Hope everyone had a nice holiday season. We just got back from a trip to Orlando a few days ago… a long time in the making, as we had a 2020 trip cancelled due to Covid, and finally had a chance to cash in the airline credits from that. So the kids got to fly for the first time (I think they liked it!), and we hit up Disney World, Universal Studios, and went over to Cape Canaveral. It was a nice break from the frigid Nokesville temps.
Speaking of frigid Nokesville temps…
The farm at this point is probably at its lowest level of activity for the year. Our indoor grow room is completely shutdown, and nothing going on in the hoop house. We have about 3.5 beds of lettuce laying in wait in the garden under poly low tunnels. These were planted back in August and September… we had harvested from them for some of the last markets that we did in 2021, but are hoping they spring up and that we can get something from them when we return to the farmer’s market in March.
Ducks and chickens are still doing their thing. We haven’t had a single duck egg for… maybe approaching two months(?) We’re hoping they start thinking about it as the days slowly get longer and temps warm. Chickens were in a lull for a while, but have recently started picking up production.
In other news, we made a fairly large purchase during the offseason (large for us)…
That’s a kit for a second hoop house. Purchased from Farmer’s Friend. Showed up the day before we left for Orlando. This one is 16 feet wide and 50 feet long (first hoop house was 12 feet wide, 50 feet long). And this has internal wind bracing and, I believe, one zipper door endwall. Anyway, we have all of these parts laying out under the snow in the garden and are excited to start putting the thing together once the snow melts and ground dries out a bit. This will be the sort of thing where, by the time we have this hoop house all built, winter will be over and it will no longer be needed! Go figure. (It will likely be beneficial year ’round.) Our intention is to use it for lettuce production.
Anyway, that’s the latest from the farm. I’m thinking our next video might focus on the building process for this next hoop house, but we’ll see what we see. One way or another, we’ll check in again before too long. Hope everyone is doing well!