Many of you ask how my life changes in the winter. Monday was the first weekday that I didn’t have a market or market to get ready for AND couldn’t do much outside. I say “much” because I could pick up and pack away summer chicken waterers and various other things that could be put away or thrown out. As it warmed up ——
Friday was a hectic harvest all cabbage that was mature enough but not freeze damaged, harvest what I thought was enough leeks to last into late January, harvest as many brussels sprouts as I thought I could sell this month, harvest kale, harvest Napa and pac choi from the new tunnel, put row cover over the spinach seedlings in the new tunnel and a second layer of row cover over everything since that tunnel has only one layer of plastic and open end vents, harvest spinach, chard, and salad greens from the old tunnel, and get ready for Saturday farmers market.
Saturday was our last Trilakes Harvest Market of the year. It was a good market with our regular great customers. We will continue through the winter taking orders online with deliveries to Green Goddess Foods on 2nd and 4th Wednesdays. It was nice to put the tables out of the car and away (except for the small ones I’ll keep using in Plattsburgh). Just nice to put closure to one time consumer for several months. A good, profitable time consumer, but still a recurring deadline that I won’t miss for several months.
Sunday the sun shone some so I did some clean up in the hoophouse. I needed to get the older dead leaves out to prevent fungal disease. Made good headway.
Monday’s priority list was phone calls: to take the old pickup truck off the insurance and add the new hoophouse; to make an annual physical appointment; to make an annual eye appointment; to check up on some income tax preparation; order seed potatoes; order ginger “seed” (new crop for next year!!); call to get info on a Fuf chair for winter reading and knitting; etc. About 3:30 I remembered why I don’t even try to do this in the summer – I was wasting the day waiting for return calls.
Tuesday’s sunshine made the hoophouse wonderfully toasty and I harvest spinach, arugula, chard, and salad greens. Sure wish the contractor had come this fall to do “dirt work”, including digging a trench for a frost-free hydrant in the hoophouse. It would have been very pleasant washing the greens out there, and the light would have been much better than in the garage. Tuesday night we finally moved the hens into the winter hen shed.
Wednesday was spend getting ready for market tomorrow. We have lots of orders so I got almost all of that packed. Then tonight I took time to figure out how to make a photo album on the website, and put some photos up. It needs organizational work, but is a start. Hopefully tomorrow I can harvest more spinach since it looks like we have ample and it is gorgeous, and leeks, kale, etc outside. I went down today, and should have taken my camera to photograph the frost on the kale leaves and broccoli. I expect the rain washed the frost off/warmed them up a bit.
Have a Blessed Merry Christmas!
