It’s spring now!

Wednesday was officially the 1st day of this new season – a season that we look forward to with anticipation and yearning after the cold, dark days of winter.

Of course spring can be a cruel season. Bright skies & warm temperatures one day are often followed by cloudy days with raw winds, and even snow the next. Our spirits rise and fall with the thermometer and we long for uninterrupted warmth & sunshine.

I find myself crawling through the gardens on my knees, anxious for signs of life. There are few …

The tulips & daffodils are poking through the cold soil.

Red rhubarb stalks are just visible.

Our late fall planting of spinach appears to have made it through the winter and is greening up. Could a fresh spinach salad be in the offing?

The greenhouse received its new skin this week. Thanks to some willing friends & neighbours we pulled the 2 layers of plastic on quickly & easily.

And just in time! The little greenhouse where we start our seeds is filling quickly, and many hundreds & hundreds of little seedlings will need to be moved here soon.

The fields are waiting too – a blank empty canvas ready to be painted with vegetables.

It is already time to seed the snow peas. Old-timers used to say that peas needed to get in the ground in March – that gives us only 1 more week! The soil  under the occultation tarp (see https://thiessenfarms.com/2017/04/12/occultation) should be ready for planting.

And this is what we’re anticipating!

And this …

And this too …

It all starts now in spring.

(Sign up for our CSA and enjoy all these vegetables and more this summer!)

We’re excited and ready!

It is a peaceful time of year on the farm.

The vegetable fields are resting under their blanket of snow.

In the greenhouse the cats are loving the warmth and soaking up any sunshine we might get (which hasn’t been a lot this winter!).

Even Sage is content to sleep away much of her day, indoors.

But the time is coming! Despite the cold and snow, spring is about here.

Our planning for the upcoming season is complete. All the seeds have arrived. Supplies are ordered.

We’re ready to go!

The first vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant) have been seeded in the small greenhouse and we anxiously wait for the first green shoots to poke through the soil.

That means we need to get the new plastic on our big greenhouse so it will be ready for all the seedlings. They will be moving here in about a months time. The outer layer of plastic blew off in a big windstorm last Easter. We removed the inner layer in fall and decided to leave the greenhouse uncovered until the spring. This allowed the soil to soak up the rain & snow all winter and be renewed.

The blackberries can be pruned and tied as soon as the snow has melted. Tracks in the snow indicate the rabbits have been checking the canes out – hopefully they have not caused too much damage?

On the marketing side of things, we are looking forward to the farmers’ markets we will be attending again this year.

Our CSA program is ready and applications are arriving daily. We are especially excited to be receiving so much interest from neighbours and people in our area. Information on CSA is available here – https://thiessenfarms.com/csa/.

We have enjoyed our quiet time – but now we’re anticipating an active and busy season ahead.

(Of course some of us aren’t quite ready for action yet!)