Credit Bridget Aleshire
What’s new in the garden? Not much! We got snow last Tuesday night, at least 7″. That’s a lot for us, especially in March. Then on Wednesday morning the power went out. Lots of trees and limbs fell on powerlines. I was part way through preparing a slide show on Sustainable Farming Practices for the Virginia Association for Biological Farming Farm School for new and beginning farmers and ranchers. No chance of doing that. Or of gardening.
So I went to help our Dairy Crew hand milk five Dutch Belted cows. Usually they are machine-milked. Most people are not adept at hand-milking, so the job can take a long time. But I hand-milked a couple of Jersey cows at a community I was part of in England years ago, and milked goats at another. Hand-milking is one of those skills you don’t forget. Although my shoulder and arm muscles did complain! In between milkings I read a lot. I made use of my solar lantern from d.light, which had been sitting on my windowsill, waiting to be needed. Back in November I bought several of their smallest model (S2, $13.95) and gave most of them as gifts. 10% of the net proceeds of online purchases go to their Give Light Program, which provides solar lanterns to kids without electricity. They’re built to be easy to use as a flashlight or a task light or desk lamp in the fields or the home. The first evening I was able to use it for 3 hours! Next day, I can’t believe I forgot to put it back on the windowsill! Sigh!
Credit Bridget Aleshire
As the snow started to melt, we were able to do some garden tasks. We’ve been pruning blueberries, redcurrants and grapes. Sunday and Monday were warm and melted most of the snow, but today it’s raining again. When will we ever get any tilling or disking done? We have planted absolutely no new crops yet this year! We scratched two beds of carrots from our spring plans, because we still have plenty of stored carrots, and we need to reduce the (theoretical) work load. Well, it’s a real work load, but theoretical while we can’t do it. Today I decided to scratch the bed of fava beans as 3/14 is our last date for planting here in central Virginia. Next to go will be the onions, if we can’t get to them soon. Bulbing of onions is controlled mostly by daylength (and a bit by temperature, which has been lower than usual). Soon they will start to make bulbs even if they are still in their seedbed in the hoophouse. Our last date for transplanting kale and collards is 4/1. I’m starting to think about scratching some of those. We won’t be able to make up for all the lost time, and there’s no point in doing a load of work for what, by then, could be a very short-lived crop. In May it gets hot and kale and collards start to bolt. Mid-June is the latest they ever survive. We’d do better focusing on our broccoli and cabbage.
Enough moaning! Time to get back to work preparing for the Farm School presentation and the Virginia Festival of the Book. Come and see me Thursday March 21 at 6-7pm at the downtown public library, Charlottesville, Virginia. I’ll be on the Locavore Panel with Jackson Landers. See my Festival of the Book post at the top of my blog page.