Spring is right around the corner

I don’t want anyone to think that we have not been busy through the late Winter here at East Durham Farms.  One think no farm lacks is a tremendous amount of work.  We have begun to start our seeds inside in a warm place.  They will then get rotated from the house to a heated portion of the barn and on or about April 1, 2014 they will begin to get moved to the high tunnel and get covered with Agribon to protect them from light frosts.  I would never move any fragile plants out that early but onions, celery, cilantro and artichokes are hardy enough to handle the colder tmeperatures.  The artichokes actually need the cold weather cycle to trick them into producing fruit there first year.  This coming weekend we will start another 8-10 trays with mostly flowers for our cut flower gardens.  I have struggled with starting Larkspur so I am trying a technique called stratification whereby you place the seed in a cold spot for two weeks and then move them indoors to a heated spot.  We shall see if that helps with my Larkspur.

During Winter we usually focus on inside projects, especially this Winter as we have had temperatures regularly in the single digits and many nights that were below zero.  One large improvement we are working on is organization and preparing the on farm store for more products and customers.  We have been installing railings and posts and I will include a photo in a future post.  In addition, we have been building cabinets in the office and tool room, birthing piglets (more photos to follow), building pig creeps for our birthing areas, etc.  There is never a wasted moment on a farm, especially one that started with nothing but land and and old barn!!