Life of a busy Farmer

I have the life of a Farmer. Maybee to say busy is redundant. It's been a wild and fast paced two weeks 'round here. Two nights ago ( Friday night) it again got a bit chilly. Again the frost alarm went off at 4:00am. What me worry? Well the agribon had been removed from the Zucchini, and so I quickly dashed outside, turned on water and woke Angela ( apprentice) and away we went unrolling agribon to cover the Zukes. I also turned the water on the freshly transplanted Peppers, Eggplant, and Basil. It all turned out wonderfully with the agribon/water making those wonderfull little microclimates. Off to Farmers Market I went.
Market was again busy. Really busy. The crowds are showing up earlier, and getting thicker. And Carrots are flying out as fast as we can sell them.
We have two new arrivals on the Farm also. New apprentices Erin and Adam, who are working out just wonderfully. They have great attitudes, are eager and helpfull, and both the Farm and they are really looking forward to the experience's this season brings.
Back to busy. I totatlly blew it this week. I had a scheduled appearance at CSU Chico to talk about local food systems and my successes and challenges. I was so focused on finnishing lots of little tasks that I forgot about it till it was to late. I speak to groups pretty often and this was the first time I was late, or missed the event alltogether. Busy Farmer syndrome.

Busy 'round here

It's been busy 'round here. A small list of what got done this last week.
Tomato's transplanted
Tomato's covered
Spring crops seeded
Veg starts for sale transplanted
Much mowing
Thistle patrol
Peppers #2 planted
and many many more..............
Yesterday at Market it was just hummin. Loads of people. Busy all around. I came home totally bushed. It could be attributed to being up at 3:30 watching field temps and getting ready for frost. The temp had been dropping 2F an hour and at 3:30 was at 34F so frost was pretty immanent. The Squash is up but under row covers but some leaves are contacting the cover, and I didn't want to lose any. So I cleared the water line of chilly water and started it up on the squash at 4:00am. The external temp was seamming to hold but I've seen it do that then drop really quick, and I wasn't taking any chances. So I kept monitoring the temps and got my micro climate around the squash to 36F and figured I'd be safe. ( I have to leave for Market at 5:30am.)
So today's Easter and we're going to have a nice Linner, but being spring I got to go and work. Life of a Farmer!!!

Brrrrrrr!!!

Yeah that's what I said, besides the oh crap, when at 3:30 am my frost alarm went off. As my luck would have it just that morning I had transferred 30 flats of the first run of Tomatoes to greenhouse-2. Which just happens to not be heated. So I find myself transferring all those flats back to greenhouse-1 putting them on top of the lights and covering them. Good thing, as if I hadn't it would have been an ugly sight. Would have been toasted tomatoes. It got pretty chilly "bout 28F. And as my good luck for the evening continued I finished just in time to go in the house and find that it was time to go to Farmers Market.
Originally my good luck started when in the evening, I took my frost alarm out of the shop where it was after tracking soil temps the last few days, and putting in back in the bedroom. Smart move. Thank you, small still voice, which by the way is one of the best tools a small vegetable farmer can have. If it wasn't for that smart move I would have been very bummed, and then had to beat myself up for months. Way to go smarty. Give yourself three pats on the back.
This is the season of nights sometimes rudely being disturbed by the beeping of the frost alarm. It can be so simple as, oh no problem everythings covered and it won't be too chilly I can bump the setting down and go back to sleep, to Oh Crap I got to go turn water on and hope that the temp dosn't keep dropping. That was last year. Last year fter a week of being up most nights for a week checking row covers( or spraying ice off uncovered crops at 4AM) and everything going pretty well we had a doosey of a frost. I new we were in for a cold one at sundown but when it hit 32F at 11pm I was a bit nervous. That night I knew we could be in for mid-20's and the agribon will keep us safe for about 28F and those few extra degrees can be fatal. At that point I turn on the drip lines and that will actually give me another 2-3 degrees of protection, that little trickle of warm water makes an itty bitty micro climate, which last year when it got to 24F and I had been up all night doing monitoring things I had reason to celebrate everything making it through unscathed.
Iv'e got many more frost stories but maybee later, I've got to go celebrate this one small victory plus the good market today.