Spring planting at WWF

Hello from Windy Willow Farm! We are busy in the garden, planting our little hearts' out. We are outdoing ourselves and have doubled the size of our gardens from previous years. Above, I'm taking a break from potato planting, with the garlic behind, and the row covers on our crops make the neighbors curious as to what's growing in the garden.

We put out our tender plants, tomatoes and squash, earlier and earlier every year. We put up hoops and row covers to protect them from wind, bugs and frost. They allow light and rain through, but we don't take them off until the plants are pushing up on the fabric. It's a big like Christmas, to unwrap the garden and see what's been growing under the covers. However, they look like giant catepillars crawling across the gardens.

We've had some cold mornings, with frost, but didn't lose too many plants. I was worried we'd lose the entire strawberry crop, as the blossoms were in full bloom, and we hit 27 degrees. So far, so good, but we'll keep an eye on them.

Our worker share program is going along wonderfully! We all have a great time working in the garden, and the produce so far has been excellent: asparagus, chard, lettuce, spinach, rhubarb, pick-your-own herbs and a cucumber from the greenhouse. This week's share will be spinach, arugula, asparagus, lettuce and a couple of storage onions from last year's harvest. We've been planting, covering, picking, and weeding with our great helpers. Next week we need to hill the potatoes and do more weeding after this week's rain.

We've been at the Sunday Schenectady Greenmarket all year (10-2 on Jay Street) and will start at the Gloversville Pavillion this Saturday (8-12). June 11th is the first Thursday market in Ballston Spa (3-6 pm, Front Street). Hope to see you all there!

p.s. Here's my wish list: 1) wire hangers. We use wire hangers to secure our row covers and have used all we have. If you have any wire hangers to be rid of, let me know! I'll take them. 2) An upright washing machine. Are you replacing your old, energy inefficient washing machine? I'll take it! I need one in the barn for use on the spin cycle - it's a great, quick way to spin dry greens. Let me know if you have one to donate to the farm.