More Greenhouse

A few more greenhouse pictures from last weekend...

February

I was reminded this weekend that I am seriously slacking on blog posts lately and while I hate to make excuses for it all I can say is that February shouldn't be this hard, y'all.  February should still be a relatively easy month for us around the farm.  We do some pruning and mulching and I start a bunch of seeds but this February has been crazy.  The walk-in cooler is so close to being finished, the structure is done, it has lights and electricity, it simply lacks a floor.  For the last three weeks though it has been put on the back burner while all of the pieces to build the greenhouse slowly rolled onto the farm.  One by one, shutters, fans, blowers, wiggle wire and poly have been dropped off and last Monday we finally had everything here.  Robert came home from work early to finish framing the end walls and then the sky opened up and for the next three days this is the view I saw from every direction...

So we sat and in between showers Robert would go out and put up one board at a time.  

(sidenote: this is Jody's preferred place to be during thunder and lightning)

And when kicked out of the feed room, I later found her taking shelter in the walk-in cooler...

Saturday we caught a break though and everyone pitched in to get the end walls done.

Although Saturday went well into dark...

Finally, Sunday afternoon we were ready to skin this little hoophouse.  This was not made easier by the fact that the length and width of the poly I ordered came to us reversed.  Nevertheless, by dark last night, this is where we left off.  Almost done.

Helping Mary

Our spring intern from Hendrix, Mary.

I think she is fantastic.  So does Milan.

Yesterday, Mary and I tried to finish trellising the sugar snap peas I planted last week.  The four inches of rain we got Saturday night on top of already soggy ground though made walking in the pea patch nearly impossible.  Instead we spent the afternoon potting up the red cabbage and dahlias.  Milan helped where he could.

And then supervised the rest...

Planting Apple Trees and Volunteers

If you've followed this blog for very long, you'll know our farm is involved with the internship program at Hendrix College in nearby Conway.  This spring we have one intern helping us out from the college and as well as two individuals from Conway that will be volunteering on the farm over the next few months.  They all showed up on Saturday to help plant a few apple trees, pot up cabbage, spinach and chard seedlings and visit.  Despite the cold and rain, they stayed till the work was done.  I was impressed.

Beautiful Weekend

We had fantastic weather this weekend and spent much of the weekend outside.  I thought I'd post a few pictures from the weekend.

Seedlings in the caterpillar tunnel...

Feeding kale to the chickens...

Taking turns...

Everyone helping put together the new greenhouse...

Bumper Crop

I thought it might be interesting to see what a bumper crop of sungolds almost paid for...

This winter we sat down to prioritize what exactly the farm needs to help grow more food this year.  We came up with four major capital investments that we would need over the next two years.  These were cold storage, a new greenhouse, deer fence and a bed raiser/plastic layer.  The deer fence and cold storage were the most pressing but since we haven't been able to make a decision on where the deer fence is going to go it got set aside.  The walk-in cooler for the cold storage will be complete soon...

The greenhouse moved up on the list when our old one collapsed under snow over Christmas.  So my dad and I went to pick these pieces up last week...

We almost put the plastic layer off until next year but the combination of what it will save us in time and effort and the fact that we would have had to buy straw/hay mulch this year to compensate for our lack of hay due to last summer's drought made us pull the trigger...

And as I look out the window while filling my coffee cup every morning, I'm reminded that we aren't done spending money yet...in fact, I may need to plant an extra row or two of tomatoes this year.