PLANTING HAS BEGUN!

Yesterday was such a beautiful day! We started planting some lettuce varieties in the greenhouse. The hope is to get them transplanted out in the hoophouse in another month or so! Today we planted some herbs; basil, thyme, parsley, cilantro & garlic chives. We also took some cuttings from Rosemary, oregano, chocolate mint, sage & stevia,(plants that we've been over wintering in the greenhouse) and putting them into rooting boxes to start new plants.

Now we need to get our hoophouses ready to go. We have 3 hoophouses, which are basicly unheated greenhouses. They are used as season extenders. We can plant in them earlier as they warm up the ground earlier and protect plants from cool temperatures. They have sides that can be rolled up to let heat out if needed during the day and rolled back down again at night to protect the plants. The trick is to remember to get out there early enough to vent and again in the late afternoon to roll back down to capture the heat for the night! Anyway our oldest hoophouse is going into it's 4th year, so the plastic has to be replaced as the life expectancy of the plastic is about 3 years. The spring winds last year took it off for us, and did a little damage, so we have now repaired the damage and waiting for a very calm day to replace the plastic! Our 3rd hoophouse is in the process of going up, too. We have most everything done on it, but the plastic. Then once the plastic is on them and the ground has a chance to warm up inside, we will be ready to start planting our lettuce plants we started yesterday!

Greg is in the process of going through all of his seeds to see what he has on hand and what he needs more of. All those seed catalogs have been arriving since before Thanksgiving, so now he gets to go through them and make his lists and see what new things he wants to try!

We have been going to some different fruit & vegetable conference around the area. These are always good to go to and see what's new out there, and how other people are doing things. We went to one in St. Joe the first of January, and there is another one down in Springfield that I will go to in mid February, (I will also get to visit our son who is going to school down there!). I went to an AgriMissouri/Missouri Farmers' Market workshops & meetings Jan. 17th at the Lake, and I will go to a marketing workshop in Blue Springs on Mon.

So even though you have not seen us since Oct. and may not even be thinking about fresh produce yet, it is a year round project for us and there is always something to be doing, planning, building, repairing or learning! We hope you are having a great winter, but hope that you are starting to think about all those fresh and delicious veggies & fruits, because they will be here before you know it!