Dec. 22, 2008 

Well the market and the catering went fine, but what a day! Finally got home around 10pm exhausted. Spent Sunday trying to move snow away from the greenhouses as well as most of today.  Chickens are doing well and I will let everyone know how the cold effects the greenhouses tonight. Plenty of snow for insulation so things should be fine in there.  Lettuce starts are doing well, need to get them into larger trays this week. Well off to do some late evening snowmovement, the wind is not helping the situation at all.........

Good Morning out there! Farmers Market this Saturday in Montpelier. So I am off to harvest salad today before the next snow storm and the below zero temperatures hit. Chickens have not been assaulted this week and production is holding steady at 3 dozen eggs a day. Lot's of snow moving this week with the 6 inches that we received. Trying to keep a path clear on all 4 long sides of the greenhouses so that snow can shed away from the sides.  I leave about 3-4 feet of snow next to the sides as insulation. Need to move the rest so that I still get light and if it piles up too high the snow backs up onto the roof and then collapse becomes an issue. Seeds have all germinated and the plugs are growing out nicely. This will be interesting if I can get them hardened off and transplanted into the greenhouses.  The two greenhouses have very differant microclimates. The newer one tends to be cooler even though I have a tighter envelope.  Spinach and tatsoy are doing well, claytonia continues to grow (very slowly) but is doing well. Minutina was in a row too close to the North wall of the newer greenhouse and is having freezing issues. I am trying to nurse it along until mid february when day length should kick it back to life again. At least that is what has happened in the past.  Lola Rosa continues to hold up well now that the Downey Mildew is under control. Drainage is going in this spring around the greenhouses, going to put pink board in along footings to try and break the thermal bridge and raise soil temps some more.  Subsoil heat is the next project. Trying to decide if I should use subsoil air movement or go to a liquid geothermal loop.   Ahhh well off to work, doing a catering this Saturday also, have to go do some cooking. Talk to you soon.

Good Morning! The crazy weather continues.......it is 40 degrees outside and 40 mph wind gusts expected then freezing rain. At least I am not doing nearly as much shoveling as last winter. Have started a bunch of lettuce and herb plugs. Sproutin nicely, now to see if I can harden them off and transistion them into my winter greenhouses.  They are cold hardy so we will see how cold hardy....The chickens have been under serious assult early on this winter. Light snow amounts usually mean a fair amount of food out there for the critters. After the mink incident last week I wandered outside to round up a stray chicken. It would not go into the coop. So after chasing it down and carrying it to the coop and tossing it in......I look up just in time to see a huge Gosh Hawk fly 6 inches from my head to get out of the coop, another layer gone and a huge pile of feathers. Then the stinker was back out there again the next morning perched in the tree line waiting for another meal.  So in the last month I have lost 3 hens to a fox, mink, and Gosh Hawk.  Starting to do some tractor shopping. I turned 45 this Saturday and it's time to give my body a break and start working more from the neck up than the neck down.....I will keep you posted.

Good Morning Again, Well I lost my first hen of the winter to a mink yesterday.......I trapped and shot my first mink of the winter this morning.  Then spent a couple of hours getting 6 inches of really wet heavy snow off my greenhouse roofs.  They are well built and shed snow well but I try not to take risks with snow load.  As for the hens they are up to 3 dozen eggs per day. Keeping them in the small greenhouse with the natural light really appears to be keeping them in production.....more later....joe

Winter 2009

Well folks here is my first forray into blogging. I hope to get this linked to my web page so that my customers can also communicate with each other as well as myself.  First storm of the winter today so that means the first shoveling of the greenhouses, also known as my winter fitness program. Seeded out a bunch of flats yesterday to experiment with winter growing and transplanting. Trying to see how cold hardy these cold hardy varieties really are. Talk to you soon.