clean up on the back porch
Right now, we’re still completely in prep mode. This week, I took inventory of all our seed starting supplies, and then did a thorough washing of all our trays, old six packs, buckets, clear covers, dome covers, in the tub, along with a 10% bleach rinse to make sure we don’t carry over any plant diseases from last year. I might not always be quite this thorough when trying to get ready for the our own little garden plot, but now that we’re farming, it’s more important to make sure each step gets done properly.
The warm weather this week has everyone thinking about spring and folks are itching to start seeds indoors. But for us, it’s still too early. We won’t be able to get anything in the ground in our incubator farm site until mid-April, and probably not until May. So if we start too much now, it’ll just get leggy and stressed from too much time in starter cells under grow lights. It’s hard to resist the urge to plant when the temperature hits 60, but I’ve learned from experience that sometimes it pays to wait just a little bit.
Next up for us is making a big shopping list for supplies. Many don’t need to be purchased until May or early June, but we’re going to be so busy planting then that it’s probably better to make sure some of the shopping gets done now. (I’ve got to figure out who is going to certify our scale for the farmer’s market next).