January 2025—Month in review

The Field Report

The field is frozen. But inside the high tunnels? Not frozen. Not hot by any stretch but not frozen. We had planted some cold hardy annuals in there to get a jump on the spring. Snaps, sweet peas, dianthus, agrostemma, orlaya, cress, and larkspur. They were all looking great through December and then it got COLD! So we covered it all up with frost blankets. Then it got “warm” (normal) so we uncovered it. And then cold again for a week or 10 days… and you see where I’m heading with this. Either way the plants are still alive but looking a little ragged. I’m sure they will be fine once spring comes.

The Weather Report

As previously stated, the field is frozen. So very frozen and dry. We ended the month with a snow deficit of something like 18 inches. The snow is an important source of water and it is a good insulator. Which would be nice since we also planted a lot of those cold hardy annuals and tender perennials outside with no covers, hoping to get a jump on the spring. I’m a little less optimistic about these guys.

The temps were all over the place. Really cold for a week, then a week of pretty nice (winter) weather. Then back to really cold for another week or two and then nice again.

The Progress Report

The winter project list is a little bonkers this year but I have been making good progress. I overhauled our crop planning system. I had tried a number of different crop planning software options these last few years and none were quite right so I decided to make my own with Airtable. It’s not perfect but at least I get to decide the ways in which it is not perfect.

I can tell you that we are planning to start over 800 trays of seedlings this year. Over 100 varieties of dahlias. Almost 1,000 shrubs/woody cut varieties. I tried to tell you all that I had big plans.

I have also started redoing our website. I had decided to use a different email marketing provider and they offer web hosting. So we’re moving to MailerLite. Local Line is still our e-commerce main squeeze. We hear that they are dropping an inventory management update soon…. So it sounds like I’ll be overhauling our price lists too. If anyone ever tries to tell you that farmers get the winter off you can punch them in the face for me.