When reporting on any farm news, it almost always seems like we need to start with the weather. Because it does have a big impact on what we do!
Last week, we started off with more wet, grey weather and by the weekend it was sunny and in the high 60s. February 23 and 24 looked quite different from this time last year when we had snow! By Saturday, it had started to dry up enough to start weeding. We’ve got a lot of weeding and planting to catch up on before it rains again, so we’re closely monitoring soil moisture.
During the wet days, we kept our activities mostly to harvesting, washing, and packing and then left early for the day.
Included in the harvest were tulips! Fun fact about tulip harvest: we pull the whole thing, bulb and all, from the ground, and we don’t save tulip bulbs between years. The old bulbs aren’t reliable as we need them to be; they may not produce a flower and if they do, the stems might be short. Plus we’d need to find space to store them and make sure they’re properly chilled before planting to have a good spring crop. So we compost the old bulbs and buy a new set each year.
The rain has been great for the cover crops and we have several lush looking fields.
Lambing season has just about wrapped up and when the weather cleared later in the week, the lambs and sheep were thoroughly enjoying their time in the sunny pasture. See for yourself!
Almonds are blooming!
The combination of blooming almonds and sunny, warm weather, was perfect for Sunday’s Almond Festival. The Almond Queen and her court stopped by for pizza, and there was great food, music, and company all day in Rumsey. It was very busy but a lot of fun.
– Elaine Swiedler, CSA Manager
