first farmers’ market

Jazzy, making sure Dave and Julian get all weeds

wild leeks, getting cleaned for market

bagging the first spinach of the season for farmers’ market

Dave, washing storage beets for market

mustards, ready to go out

popped lettuces, ready to plant

our market display – first market went really well

Hi everyone!

Amazing growing weather this past week – things are really beginning to grow now with the warmer nights. Our first market went really well yesterday in Montpelier – we sold out of all the greens we brought! Come visit us sometime – the market is from 9-1 on Saturdays, in the parking lot next to Julio’s restaurant off State St. We’ll be there all season, through October! CSA starts first week of June. Lots to do this week: get all the onions planted, second seeding of carrots and beets, starts all of our melons, cucumbers, winter squash, pot up tomatoes and peppers, plant potatoes, etc. The fun is really coming now…Thanks for all your support.

thousand of words

mt. elmore under another new sky

lettuces ready to go out

chard growing quickly in the cold house

bright greens, cold fingers

napa cabbage and spinach in the garden

 

 

planting spinach

seedlings in the new unheated greenhouse

Set out the first plants yesterday in the field, during the rain/sleet. Not so comfortable for us, but the cold hardy spinach, napa cabbage, and mustard seedlings really appreciated this watering in. Once the temps come up a bit, these plants will start to grow like crazy. Feels great to get in the ground after all of this planning and seed starting. We have thousands of seedings that are ready to be planted, so at this point we are just waiting to prepare beds before we can pop nay more in the ground.

We trimmed the tops of the onions, to encourage greater bulbing, and then moved them into the unheated greenhouse, where they’ll sit until it’s time to plant later this month. All of the early brassicas are also in the new house, and most of them are ready to go in the ground. We are at least one month ahead of where we were this time last year, which is a nice way to start the season. The montpelier farmers’ market starts the first Saturday of May, so our efforts now shift toward preparing for this.

CSA shares are still available. Let your freinds know about us. Email us at hatchbrookgardens@gmail.com or call Ben at (802) 730-4198.

BE WELL!

 

 

building a greenhouse

hey everyone -

we put up a greenhouse this weekend, from start to almost finish. it is a 20x48ft tunnel, with high walls so we can drive the tractor through it, and plant climbing crops, like tomatoes and cucumbers, during the summer months. now, though, it will house thousands more transplants, as our other small greenhouse has quickly filled up. we have seeds in the ground, healthy plants in the greenhouse, and we are seeding more everyday. hopefully we’ll have enough space for all of these in the gardens, or maybe we’ll just have to make some more. hope everyone is ready to eat, we are getting anxious for spring greens and peas.

Forrest pounding away - hammer weighs as much as he does

ridgepole up

getting there

end of the day - woodsmoke from our smaller heated house

frozen peas

Last week’s 70s and 80s feel like a distant dream at this point – but we did manage to plant lots of spinach and peas, shellers and snaps, in the field. We had 10 degrees last night here at the farm, but today’s sun really thawed things out again. All of the transplants are growing nicely in the greenhouse – lots of onions, celery, spinach, and other greens, which will all be planted out over the next couple of months. We’ve been busy planning for the season to come, and a new 20×48 ft. greenhouse is slated to go up later this week. The greenhouse will serve as an overflow for transplants at first, and then as a home for some summer tomatoes and peppers. Also in the works: modifying a 1953 Farmall Cub for cultivating between rows, prepping lots of ground for seedings/plantings to come, spreading compost over all the fields, incorporating winter rye cover crops.

tilling in winter-killed oats to seed spinach

tinkering with the cub

turning it over

spinach germinating

end of the day

sugar on snow

hey folks

long days here at the farm lately. we’ve been boiling maple sap for a week straight, through the night to keep up with the relentless flow of the trees. this eerily warm weather has all of the frost out of the ground, and our soils have already started to warm up and dry out. we may in fact be able to get a slew of early seedings in the ground later this week: peas, spinach, lettuce, carrots and beets can all go in, and will be unphased by any cold snaps we may get. we’ll be eating fresh from the gardens soon enough. greenhouse is bulging at the seams with plants, and we’re building another one this week to start even more plants. making hay while the sun shines, or something like that. i think the season is underway, and at a record early date. we’re not complaining.

…and we’re off.

almost all of the onions have been sown. nicole, dave, and myself spent this past thursday dropping tiny onion seeds into plug trays. thousands and thousands of onions seeds. we had a great crop last year, and hope for another one this season, and we’ve increased our production significantly.

we also seeded all of our celery and celeriac, as well some of the slower growing herbs: thyme, rosemary, sage, and chives. the greenhouse should start to actually look green in a week or so. next on the list to be sown: early cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, spinach, chard and kale. this will happen early this next week. hold on, here comes the growing season.