Thanks goodness it’s Friday! Wow, do I need a break from this wild March weather. Our spring weather in Western Pennsylvania can be a bit unsettled at times, especially in March. Let's start off with a rainy Monday this week. OK rain no problem it’s not snow, I don’t usually shovel rain. In true March fashion a rain storm blew through with 60 mph wind gusts and crushed 3 of our hoop houses. My mom and oldest daughter watched one house completely ripped out of the ground and blow way. Thank goodness no one got hurt and those houses weren't planted yet. Of the 6 hoop houses we had 3 were completely closed and had zero damage. Where as the 3 that were damaged had both ends open. It was quite the shock to loss 3 hoop houses at once. After we calmed down, we realized it was going to be OK. The hoop houses own us nothing. They are over 10 years old and are our own design with maybe not the best construction. These houses have gone through an 8 foot flood at our old farm and have been moved and rebuilt at the new farm. We did plan to remove these houses with in the next few years to build a proper large high tunnel, I guess the universe is telling us to hurry it along.

Wednesday's forecast called for a dusting of snow, 3 inches of heavy wet snow later, we were thrown back into winter. Even though it was snowing we didn’t let that stop us. We planted an entire high tunnel of snapdragons that day. Gotta keep moving spring is on it’s way.

By Thursday morning most of the snow had melted (more mud…… yeah) and we were back to t-shirt weather by the afternoon. My dad and our helper cleaned up the hoop house rubble from all over the field, not the planned activity but it needed to be done. One thing that I have learned over the years of farming is that the to do list has to be a bit flexible because things don’t always go as planned.

Friday it was a beautiful sunny day with temperatures in the 60s. We planted in the new high tunnel dusty miller, snapdragons, and stock. It was really exciting planting the first crops in this space. We wish we could have finished our week of right there on a warm sunny note but no we had to prepare for another winter storm and cold temperatures.

Our gutter connect house planted with anemones, snapdragons, and ranunculus.

Saturday we woke up to 6 inches of snow on the ground and the high today was 16°F, windchill 4°F. Tonight the temperature is to go down to 11°F and will feel like -11°F. Oh, did I mention my heater broke this week in my propagation house too. Space heaters to the rescue.

When it rains it pours sometimes and as much as I want to get the growing season started Mother Nature has her own agenda. My glass is always half full as a perpetual optimist and I will keep looking forward to spring.

More snow on Saturday and it was really windy.

Thanks for joining me for Farm Tour Friday. Have a great weekend!

Kate

Farm Tour Friday 3/11/2022

Farm Tour Friday 1/13/2023

Farm Tour Friday 3/4/2021