February and the days are getting longer!

This funny roller coaster weather drives us nuts.  Even if it's partly sunny the hoophouse can get up to 65 degrees even though it's freezing outside.  When the sun sets the temps inside the house go rapidly down.  Our challenge is to keep the temperatures as even as possible.  The spinach is starting to grow rapidly and our Salanova lettuces are holding up very well.  Some of the bulbs we planted are starting to break ground.  We've direct seeded more lettuce, asian greens and spinach in between kale and chard.  It's going to take off soon!

Spinach going strong

It's the third week of January and our spinach is still growing, in spite of the short days. We like our spinach leaves to be big and crunchy, so that when you cook with them they keep their shape and green deliciousness.  Asian greens and Salanova lettuce are still holding their own, waiting for another couple of weeks before leaping into February!

Week of January 11, 2016

The weather has still been amazing, but everything is starting to show the effects of some heavy harvesting. We still have salad mix (lettuce and asian greens), and the spinach keeps growing, but definitely at a slower pace. Last week we were able to send out spinach, kale, chard and salad mix.  This week just salad mix, then we'll have to take a break for a couple of weeks and let things have a chance to grow back.  Here are some pictures of our hoophouses covered up with remay, which helps keep temperatures warmer for the plants, then the plants still looking green and healthy underneath.  Today it was 28 degrees outside, with 13 mph winds.  With the sun out, it was almost 60 degrees inside with the solar gain! 

Still harvesting!

We still have salad mix (lettuce and asian greens), spinach, kale and chard looking good in the hoophouses - pretty awesome.  Over the weekend, it was 62 degrees in there when the sun was out!  This time of year though, the light is making the big difference on how much the greens are growing. When the days get to be under 10 hours of daylight everything pretty much slows waaaaaaay down. We're doing once/week harvesting instead of twice and having to cut back on how many customers we can serve. Today is solstice, the shortest day (or the longest night whichever you choose to focus on) of the year.  This week we have salad mix, kale and chard going to Shelburne Market, Richmond Market and Lantmans. Going to give the spinach a week or so to regrow because we harvested hard last week.