Gildrien Farm
  • Home

Spring snow

4/28/2010

0 Comments

 
Picture
After a beautifully sunny week, it's snowed about an inch over the past two days. It's supposed to be in the high seventies over the weekend.

And that's spring in Vermont.
0 Comments

Seeds! Seedlings!

2/24/2010

0 Comments

 
Spring is coming, guys. We ordered all our seeds a few weeks ago, and started seeding spinach this past weekend. The greenhouse is all prepped and waiting for those little soil blocks to sprout little spinach seedlings. Today we saw the first one break the surface of the soil, so once the rest of them poke their little cotyledons up they're going in the ground!

Out in the greenhouse now, the carrots we planted back in December are starting to come up. Wait, let me try that again: The carrots we planted WAY BACK in December are starting to COME UP! Now! Carrots! Growing! I'll confess to not being 100% confident that those carrots and spinach will do their thing, but I'm pretty excited to see how it goes.

Of course, outside of the greenhouse now is about two feet of snow, which all fell in the past 24 hours or so. I've shoveled it out twice so far and will probably need to do it again in the morning. I'm glad to have some snow, finally, but my back is not entirely happy about all the shoveling.

Still: Spring is definitely coming, and I've got the sprouts to prove it.
0 Comments

Digging out

1/8/2010

2 Comments

 
This past week has delivered us about a foot and a half of snow, which has been great for sledding and snowshoeing (my favorite ways to stay happy in the winter). However, it hasn't been very great for shoveling. Specifically, we've been working to keep the greenhouse clear.

If too much snow builds up on the top or the sides of the greenhouse, it could collapse. We built our greenhouse with a Gothic-style roof-line, which helps it shed snow. So far, that has worked very well, and we've only had to clear the top off once. But all that shed snow from the roof slides right down the sides. After our big storm last weekend, the snowbanks on the sides of the greenhouse went almost up to the beginning of the roof-line - way too high and getting dangerous. From the inside, you could see the plastic being pressed in by the weight of the snow.

So our friend Douglas - who will be working on the farm with us this summer - and I spent the better part of a day earlier this week digging out the greenhouse. We have a snowblower attachment on our walk-behind BCS tractor (which I'll tell you more about soon), but the snow was too deep and the BCS just got stuck. In fact, I spent far longer than I care to remember trying to get the poor machine out of the snowbank I'd driven it into.

So that left us with a shovel and our own strength. Fortunately, it had been a very light, dry snow, so even though it had piled up higher than I am tall, it wasn't too hard to shovel. Even still, I was sore for three days afterwards.

The carrots we seeded back in early December haven't done anything yet. That isn't much of a surprise - it's been very cold! I'm thinking that they'll sprout sometime in March or so, when temperatures are likely to be a little more forgiving. I don't really know, though - it's an experiment! I am, however, very excited to see how it turns out.
2 Comments


    Follow us on Facebook for more updates!

    Picture

    Archives

    March 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    March 2013
    November 2012
    October 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    January 2011
    September 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    September 2009

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Carrots
    Chickens
    Community
    Csa
    Fall
    Flood
    Garlic
    Ginger
    Greenhouse
    Land
    Market
    NOFA VT
    NOFA-VT
    Photos
    Pond
    Snow
    Solar
    Spinach
    Spring
    Squash
    Summer
    Tomatoes
    Vegetables
    Water
    Winter

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.