February 20, 2021
The Lettuce Rejoice
Firmly Rooted Farm's Newsletter for their Veggie Loving Farm-ily
On the Farm: All About the Seedlings
We'll be turning on the greenhouse heater this coming week. It's both an enormous expense and an environmental consideration, so we do our best to make the most of a little heat to start with.
Seedlings have ideal germination temperatures. Basically, they need a signal that if they go for it, pop that seed coat and start searching for light, they will be met with a hospitable environment. They wait until it's moist and warm.
Since we don't want our entire 3,000 sq ft greenhouse to be balmy, we use a series of interventions.
First, we place the seeded tray in a germination chamber. This is an insulated box with shelves, that we heat and humidify with a crock pot full of water. Once the seeds emerge from the soil, we move them onto heat mats, inside a "mini greenhouse". The mini greenhouse is a simple frame over the heat mats, covered with a layer of greenhouse plastic. We heat the mini greenhouse with a space heater on a thermostat. We also erect a plastic wall between the seedling area of the greenhouse and the in-ground growing section.
All these extra steps mean that we save fuel while still giving our plants the best start. We have happy seeds, happy farmers, and in a few short months we'll have lots of happy eaters!
Farm Happenings:
Can we pretend is still Friday? I meant to get this out yesterday…
Feb 19 20: We're opening the farm stand to place orders for delivery next week: https://www.harvie.farm/farm/firmly-rooted-farm/shop
February + March: aiming for biweekly boxes (weather dependent), that you will have place an order for each time (not included in a share season)
April: Start of the SOLD OUT spring CSA, get in touch with Tamara to get on the waiting list (firmlyrootedfarm@gmail.com)
June: Start of the Summer CSA (there's still room in this one, sign up here https://www.harvie.farm/signup/firmly-rooted-farm, or through your profile)
October: Start of the Winter CSA (there's still room in this one too, sign up here https://www.harvie.farm/signup/firmly-rooted-farm, or through your profile)
Kitchen Corner
I'm afraid the microgreens for this week aren't quite ready, we'll have them again for the next delivery.
We are also limited in sald mix, but have lots of delicous spinach. Winter spinach is a thing worth embracing, even if you don't traditionally love spinach. It's oh-so-sweet thanks to some magical alchemy where the spinach plant creates sugars as an anti-freeze, it's also delightfully chewy. Give it a try.
Now that the daylight is increasing, and the greenhouse is about to get fired up, we'll starts to have more greens soon.
Kitchen Clean-up
It's a great time to set your preferences in your profile. Harvie uses your preferences to build your perfect box. If you set them you are more likely to get more of the vegetables you love best. Read more about how to do this here: https://harvie.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360021794754-How-do-preferences-work-
Harvie has a ton of great help references, on how to do everything from adding a new payment method, to changing your delivery location. I hope you will check them out: https://harvie.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/categories/115000048773-Harvie-University-Members
That's all for now folks, happy eating until next time!
Farmer Tamara
