Interesting weather we had last week. We hit 90 or very close to it for 4 days running, and a couple of those high temp days were accompanied by a 30 MPH wind. It was pretty tough on trying to  transplant anything–in the greenhouse or field—and we spent a lot of time watering. As a result, the dogwood blooms are gone by (they bloomed for about 20 minutes in that heat) and the daffodils are on the downside of their display. Even the maple leaves  (which usually don’t make their appearance until the 15th-20th of May)  are unfurling. Welcome to New England.

Now that we are back to more seasonal temps the work continues at a more measured pace. The onion transplants are in, some lettuce and beet transplants out, and carrots,beet greens, and greens like arrugual have been seeded in the field. We are trying to nurse the strawberries along with supplemental fertilizer and  extra water (we are pretty dry here and havent gotten the showers that our other farming friends have gotten) by irrigatiion. The winter was pretty tough on them and it puzzled us until my brother in law Pat McNamara revealed to me that they lost every stitch of alfalfa in their fields, that the same went for other dairy farmers up and down the valley. We  went out to field dig some  field grown perennial delphiniums for sale at the greenhouse and found that very few survived the winter. Best we can figure is that although we had  good snow cover early in the winter (open winters can  raise hell with perennial crops) we  experienced an ice and heavy rain storm  back around  Christmas and  must have caused some problems at that time.

The greenhouses are filling up and we are struggling to find places for things. Its too dicey to  start leaving displays up at night outside the greenhouses, as there is still a high incidence of frost for us for the next 3-4 weeks. So a lot of moving of plants (we have a fairly inefficient layout of greenhouses and space) in and  out. When somebody transplants something and the call goes out on the radio as to where the transplants might be located, there are often voices coming back that say “Dont bring it over here, I have NO Room in my greenhouse…”  Hopefully, after Mothers Day some space will open up.