First CSA plantings.
Up to now all the planting and transplanting has been for the winter farmers market. The salad mixes we are planting now will be long gone before June. In contrast, the spinach we are harvesting was planted last September 25. This week we started onions, leeks, and tomatoes for the CSA. The onions and leeks are seeded very thickly in “seedling flats”, which are 10″ x 20″ with 20 channels in them. Within the channels I put some Vermont Compost Fort V potting mix and then very thickly seeded the onions and leeks. In a few weeks I will lift them out, stretch the “ribbon” of seedlings out and give them more space in an open flat. Then they will get stretched out again in the hoophouse soil, and finally go out in the garden. The tomatoes are a real gamble, but we do gamble to have the earliest crops we can for you. They will go in the new hoophouse to give the old hoophouse soil a break from tomatoes. But the new hoophouse doesn’t have electricity or heat. They will be ready to transplant mid-April. Gulp! The old hoophouse has two layers of plastic with a fan inflating the air between which makes it much warmer than the new hoophouse with just one layer of plastic. We have a furnace in the old hoophouse. We seldom used it and sectioned off parts of the hoophouse to minimize the area being heated and blew the warm air underneath row cover so only heated near the ground. We’ve been taking fuel oil out of the tank to run the tractors for years and finally finished off the first tank (after eight years) last fall, so that gives you an idea of how seldom we heat the hoophouse. But, we did have that insurance of heat available and did use it in April. I am planning second and third plantings of tomatoes in case these freeze out. Hopefully we won’t need those and we can give them to our members who want tomato plants.
I am also soaking spinach seed to pre-sprout it, that will probably be CSA spinach, and planting carrots in the new hoophouse between where the tomatoes will go. Also planted Napa cabbage and pac choi to transplant into the hoophouse.
I have been procrastinating ordering chicks. Not sure why. Probably because the market for both eggs and meat birds has become fairly saturated. Monday an acquaintance asked us to raise some layers for him this year, so that has motivated me to action. The chicks cost about $2.50 each with postage. They eat 20 to 25 lbs of feed before they start laying – about $8 each non-organic. For 100 layer chicks who have access to outside when they are big enough and it is warm enough, we will use at least 10 bales of peat moss for bedding, so another $1 per chick. Then there is depreciation/replacement of heat lamps, waterers, feeders, housing. And our time. And this is before they start laying eggs.
Saw a bee flying Friday. I had opened the top before and knocked on the side, which usually brings a lot of action, but got no response so I assumed they had died. But seeing the one bee out, I took the top off and peaked in. Still no sign of life but eventually a few came up to see what the disturbance was. i knew they went into winter light on food because they stayed active later in the warm fall than usual, eating but not getting anything to bring in for stores. They hadn’t been eating the honey in the jars I put in for them, which also made me think they were dead. Forecast was warmer and sunnier Tuesday so I made up a quart of sugar syrup and thawed a frozen pollen patty to help what I expected to be a few stragglers along. I went down and saw one disoriented bee outside. I picked it up and put it at the hive entrance and it sort of fell off and wandered around – not a hopeful sign. My plan was to take off the top box that just had a couple jars of the honey in for them, take the presumably empty frames out of the next box down, maybe repeat another box down, then put the jars of honey in there and a syrup feeder on top.The smaller volume would be easier for them to manage. I took the top box off, then the first frame out of the next box – empty, but the second frame had honey, and the bees showed they were much more populous than I had reason to hope. I checked a couple more frames but only the edge frames were empty and the bees were populous in the next box down. It was too cold/breezy to do much more so I took the two empty frames out, moved the others over and quickly slid a jar of honey in the space, dropped the pollen patty in and put the top feeder with syrup on to close it up. I am surprised but very pleased at their status, and will do my best to get them through the spring until they have nectar and pollen. In my experience they eat very little until March, but then become much more active and starve, so I will keep jars of their honey on for them and put syrup out (pretend nectar) and more frozen pollen (important for raising young) in to give them the best chance I can.
Celeriac Salad
The remaining celeriacs are small (planted later than the first batch and stunted by the dry spell). But they are good and tender. Marsha Lawrence shared the following recipe she has been enjoying. Says it originated with Wegmans & Julie Jordan.
3 small cloves garlic, crushed
1/8 C freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 Tbsp Ume vinegar (Japanese salty plum vinegar or 1/2 tsp sea salt)
1 pound celery root (celeriac) – rinse, prep/peel & shred in food processor
1/4 C olive oil
black pepper to taste
chopped parsley to taste
Combine all and let set for 15 minutes or more. Marsha says it is even better the second day.
There are a couple other celeriac salad recipes under celeriac in the products listing on the right sidebar. Have a good week.
