Vegetables are Growing!
We turned on the heat in our heated, propagation greenhouse ("prop house") on March 3. Our staff has been hard at work, often in short sleeves, seeding and watering and rotating hundreds of trays of seeds which will become the vegetables you have known and loved for 36 years. Join us for our 36th year of growing local, organic produce by signing up here.
Last week all of the onions, many flowers, and greenhouse tomatoes were seeded. This week parsley and more flowers were started. Both tomato rootstock and scions were started in preparation for grafting. Imagine 100,000 onion seeds and 1900 tomatoes seeded (combination of the rootstock and scions.)
Some of the trays are dozens of tiny cells, some trays are tiny rows. Every seed is placed carefully to ensure proper depth and growth. Everything is started according to the master crop plan.
During ordinary spring conditions we water twice daily, reducing it to once on cool cloudy days and bumping some plants up to three times in summer hot spells. To do this efficiently for many hundreds of trays, we use flood benches, which allow us to soak trays from below, as well as watering with a wand from above with a suspended hose trolley that makes it easy to reach everywhere in our greenhouse.
Within about a week of transplanting to the field, the seedlings are moved to tables along the greenhouse to toughen up from their life of luxury in the warm, sheltered interior. The wind and sun stimulate a process called "hardening off" which toughens up the leaves and stems, making them much more tolerant of variable conditions and improving our transplanting success rate.
We are all excited when the seeding starts!
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Please do encourage your friends, family, and co-workers to join us. Share pick-ups are always a lively gathering of neighbors (new and old) and a great way to spend a little time in the fresh air.