More Germination

We are looking for some of that sunshine from last week and early this week to find it's way in tomorrow!  The soil temp seems to be hovering between 40 and 50F but on sunny days has been up to 55F earlier this week.  Air temperatures were near 65 yesterday morning when the sun was shining.   

Last week was great to spend in a couple of hoophouses!  After seeding Friday at one in Burton, MI (just outside Flint) with Mr. Roger's Just Say No Program and swinging by Youth Karate-ka Association's Harvesting Earth Education Farm in Flint (Beecher) it seems that the crops that we seeded last Thursday loved today's sunshine just as much as we did.  Most of the snow that melted away is back but the red and green lettuce, arugula, mizuna, mustard, kale, radishes, and turnips are all through the soil.  It's cloudy and is supposed to be cold again tonight (20F) so we pulled the interior cover into place after harvesting out some spinach this morning.  We put some carrots in a live trap and set some mouse traps with peanut butter in hopes of catching whatever is eating the spinach on the end bed.  The mouse traps catch shrews really well for us, which we seem to have more of than mice or voles for the past two years.  The live traps get the groundhogs/woodchucks.

When the snow melted last week we had a chance to peek under the quick hoops in the field.  The spinach is showing some downy mildew which means we are going to plan to plant 'Renegade' or 'Regiment' in the quick hoops next year since they are downy mildew resistant.  We still like 'Space' in the tunnel for a smooth leaf spinach and haven't seen the downy mildew issues on that in the bigger structures some of our friends have (but they didn't get horn worms like we did last year).  So, it's all about trade offs I guess. 

We are looking forward to the peas, chard, beets, and carrots coming up in the next week (hopefully).  Shooting to have the Spring 2011 income projection sheet done and posted by the end of next week and some pictures of the February 9th seedings coming up.  Look for both of those soon.