Just thought I'd post some pictures and let you see some of what we're doing and how things are progressing!

These are our first strawberries of the 2014 season! Greg picked about 1 1/2 quarts on Sunday, so we should have some for market on Saturday! There won't be many but it's a start! These are out of our hoop house. The outside ones are just barely beginning to bloom so we could have strawberries for close to two months if the weather and everything aligns just right!! :)

                                                                        These are some of our sweet potato slips that we are starting. When it gets warm and stays warm we will cut these and root them and then plant them for next Fall's crop. We have a little over 30 different varieties!








This shows some of our basil, leeks and okra that are started in the green house. Some of the basil will be for sale at the market, too.

 

More of our sweet potato slips going. These pictures were actually taken over a week ago so they have really grown since then!

 These are some of our second planting of  heirloom tomato plants. Some of these (around 1300) will go outside and the rest will be for sale at market.

These are a few of tomato plants that will be for sale also. They are from our first planting. Their mates are already planted out in the hoop house. Some of these are already blooming!

Well since I last posted we planted more potatoes, onions and shallots. We seeded in some greens and peas and we transplanted about 1600 tomato seedlings into 4 packs. We also planted out those first tomato plants that we started back on February 2nd into one of our hoop houses. We were finally able to get the plastic on one of the hoop houses that needed replacing, but have yet to get the second hoop house that lost it's plastic back the first of March in a blustery 60 mph day! Our strawberries in our 4th hoop house are blooming and looking good! Greg has been spreading Boron and gypsum on the fields to get them ready to disc. He needs to spread compost yet, but last week we got almost 9" of rain and most of it came in two days! Luckily we missed the hail that hit in town. They had so much that they had to get the snow plows out to clear the roads. Lots of windshields and roofs were damaged! We've got 150 more pounds of seed potatoes to plant and may get that done tomorrow after market. Our sweet potatoes that we are sprouting in the green house are really starting to set slips. I think I counted about 32 different varieties this morning while I was watering. I also got my basil seedlings potted into 4 packs and have some more fennel, tomatoes, parsley, celery and more tomatoes that need to go into 4 packs. Also need to get the tomatoes in the hoop house staked and strung up.  The alternator went out on Greg's big tractor so he is waiting on parts for that. He was hoping to get it done this weekend so he could finish up on the hoop house that still needs plastic, but will have to wait. That's where we are planting our peppers and eggplant and they are ready to go out!. So as you can tell we are keeping busy. One of these days I'll remember to take my camera out and get some pictures!

It's been a while since I last posted, but we are still here and kicking! Things are starting to pick up, always the way it is in the Spring, you go from almost a stand still, to an all out run! And boy does my body feel it!  We've got one potato field disced, beds made and 250 pounds of seed potatoes planted. Have gotten two of the hoop houses just about ready to put new plastic on, just can't seem to get a calm windless day to do that. We've gotten about half of the blackberry patch cleaned out and the dead pruned out. Have been working on starting our sweet potato slips. Got most of them done yesterday and will finish the rest up tonight. We have heirloom tomato, pepper and eggplant plants ready to go out one of the hoop houses, but  the weather is calling to be around freezing again next week, so guess we'll have to wait. We are hoping to get our onion plants planted tomorrow. Greg finished re-working our little transplanter over and hopes that it will work to plant the onion plants. I hope so too, will save a lot on the knees! We also planted over 1600 heirloom tomato seeds that will go outside later. I also planted some basil.

It's been a while since I last posted, but we have been busy! Today we are receiving our first major snow, (We had a little dusting a couple of weeks ago) we have a couple of inches so far and it is a wet snow which means we will have to keep any eye on our hoop houses if we get much more. Since it was snowing this morning and the market was moved to a different location and was going to be a much smaller area and we would be limited to one table, we decided not to go to market this morning.

Yesterday Greg planted some onion, leek and shallot seeds in the greenhouse and I started some rosemary and oregano cuttings.  Last week we got the outside tomato field cleaned up and disced. That's always a job to get all the twine, stakes and cages pulled out and stacked and then we have to mow off the dead tomato vines and pull up the plastic and drip tape then haul that all away! Then we tackled the hoophouse which had tomatoes in it and got it all cleaned out, too. Also cleaned out the big green house and got it straightened up a bit. We got our new cooler completed and the sweet potatoes and winter squash moved into it. It took a while to get the temperature regulated in there, but I think we finally have it where we want it.

I've been putting soup mixes together, and finishing drying peppers. Now need to work on drying some potatoes. I'm just doing two kinds this year, Gumbo and vegetable, those  were our two most popular ones last year. We went to a greenhouse auction the Saturday after Thanksgiving and managed to get some supplies like potting soil, pots, fans, etc. Greg has been ordering parts to make over his small transplanter so that we can use it to plant onions next Spring. Hopefully it will work as it will make it much easier on the knees and back, not to mention much faster!:) While it has slowed down there are always things and projects to keep us busy, but I have been managing to do some Christmas baking and Christmas shopping (on line)! Hopefully everyone has a great Holiday Season and a great New Year!:)

We had our first indoor winter market today. It was nice to be indoors, but the carting of everything indoors and the cramped space is always a trade off...! I don't know why it is but it's hard to get the customer to follow and continue to the indoor location. No matter how much we tell them that we are continuing all winter they just don't follow us over the winter, but this is the fourth year and it has grown considerably each year, it just takes time to build it up and to educate the customer!

We have all our sweet potatoes dug. We estimate between 8 and 9 thousand pounds is what we have! So we will have plenty to sell for the winter. We are looking at selling some to a local grocery store, so hope that goes well so they continue to buy more from us!!!! We've been digging a little ginger and tumeric each week for the market. That has gone very well, but will have to dig it all before long, as we've had our killing frost last week. All the outdoor tomatoes, okra, zucchini, and winter squash was killed. We still have tomatoes, peppers and eggplant, plus our tumeric and ginger in the hoop houses. We are also covering them with row covers to help prolong them, but they will not last too much longer. We did pull 10 dozen bunches of radishes that are outside. This is a good time of year for them, they are very sweet and crisp! Also still have parsley outside.  Have been dehydrating peppers and tomatoes. Will be putting together soup mixes this next week hopefully!

We are working on converting an old brooder house into a cooler as our current cooler is not big enough to hold all our sweet potatoes! We are adding more insulation and cooling/heating system, then we can transfer the rest of the sweet potatoes and winter squash into it. We've moved some of the potatoes to our old cooler and the rest are still in the green house curing... Then when we get that all done and things moved we get to start on cleaning up the fields, removing tomato stakes, strings and plastic mulch and drip tape so we can get them plowed, then we'll need to get the hoop houses cleaned out and replanted with some greens...always something to do, never a dull minute...!:) Plus all the seed catalogs are starting to come so we will need to get our orders placed for next year before too long...!!!!!! What would we ever do if we didn't have anything to do????????? Maybe sleep!!!!! :)

Again it's been a while since I last posted, but we've been busy. That seems to always be the excuse anyway!

Since I last posted we've been on vacation. We went to Saugerties, NY to their garlic festival! That was very interesting and of course we bought a lot more garlic to plant. So since we've been home we've shucked and planted around 72 varieties and close to 10,000 or more cloves! Yes I know, that's a lot of garlic!!! We've also been digging sweet potatoes. We have about 1/3rd done I think we have around 10 more rows to go. They are producing very well  for the most part. Was a bit disappointed in the purple ones productivity, but it was our first year for them. We may need to find a different variety next year or try them again in a little bit different spot and water them a little less?! Our strawberries we planted earlier are looking very good, much better than they did this time last year, so hopefully that is a good sign for next year?!:) I have yet to dig my tumeric and ginger am waiting as long as possible to let it get as big as possible...but will have to start digging it in the next week probably. We haven't had a frost yet, but it's only a matter of time. We are still getting tomatoes, peppers and eggplants, but they are tapering off. Pretty soon I will be able to start picking green tomatoes and freezing them.  We are still doing market and will be moving to our winter indoor market the first weekend in November. That will be nice to be under roof. The last 3 Saturday markets it has rained on us and while the cooler weather hasn't been that bad it's not fun when you're wet! Well always lots to do and not much time to do it. We really feel the pinch now that the days are shorter and only getting more so!

What a difference a day makes! Last Thursday was up in the upper 90's and then Friday started in the low 70's and then made it up in the 80's, but that was so much more pleasant to pick in then the past couple of weeks! We got some much needed rain Sunday, but sure could use a lot more! Never satisfied are we?! :)

We've been busy as usual. Picking takes two days right now to get it all done and then we still aren't getting all the tomatoes done. We've been dehydrating apples and getting strawberry and garlic beds made and ready to plant. We planted two thousand strawberry plants yesterday outside. The other thousand will go in the hoophouse so that will be the next project to get done; tear out the weeds and till up the ground in the hoophouse and get it ready to plant! We need to get the garlic bulbs pulled apart so we can get them ready to plant and pretty soon we will need to start digging the sweet potatoes and then picking the winter squash!

Market has been very good the last several weeks. We are kept busy all morning and don't get any breaks. Greg bought me biscuits and gravy from the food wagon Sat. morning as he had to carry out a box of tomatoes to a customers car and thought he'd stop on the way by, but I never got a chance to eat them! It's good to be busy, but sure makes you tired! :)