Finding gratitude during the seasonal farming marathon
Our big, beautiful lilac bush on the farm is finally blooming. I was worried about her, after a few rough ice storms and a soggy spring last year that left her with barely any blooms. This lilac reminds me that many things take patience and a bit of hope. Not everything blooms all at once; there is beauty in the waiting and watching.
The start to this farm season has been a blur, to say the least. The weather has been more cooperative than last year (by this time in 2024, we had already received over 10 inches of rain in a few weeks’ time). There have been some dramatic temperature swings between 80-degree days and late frosty mornings, which slowed things down a bit, but overall crops are looking good. Those that have just been transplanted within the last week or so like tomatoes, peppers and ground cherries have appreciated the most recent bit of rain.
Spring plant sales were stellar again this year; that part of the farm feels like something I excel at. I love taking care of tiny plant babies and seeing them go home with smiling faces. I love talking with folks about plants and providing recommendations. I appreciate everyone who made a plant purchase this season, big or small. Along with my amazing CSA members, those customers give the farm a much-needed income boost at the cusp of the growing season.
We trialed paperpots for some seedlings for the sales this year, which I felt worked out pretty well. They were definitely messier trying to break apart for sales, but the dramatic difference in how healthy their roots were compared to plastic pots, which often cause plants to become very root-bound, was enough to make up for that bit of inconvenience. I think we will move ahead with them again for 2026 as I try to phase out more single-use plastics on the farm.
My days lately have been spent in a whirlwind of planting, prepping soil and laying out irrigation. I’m grateful for Tyler’s help not only with the plant sales (he was a great cashier at markets and built a wonderful seedling box for our trailer, preventing us from having to rent U-hauls again this year) but also for his help with bigger transplanting pushes (mainly onions and potatoes). This season we also invested in a used manual mulch layer, which has to be pulled across the crop bed space by two people. Luckily Tyler is very mechanically minded and could make adjustments on the fly to the set-up for it to work very well in the field. This option will save me a huge amount of time as last season I was laying the sheets of mulch by hand, rolling it out foot by foot and shoveling soil onto the edges to keep it down. After being content with the results last year, I’m again utilizing the bio-degradable mulch that looks like black plastic but is actually made from starches and can be left in the field to break down.
Otherwise it’s mostly been just me and the soil and the compost and the plants. Working these long days featuring lots of bending, walking and crouching can feel both good and bad. While I crave this type of sustained movement during the winter, after several weeks of it my body starts to ask to slow down. We do seem to get a brief “slower” period in early to mid June when the focus begins to shift away from transplanting and into more weeding, trellising and other plant maintenance tasks. At least I am standing straight up more often at that point, which my back appreciates. Ultimately though, from late March into early November, it’s always go, go, go.
I have been thinking lately about all the work that we have put into this land over the last three years. The changes in the landscape are awe-inspiring, with so many more birds, insects and small mammals around than when we arrived. The soil is starting to change as well, especially the areas that I put into cover crop over the winter. The early crops in those spots are doing significantly better than previous seasons. That of course could have to do with other factors, too, but I believe we owe some of the credit to the winter rye, hairy vetch and daikon radish that fed the soil through the “non-growing” months. We’ll soon put a half-acre of summer cover crop in, which ends up being a favorite spot for many critters during the warm months.
I’m looking forward to the days coming soon full of cucumbers, crisp lettuce, fresh potatoes and all of the other goodness of the season. I’ve been buying some of the spring staples like asparagus, radishes and greens from farmer friends in the area as we don’t have the greenhouse space for much early growing unfortunately. The seedlings take up most of our single tunnel from March into June. If I could add anything to the farm for free, it would be additional greenhouses. They truly give farms a jump-start on the season and protect crops from ever-changing weather conditions.
As the farm heads into another busy stretch, I try to remind myself every day to slow down and appreciate the little things. Flowers, passing butterflies, buzzing bees, birdsong, seedlings emerging from the soil. There’s always something to give gratitude for, we just have to take note.