Spring planting continues at a frenetic pace and the frequency of our blog posts has diminished! So as our little one naps, I'll take a moment to catch you up to speed. With spring rains, this time of year is always so beautiful here on the farm. We can almost imagine that we live in New Zealand, Cam's home country where summer rains usually keep the fields green year round. We always chuckle when we hear from his parents that the country is experiencing drought; their definition of drought is about 6 weeks with no rain!  Compare that to our 6 month spells without. However, these 'droughts' are increasing with frequency so it seems that even the island county cannot escape global climate change. I digress...

The thousands of peas and lettuces we planted in March are thriving. In total we have 10 pea varieties planted including one that is a Green Beauty 'off type' we are growing out separately to see if we can isolate a new strain. The 10 lettuce varieties have just recently started to head up and we are busy eating as much salad as possible without harming the seed crop. It is really fun to grow out some of our lettuce varieties again. In a few weeks we're going to have an on-farm lettuce tasting night to really differentiate between varieties. They are all sooo good. The brassicas are also looking great. So far our favorite new green is Green Wave mustard. It tastes like wasabi raw!

[caption id="attachment_146" align="alignnone" width="300"] Farm favorite: Prizehead lettuce[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_148" align="alignnone" width="168"] Sugar Magnolia Peas reach for the trellis[/caption]

We attended the Sacramento Farmer's Market three times in April. It is a Sunday market under an overpass! A giant cooler for farm fresh produce is my favorite new use for a massive concrete interstate. At least it is shady:) It was fun to connect with a different group of gardeners and to meet the other vendors. We plan to be back in September with fall seeds. We are still at the Chico and Redding markets through the month of May.

Our new greenhouse is almost completed. Several years ago we were given a 30 by 50 ft. greenhouse. The only catch is we had to disassemble it from the valley and move it up here. It took Cam and I two years to take it all down and transport it. As I write this we are only a few days away from pulling the plastic! This greenhouse belonged to Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder of Happy Valley, CA. We are really excited to give it new life in honor of these men.

We typically don't plant tomatoes until June 1 up here in the foothills. These Oregon Spring tomatoes were planted on April 25th and are under row cover. They are a 'frost tolerant' variety. We hope to get an early crop of tomatoes and offer this seed next year. The rest of our tomatoes, eggplants and peppers are huddled together on heated mats in our little greenhouse.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300"] Oregon Spring Tomatoes under row cover[/caption]

That wraps up the farm news...More later.