Have you had our cabbage yet? We have had a bountiful cabbage year! And not just by chance, but because we planted a lot. As farmers, one thing we can do to counter times of uncertainty – whether it be weather or otherwise, is to just keep on planting – and plant a lot. In years where rows and rows have been flooded out or laid flat by hurricanes, we have worked diligently to rip it all out, and replant it and just keep going. And so this year we decided – let’s plant a lot of heavy, bountiful, nourishing crops – and cabbage comes to mind. And now we get to enjoy it. We grow three types – savoy (deeply wrinkled green type), and standard green and red cabbage. Here are 47 of the best cabbage recipes from Bon Appetit.
On the subject of planting – our propagation greenhouse has been filling up fast with trays of baby plants to transplant after a “short gap” around the holidays. Walking through the greenhouse you can see glimpses of nearly every crop family right now – sprouting, growing up, and getting ready for planting out for the second half of our harvest season. Though we are mid-harvest season, this time period during the winter feels like a small renewal when we get to start fresh with some new crops we haven’t been harvesting for a while – like basil. For those of you eagerly awaiting a new harvest of basil – it will return for the warmer season mid to late March (depending on if this cold winter keeps on kicking!)
Additionally, there are some “once a year” activities going on inside the propagation greenhouse right now – notably tulips sprouting (fingers crossed for Valentine’s day blooms!), and heirloom mum mother plants budding up new growth. In a couple weeks we will start taking hundreds (maybe thousands) of cuttings from the heirloom chrysanthemum stock plants to produce new plants for planting around summertime for fall blooms. Those beautiful mums of fall take a full year worth of work to produce! Another “once a year” task is potting up eucalyptus plants getting ready for spring planting. This will be our third season growing eucalyptus, so we hope to have a lot to share – we find with new-to-us flower crops it often takes us three or more years to really get the hang of producing them well. Here’s hoping!
Out in the field, we are already planting our final successions of sugar snap peas. With that said, we are beginning to harvest from the first planting right now! We should have the first few pints of peas at market this coming weekend, and hopefully enough quantity to include in veggie boxes very soon. Fingers crossed.
Sincerely,
Ellen and Cole
