March is a time of excitement on our farm. The snow has mostly melted, the first plants of 2021 have been seeded indoors, we’re finalizing our plans for the 2021 growing season, and getting our equipment ready for another year of growing for you This March has been unique for us. Lara’s maternity leave ended at the end of February and I have begun caring for Addie full time while also trying to keep up with things on the farm. For a first time dad it’s been a little tough but I have been loving the quality time with Addie and I can’t help but think about having her help with all of these farm tasks in the future!
The biggest project we’ve had so far this month is starting our seeds. We have a robust seed starting setup with several key components. The first is our germination chamber which we built with a reclaimed upright freezer, a couple crock pots, a temperature controller and a humidity controller. This keeps the space inside the chamber at a steady 78 degrees Fahrenheit with 95% humidity which are ideal conditions for starting seeds. We have lettuce, thyme, cilantro, oregano, kohlrabi, broccoli, tomatoes, cabbage and peppers all up and we have a goal of transplanting the cold tolerant crops like lettuce and kohlrabi into our tunnel around the first week of April.
You can see the germination chamber in the above photo with some of our seed starts. Notice the crock pots at the bottom of the chamber that help keep our temperatures consistent. Below is a recent photo of lettuce and cilantro on our grow rack. We hope to transplant the lettuce sometime during the first week of April!
Another big project we’ve completed with the help of our farm hand Caitlyn is getting the end walls and plastic over our caterpillar tunnels. This project involved waiting for a very calm day as even a 10mph wind is enough to cause a the large sheets of plastic to blow uncontrollably. This can be difficult in March as the seasons change. It seems we have more windy days than calm days this time of year!
Finally, we’ve begun construction on our new chicken coop! We’re making some improvements over the first chicken coop we built including building the coop on the frame of a trailer so that we can easily move the coop to fresh pasture. Unfortunately, the skids on our last coop did not work well. It was very difficult to move with the tractor and we ultimately left it in one place. Other improvements include a mesh floor so that the chicken poop will fall onto our pasture fertilizing it and keeping the chickens clean! We’re hoping to finish building the coop in the next 2 weeks. Stay tuned to Facebook for more pictures!
