Farm Notes
Holy guacamole, it has been a WEEK. I’m tired and covered and dirt and a little sunburned, but couldn’t be more grateful for this glorious spring weather during a week full of prep + planting. For the last week we’ve been working to get our beds ready for 4,000+ seedlings that arrived yesterday from Banner Nursery, and I can happily say that all the hustling paid off, because when our plants arrived promptly at 10:30am, we were ready to start planting! I’m grateful that I took the time to map out where all the plants were going ahead of time, as it made the actual planting process super smooth and streamlined. While we didn’t get all of the seedlings planted yesterday, we got the majority of them in the ground, and we will get the rest in over the next few days.
One of the things to keep in mind when planting in your garden is having the right spacing between your plants, which will vary greatly depending on the plant! In case it’s helpful, I’m including here some info about how we space various spring veggies/herbs. A note that we plant in 30” wide beds, so when I say “3 rows” I mean that we fit 3 rows of that plant into a single 30” wide bed (so in a bed with 3 rows, each row is ~8” apart). I should also mention that because we try to grow (and sell) as many veggies as possible, we tend to plant pretty intensively/tightly.
Beets – 4 rows, 4” apart
Broccoli – 2 rows, 18” apart
Cabbage – 2 rows, 20” apart
Fennel – 3 rows, 8” apart
Head Lettuce & Asian Greens – 3 rows, 6-9” apart (depends on variety)
Kale – 3 rows, 12” apart
Spring herbs (cilantro, parsley, dill, chives, etc): 4 rows in a bed, 4-6” apart
Swiss Chard – 3 rows, 12” apart
If you have any questions as you start planting your spring seedlings, give me a holler!
So. Many. Plants!
Kitchen Notes
I’ll be honest that my focus this week has been more outside in the dirt than in the kitchen, so there’s been quite a bit of takeout (and at least one frozen pizza) this week! So while I don’t have a recipe to share, I realized that I haven’t talked at all about the many cooking videos I’ve made on my Farmbelly YouTube channel. About two years ago, a friend with lots of video skillz helped me make a series of videos where I demonstrate lots of simple, but super helpful culinary techniques – everything from making your own delicious vinaigrettes, how to dice an onion, knife skills, how to whip up homemade butter from scratch, and many more! I had a blast making these videos, and I hope that you’ll find they help you cook and eat like a farmer. :)
Today’s Stats
Low temp: 51F
High temp: 79F
Sunrise: 6:32am
Sunset: 6:22pm
Moon phase: Waning Crescent
Additional notes: Sunny and warm all day.