On Going All In

Last year was the first year our farm offered vegetables alongside our meat products and, true to form, Mother Nature threw us a heckuva curve ball to make things interesting. Normally our last frost has come and gone by the middle of May, but last year it stayed cold right into June and, as if that weren’t enough, it was WET — as in sinking-to-my-ankles-in-mud-where-ever-I-went wet – all the way through Father’s Day. We didn’t get most things planted out until almost a month later than usual and then the heat came.

Our green bean harvest was dismal; the tomatoes were okay, but came on so late I was hardly in the frame of mind for preserving them; the peppers performed decently, but their yields were nothing compared to the prior year. It wasn’t as if we were starved for produce, the garden gave us plenty to eat and more than enough to pass along to our members, but there is still a certain amount of disappointment when things just don’t go as planned.

But then this winter came and, honestly? It’s been incredible. Not much snow, very few cold snaps — and when they have come they’ve been anything but truly cold. Somehow, my hope was renewed. We’re expanding the market garden again this year, even though I had planned on a year of maintaining, and we’re lightly treading towards adding a greenhouse to the mix.

As I sit here working on a few tweaks to the farm business plan — this weekend cemented my desire to take things in some exciting new directions, more on that later — and the final touches to the year’s planting plans, I can’t help but feel apprehensive of the gamble. And that’s really all it is, all of it; a big gamble. It’s not a game of chance, though; it’s not slots. It’s more like poker; chance and skill and a whole lot of bluffing all rolled into one.

But then the Climate Prediction Center released these maps last week. In a nutshell, they think we’ll have a warm spring. Think. Which gets me thinking that a few extra weeks on each end could make for one whole, extra rotation for some crops, and I start getting itchy to plant. I start wanting to go all in.

Anybody else out there thinking of planting early? I do believe I’ll plant half early and half at the normal time, just in case. You have to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em, after all.

Tagged as: gardening, Planting, Seed Starting, Spring, weather