Getting Warmer

March 14, 2025

We start keeping watch in mid February. We read the weather forecast like prophetic texts — still freezing this week; next week it might snow. We're waiting for a hint, an upward trend. Sometimes it comes in February, one year we waited well into April, but eventually the temperatures will climb, the sunny days will increase and it will be spring.

Even as the sun gets stronger and the air holds warmth, the ground still holds the winter cold. It's time to be careful. The soil will freeze and thaw, freeze and thaw over the next several week. The cycle has its benefits: crystals forming and reforming can improve soil structure — damaged soil has a chance to mend; seeds broadcast on top of frozen soil will be gently worked in by the expanding and contracting. The ground thaw also turns the soil into mud. So sticky and slick that you don't want to touch it. And you really, really don't want to touch it because working the soil in this state will damage it — turn the structure into an unworkable concrete. We'll wait. There's no forecast this time — no app to consult that tells us today it is safe to walk in your aisles, tomorrow it is safe to run a shallow hoe. We'll look outside, take a walk, feel the soil with our hands. It will be ready soon.

Items to Start the New Farm Season

March 8, 2025

A broom, a dust pan because the greenhouse needs a good cleaning. A delivery of propane. Seeding trays and soil blockers. Masking tape because the tape from last year has melted into a giant ring of adhesive. A new sharpie because the old sharpie has migrated into the kitchen collection of pens. A plan. Seeds, ordered months ago and waiting in dark anticipation in a cooler in the basement. Potting mix, left over from last year. A hose, light and flexible, to be dragged from spigot to greenhouse whenever it freezes. A good weather app. A few heated mats to hurry things along. So much patience because beginning takes a lot of time.

Another Beginning

April 3, 2024

Welcome to season 2025! This marks our - gulp!—seventeenth year as a farm. Sixteen! When I was a first year farmer, surrounded by other first year farmers, it was passed around and accepted as true that you wouldn't really know what you were doing until you farmed for ten years. The amount seemed excessive. Who could wait that long? It was also passed around and accepted as true that a thistle patch would take seven years to fully control. Time stretches on forever when you're farming. I now know that the thistle canard isn't true - it's more like a year or two. I also know that ten years to achieve confident and serene farming knowledge might be a little generous. There is so.much.to.know. At sixteen years, I am a pretty good farmer. I know what to plant and when to plant it. I know what varieties work well in my garden and which ones taste the best. I know how to handle most bug and weed pests. I'm still getting a handle on diseases. Outside of crop rotation and resistant varieties, my disease prevention strategy is mostly to never, ever (ever) touch a plant when it's wet. It could use a little work. It's a relief to be on this side of the farmer-knowledge scale, just as it's a relief to know that each year has its own surprises and I will never know everything. At sixteen years, I know that the beginning of the season is a small, small thing - a light so tiny you can hold in your hand. It's impossible to know how it will grow - only that it will be green and bright and full of life - a whole universe -- until it's not and we settle in to wait for the next one.