Rain, rain go away.....

We have hit about 14 inches of rain this April, which is an amazing 10 inches above average.  On the news they have said that this is the second wettest month on record, EVER, in this area since record keeping began back in the early 1900's.  But, the start of the growing season won't wait on drier weather, or on us, so, rain or shine, the farming has continued.

Having a greenhouse during this rainy season has been an indispensable asset that has been used to its near full potential.  We have been transplanting plants like crazy in there, from seedling flats that were started in February and early March.  From the funds we received at the bake sale we were able to acquire more ingredients for Mel's Mix soil, along with plastic solo cups (the cheapest but admittedly unsustainable way to transplant) , and are now finished with the first phase of the transplanting process.  The greenhouse is packed to the brim with healthy tomatoes, peppers, sunflowers, herbs, squash, cucumbers, etc., etc.  Inside our greenhouse has become its own micro ecosystem thanks to the mulch that we have been carting in from a shredded wood chip pile around the hill. The bottom layer of the greenhouse is lined with plastic, and on top of that, a layer mulch.  With as wet as it has been this month the mulch around the workstations where it has been walked on and wet, has turned to brown/black gold.  Just by walking and water, we have produced piles and piles of free soil.  Once we realized how sloppy it was getting in there, we raked all the new soil out of the greenhouse and used it in new boxes and rescued tires for even more growing space.  You wold not believe how many worms were hanging out in our mulch when we raked!  So, what next?  Cart in more of this free soil making mulch of course!  The greenhouse now has an even higher elevated mulch floor and we are planning to surround entire perimeter with the same.

We got the rest of the scrap wood de-nailed and ready for more box making.  The potatoes are now all in the ground and are in four 4x4 boxes in the front row of the garden, and in about 10 tires behind the greenhouse.  The potatoes are all planted 1 per square in the boxes ( = 48 seeds) and 4 per tire ( ~ 40 seeds), so there should be a descent amount of potatoes for harvest.  I have read that you  can plant potatoes as late as June 15 and then harvest them as late as possible.  Theoretically, this gives us a month and a half to keep planting potatoes, fund permitting.  A good item to have by harvest time would be a vegetable weigh machine, to keep track of the actual pounds of food produced, particularly potatoes, and make adjustments for subsequent years. 

Next up will be - planting the corn field, building more boxes for summer crops and transplants, transplanting, having our seedling giveaway on May 8th, and using up the rain that has filled up every barrel at the farm.