps to keep them straight.

A nice straight row. The plants don't care if it's straight or now but certainly helps us humans keep organized.

Strawberry planting

In this photo we're planting strawberries. They come as bare roots with crowns which is the growth point for strawberries.

A few days later and we already have leaves!

Close-up of the leaves! They look a little yellow which is normal since transplanting causes a lot of stress for plants. They will "green up" soon.

This is our garden seeder without seed. If you look closely you can see holes in the seed plate which will receive seed, space them accordingly, and drop them into their row.

Garden Seeder

This is a picture of our garden seeder's seed hopper with kohlrabi seed. The seeds sit themselves inside the holes seen in the previous picture and drop through a chute as we push the seeder across the ground.